Tantric Techniques (4 page)

Second essential: ascertaining entailment of emptiness

Whereas in the first step the meditator allows an ordinary attitude to operate and attempts to watch it without interference, in the second step the meditator makes a non-ordinary, intellectual decision that must be brought gradually to the level of feeling. Here, you consider the number of possible relationships between a phenomenon designated and its basis of designation.

Phenomena designated are things such as a table, a body, a per-son, and a house. Their respective bases of designation are four legs and a top, five limbs (two arms, two legs, and a head)
a
and a trunk,

a
In a culture such as that of pre-modern Tibet, where people think in their chests, the head is a limb and not an integral part of the trunk as it is often depicted in Europe, America, and so forth. Thus, here in this exposition there are
five
limbs and a trunk.

S
ū
tra Mode of Meditation
21

mind and body, and a number of rooms arranged in a certain shape. The meditator considers whether within the framework of inherent existence these two—phenomenon designated and basis of designation—must be either inherently the same or inherently different or whether there are other possibilities. If there seem to be other possibilities, can these be collapsed into the original two, being inherently the same or being inherently different?

N
ā
g
ā
rjuna lists five possibilities, and Chandrak
ī
rti, two more beyond the five:

1. inherently the same
   

2. inherently different
   

3. the object designated (the “I”) inherently depends on the basis of designation (mind and body)
   

4. the basis of designation (mind and body) inherently depends on the object designated (the “I”)
   

5. the object designated (the “I”) possesses the basis of designation (mind and body) either as a different entity in the way a person owns a cow or as one entity in the way a tree possesses its core
   

6. the object designated (the “I”) is the special shape of the basis of designation (body)
   

7. the object designated (the “I”) is the collection of the bases of designation (mind and body).
   

The last five can be collapsed into the first two as refinements of them: The third and fourth are forms of difference; the first aspect of the fifth is a form of difference; the second, a form of sameness of entity; the sixth and seventh are variations of sameness. Hence, it is held that all possibilities of inherent existence can be collapsed into the original two.

Conventionally, however, it is said that the “I” and its basis of designation, mind and body, are different but not different entities and that they are the same entity but not the same. This is technically called being one entity and different isolates
a
—essentially meaning that conceptuality can isolate the two within their being one entity. Why not consider this an eighth possibility?

The answer is that if the relationship of being one entity and different conceptually isolatable factors is within the context of

a
ngo bo gcig la ldog pa tha dad
.

22
Tantric Techniques

inherent existence, then this possibility is internally contradictory, since within the context of inherent existence whatever is inherently the same is the same in all respects, making different isolates impossible. However, if the relationship of being one entity and different conceptually isolatable factors is within the context of conventional existence, then there is no need to include it here in this list of possibilities within inherent existence.

The list, therefore, does not include all possibilities for the mere existence of a phenomenon designated and its bases of designation because the examination here is concerned only with whether the “I” exists in the
concrete
manner it was seen to have during the first essential. If it does exist so concretely, one should be able to point concretely to it when examining it in relation to its basis of designation. As the Fifth Dalai Lama says:

Chandrak
ī
rti’s
Clear Words
a
says:

Consider whether the object of the conception of self has the nature of the [mental and physical aggregates] or is something different from the aggregates.

The “I” appears as if established in the manner of being undifferentiable from the [mental and physical] aggregates which themselves are not differentiated [in the face of this particular consciousness]. However, though one thing such as a pot is not said to be separate or differentiable [from it-self ], in this context [with respect to the “I”] there arise the aspects of a basis of designation and a phenomenon designated, that is, “aggregates” and “I” [just as a pot can be considered as a phenomenon designated and the bottom, belly, and top of the pot as its bases of designation.]

You should analyze whether the “I” that is inherently self-established in the context of the five aggregates has some way of existing other than a oneness with or separateness from the aggregates. Through taking other phenomena as examples, in the end you will realize that there is no third category [of existence]. The decision that [the “I” and the aggregates] are either one or different is the essential of ascertaining entailment. [If the “I” exists, it is

a
tshig gsal
,
prasannapad
ā
.

S
ū
tra Mode of Meditation
23

either one with or separate from the aggregates. Being ei-ther of those pervades, or occurs with every instance of, an existent “I.”]

Since this decision—that inherent existence involves the necessity of the phenomenon designated being either one with or different from the basis of designation—is the anvil on which the sense of an inherently existent “I” will be pounded by the hammer of the subsequent reasoning, the second essential is not an airy decision to be taken lightly, despite its intellectual character. It must be brought to the level of feeling, this being done through considering that anything existent is either one or different. As the great eighteenth-century Mongolian scholar Jang-kya Röl-pay-dor-jay
a
says in his
Presentation of Tenets:
b

You should consider whether this so-called person or self which is the basis of the conception thinking “I” is the same as your own [mental and physical] aggregates or different from them because, if it exists, it must be one of those two. For, in general it is seen in the world that if something is affirmed by the mind to have a counterpart, it is excluded from being without a counterpart; and, if something is affirmed as not having a counterpart, it is excluded from hav-ing a counterpart. Therefore, oneness and otherness are a mutually exclusive dichotomy.

A chair is one; a chair and a table are different; a chair and its parts are different; tables are different, and so forth. The yogi must decisively set standards that limit the possibilities so that the subsequent analysis can work, eventually causing disbelief in such an inherently existent “I.”

Upon coming to this decision of logical limitations, you begin to question a little the existence of the self-instituting “I” identified in the first essential. The Fifth Dalai Lama says: