Talk 4 Nagajuna DKR
The 5 Skandhas or Aggregates or heaps seem to be the basis of the confused notion that an actual “self” exist. But according to Nagajuna, who apparently argued with a lot of Indians, even the aggregates themselves are also non-existent, like a dream, like a mirage, like the reflection of the moon in water.
Caution, these are just the probably misunderstood ravings of a confused person trying to make sense of probably the most profound wisdom or wisdom.
Marigpa, avidya, ignorance (at the fundamental level) not seeing things as they are is the basis of all suffering. First the belief in a self and furthermore the clinging to that nonexistent self. The self that suffers. The schizophrenic self, the self that “hates”, in the name of not hating, or as the Great and Powerful Trungpa Oz used to call idiot compassion.
humility is often just a type of pride; oh I am so humble.
But back to “self”. Really “self” is just a label. The always expanding “self” the self and its possessions, skills, accomplishments, history, political affiliation, beliefs… Mr. Me. But what many fine arguments have taken place over is that while we may even intellectually see that the self is just a label, not real, who you were yesterday is not who you are today, etc. and so on, a really sticky wicket is that even “form” itself is not real, that even the aggregates are also simply an illusion.
But briefly back to compassion. The greatest compassion is no-self, on obstruction, open-space, warmth and radiation without a radiator. A few people come to mind, but very few. Or a lot of people come to mind but on very few occasions.
According to Tulku Urgyen, the third Karmapa stated the most essential point when he said: “In the moment of love, the empty essence dawns nakedly” But this could be fake-news as I have not seen the Facebook fact-checkers verify it.
So me and my father, my nation, by Tesla, my wife, my house, my dog and my understanding of reality do not truly exist, but are a projection or trick of the mind, or maybe not the mind but of mind.
Mind which is empty like space but cognitive at the same time, if you look you will not find anything but it is not the eyes that see or the ears that hear, and things the appear to be solid are only “felt” through the sense of touch, but a dead body does not feel, hear or see anything, it is only the mind that seems to be aware of the inputs from the sense faculties. Mind which has the unobstructed and vast space-like quality of the dharmakaya, the cognisant or knowing quality of the sambhogakaya and the inseparable quality of the two of the nirmanakaya that is “aware” of anything at all .
Hence even the heaps, or apparent aggregates can not be truly existent. Somewhat far fetched, but as Mr. Dzongsar has pointed out Albert Einstein (apparently a Jew), became very famous for restating, and more or less proving mathematically what the Buddha pointed out and later people like Nagajuna expounded on. That even matter does not truly exist but is simply some form of energy, energy is extremely difficult to define. And all this matter/energy seems to have come from nowhere and will apparently continue forever. (Just an aside, but according to lore, Albert just kind of “saw” this truth when he imagined riding a beam of light, then he decided to prove it mathematically. His discovery was the result of a kind of mind-exercise)
So back to path, and compassion that is not attached to being compassionate. And some how the benefit, or path quality of seeing that there is no truly existing beginning and no truly existing end, even no truly existing end to samsara, as in simple (minded) terms samsara itself does not truly exist.
the goal and the path and the suffering don’t truly exist but seem to be some trick of mind or the mind which seems to go on forever, and never had a beginning. But apparently exists, but not truly.
So as example Rinpoche goes back to the elephant in the dream. The elephant seemingly had an origin, and seemingly had an end when we woke up, but if the dream itself was not real (but seemed real at the time when we woke up screaming in a cold sweat) then the elephant was not real. So the general idea being that if we wake-up from avidya then there is no eye, no ear, no body, no mind, no origin of suffering, no end of suffering, no goal, no path, no attainment and no non-attainment therefore the bodhisattvas abide by means of prajna paramita.
So Buddhism gets kind of boring, never anything new, always the same o, some o, cause leading to action, leading to more cause, leading to more action/suffering leading to more idiot compassion, leading to more cause-action-suffering and further and further solidification of belief in “reality” , which is the cause of the non-existent suffering, that seems very very real. Same old boring Buddhist shit.
So path is breaking the old Twelve Nidana chain of dependent arising and the various methods of the Hinayana taming and disciple, Mahayana Bodhicitta practice and Vajrayana devotion and visualization can bring realization of the ultimate truth via the vehicle of relative truth
the earlier version here:
So without notes, that really is my big take-away, but I think there was quite a bit more in the subtleties of how “I” becomes me, becomes Don, becomes Don and his beliefs and how concept particularly seems to be the real kind of “lord of ego” when now the conceptual mind starts to defend, to itself and to others, that it is all REAL . so the form, feeling, formation/perception, concept, consciousness thing seems to get really locked-in when mr. smarty-pants (concept) starts to rationalize and “prove” what is not actually true to be true. Proof based on premise, based on suspicion or wishful thinking, based on more circular thinking which is providing the so called proof. On bad assumption or false assumption that is accepted, and not thoroughly examined, once it is accepted as true can support a whole empire or kingdom of further false beliefs. Hence it may be necessary to deconstruct down to the point of exposing the first inaccuracy, then the thinking mind may lose some of it’s certainty.
I suppose if you were adopted and all your life believed your parents were your parents, you could have all kinds of beliefs that were not true including genetic/racial based beliefs, heritage-based beliefs, or whatever. Then if you discovered these were not your biological parents, you may find out you are not sort-of dark-skinned because you are one-quarter African, but you are sort of dark-skinned because you are part Indian, Pakistani or Mexican.
Oops, much of you sense of “self” has just been blown-up. Maybe an oversimplification or to loose of an analogy but well that’s it. I may have to circle back to talk 4 this week.
So to again caution this are only the confused misunderstanding of the words or the great ones, but as they say in the movies,
S’all Good, Man . (ha ha ha ha)
