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is an inherently existent self of phenomena. From these two innate forms of grasping come attachment to the happiness of I. Attachment to one s own happiness actually depends upon the concept of my and mine my feelings, my possessions, my body, my family etc. As Chandrakirti states in Supplement to the Middle Way, At first there aris- es the conception of and attachment to I, or self, and then there arises the conception of and attachment to mine. We experience the grasp- ing at the self of a person, and this grasping then induces the grasping at the self of phenomena, which is the grasping at mine. Due to the strength of our clinging to these feelings of I, my and mine, we are not able to see the fallacy of seeking self-happiness. This attachment obscures our mind and we are unable to see what is wrong with it. From being attached to ourselves we become so attached to our things and different parts of our bodies that some of us even change our appearance through plastic surgery. If we weren t attached to our I, we could be totally liberated and free, like Milarepa. He turned a strange greenish color from eating nettles, but this didn t matter to him because he wasn t attached to his appearance. As we look into this mirror of teaching, we can see a different kind of reflection of 52 MIND TRAINING, DEVELOPING EMPTINESS ourselves one that shows us how we grasp at things and how attach- ment arises within us. It is important for us to understand that I and mine are not identical. If we can t differentiate between these two, we will have problems later on. The object of our innate grasping at self is the I not the mine, because mine includes the physical and mental aggre- gates. Chandrakirti explains that if the aggregates of the person were the object of our innate grasping at the self of a person, then we should be able to perceive our aggregates as being I, which we are not able to do. Also, if the aggregates are taken to be the self, then we have to assert that there are five selves because there are five aggre- gates. The kind of conception that arises with regard to the aggregates is not the conception of I but the conception of mine. We do not think about our ears or our nose as our self, but as things belonging to our self. In the same way, when we investigate our mind, we don t find any part that is I. We should examine, investigate and analyze the mode of appre- hension of our innate grasping at self. In other words, how does our innate grasping perceive the self to exist? What does our innate ignor- ance perceive? What does it grasp at? We should always focus upon our own condition and not point our finger at someone else s ignor- ance. Having discovered this, we must then find the means of gener- ating a different kind of perception, one that directly contradicts the mistaken one that grasps at self. This perception is the perfect view of emptiness, or selflessness. However, in order to realize this view, we first have to be clear about what this view actually is. We need to establish the correct view of emptiness. USING A BASIS TO DESCRIBE EMPTINESS There is no way to reveal emptiness nakedly or directly because we must use words and terminology. It is only through conventional terms that emptiness can be revealed. In other words, there is no way to discuss emptiness without using something as a basis. For example, when we talk about the emptiness of forms, these forms constitute the basis upon which their emptiness is then established. This is also 53 MIRROR OF WISDOM the case with any other phenomenon sound, smell, taste and so forth. Everything around us is characterized by emptiness and so our body or any other phenomenon constitutes the basis upon which we can then understand its emptiness. In the Heart Sutra we read that Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. This means that the ultimate nature of form is emptiness and that emptiness relates to form. Emptiness is not the same as form, but in order to understand emptiness we have to take form into consider- ation as our focal object. Without dealing with a form, we cannot understand its emptiness. There is a line of a prayer that states, The wisdom gone beyond (emptiness) is beyond words and expression. The Tibetan translation suggests that it is also beyond thought. This means that without depending upon a basis you cannot even concep- tualize what emptiness is. The same thing is stated by Arya Nagarjuna in his Root Wisdom Treatise, where we read, Without depending upon conventional terms or terminology, one cannot reveal the ultimate truth or reality. When we deal with emptiness, however, it may have nothing to do with form at all. In certain mental states, for example, we don t perceive forms; for instance, when we are in a deep sleep. Even so, it is empty. When we deal with the selflessness of a person, the basis for that selflessness is the person. Therefore, it is in relation to the person that we establish the person s emptiness. When we deal with a per- son s aggregates (body, feelings, thoughts, perceptions and so forth), we are dealing with a different kind of basis, one that is the selfless- ness of phenomena. The text tells us that with regard to what is being refuted, there is no difference in subtlety between establishing the selflessness of a person and establishing the selflessness of phenomena. So, once we understand the selflessness of a person, we don t have to repeat our reasoning over again to understand the selflessness of phe- nomena. We can simply shift our focus onto another object while remembering the same reasoning with which we realized the selfless- ness of a person. This is what the great Indian master Aryadeva was saying in his Four Hundred Stanzas on the Middle View when he stated, The view of an object is the view of everything else. 54 MIND TRAINING, DEVELOPING EMPTINESS THE OBJECT OF NEGATION, OR REFUTATION In order to realize what selflessness or emptiness is, we must first understand its opposite. What is the antithesis of selflessness? What is it that we are trying to refute, or negate, in order to establish what emptiness is? What we are refuting is the way that our innate self- grasping perceives the self as existing truly, inherently and objectively. Therefore, we say that inherent, objective or true existence of the self is the object of refutation or the object of negation. The object of refutation, or negation, is the thing that we are denying exists. There are a few terms that may sound different from one another but which, in the context of Prasangika-Madhyamaka (the school of philosophy that we are studying here), all mean the same thing. They are existing by way of its own characteristic, existing from its own side, existing in and of itself, inherent existence, objective exis- tence , independent existence and true existence. Also, the terms I, self and person all mean the same thing. We can speak about the object of refutation on two levels the object of refutation by reasoning and the object of refutation by scrip- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |