Tantric Techniques (5 page)

a
lcang skya rol pa’i rdo rje
, 1717-1786.

b
grub mtha’i rnam bzhag
. The full title is:
Clear Exposition of the Presentations of Te-nets: Beautiful Ornament for the Meru of the Subduer’s Teaching
(
grub pa’i mtha’i rnam par bzhag pa gsal bar bshad pa thub bstan lhun po’i mdzes rgyan
) (Varanasi: Pleasure of Elegant Sayings Printing Press, 1970), 435.20-436.5. For an English translation of part of the chapter on the Consequence School with commentary, see Jeffrey Hopkins,
Emptiness Yoga
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Publications, 1987), 264 (see also previous chapter) and 389.

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Tantric Techniques

Previously, the I—the phenomenon designated in the context of the [mental and physical] aggregates which are the basis of designation—seemed to exist as if self-established and undifferentiable from the aggregates. Through having practiced this second essential, the former consciousness ascertaining [the appearance of “I”] cannot remain as it is, and there arises a little doubt about whether the “I” is the same as or different [from the aggregates.]

The late Geshe Rabten, a Ge-luk-pa scholar who served as abbot of a monastery in Switzerland,
a
compared the effect of this step to hav-ing doubts about an old friend for the first time. The emotionally harrowing experience of challenging your own long believed status has begun.

Third essential: ascertaining that the “I” and the aggregates are not one

The next step is to use reasoning to determine whether the “I” and the mental and physical aggregates could be inherently the same or inherently different. Reasoning here is a matter not of cold deliberation or superficial summation but of using various approaches to find one that can shake yourself to your being. Since this is the case, the seeming simple-mindedness and rigidity of the reasonings suggested must be transcended through gaining intimate experience with them.

The Fifth Dalai Lama lays out a
series
of approaches through reasoning, rather than just one, on the principle that certain reasonings would not work for some people. The first is a challenge from common experience: If I am one with body, how could I speak of “my body”? If I am inherently one with mind, how could I speak of “my mind”? Should we also speak of body’s body? Or my I? He says:

However, it is not sufficient just to doubt whether [the “I” and the aggregates] are the same or different; a decision must be reached. Therefore, you should analyze [first] whether the “I” which is conceived by an innate

a
For an account of his life and a sample of his teachings, see
The Life and Teachings of Geshe Rabten
, trans. and ed. by Alan Wallace (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982).

S
ū
tra Mode of Meditation
25

[consciousness] conceiving true existence is one with body and mind. In that case, the “I” could not be anything but ei-ther one with the body or one with the mind. If the “I” were one with the body, it would not be sensible to say, “my body,” from the viewpoint of associating an attribute, body, with a base, “I.” Also, you would [absurdly] have to say, “my I,” or “the body’s body.” Generate ascertainment that it is the same also if the “I” were one with the mind.

This reasoning alone may cut through to the heart of the matter, but on the assumption that it may not be sufficient for some persons, the Fifth Dalai Lama continues with a citation from N
ā
g
ā
rjuna on the same reasoning:

If, having thought thus, [your attempt at understanding] is merely verbal and you do not gain strong conviction, contemplate the following. N
ā
g
ā
rjuna’s
Treatise on the Middle
says:
a

When it is taken that there is no self Except the appropriated [aggregates],

The appropriated [aggregates] themselves are the self.

If so, your self is nonexistent.

Because the “I” and the aggregates would be inherently one, they would be one in all respects with utterly no division. Hence, the “I” and the aggregates would be none oth-er than partless. Then you could not present—in the context of that partless unity—the two different things: the “I” that is the appropriator of the five aggregates and the “five aggregates” that are appropriated by it. In that case, an assertion of “my body” or “my aggregates” would be sense-less.

Ge-luk-pa scholars do not hold that N
ā
g
ā
rjuna thought that beings commonly conceive the “I” to be one with body or one with mind. Rather, his thought is that
if
the “I” inherently exists, then oneness with its basis of designation would be one of two exhaustive possibilities. N
ā
g
ā
rjuna’s reference is not to ordinary misconception but to a
consequence
of inherent existence, such concreteness requiring

a
rtsa shes
/
dbu ma’i bstan bcos, m
ū
laprajñ
ā
/ madhyamaka
śā
stra,
XXVII.5.

26
Tantric Techniques

a pointoutable identification under analysis.

The rules for inherent existence, therefore, are not the rules for mere existence. Within the context of inherent existence, sameness of entity requires utter oneness in all respects. Thus, the issue that is central to evaluating the soundness of this reasoning is not whether beings ordinarily conceive of such oneness (since it is not claimed that we do), but whether the logical rules that have been formulated for the concrete, pointoutable existence identified in ordinary experience in the first step are appropriate.

More reasonings

The Fifth Dalai Lama continues with permutations of the same reasoning; the mere presence of the reasoning is clearly not expected to be convincing. For these further reasonings to work, the meditator needs to believe in rebirth. They are: If the “I” and the body are one, after death when the body is burned, the “I” also would absurdly be burned. Or, just as the “I” transmigrates to the next life, so the body also would absurdly have to transmigrate. Or, just as the body does not transmigrate, so the “I” also would absurdly not transmigrate.

From meditating on such reasonings, you might come to think that probably the “I” is not the same as the body but is perhaps one with the mind, in which case you are asked to consider the following fallacies: Since it is obvious that the suffering of cold arises when the “I” is without clothes and it is obvious that the sufferings of hunger and thirst arise when the “I” lacks food and drink, these would—if the “I” were merely mental—be mental in origin, in which case one could not posit a reason why the same suffering would not be experienced in a life in a Formless Realm. Also, since the mind would be one with the “I,” it would absurdly still have to make use of gross forms such as food and clothing which do not exist in the Formless Realm. About these, the Fifth Dalai Lama says:

If this also does not get to the heart of the matter, think:

Because the “I” and the body are one, after death when the body is burned, the “I” would also be burned. Or, just as the “I” transmigrates to the next life, so the body also would have to transmigrate. Or, just as the body does not transmigrate, so the “I” also would not transmigrate.

S
ū
tra Mode of Meditation
27

Consider the application of such fallacies.

Through having meditated thus, you come to think, “The ‘I’ is probably not the same as the body.” Then, if you think, “The ‘I’ is probably one with the mind,” consider this fallacy:

The suffering of cold arises when the “I” is without clothes, and the sufferings of hunger and thirst arise when the “I” lacks food and drink. Therefore, if after death the mind were born in a Formless Realm, then because the mind would be one with the “I,” it would still have to make use of gross forms such as food and clothing.

If those absurd permutations of oneness do not clinch the matter, reflecting on a few more reasonings may allow you to reach a conclusion. First, the selves would have to be as many as mind and body, that is to say, two; or, put another way, the selves would have to be as many as the five aggregates (forms, feelings, discriminations, compositional factors, and consciousnesses), five.