So we see ‘I’, I’m sitting on a chair, or listening to a talk, we see the appearance of a real ‘I’ is there. A real ‘I’ abiding or existing in this body.
Without examining then, you see, the natural beliefs that, as I mentioned the other day, inside the chest. Not in the stomach, where there’s all the… junks. Junks? Well the, if it’s after lunch or dinner, you know, joking, but not in the stomach, with the food, all the junks, the poopoo [laughter], not there, but not inside the head. Not here, inside the head [holding head forward in both hands] or inside the face, you see, not there you see, but inside the chest.
Referencing a previous talk, Rinpoche says that we naturally believe in a real ‘I’ that exists somewhere inside the chest. For many Westerners, myself included, the real ‘I’ appears to be located somewhere inside, or perhaps behind, the head. Regardless of its precise location, we are able to provide a location for this apparently real ‘I’, the one that is sitting on the chair or listening to the talk.
So anyway, when we’re not examining the real “I”, that real I sitting on the chair or listening to the talk, so then you say: Why believe? Why do I say this, “I am sitting on a chair listening to a talk?” Why say this? Why do I believe this?
Then the answer is: there’s nothing else. No other reason at all except the aggregates of the body. The action, doing sitting. So: that’s it, you know? That’s it, then believed. Labeled, and believed. I am sitting on a chair. That’s it.
Or the aggregates, the mind and sensory ear is paying attention to listening to a talk. So the base, the aggregates base, you know? The sense, the consciousness, the ear, paying attention to the talk. So that’s it, nothing else.
There’s nothing else other than that. Why I say I believe I’m saying, listening to the teaching, nothing else. There’s no other reason at all. Nothing else. Nothing more than that.
So when you think the reason, when you put the reason, why you believe why you say I’m sitting on a chair, or listening to a talk, relating to the aggregates, relating to the base the aggregates what function it does, that’s it. That’s it, nothing else but that.
That’s it. No other reason, at all.
Here Rinpoche begins an analysis of experience by questioning why we believe in our real ‘I,’ residing in the heart, or in the head, or perhaps floating somewhere outside or beyond the body.
When I ask myself why I believe that I am sitting on the chair, typing away on the computer, I can provide evidence such as the appearance of the computer screen in front of me; the pleasant sound of typing on the keyboard; the sensation of my fingertips coming into contact with the keys. Moving deeper into my awareness of what’s happening I can feel sensations of the breath at the nose and in the body. I can also point to intellectual evidence; I know that if I turn my head left I will see the familiar view of a tree outside my window; if I ask what my name is I’m sure it will be ‘Nick’ as it’s always been.
To facilitate this analysis, we make use of the five aggregates, which organize all of experience. The first aggregate constitutes forms: things like the contact of feet on the floor; the silver color of the computer; pressure in the center of the head. The second aggregate constitutes feeling tones: the pleasant feeling in the belly, the unpleasant feeling in the center of the head, the neutral feeling of the appearance of the computer. The third aggregate constitutes perceptions: computer screen, hands, sounds of traffic. The fourth aggregate constitutes functions: typing on the screen.
When we undertake this analysis, we find that these aggregates make up the evidence for the ‘I,’ and that there is no evidence for the ‘I’ outside of the aggregates.
It’s important to understand that the aggregates are not presented here as Buddhist jargon or something that we should believe in as inherently real. Instead, they are intended to be a helpful way to organize our experience so that we can analyze it. If my four-year old daughter’s room is always a mess, I might create buckets for her to put away her things: legos go here, stuffed animals go there, toys in the other one. The aggregates are like that.
So when you think the base to be labeled ‘I’ is the aggregates: existing merely, then doing a function sitting, and then the sense ear consciousness paying attention to the talk, so when you just think that, then that real ‘I’, what you believed before, what appears is true, you see, so basically, you know, it’s gone.
Not there.
Nonexistent. You see, not there, nonexistent.
That real ‘I’, you know, before, sitting, and listening, it’s not there. It’s gone. Not gone out, not gone in the car [he laughs], not escaped, not that. You see: you know, it doesn’t exist. It’s not there. And the view of your mind is not there.
Rinpoche explains that when we thoroughly analyze our experience for evidence of a real ‘I,’ which is the totality of the aggregates, then something surprising happens. That previously believed-in ‘I,’ the one that was so self-apparent, is not to be found. And the previously held view, that the ‘I’ is so obviously real as to make this whole analysis sort of laughable, that’s gone too.
Suddenly, you see, total change to your mind. Your perception is totally changed. Suddenly, there’s huge differences. You know what is believed by the wrong concept, ignorance, that there’s a real ‘I’ there inside this body, or that you know on these aggregates existing from its own side, not immediately labeled by mind. So strongly believed it’s true. So strongly 100% believed. Suddenly: not there.
Suddenly doesn’t exist.
Rinpoche emphasizes the dramatic shift in perception that occurs when we realize that the ‘I’ we previously held to be real is actually nonexistent. If my keys are always in the same drawer, and I open that drawer to grab them, only to discover they’re not there, I would be surprised. My perception of the drawer would be very different than simply “the usual contents of the drawer minus my keys.”
Similarly, when we realize that the ‘I’ is not there, not to be found inside or outside the aggregates, there’s a sudden shift in our perception.
So just, you know, just mind made it up. Mind made it up. The label ‘I’. Mind made up the label ‘I’, and believed. Mind merely imputed ‘I’ and believed in that, and its function. Mind merely imputed self, and then merely imputed the action, the function sitting, listening to the talk, all that, merely imputed by mind you see. Mind just made it up. Mind just made up the label and merely imputed the ‘I’, merely imputed the action sitting on the chair, listening to the talk. That’s it. That’s it, nothing else.
So something that came from the mind, you see. Relating to the aggregates, mind just made up the label ‘I’ then merely imputed the action listening to talk or sitting on the chair, so that’s it. Believed in that, you see.
Based on our analysis of experience, we conclude that the ‘I,’ instead of being a real entity, is nothing more than a label, invented by the mind, imputed or attributed to the aggregates, and then believed in. The second after the label ‘I’ is made up by mind, it appears back to mind as something real. A moment after that, mind makes up more labels: actions like sitting on a chair, or listening to a talk.
Returning to the five aggregates, we could say that the fifth aggregate, consciousness, is simply a label on the preceding four aggregates. The consciousness aggregate is not a separate entity that exists independently of the other four aggregates. The fourth aggregate, functions, is also a label on the first three aggregates. The functions aggregate is not a separate entity that exists independently of the first three aggregates. And so on, down the stack.
However, this conclusion can only be reached experientially, not intellectually.
So therefore, so therefore, that’s what exists. Therefore, the other one that you believed before, before examining why I believe I’m sitting, I’m listening you see, so after you put the reasons, you know, relating to the aggregates, nothing else. So relating to the aggregates, what they do, that’s it.
So, different phenomena. It’s different phenomena, body aggregates doing action sitting, then the mind sense of ear consciousness paying attention to talk. So different phenomena. You use other phenomena you see. So that’s the reason.
So that’s it. Nothing else than that.
So you see: what appeared what you believed before: a real ‘I’ in the sense existing from on its own side inside this body or on these aggregates, from above these aggregates, there’s a real ‘I’ existing from its own side not merely imputed by mind and believed, you see by mind that it’s true.
So that, so that, so that you know, that’s not there. That’s non existent. Non existent.
Through analysis we have discovered the ‘I’ that is not real and the ‘I’ that is. The ‘I’ that is not real is the one that appears to exist independently, obviously, with a location and a basis of evidence. This ‘I’ is not nonexistent. The ‘I’ that is real is an imputed label, corresponding to the aggregates. The ‘I’ that is real is like a sticker on an avocado.
As we will see, this distinction is crucial for understanding emptiness. As Rinpoche writes in “Recognizing the False I,” there is a risk of falling into nihilism when meditating on emptiness. He is not saying that there is no such thing as a self. He is saying that the self is not what we thought it was. And this difference is enormous. The phenomena we experience now, the aggregates and the label ‘I,’ are completely different than the phenomena we started with: an apparently real ‘I,’ and a total belief in that ‘I’.
So that, so it proves. So it proves. So it proves that previous concept is wrong. Appearance is a hallucination. Previous appearance, a hallucination. That’s a false view of false ‘I’. That previous one.
That’s the view of the false I. That object’s been refuted. gakcha, anyway you see.
Rinpoche wants us to be very precise here. There is the wrong concept, the false ‘I,’ previously believed to be true. That is known in Tibetan as the gakcha, the object to be refuted.
So it’s not enough to say that the previously believed ‘I’ is not real. We must also recognize that it is a hallucination. It is a wrong concept. Putting it another way, you could say what is real is the hallucination. We can’t just jump from one to the other. We have to see that the previously believed ‘I’ is a falsehood.
And the mind that believes it’s true, that’s ignorance. That’s ignorance. Roof of samsara. Root of all the delusions, the 12 delusions and karma. Which results in suffering, death. Which results in suffering, rebirth. And then old age, sicknesses, and dissatisfactions. All the mental problems… so everything results from all that, you see.
So the oceans of human beings suffering, oceans of asura, hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, intermediate state, all these oceans of suffering, from which it comes.
From this… from this… from this very nonsense. From this nonsense mind. This mind concept is nonsense. Kind of like [he makes a chattering gesture with his hand and laughs], childish nonsense. Nonsense concept [*he laughs]. You know. Nonsense.
Uh.
Totally no meaning. You know, Believing I which doesn’t exist. Believing I, self, which doesn’t exist. Which is not there. So the root of ignorance, the root from which all the delusion comes, all the wrong concepts, the 6 root delusions the 27 delusions .. they’re elaborate, 84,000 delusions, however, where buddha taught 84,000 dharma teachings you know, remedy to the 84,000 delusions, however.. so… you know. Yeah.
Yeah, from this concept. You know? Believing, believing the hallucination you see, there’s a real ‘I’ inside this body or on these aggregates, existing from its own side, not merely labeled by mind.
You see, and it’s truly, I say, truly, you know absolutely completely believed that this is true. Completely entrust this. 100%. No doubt. But ignorance, this concept is wrong concept. Ignorance. Ignorance. Because. Why it’s ignorance? Because there’s no such I there, as it appeared and was believed. No such I there. Even an atom of that does not exist. There’s not even an atom of that existing in this body or on these aggregates. Nowhere you can find.
Rinpoche instructs us to remember how strongly we believed in this false ‘I’ at the beginning of this analysis. We were completely convinced that the ‘I’ was real, and only with great effort did we overcome our resistance and check for ourselves.
This gives us some idea of the nature of ignorance. Ignorance as presented here is not simply confusion, or a lack of knowing. It is wilful blindness that comes in the form of subtle, stubborn, sticky cobweb of beliefs that cause us not to look for ourselves.
The consequences of ignorance are vast. It is the root of samsara, the root of all delusions and karma, and the root of all suffering. It is the source of oceans of human suffering, of asura, hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, and beings in the intermediate state. It is the source of all pnysical and mental problems.
So, just very simple. Very simple meditation. Very simple meditation this. You question to yourself: Why I believe why I say I’m sitting on a chair listening to the teaching. Then related to the aggregates, what function the aggregate does. That’s it, nothing else. Nothing more than that. Can’t find anything other than that.
So then you see, just by that, then the previous real ‘I’ in this body, believed 100% true, you discover, hm. [train howls past] Hm! You see: nonexistent. Can’t find, you see. So this is one meditation, one technique, that you can use to recognize the gakcha, the object to be refuted.
So now here, then you recognize the previous one that, there was a real ‘I’, and you see, doing all this real action of listening and real action of sitting on chair, see the object which is false, which doesn’t exist at all. So to recognize the object to be refuted, it helps, then later, when your mind is stating this reason, as long as we’re able to stay with this reason, you see it helps… to not see that real ‘I’, existing from its own side, believed to be 100% true, to not look at that.
Here Rinpoche recapitulates the instructions for the analysis of experience. First, we ask what we are doing in order to locate the totally-believed in, obviously-real ‘I’ that may appear to be in the head, or in the chest, or floating above or behind the body. Then we ask why we believe in this ‘I,’ and the answer is that we can only point to the aggregates as evidence. The ‘I’ that exists is nothing other than a label corresponding to the aggregates.
Through this practice, we come to recognize the the false ‘I,’ which is the object to be refuted.
But when your mind is distracted from this concentration, then it comes back, you see. A real ‘I’ in this body. And a real ‘I’, to make it short, in the real ‘I’, the sense existing from its own side, on these aggregates, from above these aggregates, and believed by one’s mind, by the ignorance, you see, that it’s 100% true.
So again, so again, you question. You put the reason relating to the aggregates, relating to the different phenomena there, the aggregates, what it really does. Then, when you do that, when you use this reason, you see, so then again, that false ‘I,’ is not there and the view of your mind, so that, so you’re able to, it helps to recognize the object to be refuted, the gakcha, you see, so that, so more and more you’re able to say: Ah, this is what doesn’t exist at all. See, the more you’re able to recognize the false ‘I’, then it is a minute, then it is a minute, to realize it is empty. It is empty, totally empty, totally nonexistent, as it’s totally nonexistent, so: empty [extended silence].
The ‘I’ returns again and again, as does the view that it is real. But over time, we can adopt a different view. When the appearance of a real ‘I’ returns, we can recognize it as false; as the object to be refuted. This recognition is the first step in realizing emptiness. It allows us to move into the shift of perception that Rinpoche describes in Chapter 5.
When we are able to correctly recognize the false ‘I’ as nothing more than a hallucination, dream, or illusion, we experience the world more vividly and go about our lives with more ease. We all touch this way of being from time to time, but it is fleeting. By meditating on emptiness as Rinpoche instructs, we establish it as more accurate basis for experiencing reality.
So maybe we’ll just do a little meditation, very short, so when the body is sitting and the aggregates of the body is doing the action: sitting, the aggregates of the mind, the sense of the ear, the consciousness is listening, then the mind, seeing that, just merely imputed ‘I’, just made up the label ‘I’, and the actions of the ‘I’, merely imputed walking, sitting, or listening, just merely imputed by one’s mind. Just merely imputed by mind. Believed in that. That’s it. Nothing else.
Rinpoche again offers the meditation instructions for recognizing the object to be refuted.
So, I which is existing, the self, the I which exists, is something… it is something unbelievable, unbelievable, subtle. Unbelievable, subtle. What it… How the I exists, what it is, or what is self, is something unbelievable, subtle, unbelievable, subtle phenomena.
It’s like it doesn’t exist. It is not… it is not…. It is not that it doesn’t exist, but it’s like that. Like it doesn’t exist. Unbelievable, unbelievable, subtle. What really it is. Unbelievable, subtle.
Meditation on emptiness can fall into nihilism when we conclude that because we can’t find the real ‘I’, then there must be no such thing. But here Rinpoche reports from his experience what self, ‘I’ is. It’s something unbelievably subtle. So fine as to almost not exist at all.
Because we haven’t realized emptiness, we may only be able to take Rinpoche’s word for it. But even from our limited practice, we are likely to find that when we recognize the emptiness of the false ‘I,’ it’s not that our sense of self disappears; rather, it may become more subtle, more expansive, more vivid.
So mind just merely imputed… The meditation, the subtle dependent arising according to Prasangika Madhyamaka school, fourth school, Madhyama School, which is true as thought under the school, Prasangika school. So the Prasangika school view that the dependent arising, this subtle dependent arising, subtle dependent arising, merely imputed by the mind.
So to meditate exactly, to meditate, concentrate, exactly on the meaning of that is extremely important. Not, not just say, “Oh, merely imputed by mind, let’s just leave it.” Not like that. You know, you just throw the words, and then [laughs] and don’t meditate, that doesn’t help, you see. One has to meditate exactly, one has to meditate exactly on the words. Then it’s really, then it’s unbelievable, fantastic.
Within the history of Buddhism, there has been enormous debate about the concept of anattā, or non-self, which emerged as a refutation of the atman, self or soul, that is central to many Indian philosophies.
Here, Rinpoche describes the position of the Prasangika Madhyamaka school, which holds that the self is a subtle dependent arising. This means that the self does exist, but in a way that is so fine and so dependent on other factors that it is almost as if it doesn’t exist at all. This view is known as the Middle Way, because it avoids the extremes of eternalism (the belief in a permanent, unchanging self) and nihilism (the belief that nothing exists at all).
In order to navigate the Middle Way and directly experience this unbelievable, fantastic subtle dependent arising, Rinpoche urges us to be very precise in our meditation.
Then you come to know how subtle it is, the self, I, you see. So like that. So you get the first example how it is so extremely subtle, you know. It exists, but it’s extremely fine, unbelievable, subtle. Like it doesn’t exist, so like that.
So once you get, once you get that experience of this, then all, each of the aggregates in the body and mind, all the rest of phenomena is like that. Hell, enlightenment, samsara, nivana, happiness, problem, all the rest of phenomena is like that. See: it’s all empty. It’s all.., everything was, everything what you think is real, everything what you believe is real, real from its own side, everything, what appears, what you believe, it is there on the base, everything is there on the base, see, which is also labeled, merely imputed by your mind, so it’s not there, everything is not there on the base, not there on the base, as it appeared, as you believed. It’s not true at all. Everything, everything, is totally empty, mere conception, merely imputed, merely believe. Merely imputed, merely believed. That’s it, nothing else. Even the base, when you see, label, is merely imputed by mind, believed. see, that’s it.
So you can see everything came from the mind, even the mind itself. So everything is empty. Empty means: do not exist from their own side. ‘I,’ action, object. ‘I’ do not exist from its own side. ‘Action’ do not exist from their own side. ‘Object’ do not exist from their own side. Everything do not exist. Everything do not exist from their own side. Everything are totally empty.
So just meditate a little bit [train howls past]. First, ‘I’ empty, then second action, third objects. So meditate like that. First ‘I’ empty, then actions, then all the activities, then all the objects, okay? Meditate like that.
In this concluding section, Rinpoche extends the understanding of emptiness of the self to all phenomena. Once we gain clear experience of the emptiness of the self, we can apply this understanding to everything else - including not only ordinary objects but also more abstract concepts like samsara, nirvana, happiness, and problems.
All phenomena are empty of inherent existence, existing merely as mental labels. Even the bases upon which we impute labels are themselves merely labeled by mind, down to mind itself. Anything that we experience that appears to be real and self-existing must be recognized as a hallucination. This might sound bewildering, depressing, or trippy, but Rinpoche wants us to drop our preconceived notions and look for ourselves.
In his opening, Rinpoche invites us to contact our ordinary perception of what it is we think we’re doing. It seems so self-evident what we are doing that to examine it seems like crazy talk. His humor breaks through our habitual patterns of thinking, encouraging us to recognize our natural skepticism: what does this Yeti from Nepal know?