Day 60 of 365: Seven Analyses

A classical analytic approach in Madhyamaka is the seven analyses, which are traditionally introduced by analyzing a cart.  It seems to also work quite well on a car, since those are more common these days than carts.  We begin with the first analysis: There is no essential reality in a thing as a whole.  In other words, we cannot find an essential reality anywhere in the whole.  When we look at a car, we immediately think there is an essential reality to it, which must surely be somewhere in the car.  By looking at the car, we see that it is comprised of parts and sub-parts, and this process does not stop.  Eventually, we see that there really is nothing we can point to specifically and say it is the car.  So, the car does not seem to be anywhere in the parts.  In the same way, is our being anywhere in the parts of our body?

Day 59 of 365: Analogy and Evidence

Thrangu Rinpoche gives a superb example of one way we convince ourselves that the self is real (singular, lasting, independent) in his book "The Open Door to Emptiness".  We draws the analogy of walking into a potter's shop when the potter is not there.  When we look around, we see all the evidence of a potter: the wheel, the clay, the pots, and the kiln.  Thus, we think to ourselves that there must be a potter.  In the same way, we see all the evidence of a self (form, feeling, perception, decisions, etc) yet somehow we can never quite nail down who or what the self actually is.  Questions to ask ourselves: What do we take as evidence of a self?  If we had to go to court to prove the existence of a self, what would be exhibit A?  What does this evidence really prove?  If we think we have identified a self, what is the nature of the self?