The Actual Meditation on the Relationship between Appearances and Mind

T his morning we looked at the first of the four stages of pointing out the mind within appearances—pointing out that appearances are mind. I began by explaining the positions and arguments of the first three of the four systems of tenets40 about the relationship between appearances and mind. Once I had finished doing that, I started to explain the actual meditation. Because at that point there was not much time left this morning, this explanation was somewhat brief, for which I apologize.

To continue, when you look at a form as we normally do, generally speaking, what seems to be happening when you see something is what the vai bhashikas say is happening—that your cognition, which is internal, is somehow experiencing or contacting an object that is external. But if you keep on looking, you start to notice that that is not really what is going on. If you can continue to rest within, for example, the experience of looking at an object of visual perception, you realize that what is happening is not so much the mind contacting something outside itself, as it is the mind acting like a mirror which reflects an image of something. In that sense, the image is contained within the mind. So when you actually look at what you are looking at, you realize that you are still looking at your mind. This is what we call “seeing.” This is something that you can gradually realize through your own experience and through your own practice.

The mind is not really going out to an object. Nevertheless, because we have the habit of treating the act of seeing,41 for example, that way, when we see something, we are unclear or confused about exactly what is occurring. We are unclear about where the action of the eye consciousness ends and the action of the mental consciousness begins. For example, when I hold up this stick of incense, and you look at it, simply seeing the incense—seeing this piece of incense without appraising it as one thing or another—is an action of the eye consciousness. Then, when I hold up a slightly longer one, you

decide that the first one is short and the second one is long. There being two, you naturally compare them one to the other. Normally we make no distinction in perception between simply seeing something and making that kind of decision or designation about its qualities or characteristics. The conditional nature of that designation becomes obvious when I put down the first stick of incense and pick up another one that is longer than the second one, because then the second one, which a moment ago you thought was the long one, now becomes the short one. This means that it is not inherently long or short. These are designations which the mind, specifically the mental consciousness, generates on the basis of the eye consciousness’ seeing the sticks of incense. To use another example for how the mind generates appearances: in front of me on my table, there is a cup, which I can see and presumably you can see, too. To describe that thing that is in front of me on my table we would use the word “cup.” But the sound “cup” has no inherent connection to the thing itself. They are not the same. The word “cup” is a sound. The thing, cup, is in this context a visual form, something we see. And yet, if someone says, “cup,” we automatically assume that they are talking about a thing that is a cup. But there is no inherent connection between the sound “cup” and the thing that we call a “cup.” The connection is made, based on habit and our mental association. Our mind, in that case, generates the appearance of that thing as what we think of as “cup.”

The other aspect of looking at the relationship between appearances and mind is whether the body and mind are the same or different. Normally, we tend to think of them as different. Most people have a vague idea that their body is like the dwelling place of their mind—as though the body were the house and their mind were someone living in that house. In fact, they are indivisible, because the mind pervades the body. For example, if a thorn is stuck into your head and you say, “I feel that in my head,” what you mean by saying that you feel it is that your mind experiences this sensation. It happens to your body, but it is experienced by mind. If the thorn is stuck into your foot, then you feel it in your foot, which means that your mind experiences what is happening to your body. If the body could experience things alone, without the mind, then if you stuck a thorn into a corpse it would feel it, which it does not. The mind and the body together are what enable you to feel things physically. This means that your mind is in no way separate from your body. The two are inseparable. What is most important about recognizing appearances to be mind is not what it says about appearances but what it says about the mind. That with which we are principally concerned is the mind. Therefore, what follows is the second pointing out, which is pointing out the mind to be emptiness.

Normally, we think that our minds are in some way solid, which means that they really exist. The easiest way to think about the question of the mind’s true existence is with the reasoning about one or many, which is a common argument found in the middle way school. The basis of the argument is that for something to exist it must be one thing. If it is an aggregate, if it is made up of many things, unless all of those many things truly exist, it does not exist. It was for this reason that the Buddha introduced the concept of aggregate, such as the five aggregates: the aggregate of form, the aggregate of sensation, the aggregate of perception, the aggregate of mental arisings, and the aggregate of consciousness. The basic idea of aggregates is that something that is made of many things does not have true existence.

If we look at the mind, it becomes very difficult to assert the unity of the mind when you consider its functions, which are after all its defining characteristics and the only basis for asserting its existence to begin with. For example, the eye consciousness and the ear consciousness, while both being consciousnesses, cannot duplicate or exchange one another’s functions. The eye consciousness cannot hear, the ear consciousness cannot see. Therefore, they cannot be said to be the same thing because their characteristics are different. Or if you consider the sixth consciousness and any or all of the five sense consciousnesses, their characteristics are different enough that you cannot say that they are all one thing. Furthermore, even within one consciousness, because one consciousness in some way contacts or entertains variation, even one consciousness cannot be said to be a true and indivisible unit. If we use the eye consciousness as an example of this, the relationship between the eye consciousness and its object is explained differently in different contexts by different schools. For example, it is taught that in the appearance of an eye consciousness, in the occurrence of an act or event of visual perception, there are two focuses that occur. There is the external referent, which is the apprehended external object. And then there is the internal referent, which is the appearance of an apprehending cognition. There is the external object and the inner basis, at least in how things appear.

If you think about what it means to look at something, for example, at the brocade that decorates the table in front of me—it is multicolored, and it has a fairly complex weave or pattern, there are several different explanations about what happens when you look at it. One explanation is that while the external referent, the object, is variegated, the cognition that experiences is not. According to that explanation, the subjective aspect of the eye consciousness can somehow scan while being one thing, can scan or take in many different things—the variegation of the weave in this case. Another explanation is called the split egg explanation, which is that neither is, in fact, variegated. It is the quickness of the scanning that allows for the appearances of variegation. In other words, the object that you are actually seeing is being seen only one part at a time—and your mind assembles that one-part-at-a-time-seeing. In the initial seeing, the subject and object in each instant of seeing are equally unitary, and then the mind assembles a picture of their variegation. A third explanation is called equal variegation, which is that in order to perceive variegation, the perceiving cognition must also possess variegation. According to that explanation, cognition itself becomes a degree of variegation equal to the object that it is experiencing.

The assertion that appearances are mind is properly an assertion of the mind only school. The assertion that mind is emptiness is properly an assertion of the middle way school. The middle way school begins by saying it is fine to say that appearances are mind. But it is not fine to say that the mind exists. According to the middle way school, the belief that the mind exists is mistaking the appearance of continuity for existence. Continuity in this case means that what we call a mind, anyone’s mind, is believed to exist because it stretches from an apparently infinite past all the way to the present. And it stretches from the present into the unforeseeable future. When we think about time, we can think about it in any way we want to. We can think about it in relatively long terms—like the past as last year, the present as this year, and the future as next year. Or we can think about it in shorter terms and say that the past is last month, the present is this month, and the future is next month. Or we can say that the past is yesterday, the present is today, and the future is tomorrow. Or, the past was this morning, the present is now, and the future is this evening. Or, the past is the previous moment and everything that went before that; the present is now; and the future is the next moment and everything that will occur after that. Everything that is past, from the previous moment and every other moment that came before that, going back infinitely, does not exist; all of that is gone. Everything that is in the future, from the next moment onward, does not yet exist. All that exists is whatever exists now. But what is the duration of now? Either now has duration or it does not. If is does not have duration, it is unreasonable to say that it exists. If it does not have duration, it is merely a hypothetical boundary between what is past and what is future. If it does have duration, how much duration does it have? Whatever unit of time you select to designate as now, you will see that half of that unit of time is past and half of that unit of time is future. No matter how finely you scrutinize time, you will see that what we call now has no duration. That means, among other things, that every thought you ever had is gone. And the thoughts that you have not had yet, of course, have not appeared yet. So right now your mind has no duration. According to the middle way school, this is why it is unreasonable to say that the mind exists. Because the time in which it might exist does not exist. We designate it as existent based upon the belief in the existence of time, and, therefore, continuity.

That is the argument that is the basis for the assertion that you cannot assert that the mind exists. In meditation, of course, we do not entertain the argument. We simply look directly at the mind. As we saw earlier, when looking directly, you do not find any thing. What you discover is the mind’s emptiness. Therefore, it has been said, “It is not something and is not seen even by the victors.”42 This is pointed out, because when you look at the mind and do not find anything, your first reaction may be to think, “I don’t know how to look,” or, “I’m not looking hard enough,” or, “I’m not smart enough to find it.” The point is that no one will ever find anything; even the victorious ones, the buddhas, when they look at the mind, do not see anything. So, I am going to stop there for this afternoon, and if you would like to ask any questions, please go ahead. Question: Hello. I have two questions. As I was having dinner before I left for this retreat, I was sitting next to a friend of mine who is really intelligent but doesn’t know anything about the dharma at all. He asked me where I was going, and I said I was going on a retreat to study a text called The Ocean of Definitive Meaning. He looked at me and said, “What exactly does that mean?” And I said that that was beyond the scope of that discussion. Could you give a really brief explanation of what the title, The Ocean of Definitive Meaning, means?

And my second question: A couple of times during this morning’s teachings you said, “If you look at your mind, there is no doubt that you will see its nature.” Is that you who is saying so, or is the Ninth Karmapa saying that? And if you’re saying it, where does that come from, that there is no doubt? Because I first got instructions on looking at the mind three years ago at the Catherine Blaine Elementary School at the mahamudra teachings you gave there and I’ve been trying to look at my mind. It’s not that there’s been no kind of experience, but nothing that I would say is definitive. If these instructions are so straightforward, why in all of this looking . . . ? Rinpoche: To answer your first question first, the word, dön, that gets translated as “meaning” in The Ocean of Definitive Meaning can also mean “purpose.” It means the “point” of something. Everything that we do has a point. For example, if we make a cup of tea, the point is to be able to drink tea. If you go to the market, the point is to be able to buy whatever you want to buy. Here, the point or purpose or meaning of this book is something tremendous. It is something that is definitely, absolutely, certainly important and useful. In the context of this book, it is best to think of the definitive meaning as something that is absolutely and vitally important and worthwhile. “Ocean” here means something that is really big. Since something like two thirds of this planet’s surface is covered by ocean, ocean is just about the biggest thing that we know. When it is called The Ocean of Definitive Meaning, it means that this book contains a lot of really useful “stuff.” [laughter] Translator’s aside: Laugh now, because you may not find it funny when I continue to translate.

Rinpoche: Now, about your second question: The statement that, if you look at your mind’s nature, there is no doubt that you will see it, comes from me personally, because I think you will. You said that you have been looking at your mind for the last three years, that you received instruction in this practice three years ago. This is a good opportunity to talk about this, because we were just talking about time a minute ago. Three years sound like a long time. Three years contain roughly a thousand days and a thousand nights. I presume that you were not looking at your mind while you were asleep. So, in fact, you were not looking at your mind for three years; you were looking at your mind for a year-and-a-half. [laughter] So then… Translator’s aside: Wait it gets much worse. [laughter] Rinpoche: Then, let us be optimistic and say that, at the most, you might have been looking at your mind for twelve hours a day. That is equivalent of a yearand-a-half. But I suspect that you were not looking at your mind for twelve hours every day for the last three years. So when you actually figure out how much time you really spent looking at your mind, probably it was not very much. [laughter] And that is why you have not seen it yet. [laughter] So… Translator’s aside: It sounds terrible, but...

Rinpoche: So, if you really do look at it, you will see it. Questioner: I mean, let’s say it was only three hours between now and then; let’s say it was just since this morning. Translator: Sure! Questioner: I mean why does there have to be a duration of looking? Translator: Right! Okay!

Rinpoche: There is no reason. [laughter] Your mind is not something that is far away from you or distant from you. So there is no reason whatsoever for not being able to see it right away. Probably in those three hours most of the time you were thinking about what you were going to eat or what you were going to drink or how much you had eaten or how much you had drunk. Probably very little of the three hours was actually spent looking at the mind. Question: Rinpoche, you have spoken about mahamudra meditation and investigations in relation to the first six consciousnesses. What is the relationship between mahamudra practice and experience, and the seventh and the eighth consciousnesses? That is my first question.

Rinpoche: The five sense consciousnesses and the sixth consciousness, the mental consciousness, are called “clear and fluctuating” consciousnesses, whereas the seventh and eighth consciousnesses are called “unclear, stable” consciousnesses. Clear means that they are obvious to us in our experience; we can perceive their functions. Fluctuating means that they stop and start. They have functions; they are not merely a constant presence. Unclear means that the seventh and the eighth consciousnesses are very difficult for us to perceive directly. And stable means that their functioning is a stable, subtle presence rather than a fluctuation of function. For this reason, in the first turning of the dharmachakra, the Buddha only described the first six consciousnesses and did not mention the seventh or eighth. Later on of course, he did describe them. When you are practicing meditation, it is easier to work with the six consciousnesses because they are more easily available to you as objects of scrutiny. You may in time come to recognize the functions and experience the presence of the other two consciousnesses as well. But it is not necessary to be concerned with them because the meditation based on the six consciousnesses is held to be sufficient. Same questioner: The insight part of the text talks about looking and pointing out. Does that imply that in order for the pointing-out section to be of actual use it must be pointed out directly by a teacher?

Rinpoche: The idea behind this is that the actual instructions for practice are presented as looking at the mind. And then the determination of the quality of experiences and the resolution of the experience gained through looking at the mind are pointed out through pointing out. What I have been doing here is presenting the sections on looking at the mind because I feel that the pointing-out sections are in a sense not as necessary, because you will gain the experience through looking, and if I were simply to do the pointing out, it would be kind of “macho” or presumptuous. Translator’s aside: It’s a funny word, chok chok. It’s almost like saying “macho,” except it’s not gender specific. But it’s kind of like “presumptuous,” maybe. Question: Rinpoche, I have a question about chittamatra and the eighth consciousness. I’m wondering about how we take in new information. I’ll use the example of coming to the teachings. If there is no “out there,” and all experience is mind, my belief that I got on a plane and I came here and I heard teachings that I had not heard before is inaccurate. These were latencies in the eighth consciousness that emerged. I’m wondering how we then take in new information? Rinpoche: The mind only school asserts that everything we experience is the display of habit, but the habits or imprints are of two types: those that are of the nature of bewilderment, and those that are counteractive to bewilderment. Those that are counteractive to bewilderment, that are imprints that are not of the nature of ignorance—it is hard even to call them imprints— they are the emergence of qualities of buddha nature, which qualities and which nature are held to be intrinsic to all beings. What this means is that buddha nature, which is the potential for awakening, is also the potential for all manner of virtues and qualities, because the root of these qualities is already present within us. Buddha nature is obscured by ignorance, causing us to experience in the bewildered way that we do. Under the power of ignorance we experience all sorts of things—places, and things, and so forth. In a situation where you appear to be acquiring wholly new information that is counteractive to ignorance—for example, like learning dharma or something like that—it is held that this is the awakening of buddha nature, and therefore the partial display of its qualities, which you experience as the acquisition of new information. Same questioner: How does that acquisition of new information relate to the consciousnesses?

Rinpoche: Well, this plants new habits, further imprints, and reinforces the potential for awakening as well. Many people say to me that they are disappointed with the result of dharma practice, because they expect an immediate and dramatic change of some kind. Their attitude is one of two: If I have not attained awakening in a few years, then I have been wasting my time. If it is going to work, it should work immediately or, if it does not, then it is not working at all. I think that this expectation comes from your educational system. [laughter] You go to college and within three or four years, one hopes, you get a degree, and, if you do not, you have failed. It somehow did not work. So you have an attitude of either pass or fail. This means that you expect buddhahood to be imminent and, if it does not happen right away, you feel that it is just not working. It is important to understand, however, the context in which dharma practice occurs and how it affects you. If someone practices a tremendous amount and does change very quickly, of course, that is fantastic. But even if you practice only a little bit, everything that you do establishes and reinforces habitual imprints in your mind. Those habitual imprints are never lost. Therefore, there is no way that dharma practice can ever be a failure, because, however little of it you do and however little you feel that you have changed, you have established some kinds of habits that will continue to develop on their own through time just as a seed in a fertile environment will produce a sprout whether you observe its doing so or not. Therefore, even people who think that they have not achieved much through dharma practice are, in my opinion, very fortunate.

Time’s up! [laughter] [[[Rinpoche]] and students dedicate the merit.]