Mind Training, 11 May 1993, part 1

If each of us were to attain such a state, then we would have the same exact abilities as the Buddhas themselves. So it becomes imperative in order to free all living beings that we attain such a state. So I myself must necessarily attain Buddhahood. So a a an individual who has developed the awakening heart is a bodhisattva.

And there are two types of bodhisattvas. There are those of mediocre intelligence and those of extremely sharp intelligence. And those of mediocre intelligence, upon seeing the necessity for the attainment of Buddhahood, think I myself will do this. And they commit themselves to doing whatever is necessary to the attainment of Buddhahood. And those who are bodhisattvas of the highest intelligence, they begin before they set up on their their spiritual journey, they begin to examine using various reasonings.

Am I able to achieve Buddhahood or not? They begin to look to see what what are the obstacles that need to be eliminated in order to achieve Buddhahood? What are the hindrances? And upon analysis, they come to understand it is the afflictive emotions along with their predispositions, which are the obstructions preventing the the attainment of Buddhahood. And they having analyzed thus far, they begin to ask themselves, well, am I able to abandon the afflictive emotions along with their dispositions?

And they come to understand that by understanding emptiness, they can they are able to remove the afflictive emotions. They are able to they are able to remove the afflictive emotions. Therefore, they see the necessity that I must realize emptiness in order to abandon all the afflictive emotions along with their predispositions in order to attain Buddhahood. And this it is in generating this understanding as a preliminary that they seek to understand emptiness and then they go on to develop the actual awakening heart. So there there there are these two means by which the awakening heart is generated.

Those of the those of which the sharp and those of mediocre intelligence. Those so we should reflect upon these two ways in which the awakening heart is generated and understanding that that we definitely must attain Buddhahood and that we making the commitment to do whatever is necessary to attain that heart, whatever, you know, with this limitless commitment and dedication to its attainment. Tonight is the last teaching on the Wheel of Sharp Weapons. So it’s gonna be a very sweet teaching. So up to this point, we been discussing the the development of what is called the conventional awakening heart.

That in terms of the mind training, this is brought about through the practice of taking and giving. Now, we are going to briefly talk about the ultimate awakening heart or what is called the awakening mind. So there’s conventional bodhicitta and ultimate bodhicitta. Ultimate bodhicitta is, I call the awakening mind. So we’re going to begin our discussion with verse number 112, which reads as follows: When musicians are playing a beautiful melody, should we examine the sounds they are making, we would see that it does not exist by itself.

But when we are not making our formal analysis, still there is a beautiful tune to be heard, which is merely a label on notes and on players. That is why lovely music can lighten sad hearts. So, you know, when a collection of musicians get together and each of them plays their various instruments, you know, horns and cymbals and drums and whatnot, then they they together, the instruments and the sounds that they’re making can make produce a very beautiful melody. So when we hear a beautiful music, it’s we we conceive of that beautiful music to inherent exists intrinsically. It is beautiful music.

We don’t see it as relying upon its various parts, its various components, that which is producing the sound which constitutes that music. So when we listen to beautiful music, we listen to it as conceiving as if the music the beautiful music didn’t did not rely upon anything, that it did not rely upon all the elements which which go into the composition, the the the various notes of the music, the high and the low notes, the rhythm, whether the rhythm is long or short, the frequency of the notes and the highness and lowness in the notes. We do not conceive all of these variables as being a composite which brings about the beautiful music. But we conceive of the music not to rely upon these various components. Because the music is dependent upon its various parts, that it is a composite of the various notes which come together, which collected together bring about the music itself.

It is not inherently existent. It is it does not intrinsically exist. So the beautiful music produced is dependent upon the various components which bring it about. The collection of components, the various parts coming together, aggregating, bring about the music. So beautiful music does not inherently exist, somehow intrinsically existing.

But not intrinsically existing, we question, does it not exist at all? Not inherently existent? Is it nonexistent? Well, in fact, it’s not nonexistent. It why?

Because it it is nominally existent. It it it is nominally existent because it’s able to for perform a function that through the listening the listener listening to the beautiful music, it it removes the sorrows of their hearts and it brings them the pleasure. It brings them happiness. So even though it’s not inherently existent, it is not nonexistent because it is it still functions. It it it nominally exists.

It has the ability ability to eliminate the the sorrow of their hearts and to bring happiness to the listener. So this is an analogy which is presented in order to help us to come to understand that all phenomena whatsoever, that karma causes results, external things, internal things, all phenomena whatsoever rely upon their parts, they rely upon concepts, upon language, that nothing exists which is not reliant. That everything that there is no there is nothing which is inherently existent, which is truly existent. If we illustrate this, can can illustrate it in terms of the I, the self. There is the I and then there is the five aggregates.

The being or the person exists in reliance upon the five aggregates. But we have an innate awareness which conceives the I to exist not reliant upon the five aggregates, that the I exists independent of the five aggregates. So if if the I which is imputed, in fact, to the five aggregates existed independent of the five aggregates, that is to say inherently existed, the five aggregates mean the aggregates of forms, feelings, perceptions, volitional formations, and consciousnesses. If the I exists independent of those five aggregates, then in turn the aggregates would inherently exist. So if one or the other of the, that is to say, the I or the basis of imputation of the I, the aggregates, if one of them is inherently existent, then the other must inherently exist.

If both of them are inherently existent, then they must, then these two, the I and the aggregates must be inherently existently identical,, the same, one, or inherently existently distinct or separate individual. If these two, the the five aggregates and the I, were inherently existently identical, then they must be one. Why? Because to be if they are inherently existently identical, they they can be they can be different in no way whatsoever. There’s nothing which distinguishes them.

They are indistinct from one another. Therefore, in being inherently existently one, they must be one, identical. Now if the aggregates and the I were indistinguishably one, because there is only one I or self, then there would necessarily be only one aggregate. That is to say the five aggregates could only be one. Since there is only one I, there would necessarily only be one one aggregate.

Or on the other hand, because there are five aggregates and the and the self and the aggregates are identical, one, that is that they are identical in all ways because there are five aggregates, they would necessarily have to be five selves. So it is because that these faults which accrue if the I or the self and the aggregates were inherently existing in one that we can reasonably conclude that the I and aggregates are not inherently existing in the one. So if the if the self and the aggregates are inherently exist, then if they don’t they aren’t inherently existently identical, then they must be inherently existently different or distinct or individual because these are the only two possibilities. If if they are inherently existent, then we have ruled out that they are inherently existent and identical, then they must be inherently existently different or distinct. If the self and the aggregates are inherently different or intrinsically different, then they would be unrelatedly unrelatedly different.

They would be mutually unrelated one to the other. As for example, a horse and a cow. A horse and a cow are are mutually unrelated one to the other. A horse and a cow are mutually unrelated one to the other in terms of their existences. That a horse can exist at one place without a cow existing at that place.

And likewise, we can a cow can exist at that place without horse existing at that place, that their existences are not mutually dependent one upon the other, not mutually related. Likewise, if we extend this to the aggregates and the self, then if their existences are not mutually related, that is, they are unrelatedly different, then the self could exist without the aggregates. And therefore, the self would be permanent. It would not be subject to birth, aging, and disintegration. Therefore, the And it would not be subject to to the taking of rebirth within cyclic existence, the attainment of liberation, suffering, and happiness.

If the aggregates and the self were intrinsically distinct, different, then what befell the aggregates would not befall the I. For example, when our hand hurts, we say, I’m hurt. Or when our head hurts, we say, I’m hurt. Whatever happens to the body, in general conventions of the world, we say happens to ourselves. But in this case, because they intrinsically exist, they would be intrinsically unrelatedly different.

And therefore, what happened to the body would not happen to the I. And this would make no sense. Therefore, we can conclude from these various faults which would accrue if the I and the aggregates were intrinsically different, that the I and the aggregates are not intrinsically different, inherently different. So if if the aggregates in the self are inherently are intrinsically intrinsically existent, then they must be either intrinsically identical, one, or intrinsically different or distinct. If they are not intrinsically the same, one, or intrinsically different, then they do not intrinsically exist.

Therefore, because the aggregates and the self are not intrinsically the same nor intrinsically different, they do not intrinsically exist. So the aggregates are the basis of the imputation of the self. The self is that which is imputed to the aggregates. And this applies to all phenomena whatsoever, that that there is a basis of imputation and there is a the phenomena which is being imputed imputed to that base. So quoting from a verse by Nāgārjuna where he says that all phenomena whatsoever exist in reliance upon their parts, upon their basis of imputation, upon language and concepts.

There is nothing which does not rely upon these. If it does not rely upon these, it does not exist. Everything is a dependent arising. Everything exists rely reliant upon other. There is nothing which exists independently of other.

Therefore, there is nothing which intrinsically exists. There if if it does not rely upon other, it does not exist. Therefore, all phenomena are empty of intrinsic existence. Therefore, all phenomena are dependent arising. Quoting from verse one fourteen, where it says, when a vase has been filled by the dripping of water, the first drops themselves did not fill it alone, nor was it made full by the last several drops.

It was filled by an interdependent collection of causes and forces that came all together, the water, the pourer, the vase, and such things. So in order in establishing interdependent arising, if we take example of of a cup or a pot, and that we we are dripping drops of water into the cup until it’s finally filled to to its fullness, it the the it was not filled by the first drop of water. It was not filled only by the second drop of water. It was not filled only the third drop of water, nor any intermediate of drops of water, nor next to the last drop of water, nor even the last drop of water. None of those drops of water alone filled pot full.

But it was in dependence upon the collection of each of these individual drops of water. In dependence upon that collection of drops of water, the the full the full cup or the full pot came into existence. Its fullness was dependent upon a collection of each of those drips of water. So a full pot of water comes into existence not on each individual drop alone, but or the collections, let us say, collections of the drops of water alone, of each part drips of water alone, but in dependence upon the collection of those drops of water. And therefore that collection is not intrinsically existent.

If that collection were intrinsically existent, it would not rely upon the collecting each of the individual drops of water, that it it would exist as a full as fullness within itself. Likewise, this holds true for the bringing about of pleasure in reliance upon skillful actions and suffering in reliance upon unskillful actions. That pleasure does not arise in dependence upon only the first moment of the skillful action nor only upon the second moment of the skillful action, but arises in dependence upon a collection of moments of former and later skillful ful actions, just as in the case of the collecting of the full pot of water relies upon the collection of former and later drops of water for its existence. That both both suffering and pleasure rely upon the first, the former, and latter moments of other causes respectively. That is a collection that they exist in in dependence upon the collection of latter and former moments.

So both suffering and pleasure arise in dependence upon a dependently related collection of former and later moments of respectively skillful and unskillful actions. That they do not rely only upon the first moment of the action but upon the dependently related collection of those moments collected together bring about both pleasure suffering and pleasure do not intrinsically exist. So if take another example, the light. The light which exists exists over the course of a snap of the time the duration of a finger snap. There are 65 parts to that duration of time of a finger snap.

Those the light which exists over the course of that those parts, those 60 one sixty fifth of the part of one one sixty fifth of of those parts parts of light, which exists exist over the duration of a finger snap, are not able to eliminate darkness. It is only by the collection of each of those parts which which bring about which has the which which are able to eliminate darkness, where by means in which we can see forms clearly. The collection of them together is is able to eliminate darkness of all those parts. So this is this applies to all phenomena whatsoever, that everything is reliant upon causes and condition, its parts, and its moments its moments in time of duration for them to exist. That a short object cannot function in the shortest moment of time.

For example, we said that the one sixty-fifth of the time of a finger snap, that duration of light, it would not be able to perform the function of allowing us to see forms. But a Buddha could observe those forms in the duration of that length of light time, but we cannot. It does not be able to perform that that function of light for us. If we another illustration would be when we when we recite the word good, that’s a sound. It is a sound the word good is the word good is a sound which exists over a duration of time, existing over a collection of moments.

If if we were to say that the word good lasted for a finger snap of time, then we would we would not be able to understand the meaning of that sound if