Video 8. Meditate Until You Realize the Prasangika’s View of Emptiness
(duration: 20 minutes)
(You can read the transcript of the video below. Alternatively, you can read the same transcript alongside the video by clicking here to download it or view it in a separate window.)
When Your Mind is Trained in Emptiness, Your Understanding of the Ultimate Truth of the Table Supports Your Understanding that the Table Exists in Mere Name
About emptiness, for example, where is the table? The general table or the merely labeled table, but without touching anything of the false table, the gagja [the object to be refuted], without touching anything to do with that, the table which has to be refuted, without touching that: Oh, the merely labeled table, where is it? The table, where is it? This is not table. This is not table. This side, that side. This is not table. This is not table. Every piece that is part of the table is not table. So you cannot find table. So you cannot find table. So you could not find table; everything is a part. Everything is a part. Wherever you point is a part of the table. It is a piece of the table. It is a part of the table. It is not table but a part of table. So that doesn’t mean table doesn’t exist? The conclusion? What is the conclusion? What is the conclusion? The table doesn’t exist? There is no table in this room? There is no table in this room? You looked for the table but you could not find it. You see, it doesn’t support the existence of the table. It doesn’t help.
That way of checking, if you think that is the meditation on emptiness, that’s wrong, totally wrong. If you think that, that doesn’t support the existence of the table. It doesn’t support it at all. It is the opposite to supporting it. It doesn’t support the existence of the table. It doesn’t help. What is your conclusion? What is your conclusion? It is the same with the mug, “Where is the mug?” This is mug? This is mug? It is the same. Or the “I”: every piece, “Is this the I?” “Is this the I? In all the five aggregates, it is nonexistent. Nothing. You don’t find anything that is the I. So it doesn’t support it. It looks like the I doesn’t exist. So it comes to that conclusion—nihilism. That is nihilism, you have to understand.
So that is not meditating on emptiness, you have to understand. Many people might believe that. Lama Tsongkhapa explained in the Lamrim Chenmo, or it might be in the Middle Lamrim, for example, vase; here there is a vase. What is mentioned there is a vase. In Dharma texts, the philosophical texts, vase, pillar; there are certain objects used quite often. So, vase: this is not vase. This is not vase. This is not vase. This is not vase. This is not vase. This is not vase. The bottom part is not vase. So at the end, it is not clear. You did not find it. There is no recognition of the vase, that “This is vase.” There is no recognition, so that is a sign of falling into nihilism.
There are two: eternalism, it exists from its own side, and nihilism, it doesn’t exist at all. We have to realize the Middle Way view devoid of these two extremes, otherwise not. So here you fall into nihilism because you are unable to differentiate between the merely labeled and the gagja, the merely labeled vase and the vase, which is the object to be refuted. The truly existent vase and the merely labeled vase, being unable to differentiate them. This what is mentioned in the teachings. So of that, you have to be careful—persons like me with not much understanding. I’m telling this only for those people. This is a very, very basic thing to understand. A very, very basic thing. Otherwise, you make a big mistake in your meditation on emptiness. A big mistake in your meditation on emptiness. Even if you meditate for many years, a big meditation, you are meditating on nihilism. It is the same as Zen meditation. Zen, Zen meditation, it is the same as Zen meditation.
So now, going back to the table. Now, okay. Now, think again about the table. The table that exists is what is merely labeled by the mind. It is so subtle. (I have to make that noise for you to get a clear picture! At least if the words are correct, then it is okay. At least my words are correct.) What table exists is what is merely labeled by the mind. Therefore, it never ever existed from its own side. There is a table but it does not exist from its own side. So it is totally empty. Like, “Form is empty. Emptiness is form,” here, “Table is empty. Emptiness is table.” The table is empty. Emptiness is the table. So the table which is totally empty from its own side, oh, that is table. That is the table that exists, that we can use—the merely labeled table.
Therefore, when you look at the table, you have the appearance of the table existing from its own side. For example, for me, there is a table existing from its own side. This is opposite, completely opposite, to a merely labeled table—the appearance. There is no appearance of a merely labeled table. Only a buddha has that. There is no mere appearance.
I don’t have mere appearance. Sentient beings don’t have that appearance, except for arya beings in equipoise meditation on emptiness. At that time there is no merely labeled appearance. Of course, they have realized emptiness, so at that time there is no true existence [either]. But as far as appearance goes, you have it until you have achieved enlightenment. Except for arya beings when they are in equipoise meditation, then at that time they don’t have true existence appearance; [otherwise,] that goes up to enlightenment. Only when the knowledge obscurations left by the past ignorance are totally removed, abandoned, totally removed, ceased totally, then there is no projection or mental fabrication of true existence. The appearance of true existence you don’t have; that is only for a buddha.
I don’t remember what I said.
When you look at the table again, in your view, how you see the table, in your view of the table there is the appearance that the table exists from its own side. It is not mere appearance… the appearance of a mere table, no. The opposite, totally opposite—a table existing from its own side, that appearance, oh, oh that, oh, then that real table, oh, that, that is the object to be searched for and that is what you have to realize is empty, totally empty, as it is empty, as it is empty. It is not that it has been existing and now you have to realize is empty. No, that is wrong. That which has been empty, it never existed but you have been believing it exists. That hallucination becomes the foundation for the suffering of samsara. It becomes the basis for all the attachment and anger, all the delusions, that real table, believing it is real. It appeared and you believe it is real. That becomes the basis for attachment, anger, all the delusions, so from where all the suffering comes.
That table, a real table appearing from its own side, that one totally, totally, does not exist from its own side. That one is totally nonexistent, completely nonexistent. That is the emptiness of table. So a real table appearing as existing from its own side, oh, for that you look, for that you search. That one, you search: where is it? You search and you can’t find it anywhere. You look for it, where is it, and you can’t find it anywhere, a table existing from its own side. It doesn’t have true existence at all because the table is a dependent arising—denpar me te, tendrel yinpai chir, a dependent arising. The table is merely imputed by relating to the group of the parts gathered [together]. The group of the parts gathered is the basis. The group of the parts gathered [together] is the basis to be merely labeled “table”—this is the basis—by the valid mind.
So the real table that appears to us, which we one hundred percent believe in, oh, that is not true. That one is totally empty. It is not there at all because “table” is a dependent arising, merely labeled by the mind. This is not gross dependent arising, depending on causes and conditions, not that one, not gross dependent arising but subtle dependent arising, the Prasangika’s view of dependent arising, because “table” is what is merely labeled by the valid mind.
So you see, while the table is empty, it is existing. It is existing as merely labeled by the valid mind. Do you understand? While the table is existing, the table is empty. Please don’t think, it is not that I have realized this but this is what, I think, Lama Tsongkhapa mentioned and what the meditators experience. It is unified, emptiness and dependent arising; emptiness, tongpanyi, empty of true existence, and dependent arising, existing. Emptiness and existing are oneness, inseparable. “There is no emptiness other than form. There is no form other than emptiness.” So table exists, table exists in mere name. The table exists because it is empty, empty from its own side. It is not just nihilistic empty; it is empty from its own side.
It is the same thing on the I, on the vase. What is I is similar; it is an extremely, unbelievably, unbelievably subtle phenomenon. Therefore, many great meditators fall into nihilism. They are unable to stay in the middle view of Madhyamaka. They slip out into nihilism, or fall into eternalism. That is very, very, very, very... Not only that, but that is one of the main qualities of Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings.
Here emptiness relates to the false table, the real table existing from its own side, something existing from its own side, oh, that is the gagja [the object to be refuted]. You look for that and you don’t find it at all. Then, next… First, you see the ultimate truth of the table. Then, with that as a cause, as a result you see the merely labeled table. Then you see the merely labeled table. It helps you to see the table existing in mere name, merely labeled by mind. It is a support for the existence of the table that is true for the all-obscuring mind. It supports, helps, the existence of the table merely labeled by mind. Oh, that unification, oh, that is the Prasangika’s view of emptiness. You see?