Day 38 of 365: Sense Perceptions

Nagarjuna next examines meeting and parting (contact).  One of the most fundamental examples of this, which we take as real, is the meeting or our sense object, sense faculty, and the perceiving sense conciousness.  We take our perceptions as real nearly every second of every day.  However, Nagarjuna challenges us to consider another possibility: they do not really meet.  This argument should be a well worn path at this point, but somehow it always seems fresh since each moment of confusion is fresh.  Can the perceived object exist before the perceiving organ?  No, because then there would be a perceived object without a perceiving organ.  What about the converse, the perceiving organ before the perceived object?  That can't be either because then there would be an eye, for example, seeing without an object.  How could that be?  What about them coming into being at the same time?  Nagarjuna shoots that down as well.  If they came into existence at the same moment and were real (in particular, independent), then they couldn't have a dependent causal relationship.  Thus, the sense object and organ are dependently arisen mere appearance and cannot meet.  Forgetting all the logic, can you relax, take the sense conciousnesses as nonconceptual and perceive the world in this way?

Day 37 of 365: Emptiness of Emptiness

What about emptiness itself?  We tend to use that word in such a way that we may begin to solidify even this with concept.  In fact, I would say that is our first instinct given our addiction to concept.  Khenpo reassures us in this chapter that indeed emptiness is empty, undercutting any conceptual expectations we may have.  The argument really just goes back to looking at what emptiness itself is.  How could emptiness itself not be empty?  Additionally, the concept of empty as opposed to not empty is not accurate.  Our experience of true reality is beyond any sort of conceptual game.  In contemplation, do you notice yourself looking for emptiness?  I am guessing that one never finds it in that way.

Day 36 of 365: Suffering and the Extremes

Today's shenanigans involve looking into the nature of all our suffering.  By this point, Nagarjuna and Khenpo have amassed an array of weapons grade arguments to deal with this.  For example, you could look at the arising, abiding, and ceasing of suffering.  You could look at the relationship between the suffering and the sufferer.  You could also look at this from the standpoint of causes and conditions.  At this point, our conceptual framework is starting to get a little shaky, even if you don't feel with certainty the validity of each of those arguments.  Here's one more: suffering cannot come from any of the four extremes.  Suffering can't come from itself, because there would be nothing to stop it from arising from itself again and again.  Suffering can't come from something other than itself.  That implies a causal relationship, which we have already shown as impossible.  Remember the seed and sprout?  The sprout can't arise from the seed, because when the seed is here the sprout is gone.  In order for something to arise from something else, that other thing must be here.  Suffering can't come from both itself and something else because that carries the flaws of each argument.  Suffering can't arise from neither.  Suffering clearly does not just arise without a cause.

Day 35 of 365: Birth and Death

Nagarjuna turns his attention to birth and death next, showing that since they cannot exist the samsaric cycle of birth and death cannot exist.  Essentially, this argument boils down to looking at things moment by moment.  Looking closely, how can we distinguish between something arising and ceasing?  Try this with a finger snap.  When is the snap born and when does it die?  Try this with each moment.  When does this moment end and the next begin?  We cannot have a present moment without the "death" of the past moment.  Yet, how do we distinguish when that happens?  Birth and death seem indistinguishable.

This weekend offered a unique opportunity to look at arising and ceasing as I slogged through a bout of food poisoning.  When did the sickness arise?  It took me an hour to realize I was really getting sick.  Was I sick before or after I decided it?  What about when it went away?  I still feel weak.  Does that mean it isn't gone?

Day 34 of 365: Samsara

Nagarjuna goes for the full monty on this one.  Does samsara truly exist?  If it did, it would have to have a cause.  We certainly associate our suffering with causes.  But, each of these causes would have to have a cause.  This process never stops.  If there were an "original cause" that thing itself would have to have a cause.  So, in this way, we can see that samsara is beginningless.  Without a beginning, how can it be and then end?  Thus, it was never real in this first place.  Convinced yet?

One could also approach this from the standpoint of those suffering in samsara.  Which came first, the person suffering or samsara itself?  Neither, and they didn't arise independently at the same time.  They are dependently arisen mere appearance.

Day 33 of 365: Looking at the Aggregates

I know, you're thinking, "The aggregates again?!"  It just never seems to get old to take a look at them.  The same argument from yesterday can be applied to the aggregates themselves.  One goes through the five possible relationships between the self and the aggregates just as with fire and firewood.  A sample for the skandha of form follows:

The self is not forms,
The self is not something other than forms,
The self does not have or possess any forms,
The self does not exist in dependence upon forms,
And forms do not exist in dependence upon the self.


From a personal standpoint, I have found it beneficial to work with the first two lines.  The language in the remaining three gets me hung up.  After all, I feel like I possess my body!  According to Khenpo, the later three lines are all similar to the second line.  All these statements refute the differentiation between the self and forms.  Throwing in the other skandhas, there are 25 verses all together--only 10 if you work with the first two lines of each.  Have fun!

Day 32 of 365: Five Relationships

Today's contemplation was a continuation of yesterday's contemplation of fire and firewood.  Instead of looking at the cause and effect relationship, Nagarjuna analyzes the five possible ways fire and firewood could be related to one another.

The firewood itself is not the fire,

There is no fire that exists apart from the firewood,

The fire does not possess the firewood,

The fire does not support the firewood, 

And the firewood does not support the fire.

The first two lines are considering the possibility that fire and firewood are the same and different things, respectively.  How could fire be the same as the thing it burns?  And, if they were different, then you could have fire without firewood and vice a versa.  The last three verses imply that fire and firewood are different entities which again cannot be the case.

Day 31 of 365: Rocking Boats

Today's contemplation had to do with fire and firewood.  Nagarjuna delivers this argument to refute the claim that the self exists in relation to the aggregates in the same way that fire relates to the firewood.  In other words, just as the fire burns the firewood, the self appropriates the aggregates.

If something exists in dependence upon something else,
But that thing upon which it depends
Must also depend upon it,
Then which one of these depends upon which?

The fire can't come before the firewood (the wood being burned), and the firewood can't come before the fire by this definition either.  Clearly, they are not independent, but could they be dependent?  If they are dependent, then one would serve as the cause for the other, which implies it would have to exist first.  But, we just reasoned that this is not the case.  So, these are dependently arisen mere appearances.  They are like two rocking boats--neither can be used to steady the other (courtesy of Mipham).

Day 30 of 365: Perceiver and Perceived

The one who experiences perceptions does not exist
Before, during, or after the experiences of seeing and so forth.
Knowing this, all thoughts of an experiencer of perceptions either existing or not existing are reversed.

Perceptions can be a continuous experience of self-validation.  However, the Middle Way tells us this does not have to be the case and that both the perceptions and the perceiver are appearance-emptiness.  Can the seer of the text on this screen exist before the text itself?  No, because then that person would always see text  independent of the text itself.  What about the seer existing after the experience of seeing?  That doesn't make sense either because then the seer would be seeing text after the experience.  If they independently arose at the same time, there would be no connection between them which is not the case.  The only possible scenario is that the seer and text that is seen arise in mutual dependence.  Thus, neither can have an independent existence.

Could the experiencer who is seeing this moment be the same as the experiencer who is hearing the next moment?  The logics would say no, because the hearer does not exist in the moment of seeing.  What is the commonality that we take as the self?  Some vague sense of consciousness?  Can we differentiate consciousness from the experiences themselves?  It's an interesting experiment.

Day 29 of 365: I Didn't Do It

Nagarjuna takes a look at actors and actions to refute the argument that things really exist because actors and actions do.  If actors and actions exist, then surely the things that are involved exist!  This argument is simply stated:


An actor exists in dependence upon an action,
An action exists in dependence upon an actor,
And apart from that,
No reason for their existence can be seen.


Examine the relationship between actors and actions in terms of their sequencing as with previous arguments.  If they are real and therefore independent, then they can't even arise at the same time.  If they did, there wouldn't be any connection between them.  Therefore, they are appearance and emptiness, inseparable.

Somehow, I think the children in Family Circus would have gotten good mileage out of this argument.  However, the savvy parents, trained in the profound Middle Way view, could have come back by saying that "Not Me" is not more real that "Me".

Day 28 of 365: Elephants on the Moon

One can build on yesterday's argument and the implications it has for non-composite phenomena.  These are things that don't arise, abide, and cease.  What might those be?  Space, cessation that is the result of analysis (kleshas for an arhat), and cessation that is not the result of analysis (nonexistence of elephants on the moon).  Anyway, the point here is that by seeing that composite phenomena do not truly exist, one can then see "automatically" that non-composite phenomena do not really exist.  Khenpo gives the example of a car in a dream.  Once you realize the car is in a dream, why would you take the space in the car to be any more real than the car itself?  Given that we sometimes define our experience by what it is not, how does this help to chisel away at the solidity of our reality?

Day 27 of 365: The Dude Abides

Today's contemplation involves looking at arising, abiding, and ceasing.  Why you may ask?  Apparently, someone in the last centuries made an argument that composite phenomena (things that arise, abide, and cease) are real (singular, lasting, independent) because arising, abiding, and ceasing are.  I'm not entirely sure I follow that logic because ceasing implies that the object is not lasting.  Regardless, this argument is helpful to look at because things arising, abide, and cease in our experience all the time.

Can you guess how the argument goes?  Arising depends on there initially not being something, abiding depends on the arising, and ceasing depends on the abiding.  Therefore, none of these can really be real.  There are, in fact, completely dependent.  So, what does that mean for composite phenomena?  They are dependently arisen mere appearance.  Can we see them that way?

Seems like a good opportunity to look again at movement as well (See Day 4).

Day 26 of 365: Desire

Given that we're human, desire makes sense as one of the most potent emotions to contemplate.  Nagarjuna takes a look at desire from the perspective of the desirous one and the desire itself.  As seems to be his way, he looks at the order of occurrence to finally conclude that these are indeed not independent and therefore not real.  In a sense, it's taking out two birds with one stone, or two concepts with one argument.  Could one have desire without the desirous one?  No, that doesn't make sense.  What about the desirous one without desire?  No, because then the desirous one wouldn't be desirous.  How about desire and the desirous one arising at the same time yet being independent?  (Remember that independence is one of the ways we take things to be real in a naive way.)  If they were independent, then they would have no relationship which is clearly not the case.  So, desire and the desirous one are dependent and therefore not real in the way we think they are.

How does this change our perspective on objects of desire?  Tomorrow's post meditation practice will be to stay with desire when it arises long enough to reflect on the dreamlike quality of it.  Desire tends to solidify our belief in the reality of the objects of desire.  If the desire is dreamlike, then can we see the objects in that way too?  Does this apply to carrot cake?

Day 25 of 365: Make a List, Check it Twice

Yesterday's contemplation got me thinking about how we use defining characteristics of things to solidify our world.  Throughout the day, think about how you would enumerate defining characteristics for the things you experience.  We experience things as largely singular, lasting, and independent.  In fact, I would say that most of the time we recognize some sort of uniqueness to everything which further solidifies things.  How could you list defining characteristics for this unique tree, this car horn, or this body?  If you think you can do it, then do it and see if this really completely defines what you were attempting to define.  If you can't do it, then what does that say about what you're trying to define?  Can it be defined?  We are so certain of our experience and take it so seriously, yet we can't seem to even define it.

Day 24 of 365: The Elements

Today's contemplation involves looking at the elements (water, fire, wind, space, and conciousness).  If this feels a little medieval to you, then we have something in common.  This argument was originally given to refute the claim that since the Buddha taught about the elements then they must exist.  Essentially, this argument boils down to looking at something (the definiendum) and its defining characteristics.  Take space for example.  Space is, by definition, that which does not obscure or obstruct and that which is thoroughly intangible.  Which came first, the defining characteristics or the definiendum?  If the characteristics came first, then you would have characteristics without the thing they are characteristics of, which cannot be the case.  Also, you cannot have the definiendum before the defining characteristics because these characteristics define the object.  Could they arise at the same time and truly exist independently?  No, because then they would not be in a causal relationship.  In fact, they are completely dependent--the definiendum has no independent existence from the defining characteristics.  Since neither has a nature of its own, then they cannot be real in the way we think they are.  Feels a little fishy to me.  Just because something is dependent upon defining characterisitcs doesn't seem to imply that it doesn't exist in a solid real way.  We think of things in terms of defining characteristics all the time.  Do we enumerate flawless lists of defining characteristics?  No--that seems like an impossible task.  We can often be duped into taking one object for a similar one due to our generalizations or lack of perception.  How much do we believe we can write down a list of characteristics to be checked in finite time to verify something real (single, lasting, and independent)?  If we can't, what does that say about the thing we're trying to define?