by Dalai Lama
Agent, karma, effects, and their enjoyer —
the conqueror taught these to be [merely] conventional.
Although they are empty of inherent existence, the person, aggregates, and twelve links individually appear to be inherently existent to our minds that are polluted by ignorance. They resemble a dream and an illusion in that they appear falsely; they appear to have their own essence and exist from their own side, although they do not. These mistaken appearances come about due to the coming together of causes and conditions, just like a mirage appears on the road as a result of causes and conditions. The mirage exists and functions, although the water that appears to be there is a false appearance. Similarly, the person, aggregates, and links function although their appearance as inherently existent is false.
Just as inherently existent sentient beings bound in inherently cyclic existence do not exist, there are no inherently existent beings practicing the path and no inherently existent nirvāṇa to attain. Here, too, the agent, action, and object — the person practicing the path, the path itself, and nirvāṇa — lack any independent nature. The Āryaratnakara Sūtra says (OR 96):
The Tathāgata has said of those who go toward pacification [nirvāṇa]
that no goer can be found.
They are proclaimed to be free from going.
Through their liberation, many sentient beings are liberated.
If we search for inherently existent āryas progressing toward nirvāṇa, we cannot find any. Their going on the path — their activity of practicing — also cannot bear ultimate analysis. Inherently existent liberation too cannot be found. Nevertheless, āryas practice the path, realize emptiness, purify their minds, and become free from the six realms of rebirth. When they have generated bodhicitta and attained full awakening, they are replete with the perfect qualities to lead others to nirvāṇa as well. While all these agents and actions do not exist from their own side, they exist and function on the conventional level. Although ultimate analysis refutes their inherent existence, it cannot destroy their nominal, illusion-like, veiled existence or their ability to function on the conventional level.
The Pāli tradition expresses the same thought. In speaking of the four truths, Buddhaghoṣa said (Vism 16.90):
In the ultimate sense all the truths should be understood as void because of the absence of any experiencer, any doer, anyone who is extinguished, and any goer. Hence this is said:
For there is suffering, but no one who suffers;
doing exists although there is no doer;
extinction [of saṃsāra] exists but no extinguished person;
although there is a path, there is no goer.
Once a monk asked the Buddha, “Venerable Sir, what now is aging and death, and for whom is there this aging and death?” The Buddha responded that this is not a valid question because the monk presupposed a substantial self (SN 12.35). The commentary likens such a question to “a dish of delicious food served on a golden platter, on top of which a small lump of excrement is placed.” While the question about aging and death is legitimate, asking it in terms of a substantial self contaminates the whole issue.
Someone who thinks the self and the body are the same falls to the extreme of nihilism by believing that both become nonexistent at death. If that were the case, there would be no need to practice the path because saṃsāra would end with death. Someone who thinks the self is one thing and the body is another falls to the extreme of absolutism by thinking that at death the self is released from the body and abides eternally. If the I were permanent and eternal, the path could not put an end to saṃsāra because something that is changeless cannot cease.
Not only did the Buddha refute a substantial self that is born, ages, and dies, he also denied that the body — and by extension the other aggregates — belong to such a person (SN 12.37):
Monastics, this body is not yours, nor does it belong to others. It is old kamma, to be seen as generated and fashioned by intention, as something to be felt. Therein, monastics, the instructed ārya disciple attends carefully and closely to dependent arising itself thus: When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases.
This body is not ours because there is not an independent person who possesses it. It does not belong to others either, because others also lack an independent self. Although the body is not literally karma, it is called old karma because previously created karma was its condition. This karma is intention; our volitional mental, verbal, and physical actions generated this body and life. When we contemplate dependent origination as ārya disciples do, we will understand the mere conditionality by which these things come into being and cease.
Buddhaghoṣa answers the question, “Who experiences the result of karma?” by first quoting an ancient Pāli verse and then explaining it (Vism 17.171–72):
“Experiencer” is a convention
for mere arising of the fruit [result].
They say “it fruits” as a convention,
when on a tree appears its fruit.
It is simply owing to the arising of tree fruits, which are one part of the phenomenon called a tree, that it is said “the tree fruits” or “the tree has fruited.” Likewise, it is simply owing to the arising of the fruit consisting of the pleasure and pain called experience, which is one part of the aggregates called devas and human beings, that it is said, “A deva or a human being experiences or feels pleasure or pain.” There is therefore no need at all for a substantial experiencer.
A substantial experiencer cannot be found: experiencer and agent are mere conventions. Thinking they are anything more than that is superfluous. We say “a human being experiences pleasure or pain” simply because that feeling has arisen in the feeling aggregate.
Āryas of the three vehicles who wisely understand dependent origination are free from doubt about the past, present, and future. They do not dwell on who they were in previous lives, or worry about whether they will exist in the future, and if so, as what. They do not fret about who they are, where they came from, and what will happen to them in the future. All these worries center on the idea of an independent self that persists in the past, present, and future. Those who understand dependent origination and how it functions in the past, present, and future know there is no need to posit a self that moves through these three time periods. They know that whatever occurs in the three times is simply due to conditionality — the fact that causes produce their effects and things come into being due to their respective causes and conditions. Factors in the past condition factors in the present. Causal factors are not the same as present factors, but they are not completely disconnected either. Through the transformation and ceasing of past factors, the present ones come into being. Through the present ones changing and ceasing, future factors will arise. All this occurs without a findable self who controls the process or who experiences it. There is no need for a persisting self to hold the stream of causes and effects together so that karmic seeds are carried to the next life.
If the description of the twelve links initially seems unfamiliar, that is because we have never seriously regarded our lives as conditioned events or thought of ourselves as conditioned phenomena that exist only because the causes for them exist. As we become familiar with the idea of dependent origination, this will become clearer. Although there is no substantial person to practice the path or attain nirvāṇa, a strong determination will arise in us to be free from cyclic existence, and this will propel us to cultivate the path of the āryas as the means to attain liberation.
REFLECTION
1. Review the explanation and quotations that refute the existence of an inherently existent person, self, or soul that is reborn.
2. Do you get a sense that there is not a permanent, fixed person that is you who goes from life to life?
3. Despite your not existing in that way, you still exist and function. The abse
nce of an inherently existent person and the conventional existence of a dependent person are complementary.
The Ultimate Nature of the Twelve Links
The Buddha spoke not only about the conventional functioning of the twelve links but also about their ultimate nature. The conventional twelve links describe the way that we are born repeatedly in cyclic existence and the way to reverse this process. The ultimate nature of the links and of the cycle of saṃsāric rebirth is empty of inherent existence. If the twelve links existed inherently, they could not form a causal chain where one link produces the next. The Āryaratnakara Sūtra says:
How could something with inherent existence arise from another?
Thus the Tathāgata has presented causation.
The links’ causal dependence is the reason establishing the emptiness of inherent existence of saṃsāra and of a person who cycles in it. Speaking of causal dependence in the Sūtra of the Enumeration of Phenomena That Is Called “Discerning the Divisions of Existence, and So Forth,” the Buddha said:
There are three defining characteristics of dependent arising: (1) no arising from a divine creator’s thoughts, (2) arising from [multiple] impermanent cause(s), and (3) arising from a cause that has the capacity to give rise to that effect.63
Asaṅga echoed the Buddha’s explanation of these three principles of causal dependence, saying: (1) The world did not come into being as a result of prior intelligence or an external creator. (2) It did not arise from a permanent cause. (3) It did not arise from a discordant cause. The Rice Seedling Sūtra adds two more characteristics: (4) it arises from existing causes, and (5) it arises from selfless causes. Nāgārjuna said in Versed Commentary on the Rice Seedling Sūtra:
External dependent arisings arise
neither from self, nor from other,
nor from both, nor from time as a [permanent] agent.
Similarly, they are not created by Īśvara or another deity.
They are neither products of a principal nature, nor are they causeless.
They come from a succession of causes and conditions
that stem from beginningless time.64
The twelve links produce one rebirth after another without the intercession of an external force, such as a creator deity, a universal mind, or a cosmic substance from which everything is derived. Ju Mipham says in Sword of Wisdom for Thoroughly Ascertaining Reality (Shes rab ral gri don rnam nges):
These appearances around us are generated
through the process of dependent arising.
Just as a lotus never appears in the sky,
so we will never see anything independent.
The completion of a collection of causes
carries out the function of inducing an effect.
The entire identity of each diverse effect
depends upon its particular causes.
Therefore, by knowing what is and is not the case
for causes and effects
we can avoid one thing and pursue another.
If the twelve links existed inherently — independent of all other factors — they would not be dependent on one another, because independent and dependent are mutually contradictory. Something must be one or the other, it cannot be both. Because things exist dependently, we can attain the peace we seek by avoiding the causes of suffering and creating the causes of happiness.
Nāgārjuna examined the relationship between causes and their results. How does an effect arise from a cause? Are the two independent of each other or related? His seminal work, Treatise on the Middle Way, begins with an analysis of arising:
Neither from itself nor from another,
nor from both,
nor without cause
does anything anywhere ever arise.
We will fully unpack this verse and its implications in a later volume, but for now we can begin to question how arising — the production of an effect by a cause — occurs. If it occurs independently, according to Nāgārjuna there are four alternatives:
(1) The effect already exists in the cause in a manifest or unmanifest way. One version of arising from self is that one cosmic substance contains all of creation in an unmanifest form such that the arising of various phenomena is simply the appearance or manifestation of what is already there. In that case, a fully formed sprout would already exist in a seed.
(2) The effect arises from causes that are inherently other than it. While the seed and the sprout are different, they are not inherently different; they are related as cause and effect. Asserting that the cause and effect both exist inherently is problematic because a dependent relationship between the two would be impossible. If cause and effect were unrelated, roses could grow from daisy seeds.
(3) Things arise from both self and other. This combines elements of both the above and contains the faults of both.
(4) Things arise causelessly means that all things and events arise randomly, there being no relationship between what existed previously and what exists later. Holding such a view is tantamount to saying that a sprout grows without a cause.
The texts unpacking the reasoning that refutes these four erroneous views and establishes the emptiness of true existence of all phenomena often use seeds and sprouts as examples. However, the important issue is, how does duḥkha arise and how is it ceased? When we wake up in a bad mood, where did our bad mood come from? Did it appear without any cause? Is it someone else’s fault? Was it already present in our minds in an unmanifest form? Is it God’s will? Or did it arise dependent on its own causes and conditions, in which case it does not exist independently, with its own self-enclosed essence.
When we initially begin studying these reasonings, we may wonder why the great masters go into such great depth analyzing how sprouts grow when that is perfectly obvious to anyone who has a garden. But when we start to examine this process, what initially seems obvious begins to blur as we recognize our misconceptions and see that they are based on ignorance. Although we feel and believe that everything, ourselves included, has an independent essence that makes it what it is, it is impossible for things to exist this way. They are empty of an independent essence; they do not exist from their own side, nor are they self-powered.
Nevertheless, things arise and function dependent on other things. Sprouts grow from seeds; formative action arises due to ignorance. All these things and events exist conventionally when we don’t analyze, but when we research for an independent essence in them, we cannot find it. So it is with the twelve links. Their being empty of inherent existence does not interfere with their dependent functioning on the conventional level. Each link arises from its preceding link and in turn gives rise to its subsequent link. The five causal links produce the seven resultant links. A person cycles in saṃsāra but cannot be found when we ask, “Who is the person who cycles in saṃsāra, really?” Tsongkhapa says (OR 70):
Therefore, conventionally the nonexistence of the four extremes with respect to arising and the existence of arising are not contradictory.
As a dependent phenomenon, our duḥkha exists only because its causes and conditions exist. Cyclic existence and its unsatisfactory circumstances are not predestined; they are not due to fate or to the will of a creator deity. They are malleable and can be overcome by ceasing their causes. In Praise to the Supramundane (Lokātītastava 19) Nāgārjuna praises the Buddha:
Sophists maintain that duḥkha is self-created,
that it is created by another, and both,
and that it arises causelessly.
You have taught that it is dependently arisen.
REFLECTION
1. Review the three characteristics of dependent arising the Buddha described.
2. Consider how those three characteristics apply to the existence of a material object, such as your residence.
3. Consider how they apply to the existence of people — yourself, your friends, and your relatives.
4. Review how nothing can arise from a cause that is itself, fro
m something inherently different from it, from both, and without a cause.
9
The Determination to Be Free
ANY PRISON INMATE can quickly and easily list the faults of being incarcerated: the physical dangers they face in prison, the confinement in their cells, the boredom, the ill treatment from guards and other inmates, and so on. Those with a strong determination to be free will be in contact with their attorney, make use of the law library, attend vocational courses and classes on anger management, and draw up a release plan so they can succeed after being released. Similarly, when those of us in saṃsāra clearly know the faults of rebirth by the twelve links, we will have a strong determination to be free. Seeking liberation, we will learn its characteristics and the causes to attain it. Then we will go about creating those causes and persevere until we attain genuine freedom and peace.
The Benefits of Meditating on the Twelve Links
The Buddha taught the twelve links not only to show the evolution of saṃsāric rebirth but also to lead us to a deep understanding of causal dependence and emptiness, and their compatibility.
Meditating on dependent origination — that each link is produced dependent on the preceding one — is meditation on causal dependence, which helps us to avoid the two extremes of absolutism and nihilism. None of the links arises independent of other factors or due to a permanent cause; each link is dependent on the specific causes and conditions that brought it about. Understanding this counteracts the extreme of absolutism, thinking that the links exist inherently or that saṃsāra arises due to a permanent creator. Furthermore, when each link ceases, it does not become totally nonexistent; it gives rise to subsequent links. Understanding this eliminates the view of nihilism, thinking that there is no continuity of saṃsāra or that saṃsāra can occur without a cause.