See all causative phenomena like an illusion
The verse just before the dedication was what the Buddha taught at the end of the Diamond Cutter Sutra. It is a very important teaching on the perfection of wisdom, the heart of the Buddhadharma, the heart of the 84,000 teachings taught by the Buddha.
A star, a defective vision, a butter lamp,
An illusion, a drop of dew, or a bubble,
A dream, a flash of lightning, a cloud—
See conditioned things as such!
It didn’t happen this time but usually I advise people to recite this verse slowly with meditation. The Tibetan starts with “see conditioned things as such” but that comes at the end in the English. Then there are the examples—like a star, then like a defective vision, a butter lamp, an illusion, a drop of dew, or a water bubble, a dream, a flash of lightning and a cloud.
To meditate on this, take each example and stop to examine it, seeing how all conditioned phenomena are like that. Look at a star and compare conditioned phenomena with a star; stop a little bit and then look at defective vision and see how conditioned phenomena are like that and so forth.
To meditate like this is an extremely powerful way of looking at causative phenomena, especially your life, especially yourself, the I, which is a causative phenomenon. Under the control of cause and conditions, it decays, it changes all the time, not only day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second, even within a second, a split second. That is the subtlest impermanence, that things do not last, even minute by minute. What exists in this minute doesn’t exist in the next minute; what exists in this second doesn’t exist in the next second or even within a split second. It constantly changes, it constantly decays, even within a split second. It’s the same with your life, your body, your possessions, your family members, friends, enemies, strangers, all the people around you.
That is the basic meditation. You should use these words to see their nature. In some parts it’s the nature of impermanence; in some parts it’s that they’re empty, that they appear to your hallucinated mind as something real, existing from their own side, not merely labeled by mind. That is not true, that is totally false, because they do not exist at all from their own side. All these phenomena that appear as something very real, existing from their own side, not merely labeled by mind, are totally false; there’s no such thing there. In reality they are totally empty.
The first way of looking at causative phenomena is like a star, looking at it as empty.
Then like defective vision, when you have a hallucinated, defective view, like the vision of hair dropping down into the food but there is no hair there. When the eye sense is not clear, due to things like taking drugs or sicknesses or fever, all kinds of visions can happen. Those are examples related to things that appear but are not actually there, so this is a way of meditating on emptiness, the very nature of phenomena, the very nature of the I.
With a butter lamp, there’s a person who makes the butter lamp, then there is the butter, the container and many things, many causes and conditions, that cause it to come into existence. Like all causative phenomena, a butter lamp comes into existence by depending on many causes and conditions. The I, these aggregates and the material possessions you have in the family, are all dependent arisings; they depend on many causes and conditions to exist. Being under the control of causes and conditions, they change; they do not last. That is the nature of impermanence. You can also meditate in this way.
Like an illusion, it’s the same as when a magician uses mantras or certain substances to illusion the audience’s senses into seeing a golden palace, a beautiful man or woman or all sorts of phenomena. The audience has the illusion and believes it to be true. The magician also has the illusion, but he understands it is not true, that it’s an illusion. Of course, some people in the audience understand that it’s not true, but those who don’t know believe it’s real.
Here, right now, we haven’t realized emptiness. We haven’t realized the emptiness of the I; we haven’t realized the emptiness of the aggregates, the emptiness of our material possessions, our house, money and so forth. We haven’t realized the emptiness of the family or the surrounding people: friends, enemies and all these people around us. All these phenomena are merely labeled by mind but in the next second the hallucination of true existence is projected, decorated, on the mere name from the negative imprint left on the mind by ignorance. The projection, the decoration, comes from there. We project this hallucination of true existence on the mere imputation; we have the sense that there is something real existing from its own side on the merely-labeled I, the merely-labeled aggregates.
The body and mind, the real mind and real body, are hallucinations projected onto the mere name, the merely-imputed mind, the merely-imputed body. The material possessions are the same; onto the mere imputation, this hallucination, we see something real appearing from there, we see this hallucination decorated from there. It’s the same thing with the merely-labeled friend. In the next second there is this big projection, the truly-existent, real friend; “real” is decorated from there.
And then there is the merely-labeled enemy. In the next second the real enemy appears as truly existent, something real, not merely labeled by mind. That hallucination is decorated there, projected by this ignorance. Like that, the whole family and the people surrounding us—ignorance makes everything real. This is a total hallucination. All these phenomena—house, cars, whatever—are like illusions. Everything is this hallucination of true existence, inherent existence, not merely labeled by mind, something real from its own side, decorated there from the negative imprint left on the mind by ignorance, making everything real.
When you do this prayer, the main meditation is to apply these examples in the same way to objects such as the I, the aggregates, the body and mind, your possessions, your family members and those surrounding you: the enemy and friend. Those are the main ones.
Seeing phenomena as illusions—illusioned by a magician—is a very good meditation on emptiness. Your ignorance is like the magician. The negative imprints left on your mind are like the mantras that the magician recites or the substances he uses, causing the audience to have all kinds of illusions, like cities and so forth. Ignorance is the magician and you are the audience, illusioned into believing these things are real. The I, the aggregates—the body and mind—everything about the body and everything about the mind, all these things that only exist in mere name, that are merely imputed by the mind, these are made real by the ignorance. From the I, the aggregates, the six consciousness, the fifty-one mental factors, all the different parts of the body, everything down to the atoms, down to the very last atom, everything appears as real.
Ignorance, like a magician, has illusioned you. Everything is totally false in that way. It doesn’t mean you don’t exist; it doesn’t mean the aggregates don’t exist; it doesn’t mean the body doesn’t exist; it doesn’t mean the mind doesn’t exist. They exist but they exist in mere name, merely imputed by the mind. But you don’t see them that way; they don’t appear to you in that way. Illusioned by ignorance, the magician, what you see is a total hallucination. Your material possessions are the same, totally illusioned by ignorance. Everything, including money, car, house and so forth, all these things exist. They exist in mere name, merely imputed by the mind but these things are not real, in the sense that common people use the term “real,” meaning to exist from its own side, to exist by its own nature, to be truly existent.
In the view of the hallucinated mind you not only see everything in that way, you generate the wrong concept, the ignorance, that holds onto these phenomena as being true, as the reality. In reality they are totally non-existent, totally empty, there are no such things. While they exist, the reality is that they are empty. While they are empty, they exist as merely imputed by mind. This is what you have to realize; this is the truth you have to see. It is only when you have completely removed the subtle defilements, when you have no more hallucinations, that phenomena can appear as merely labeled by the mind according to the reality. For a buddha’s holy mind, there’s no false appearance.
Ignorance, like a magician, illusioned you to all this. So, that is one meditation technique you can use in daily life to practice mindfulness. You can use this technique all the time or use a different technique each day.
You can use this technique for one day—while you’re at home or at the office doing your job, or while you are shopping, you constantly have mindfulness like this. Like watching a movie, you are watching a movie of your life. All the hallucinations that appear to you and you believe in, you hold onto, are not there; they are totally non-existent, empty. While you’re driving a car you can do this meditation on emptiness. While you are having a meeting, while you are having a consultation, while you are teaching or studying, cooking or cleaning or writing, being a secretary or working manually, whatever it is, you can practice mindfulness like that. While you are working, your mind is in meditation, like this.
You can do this while you’re shopping, in the market, in the department store or supermarket. For instance, when you go to the clothing section, there is all kinds of clothing: hats, pants, dresses, shoes and all kinds of things, for children, for young adults, for middle-aged people and old people. You don’t even have to buy these things but you can just go there to meditate. You can go around and see how they appear to you. All these are hallucinations, all these are like illusions. You have been illusioned by ignorance, like a magician, into thinking they are something real existing from their own side. All these hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dresses exist merely imputed by the mind but they appear as something real, existing from their own side. Like a magician, ignorance, has illusioned you.
The aggregates are the same. They exist in mere name, merely imputed by the mind, but that doesn’t appear to you and you don’t see that. You see real aggregates, illusioned by ignorance. As I mentioned before, down to the tiniest particle, down to the atoms, they exist in mere name, merely imputed by the mind, but this ignorance, like a magician, has illusioned you, making you see them as real—even the atoms you see as real, existing from their own side, not merely labeled by mind.
All the six kinds of consciousness and the fifty-one mental factors are merely labeled. For example, the phenomenon which is formless, shapeless and colorless, whose nature is clear and able to perceive an object, that phenomenon exists, and for that phenomenon your mind makes up the label “mind.” That label “mind” is merely imputed by your mind. Then you believe in that label. That phenomenon which is formless, colorless and shapeless and whose nature is clear and able to perceive an object is the base and “mind” is the label. They are two different phenomena. They don’t exist separately but they exist differently.
All the mental factors are like this. Depending on what activities they do the label is given, merely imputed by the mind. Therefore, all these six consciousnesses and fifty-one mental factors exist—of course they exist—but they exist in mere name, merely imputed by the mind, therefore they are empty. Because of that they exist; they exist in mere name, merely imputed by the mind. That’s why they are empty. That’s why they are empty of being real entities existing from their own side. They are empty of how they have been appearing to you, to your own mind, and what you have believed in. Ignorance holds onto that as true, but it’s a total hallucination. Ignorance, like a magician, illusioned you like that.
It’s the same with all the material possessions—the house, the car and whatever—and all the surrounding people, family, everything. While all these things are totally empty, ignorance, like a magician, has illusioned you to see them all as real, existing from their own side. You have been believing this to be true, not only from this morning, not only from birth, but from beginningless rebirths. From beginningless rebirths you have been believing they are true, but in reality they are not true at all. In reality they are totally false; these real phenomena do not exist even in mere name, even something the size of an atom doesn’t exist.
I mentioned looking at clothing while shopping. You look at the clothes and they appear real but in reality ignorance, like a magician, has illusioned you. In reality all those hundreds and thousands of dresses that all appear as something real to you are not real. They are totally false; they are totally empty right there. You can meditate on that, recognizing the illusion as an illusion rather than holding onto the true appearance. Then, you don’t create the ignorance holding that is true. Then, anger, attachment and those other delusions do not arise and you don’t create karma, thus it becomes the cause to achieve liberation from samsara, from the oceans of samsaric suffering and its causes. It becomes the antidote to the root of samsara, ignorance, the foundation of all our delusion. You can do this wherever you are—in a dress shop, a department store, a supermarket or wherever.
Being aware of the appearance of the real I and the aggregates and all those things is one thing. You can also watch your actions in the same way, watching how they are also merely imputed by the mind. There is a watcher, there’s an object to watch and there’s the action of watching. All three are merely imputed by mind; all three are dependent on each other. Just as Nagarjuna explained in the very extensive, very detailed teachings given in the root of wisdom, watching is also merely imputed by the mind. What are you doing now? Watching. There’s the action—real watching, truly-existent watching, inherently-existent watching. Again, ignorance, like a magician, has illusioned you. It is totally non-existent in reality. And the object being watched is the same. Ignorance, like a magician, has illusioned you, putting a cover over everything that exists merely imputed by the mind, a hallucination is put on this, an illusion. It is totally false; in reality there’s not even an atom of it which exists.
In department stores there is always a huge section for make-up, with all the different colored bottles and all sorts of things. You can meditate there in the same way. I don’t have to repeat it again; it’s the same as before. Ignorance, like a magician, has illusioned you into seeing all this as truly existent, decorating that true existence over it all, so everything is like an illusion. Meditate that in reality there’s no such thing. That becomes a meditation on emptiness.
In supermarkets there are thirty or forty types of cheese in the cheese section. They all appear to you as not merely labeled by mind, as real cheese. But what appears to you, what you believe, has nothing to do with the reality. Ignorance, like a magician, has illusioned you. All that is totally false; there’s no such thing in reality. It’s all empty.
It’s the same when you are walking in the street, with all the cars, buses and motorbikes—especially those that make a huge noise driven by guys in black clothes! Everything you see—the road, the houses, the people—again, while you are walking you can do this meditation, that ignorance, like a magician, has illusioned you into seeing all these are truly-existent, not merely labeled by the mind.
What they are is what is merely labeled by the mind, but they appear as truly existent and you believe in that. You totally, completely, a hundred percent believe in that. This is amazing. This is how we have all been living our life. Can you imagine? This is how we have all been living our life, in a total hallucination. This is how it is twenty-four hours a day. This is how it has been every day, day and night, from birth, and not only in this life but from beginningless rebirths. Because of ignorance, not only the illusion, the hallucination of the object, appears as not merely labeled by mind but we also let our mind hold onto that as a hundred percent true. We never doubt it and that becomes the basis for attachment, anger and all these other delusions arising.
Each delusion arises and each has its own wrong views. Projected on that, we create karma that only results in samsaric suffering. This is how we have been circling in samsara. We die and are reborn, then we experience all the sufferings and problems of that realm, then we die and are again reborn and experience all the sufferings and problems of that realm, and so on, like that from beginningless rebirths.
You can do the same meditation at home, while you are cleaning, while you are cooking, even while you are reading books—how ignorance, like a magician, has illusioned you.
Everything that exists, exists in mere name, merely imputed by the mind, but it appears as truly existent, as something real, existing from its own side. Then you let your mind hold onto that as true. Every time you do that you are creating ignorance. You are creating ignorance, holding onto everything as true. Then by exaggerating this thing as beautiful, attachment arises after that. And by exaggerating this thing as ugly, as no good or harmful, anger arises after that. Each delusion has its own hallucination. Attachment has its own hallucination; anger has its own hallucination. Anger’s projection is something to hurt, to harm; attachment’s projection is something to grasp onto. That creates karma, the cause of the future rebirths, future samsara.
In the Lamrim Chenmo, Lama Tsongkhapa said,
On the basis of ignorance the concept of true existence arises; on the basis of true existence you then exaggerate good or bad. On that basis attachment and anger arise. Because this object that ignorance holds onto is a wrong concept you can realize it is empty.
What I want to clarify is that none of this exists. What attachment apprehends, what is projected by anger, what it holds onto, does not exist; it’s not there. Why is it not there? You have to understand, this is very important. Because it is built or projected onto true existence. What attachment apprehends, what anger apprehends, is done on the basis of the projection that is decorated by ignorance holding onto true existence. Everything is done on that basis. When all those other different delusions occur, their view is on the basis of the hallucination projected by ignorance, true existence. Everything’s built on that basis. Do you understand?
Those projections don’t exist. The view of our attachment or anger is built on that. They do not exist because the basis is the hallucination of true existence projected by ignorance and that truly-existent object is not there.
The conclusion that Lama Tsongkhapa reached is that because this object that ignorance holds onto is a wrong concept we can realize it is empty. When we realize that it is empty, we get full confidence that we can achieve liberation from samsara. Lama Tsongkhapa explained this according to Aryadeva, one of the Six Ornaments, the great Indian pandit scholars, the highly attained beings who wrote commentaries based on the Buddha’s teachings. There are the root texts by Nagarjuna, Asanga, Chandrakirti and so forth, and then there are commentaries written by these pandits like Aryadeva. Lama Tsongkhapa and many other great scholars, highly attained beings in Tibet, then wrote commentaries on them. This is what has been studied in the monasteries since Buddhism was established in Tibet until now. All these extensive teachings were integrated into the lamrim and then put in the practice. Like that they teach enlightenment for sentient beings.
We can be mindful of emptiness in our daily actions with this meditation technique of seeing how ignorance is like a magician, a person who creates a hallucination by using mantras or substances. Likewise, ignorance has illusioned us into believing all the hallucinations are truly existent. It’s very helpful to remember this at all times, especially when you are meeting people and there is the danger of anger or other negative emotions arising. The whole thing becomes like watching a movie.
Seeing how everything is false and in reality it’s all empty, your mind feels incredible peace, freedom and happiness. When those delusions such as attachment, anger and so forth arise, the mind is overwhelmed, life goes up and down, and sadness, fear and all those emotions happen. But now there are no ups and downs. You can use this meditation when you go travelling, when you go sightseeing or on a pilgrimage.
The next way to see causative phenomena is like a drop of dew, which shows the impermanence of causative phenomena. Just as a drop of dew can fall at any time and so can’t really be trusted to be there all the time, in the same way all phenomena can cease at any time, including life.
The next way is like a water bubble. The reflections and colors you can see in a water bubble look very beautiful but you can’t really trust it. It too can cease any time. It’s the same with form, sound, smell, taste and tangible objects. These causative phenomena are like a water bubble because they can be stopped, they can be popped, at any time. So, this is a meditation on impermanence.
You should see causative phenomena as like a dream, which again is another extremely powerful meditation on emptiness. While you are dreaming everything appears as not merely labeled by mind, as existing from its own side. In a dream everything appears real but when you wake up it’s all not true. Even you yourself realize all this is totally false after you have woken up. While you are dreaming, if you’re able to recognize the dream as a dream, you still have all these hallucinations but at the same time there’s the understanding that it’s not true, it doesn’t exist. So, it’s like that.
You can look at everything in your daily life—form, sound, smell, taste, tangible objects, you yourself as the doer, the subject, and your actions and the objects—you see all these things as like a dream, as if you are dreaming twenty-four hours a day. If you can do that then, exactly as in a dream where you realize you are dreaming, even though you still have the appearance of things being truly existent, not merely labeled by the mind, you understand that this is totally false, totally hallucinated.
Subject, I, action, object—all these things that appear to exist from their own side, when you look at them as like a dream, you see they do not exist from their own side, they do not exist in reality, they’re all empty. You have that understanding at the same time and while you hold that understanding none of the negative emotional thoughts can arise; there’s great peace in the heart.
With this mindfulness, when you look at everything as like a dream—at home, in the office, at the shops, whenever you’re driving—everything becomes an antidote to samsara, an antidote to all the delusions, to karma and delusion, and an antidote to the root, ignorance. It helps you to not hold onto these hallucinations of true existence. Whatever you do then becomes the cause for the cessation of suffering and the cessation of the cause of suffering. This one meditation, looking at everything as like a dream, is a very powerful meditation.
The next way to look at causative phenomena is like a flash of lightning. This is again to remind yourself of impermanence. Like a flash of lightning, causative phenomena do not last a long time. During the very brief flash of lightning, road and trees and whatever appear to you very clearly, then they are gone. It happens then it’s gone. Like the appearance due to lightning, all causative phenomena can cease at any time, appearing one moment and gone the next. This is a reminder of the nature of impermanence.
Finally, you should look at all phenomena as like clouds. While you are looking at clouds, they are changing constantly. Like that, phenomena are constantly changing and decaying, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second, even within a second. When you look at a cloud, it has soon either changed into something different or vanished completely. Meditate on causative phenomena as like this, that they are impermanent in nature.
The first way of looking at causative phenomena mentioned in the verse is like a star. We can’t see a star in the daytime. The I, action, object and all phenomena exist but they exist in mere name. They are merely imputed by the mind, but we can’t see this. Nothing exists from its own side; everything is totally empty. Therefore I, action, object, all phenomena are totally empty, totally empty of existing from their own side, empty of the real one, the one that appears to us, that we hold onto.
As I mentioned before, although they are totally empty, ignorance leaves a negative imprint on the mind, thus decorating this hallucination of true existence onto the empty I, onto the empty action, onto the empty phenomena, onto this hallucination of a real one, a truly-existent one, not merely labeled by mind. Everything is covered. The truth of emptiness is covered by this hallucination of true existence, which is a projection of ignorance. We not only make that mistake but we let our mind hold onto this as really true. We see this as reality. This is how we live our life and because of that we have been suffering in samsara from beginningless rebirths up to now. If we don’t realize emptiness and eliminate the root of samsara, we can’t become liberated from the oceans of samsaric suffering. If that doesn’t happen, we will continuously, endlessly suffer in samsara with this hallucination, believing it to be reality, believing it to be true.
There is no question that arya bodhisattvas, arhats and buddhas see this real I—what appears to us as real and what we believe in a hundred percent—as totally non-existent, totally absent. They see the truth. They see our actions—what appear to us as real and truly existent and we believe is true—as totally non-existent. And they see objects such as form, sound, smell and taste—all that appear to us truly existent, as real, as not merely labeled by mind and that we hold onto as true—as totally non-existent, totally empty.
Because of having removed the subtle defilements, the dualistic view, buddhas especially don’t have the hallucination of truly-existent appearance. They see the whole of phenomena as totally non-existent, as empty.
We have to imitate how buddhas and arya bodhisattvas view causative phenomena. For us, everything seems real, existing from its own side, whereas they see it as completely empty. We need to meditate on seeing all phenomena as like a star in the daytime. We can’t see that star; we can’t see emptiness. This first way of looking at causative phenomena, as like a star, is an unbelievably profound meditation. It’s like an atomic bomb destroying delusion, destroying ignorance.
Vajrasattva initiation introduction
Next I want to give a Vajrasattva jenang, a permission to practice, that allows you to do the practice of Vajrasattva. This is very important, very powerful, like an atomic bomb. It’s a very powerful means for purifying negative karma and defilements, and the jenang allows you to do the meditation and recite the mantra.
It is mentioned,
To the wise man, even a great negativity becomes small;
To the fool, even a small negativity becomes huge.
For a foolish person, even though the negative karma they have created might be small, it becomes very heavy because they don’t know how to purify it. However, even though a learned person’s negative karma might be huge, it will become very small, very thin, because that wise person knows how to purify by means such as the Vajrasattva meditation, with the remedy of the four powers and a perfect confession. The foolish person might only do small negative actions, but they don’t know these various purification practices, such as Vajrasattva practice and the remedy of the four powers.
Everyday negative karma, not just the ten nonvirtues, depends on the motivation. No question about anger and ignorance being negative, the common motivation we have is attachment clinging to this life, such as attachment to reputation. There are the four desirable objects I have mentioned: reputation, praise from others, receiving gifts and material things, and comfort—attachment clinging to this life, to this life’s pleasure. That is nonvirtue. Any action we do—eating, walking, sitting, sleeping, doing our job—whatever activity we do, even meditating or reciting prayers, if it’s done with that motivation, it becomes negative karma.
If we don’t purify the negative karma at the end of the day before we go to sleep, if we don’t purify with the Vajrasattva mantra, then every single negative karma collected with the body, speech and mind today becomes double the next day. I think Kyabje Tsenshab Rinpoche mentioned this. Then, the next day it increases four times and on the third day eight times and on the fourth day sixteen times. It goes on like this, increasing day by day.
A foolish person’s negative karma might be small, but it becomes big. If they killed a tiny insect, for example, and never purified it at the end of the day with Vajrasattva, it becomes double the next day then so on, until after fifteen days or maybe eighteen days, it becomes something like a hundred and fifteen thousand times bigger. As the years go by it multiplies more and more until at the time of death, what might have been the size of an atom becomes as big as a mountain, the size of the earth.
That’s just one negative karma, but there are so many negative karmas collected with the body, speech and mind in just one day. It depends on the motivation and, as I have said, the most common motivation is attachment clinging to this life, which is nonvirtue. Any action done with that becomes negative karma. Negative karma doesn’t have to be only one of the ten nonvirtues. One negative karma increases over the weeks and months and years until we die, but we are collecting so many negative karmas every day, and each one increases every day. We have collected so many negative karmas in this life, an unbelievable number. It’s inexpressible how heavy all this is, sending us to the lower realms and making it very difficult to get back to the human realm, to get a higher rebirth and so, no question, there is no opportunity to practice Dharma.
Reciting the Vajrasattva mantra before going to bed stops negative karma from increasing. You can do the hundred-syllable mantra twenty-one times or the short mantra om vajrasattva hum twenty-eight times. There is also om vajrasattva ah but my root guru, His Holiness Trijang Rinpoche, wrote in a letter that om vajrasattva hum is much better. If you are going to recite the short one, om vajrasattva hum, then do it twenty-eight times. But if you are going to recite the long mantra, then do it twenty-one times.
If you do that at the end of the day with the meditation on the four opponent powers, then today’s negative karma stops becoming double the next day and, not only that, it purifies today’s negative karma and it purifies the past negative karmas collected in this life and in previous lives.
Depending on whether you are able recite it with emptiness or a bodhicitta motivation, you can purify many eons of negative karma, collected from beginningless rebirths. The more purification you do the easier it is to have realizations. There are less obstacles and it is easy to become free from samsara and to achieve enlightenment.
I’ll stop here. Thank you so much.
