THE SNOW LION BUDDHIST NEWS & CATALOG

Those who love and raise children experience the poignancy of their rapid transformation from baby to toddler, young child, adolescent, and then adult. Is the baby I rocked on my chest the same person as this young man? Or is this a different person? We may notice the same problem, and perhaps a similar poignancy, when we look at old photographs. Am I the same person as, or a different person from, the nine-year-old Guy in the photograph? It feels hard to give either answer.

If we are pressed to stay focused on this question and to give an answer, we quickly begin to get uncomfortable. Is it the same person or a different person? Our discomfort may cause us to change the subject, dismissing the teacher or the book that is pressing us to work out the "great puzzle" of who we are. Our discomfort is based in a profound dissonance between how things really are—flowing, ungraspable, intermingling—and how we usually think and talk about them—as discrete and autonomous concrete units. Meditating on emptiness means committing yourself to going deeper and deeper into that dissonance so that it intensifies and becomes almost unbearable—as though there were a small child screaming in your ear demanding to know: "Who are you?" "How do things exist?"

Intrusive Elephants and Married Batchelors

Let's begin by summarizing the steps in meditative analysis. First, we must identify in introspective meditation our own conception of intrinsic nature. This false self is like a demon that has caused us infinite torment. We can lure the demon out into the light by imagining situations of righteous indignation, in which one has been falsely accused, and then watching like a spy from a corner of the mind, trying to observe just what one's sense of self is like at that time. Without some exercise like this, it is tough to catch ourselves in the act of self-reification. The point is that we must notice within our own experience the ignorance that is the root of our cyclic existence, our own misconception of ourselves as having intrinsic nature.

Then, we have to set before ourselves a limited but comprehensive set of alternatives for how such a nature might exist if it did, in fact, exist. As an analogy, suppose someone were suffering from the delusion that there was an elephant in the house. We could make a comprehensive list of all the rooms in the house, or perhaps a list of all the spaces in the house that might in any way be large enough to contain an elephant. Then we could ask the deluded person to set it very firmly in mind that, were there an elephant in the house, it would absolutely have to be in one of those rooms. If he had some doubt, then we could add more places to the list, even if they seemed logically unnecessary, until he was able to feel decisively confident that any elephant located in the house would HAVE to be in one of those places.

Then, when a search of each room turned up no elephant, the force of his sense that "There is simply nowhere else for an elephant to be," would be converted into the realization that, quite contrary to his delusion, there is no elephant in the house at all.

The case of the married bachelor is another analogy that, while superficially strange, gives us a picture of the analytical process as a whole. Suppose there is a person who is causing herself and others needless suffering, and suppose that at the back of these problems is her misconception that she will be happy only when she finds a married bachelor. We help her first to recognize that she has this misconception—to notice how this strange idea appears within her own mind. Then we consider the alternatives: the married bachelor must be either wed or un-wed. When she has a strong sense of conviction that these two choices exhaust all possibilities, we can then rule out each of the alternatives through what appears to us to be ridiculously obvious analysis: he cannot be wed because he is a bachelor; he cannot be un-wed because he is married. For someone who has been in the thrall of a harmful delusion, it is vital to work through each step carefully. This should allow her to see, with certainty, that she was grasping after something that is not there and never could exist at all.

While strange, this analogy has advantages over the elephant in the house. The analogy of the married bachelor illustrates how the process of analyzing intrinsic nature is a case of logically limiting alternatives and refuting each one. It is not a physical searching, as with the elephant. Moreover, while unlikely, it really is possible for there to be an elephant in the house; the married bachelor is impossible. It happens to be the case that there are no elephants in my house right now, and it may happen to be the case that unicorns have never existed anywhere. But—like the married bachelor—persons who exist in and of themselves, by way of their own essential natures, simply cannot exist, now or ever.

Analyzing a Chariot

In other words, accompanied and unaccompanied, like wed and un-wed, are X and not-X. What is unaccompanied is alone, singular and identical to itself. It is not diverse because it is one thing. What is accompanied is plural and diverse. So the basic principle that anything that exists must be either X or not-X entails that anything that exists must be either single or plural, must be either self-identical or diverse.

Tsong-kha-pa then uses this principle to limit the alternatives in the analysis of intrinsic nature:

When you determine in the general case [that anything must be either] one or not one, then you will also determine that for the particular case [of something that exists essentially, it must be either] essentially one or essentially different.

So if a chariot, for example, had an essential or intrinsic nature, such would have to be demonstrated by rigorous analysis of whether it is identical to its parts or intrinsically different from them.

Is the chariot the same as its parts? No, for if it were, then just as the parts of a chariot are several and diverse, so the chariot too would be plural; or else, just as there is a single chariot there would only be one part. If the chariot were identical to its parts, then, since we say that a chariot has parts, the possessing agent would be identical to the possessed object. If agent and object could be identical in this way, then fire and fuel could just as well be identical. Simply putting a log (the burned object) in a cold fireplace should warm up the room because the burned object is the same as the burning agent, fire.

On the other hand, a chariot is not essentially separate from its parts because if it were we would see cases of chariots appearing without any chariot parts, just as horses and cows can appear separately insofar as they are separate.

Since a chariot can be found neither among its parts nor essentially separate from them, it must lack an essential nature. This is because if there were an essentially existent chariot, it would have to be findable under this sort of analysis. The knowledge that things lack essential reality is a liberating insight into emptiness, the absence of intrinsic existence.

Another important point to note is that for Tsong-kha-pa the final basis for any argument, including this refutation of essential reality, is information provided by ordinary conventional consciousness. We see that a log is different from a flame, that a horse is different from a cow, that being accompanied is different from being unaccompanied. It is from this ordinary factual knowledge that we can develop arguments against essential nature. Our ordinary conventional consciousnesses are mistaken in that a log appears to them as though it were essentially real, but at the same time these conventional consciousnesses provide accurate and practical information. Not only can we use this information to light a fire—or select a car—but we also definitely need this information in order to form the argument against essential nature. As Tsong-kha-pa says, "Even when you analyze reality, the final basis for any critique derives from unimpaired conventional consciousnesses."

The Person

Tsong-kha-pa uses the same "absence of sameness and difference" argument to demonstrate that the self, or person, does not essentially exist because it is neither essentially one with nor essentially different from the mental and physical aggregates. He explains that the practitioner, having first identified the object of negation—the conception of an intrinsic self—in her own experience, then asks herself whether this essential self is the same as the mind and body or different from her mind and body.

The notion that the essential self is the same as the mind and body is contradicted by many arguments. Let's consider four of these: (1) it would be redundant even to speak of a self; (2) there would be many selves, or else only one aggregate; (3) the self would be impermanent, arising and disintegrating; (4) any agent and its object could be identical.

If there were an essentially existing self that was exactly identical to the elements and aspects of the mind and body, then these aggregates would BE that self. There would be no need to talk about it, conceive of it, or argue about it. The self would be simply and exactly a synonym for the mind/body complex. Yet in speech, reflecting our way of thinking, the self of a person seems very distinct from the person's mind and body. We use expressions like, "my mind," "my body," "my hand," or "my feelings," or even "my life." If the "me" that owns these various and changing feelings were precisely the feelings themselves, this would very much contradict our sense that there is a solid, unitary and independent self. Therefore, the essentially existent self cannot be identical to the mind and body.

The second argument is that if the aggregates of the mind and body were exactly identical to the essential self, then they would have to have all of the same qualities and attributes. For example, they would have to be numerically the same. Just as a person is conceived to have only one essential self, the aggregates of mind and body would then also have to be only one in number—whereas in fact, there are obviously many diverse parts of the mind and body. Or else, since these components are diverse, there would have to be many diverse essentially existing selves for each person. I would have ten "toe selves," and so forth. Yet this is not at all how it appears to us when we introspectively observe our sense of a "real self." This real self seems to be the singular essence and autonomous core of my being as a person. It is therefore contradictory to say that it is identical to the plural and diverse elements of mind and body.

The third argument is that if the self were identical to the mind and body, then it would have to change moment by moment, just as the mind and body do. In that case, the intrinsically existing self of one moment would be intrinsically different from the intrinsically existing self of a later moment. A consequence, then, of identifying the intrinsically existent self with mind/body complex is that we would have to acknowledge that the self is essentially different in each moment, as the body and mind change. But if the "me"of past moments is essentially different from the "me" of the present moment, then how can I remember things that essentially other person experienced? If persons who are essentially different can remember each other's experiences, then anyone in the world should be able to remember the experiences of any other person. Yet this does not occur.

A fourth argument is that if the intrinsic self were identical to the mind and body, then, since we say that a person has a body and has a mind, the possessing agent would be identical to the possessed object. If an agent and object could be identical in this way, then fire and fuel could just as easily be identical. As noted above, this would imply that putting a log in a cold fireplace should warm up the room, or that one could use a knife to cut itself.

But why should we not, then, consider that the intrinsically existing self is different from the mind and body? If the person had an essential character that was different from the essential character of the mental and physical aggregates, then my "self" could be found and identified quite apart from my mind and body. That is, just as horses and cows have different qualities and can be seen in different places, we should be able to point out my essential self in one place and time while my mind and body were somewhere else altogether.

In fact, we use the term "person" in reference to a continuum of changing mental and physical factors. The person, each of the individual factors of mind and body, and the whole continuum of ever-changing factors are all devoid of any essential or intrinsic nature. Because I have no essence, I am neither essentially the same as nor essentially different from Guy at age nine. I am also neither essentially the same as nor essentially different from a person with different mind-streams, such as George Bush. But unlike George Bush, I am in the same personal continuum with the Guy of yesterday and the Guy I was as a child. My experiences and choices at those times left imprints, like the footprints left behind by a bird that has now flown away. I inherit the effects of my own past actions. The choices we make create ripples, and from these our distinct set of inclinations and character roll down like a wave through the stream of our ever-changing mental and physical factors. So, conventionally, it is correct to say, "This is a picture of me when I was nine," and "That is not a picture of me; it is a picture of George Bush."

Tsong-kha-pa notes that non-Buddhist philosophies about an eternal and essential Self arise when their proponents realize that the essential self really cannot be identical to the flux of mental and physical aggregates. Reaching the wrong inference, they then teach about the existence of a metaphysical self that is essentially different from the mind and body. However, their own ordinary and conventionally valid consciousnesses never perceive any essence or intrinsic self that is different from the mind and body. This is simply an imaginary construct. Instead of assuming that there MUST be a permanent self and then locating it as an essence distinct from the mind and body, they should realize that since an intrinsically existing self can be found neither as one with nor as different from the mind and body, it simply does not exist.

Since it is impossible for the person to have an essential self that is one with or different from the aggregates, it is impossible for the person to have any essence. The person lacks any intrinsic nature. The person exists only nominally and conventionally, and yet is fully able to function as an agent on this basis. In order to make your understanding of this conclusion very solid, it is important to consider every way that suggests itself to your mind in which there might be an essential self lurking somewhere, slipping through the cracks. With careful and focused analysis, every possibility can be resolved into being a case of "same" or "different" and will then break down in light of fallacies such as those mentioned above.

Since it is impossible for the person to have an essential self that is one with or different from the aggregates, it is impossible for the person to have any essence. The person lacks any intrinsic nature. The person exists only nominally and conventionally, and yet is fully able to function as an agent on this basis. In order to make your understanding of this conclusion very solid, it is important to consider every way that suggests itself to your mind in which there might be an essential self lurking somewhere, slipping through the cracks. With careful and focused analysis, every possibility can be resolved into being a case of "same" or "different" and will then break down in light of fallacies such as those mentioned above.

In meditative practice, we cannot be content to work through one line of reasoning in an abbreviated form. We must use multiple lines of reasoning drawn from the treatises of Nagarjuna and other Madhyamakas, and we must feel ourselves being drawn deeply into the process of working through them again and again. Only in this way can we develop strong conviction that the intrinsic self to which we normally cling has never and could never exist at all.

Dependent Arising

The contradiction, the real case of the married bachelor, is that we cling to the illusion that things solidly exist in and of themselves, while at the same time we live in the midst of unrelenting evidence of how things are not only transient, but contingent upon other things as conditions. This is frighteningly similar to the married bachelor delusion's implying that someone out there is both wed (related to another) and un-wed (unrelated to another). Are things related to one another or not?

To us, it seems to be "common sense" that (1) things are real in and of themselves and (2) because they are real, they are able to be in relationships that connect them to other real things. I hear people articulate, and find within myself, thoughts that add up to this: If things were not already real before they hooked up with something else, then what would there be to hook together?

We are correct to intuit that there cannot be relationships without some related entities. Relationships do not exist apart from that which is related. However, we are profoundly wrong to believe that there must therefore be ultimately real things—unrelated and independent things—that just happen to be there on their own, and then later relate to one another.

Through meditating on how things are empty because they are dependent-arisings, we retrain our minds to see that things exist only insofar as they are related to other things—none of which is ultimately real. Since nothing has its own way to set itself up, everything is the expression of relationships with and among other things. There is no bottom, no absolute ground of being, no unconditioned support or starting point. Everything emerges from the surging and relentless complexity of innumerable interdependent conditions, every one of which is analytically unlocatable.

Implicit in clichés such as "Every snowflake is unique," is a celebration of our own uniqueness as living beings. The problem is only that we believe, usually unconsciously, that our uniqueness arises from an inner essence that is our private core. To defend and aggrandize that core, we harm others; to nurture that core, we build up our greed. No one can begin to measure how much pain and anguish this has caused.

In fact, our uniqueness arises from our distinctive, ever-shifting and infinite array of connections with other things. We are unique and important, but we do not own our uniqueness. We have no intrinsic core. We owe our uniqueness to all of our conditions—and to our emptiness. For without the open sky of emptiness, the rest of the world could not shine into and through us, and we could never be what we are—living beings making choices that matter.

More about the book . . .

Readers are hard-pressed to find books that can help them understand the central concept in Mahayana Buddhism—the idea that ultimate reality is "emptiness." In clear language, Introduction to Emptiness explains that emptiness is not a mystical sort of "nothingness," but a specific truth that can and must be understood through calm and careful reflection.

Newland's contemporary examples and vivid anecdotes will be helpful to students trying to understand one of the great classic texts of the Tibetan tradition, Tsong-kha-pa's Great Treatise.

"This magnificent, readable and thoroughly engaging work is a modern classic in the making. It invites new practitioners and learned scholars alike to look afresh at the dazzling array of teachings from one of the greatest figures in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Je Tsongkhapa, writing to teach his own students the most profound meaning of all, the core of the path to liberation."—Anne Carolyn Klein, Professor, Rice University; author of Unbounded Wholeness and Meeting the Great Bliss Queen

More about the author . . .

Guy Newland is Professor of Religion at Central Michigan University. He lives in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.