Great compassion and nondual awareness

• Different forms of Manjushri and their benefits
• The three causes of bodhisattvas
  • Compassion
  • Bodhicitta
  • Nondual Awareness
• Bodhisattva paths
• Practitioners paths
  • Sharp and Dull (modest) practitioners
  • Practitioners of the fundamental vehicle
• Meditation on dependent arising and the realization of emptiness.

Different forms of Manjushri and their benefits

By the way, there are different forms of Manjushri. The one that we’re doing is Manjushri Arapacana. There’s youthful Manjushri, who looks similarly with the sword, but he holds the text here. (Her hand is at her heart). And I find that very beautiful image of holding the prajnaparamita text to your heart. There’s a white Manjushri, a black Manjushri, and the wrathful form of Manjushri is Yamāntaka. If you need somebody to put you in your place, Yamāntaka will do it. He doesn’t mess around. And it said he’s the destroyer of death in the sense that he destroys ignorance. Ignorance, of course, is the cause for birth which is the cause for death. We love sharp weapons. If you remember, I don’t know if you do or not. We’ve talked about it the last two Memorial Day retreats but never mind. That was invoking Yamāntaka Vajrabhairava at the beginning, and that’s a very, very powerful practice. Some people are very afraid of the wrathful-looking deities, they think, “they are a monster, and they are gonna attack me”. From a Buddhist viewpoint, the real monster that’s attacking us is our ignorance and our afflictions. It’s not the fierce-looking deities. The fierce-looking deities are not fierce or wrathful against living beings. They show that aspect to the defilements, to the afflictions. When you’re doing that practice, you know, and your mind starts getting tangled up. Anybody here know what it’s like to have a mind that’s tangled up? Either a tangled up mind or a mind in a speed car race going (fast) Yamāntaka comes, cuts in there, and goes stop, and you stop. The practice of that deity is not messing around and, oh, you know, it would really be so much better if you didn’t ruminate and have so many opinions. It would be so much better, you should try cultivating a kind heart. I know that’s difficult. Because you are so kind, but other sentient beings don’t appreciate you. I know that. No, that’s not Yamāntaka’s style. He just goes straight to the point. Cut it. You know, from having looked at your mind, yes, that’s exactly what I need to do; cut it right there. So quite useful. He looks really wrathful. If you met him in a dark alley, I don’t know. Your self-centered mind might get scared and run away.

Yesterday, we talked about compassion. What is compassion? What isn’t compassion? And especially how the mind has to have wisdom to have really clear compassion, and the mind also has to be courageous because compassion means doing what is best at that time to help sentient beings be free from long-term suffering. As we know from our own experience, when sometimes, when people give us advice or suggestions, and we’re stuck in our own mindset, we get mad at them. Why are you giving me advice? I didn’t ask for this. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and we tune them out and dismiss what they’re saying. Did you know that? Yeah. And you know, what is it? The kettle calling the pot black? Or the frying pan not black? You don’t know that one. Okay, if you’re cooking over a wooden stove, your kettle gets really black with the soot from the burning wood, and so does the pot cooking on a stove. So if the kettle is calling the pot dirty, that doesn’t make much sense because the kettle itself is dirty. It’s like calling somebody a name, but that name actually applies to you. There’s from frying pan into the fire. Do you know that one? (Audience inaudible and laughter.) From the frying pan into the fire is you’re in a bad situation in the frying pan, but you jump into the fire, which is a worse situation because of your own stupidity. (Audience inaudible and laughter.)

With compassion, you need to be very courageous because people will sometimes get mad at you. You have to say no sometimes. You have to call somebody out with compassion, but they get mad because all they can hear is somebody criticizing them, somebody who is involved in their business who should mind their own business. So when you are a bodhisattva, you have to be okay with people dismissing you, calling you names, and not listening to you. You know you have to be courageous, and that way that you know your poor, fragile ego is not falling apart. Hopefully, by that time, as you’re progressing on the bodhisattva path, you have more selflessness and the wisdom of it and the sensitivity to these things. The courage to endure these things and to feel completely okay with what you’re doing. You feel completely okay because you’ve had good motivation. You have thought about what you’re doing with wisdom, and it’s not a knee-jerk reaction. Somebody who’s doing this, so immediately tell them, “Don’t do that”. It comes from an acute sensitivity to where people are, and of course, once you gain samadhi, deep samadhi, then to be able to know people’s karma and their disposition. And then you really have the ability to say the right thing at the right time. Here, right means the ability to get through to somebody else. It’s very helpful to think when somebody criticizes us or somebody lashes out or something like that, to think I’m a bodhisattva want-to-be, I want to have the bodhisattva’s qualities. So what this person is doing right now, is preparing me and helping me strengthen my mind. So that when I become an actual bodhisattva, I can manage these kinds of pushbacks without, you know, going away whimpering and in tears because some sentient being told me to be quiet. You can see that bodhicitta is not for wimps. Bodhicitta is not always so compassionate, you poor baby let me give you a pacifier and make it all better. That’s not what compassion is about because, technically, you know how we’re defining it, it is wanting sentient beings to be free of dukkha and its causes. So it’s not being defined as suffering with others, is not being defined as coddling others. This involves doing what is appropriate at that moment. And sometimes, to help somebody in the long term, you have to do what they don’t like in the short term.

The story I always tell regarding this was one that somebody told me. I can’t remember who now, but he was telling me that when he was a teenager, he was always getting into trouble and sometimes would get arrested by the police, and then Mom would go down to juvie, talk to the judge and plead with the judge and get her son released or pay the fine for whatever he did. Whatever was required to get him out of juvenile hall, she did that. Then one time, you know, he got arrested. I don’t know for what, and he’s in juvie, and he goes before the judge in the court. His mom is there, and his mom says to the judge, “Judge, this time you keep him. I can’t handle him anymore.” Now, can you imagine how he felt after mom had rescued him from so much misery? Who wants to be in juvie, and now mom is saying, you know, I can’t do anything with you; you stay here. The judge will handle you. And he told me that’s when he realized he had to change. That all the time that mom rescued him, he just went on doing what he was doing, but when mom said you stay there, he realized, okay, I’m responsible. And if I want to be different, I have to be different. So I’m sure that was very hard on mom. No mother wants to see her child imprisoned, but that’s what she did because for him, it was the best thing in the long run. Even though initially he was shocked and disappointed and maybe even angry. That kind of thing, I think they call it tough love, but you have to really be sure that it’s done with love and compassion and not just the tough part.

The three causes of bodhisattvas

So we’ll continue on with Chandrakirti’s compassion, homage to great compassion. So Let’s read the verses again. It’s good to go through them and remember what we’re talking about.

The hearers and solitary realizers arise from the excellent sages (Buddhas);
The excellent sages are born from bodhisattvas;
The compassionate mind and the non-dual awareness,
As well as bodhichitta—these are the causes of bodhisattvas.

Compassion alone is seen as the seed
Of a victors’s rich harvest, as water that nourishes it,
And as the ripened fruit that is the source of long enjoyment,
Therefore, at the start I praise compassion.

Like a paddle wheel in motion, migrators have no autonomy;
First, with the thought “I,” they cling to a self;
Then, with the thought “mine,” they become attached to things;
I bow to this compassion that cares for migrators.

Homage to that compassion for migrators
Seen as evanescent fluctuating and empty of inherent existence
Like the reflection of the moon in rippling water.
The compassionate mind and the non-dual awareness,
As well as bodhicitta—these are the causes of bodhisattvas.

Did we hand out the sheet with the verses printed on them? Okay, that is because I thought it would be a good exercise for people to go downstairs and write out the first verses yourself. When I was studying in India, forget photocopy machines. Everything you wanted, you copied out by hand. It was good because then you had to pay attention to it or at your writing. You had to go through and proofread and make sure you got the words correct. When you have to exert some effort for something, it means much more than if it’s given to you on a platter, like the one sole strawberry.

We’re at another section now, which is the three principal causes of bodhisattvas. That starts – actually, it’s in the first verse itself; it’s in the last two lines. So Chandrakirti continues, the mind of compassion, non-dual awareness, and bodhicitta, these are the causes of bodhisattvas. And so I think I went through this yesterday, that it was coming from Nagarjuna’s verse in Precious Garland, which is always good to hear again. Precious Garland is very precious.

If you in the world wish to attain unparalleled awakening,
its roots are the altruistic aspiration to awakening,
firm like the monarch of mountains,
compassion reaching to all corridors
and wisdom not relying on duality.

Okay, so he’s putting it to us. If you in the world wish to attain unparalleled awakening. So you got to stop there and think, is this what I want? Yeah. Or do I maybe want to become an arhat, just attain liberation? Or I am doing quite well in samsara, and things are going well now and you know, I’ll just hang out at samsara for a while longer and practice renunciation when things get tough. How many people say yes, I’m totally dedicated to the path. And then yeah, a few months later, a year later, whatever, their mind has shifted. Usually through the power of distraction. Both Chandrakirti and Nagarjuna are setting out three causes of bodhisattvas. So the compassion for each and every sentient being throughout space is the first one. Compassion that goes to everybody. I don’t care if Republicans or Democrats are pro-life or pro or anti-abortion or any of these things. Our compassion has to go to everybody. You know, people who believe in Q-anon, people who don’t. Everything, all these things. Not only with human beings but with animals, having a wish to free animals from their suffering. And not just animals, but the pretas, the hungry ghosts, the hell beings, the people in the god realms, everybody, so it’s got to be a really big mind. So that’s the first cause, that kind of compassion.

The second one is non-dual understanding. And here, what the duality it is free from is the two extremes of absolutism and nihilism. So absolutism is when we are grasping inherent existence. So that’s an extreme because inherent existence doesn’t exist, but we’re seeing everything as if it inherently existed or truly exists by its own side. All these terms are synonymous. And nihilism. So nihilism is saying, well, nothing exists, or it’s saying things exist, but karma and its effects doesn’t exist. So there’s no ethical results, our actions have no ethical aspect to them. As long as we do something and don’t get caught, we are okay, a lot of people think like that. Maybe even some of us a few years ago. What do you think? I thought like that for a good chunk of time. Okay, that’s the second one.

And then the third one is conventional bodhicitta. The primary mind that seeks to work for the benefit of all sentient beings and aspires to attain full awakening in order to do that most effectively. These three are said to be the causes for a new bodhisattva. In other words, one who is just now generating bodhicitta and entering the Mahayana path of accumulation. We’re gonna get into more depth about these three.

Bodhisattva paths

The first one, let’s go back to the mind of compassion. So that is a cause of bodhisattvas. So, I think I mentioned yesterday that many Mahayana authors say compassion, but they actually mean Great Compassion. They may do this in order to keep the meter of the verses intact, or who knows but when you’re reading a Mahayana text, and they’re talking about bodhisattvas’ compassion, it should be Great Compassion. This is the Great Compassion that finds sentient beings’ dukkha unbearable and wants to alleviate it and lead them to Nirvana. So when it finds sentient beings’ dukkha unbearable, usually when we find something unbearable, what happens? We scream. We cry. We have a fit. We panic. We run around in circles. That’s not the behavior of these almost bodhisattvas or the ones who have attained the first Mahayana path. Unbearable means that they can’t just hang around and enjoy their own samsara and think of themselves and ignore other sentient beings or say, “You know, I’d help you but first of all, you know, you gotta get your act together. So, you know, come back later and I’ll help you when you’re more together.” It’s not that kind of unbearable. How we often react when we see something that’s unbearable.

Yesterday we were talking about going to visit Aunt Ethel when she’s in the hospital and how seeing a person you know, Aunt Ethel, with dementia, her body’s falling apart, and she’s approaching death, and she doesn’t recognize you. And yet she was your favorite aunt, who took really good care of you when you were a little kid. And now this person you knew so well, who loved you, who you loved, you don’t know who they are anymore, they’re totally different. So some people see somebody they care about in that shape, and they find it unbearable, and that’s why they don’t want to be near that person. Because it arouses fear and dread of, “that may happen to me too”. Okay, but you can see that kind of unbearable generates in the person who’s observing it, personal distress, and then whose suffering is mattering the most to them at that moment? Their own suffering from having to see Aunt Ethal like this, okay? Whereas with Great Compassion, the focus is always on the other person and freeing them from suffering, not getting so overwhelmed by seeing their suffering that we can’t function. Okay.

Okay, so Kamalasila. Okay, so I should say, this Great Compassion finds the suffering unbearable, and wants to alleviate it and lead them to Nirvana. So this Great Compassion, which is possessed only by bodhisattvas, is a cause of bodhicitta. And does that sound right to you? Okay, it’s a compassion that is possessed only by bodhisattvas. It’s the cause of bodhicitta, but aren’t bodhisattvas people who have bodhicitta? So if this compassion is already possessed by a bodhisattva, they should have generated bodhicitta before, which means they should have had Great Compassion before. So what’s the story here? Okay, just sit with that for a minute. Are you getting what the puzzle is? Okay, so Kamalasila tells us when you have committed yourself to being a guide for all living beings by conditioning yourself to Great Compassion, you effortlessly generate bodhicitta, which has the nature of aspiring to unexcelled perfect awakening. How is that a cause for bodhicitta? If it’s only possessed by bodhisattvas, and bodhisattvas have already gained bodhicitta. Not going to tell you the answer right away.

Let’s go on to the second one. We don’t understand that one. Skip it. It’s hard. Let’s go on to the second line. Okay. His Holiness always tells us when we study that we shouldn’t be like an old person with no teeth who chews only the soft stuff and spits out the hard stuff. Well, we just were spitting out the hard stuff. Temporarily here. Okay. So, the second cause of bodhisattvas is nondual understanding. Okay. So here a question arises, too. First someone generates bodhicitta and becomes a bodhisattva. Then, she trains in the Six Perfections. But only when she practices the Perfection of Wisdom does she gain the wisdom free from the two extremes. So how can nondual understanding be a cause for a bodhisattva when it is developed after one has already become a bodhisattva? Because causes always need to come before their effects. They don’t come after. So, this is how the path is usually laid out. Right? You know, if you look at the lamrim, first generate bodhicitta, you become a bodhisattva, then you engage in the Six Perfections. The sixth perfection is the perfection of intelligence or wisdom. That’s when you gain the nondual understanding, but the nondual understanding is supposed to be a cause of your being a bodhisattva from the get go but here you’ve already been one for a while. So what’s the story? Okay, you see another puzzle here.

The puzzle is how can nondual understanding be a cause for a bodhisattva when it is developed after one has already become a bodhisattva. It’s like saying, How can flour be a cause of this cake after I’ve already baked the cake? Yeah, the flour isn’t the cause of the cake after you’ve already baked the cake. Okay, so the nondual understanding that Chandrakirti is referring to here is not an arya wisdom directly realizing emptiness. So when we practice the Six Perfections, when the six perfections is actualized, then there’s the nondual direct perception of emptiness and that direct perception of emptiness is the nonduality. There is not just free of absolutism and nihilism but it’s free of the duality of subject and object appearing distinct, free of the duality of the appearance of inherent existence, free of the duality of the appearance of conventional objects.

So nonduality can have several kinds of meanings. The direct realization of emptiness is free from all those kinds of duality. So it’s realized when one has already become an arya. When we study the bodhisattva path, what are the five paths? First one? Path of accumulation, path of preparation, path of seeing, path of meditation, and path of no more learning. At which point do you have the direct nonconceptual realization of emptiness? Path of seeing. To enter the path of seeing, you have to have that. On path of preparation you have to have the inferential realization of bodhicitta. Path of accumulation you may or may not have the inferential realization. Path of accumulation, one may or may not have the inferential realization of emptiness. When Chandrakirti is talking about nondual wisdom being the cause of bodhicitta here, he’s not talking about it being the aryas’ wisdom that directly and non conceptually realized is emptiness. He’s talking instead about a conceptual realization of emptiness and specifically here the realization of nonduality cultivated by a practitioner with sharp faculties prior to their becoming a bodhisattva.

Practitioner paths

You may have heard them talk about sharp and dull faculties. Disciples with sharp and dull faculties. Disciples with sharp faculties gain an inferential realization of emptiness before they generate bodhicitta because they want to know that attaining awakening is possible. They want to know that it’s possible to attain awakening, and to know it’s possible you have to know that the afflictions can be eliminated and the other defilements can be eliminated. To know that, you have to have an understanding of emptiness. Particularly here, an inferential realization of emptiness because a realization of emptiness is the direct counterforce to ignorance. Why? Because ignorance grasps things as inherently existent. The realization of emptiness that wisdom grasps, holds things, perceives things as empty of inherent existence. So, it’s the exact opposite of ignorance. So when that mind of wisdom is realized, and it is cultivated over time then it is able to totally overpower the ignorance and eliminate the ignorance from the mind. Yeah, when the ignorance is eliminated, all the afflictions are cut. When the afflictions are cut, the karma created motivated by those afflictions is also cut. So, it’s possible to attain liberation. Not instantly, you have to practice for a long time. It’s not like I got a realization of emptiness, and by tomorrow all those afflictions are going to be gone. No. The afflictions have been with us since beginningless time it’s going to take more than a day or two to overpower them. But that wisdom is the agent that does that.

The practitioner with sharp faculties, they want to know, “is it possible to attain awakening or not?” Yeah, because if it’s not possible, well, then why, you know, spend all that time generating bodhicitta and doing all the other practices? So, that person hasn’t yet entered the Mahayana path of accumulation, the first path, but they meditate a lot on emptiness and gain that inferential realization of emptiness. That does not mean that they only meditate on that wisdom and they don’t practice bodhicitta and they don’t practice renunciation and all the other things. Because if they did that, then they didn’t have some connection with bodhicitta and just gain that realization of emptiness, they might enter the sravaka or solitary realizer path. So they have some familiarity with bodhicitta. They haven’t generated it fully yet, but they have that aspiration. They have that connection and they have respect and appreciation for bodhicitta. When they have the inferential realization of emptiness, then they know, it’s possible to eliminate the afflictions and the defilements so now I can go ahead and generate bodhicitta and enter the Mahayana path of accumulation and progress through the five Mahayana paths, because now I know that it’s possible to attain awakening.

So, before having that inferential realization, if you remember from when we studied Lorig, what’s the kind of understanding or not understanding? What’s the kind of cognizer before that? A correct assumption. A correct assumption says, yeah, that sounds kind of right. I don’t really understand it but it sounds right. There’s many levels of correct assumption that go from I believe that because the Buddha said it. I believe it because my teacher said it and I don’t need to think any more about it. It goes from there to you know, really trying to gain an inference, and everything in between.

So we are still talking about the sharp faculty disciples. They have an inferential realization of emptiness. Then they generate bodhicitta. Then they enter the Mahayana path. One other point about inferential realization – it is non dual in the sense of it’s free from absolutism and nihilism but it still has the appearance of subject and object, so it’s not free from all elaborations or all duality.

Chandrakirti spoke of nondual awareness as the second of the three causes and bodhicitta as the third cause, because he was speaking primarily of sharp faculty disciples. Now what about the modest faculty disciples? They’re usually called dull faculty. That’s a little bit pejorative. I think modest faculty is better. In other words, the dum dums, like us. I don’t know about you, maybe I’m just talking about myself. So it’s the people who you know that go, “Emptiness, yeah, it sounds great, but it is so hard to meditate on that, and I don’t really understand it. And then I meditate and see there’s no I, and I go so what? So you know, how does that do anything?” It doesn’t affect my mind, but I believe because I’m supposed to. Sound familiar? Modest faculty disciples accept the emptiness of inherent existence, and they accept the existence of Nirvana, because they have faith in the Buddha or in their spiritual mentor. We’re told faith is good. That’s an important aspect of the path, but here, these guys have faith, but they’re still in the dum dum category. We should only be as dum dum as they are, as they are very highly advanced. Some scholars – we’re talking about the modest faculty bodhisattvas now – some scholars say that they generate bodhicitta become bodhisattvas by entering the Mahayana path, and then they gain the inferential understanding of emptiness.

So, unlike the sharp faculty who realize emptiness inferentially first and then generate bodhicitta, these guys, you know, have compassion. Then they generate bodhicitta. Then they buckle down and meditate on emptiness. Other scholars say that although the modest faculty bodhisattvas are called bodhisattvas, they’re not full fledged bodhisattvas because actually, they haven’t yet entered the Mahayana path. So they disagree with the first ones. They haven’t entered the Mahayana path because they don’t have the conviction that liberation is possible and that conviction comes from the realization of emptiness. The faith that you have after you have even an inferential realization of emptiness is so much greater and so much different than before you have that realization. Because when you have had – you’re convinced. You’re absolutely sure the afflictions, the defilements can be eliminated, and enlightenment can be attained. Before you have the realization of emptiness, it’s at the “sounds good and I hope to really get it one day” level. They’re actually much higher than we are. We’re the dum dum of dum dums. Maybe the dum dum of the dum dums of the dum dums.

So the second group says, only when they have gained the inferential realization do they become an actual bodhisattva. So one group says they generate bodhicitta they become a bodhisattva and then the modest faculty realize gain an inferential understanding of emptiness. The second group says that they go back, but they still stay as an ordinary being, because they have to gain the inferential realization of emptiness first, and then they generate bodhicitta and then they enter the Mahayana path. So it’s just flipping the order there. Then also a very interesting thing is, there can be practitioners who hold the Yogacara view or the Chittamatra view, who have generated bodhichitta. So they hold the Yogacara view, they meditate on Great Compassion, they want to become buddhas. But although they may be called bodhisattvas, they are not actual bodhisattvas because they don’t have the nondual understanding of emptiness because they don’t have the Prasangika view. So there are many ways to go about it. You can even enter the tantric path with the Yogacara view, but at a certain point because you don’t have the Prasangika view of emptiness, you reach a block and you have to go back and gain that realization.

The question, also, what about sravaka and solitary realizers? Don’t they need the same nondual realization of emptiness? Either inferential and then followed by direct. Don’t they need that? And what kind of view of emptiness do they hold? When we study tenants, the first two tenant groups of Vaibhashika and the Sautantrika, because those are the fundamental vehicle people. How are they going to generate bodhicitta? How are they even going to generate the right realization of emptiness? They don’t have the Prasangika view. They believe that their understanding of the selflessness of persons. They don’t negate enough. They don’t even assert a selflessness of phenomena. So how can you say that the hearers and solitary realizers can even enter their own paths? Because you need that kind of realization. You know, according to the Prasangika view. So then why? Does that mean that if you strive for arhatship, you’re never gonna get it, because you’re following a tenant system that is not the Middle Way system? It’s not the Prasangika system, so you don’t have the actual realization of emptiness. So you can’t even attain arhatship and liberation. So all our friends who practice in that tradition they’re not going to get anywhere. They’re going to stay in samsara. Is that the story?

When you’re studying tenants, when you talk about somebody being a fundamental vehicle practitioner or a follower of the fundamental vehicle, there are two ways you can be a follower of the fundamental vehicle. One is according to which tenant system you hold. So if you hold the Vaibhashika or Sautrantika system, you’re a follower of the fundamental vehicle, according to the tenant system. Okay, but that’s not going to get you to liberation. There’s another way to be a follower of the fundamental vehicle, and that is in terms of your motivation. So if you have that motivation, your attitude, all sravakas and solitary realizers, at least at the beginning, their aspiration is for liberation, so they all have that. And if they have that, then they will seek out the correct view, which according to the Prasangika is the Prasangika view. Did I get it right? I was talking in terms of entering the bodhisattva vehicle. You can hold a tenant system according to what you believe is selflessness and also according to your motivation, and particularly, if you are aspiring to be a bodhisattva, you can have the compassion and the bodhicitta but still adhere to the Vaibhashika or Sautrantika viewpoint. Is that clear, like mud? What it does is it shakes our rigid conception that sometimes you find amongst people who adhere to Mahayana who look down on the fundamental vehicle and say, “Oh, those people don’t even realize emptiness.” But that’s not true. They do realize emptiness. So even though they are a fundamental vehicle follower who aspires for liberation, they still realize emptiness according to the Prasangika view because, without that realization of emptiness, there’s no way to eliminate the ignorance, this route of samsara. Without eliminating that you can’t even become an arhat, let alone a buddha. Okay, everybody got it?

Audience member: Yeah, will they learn the process, the correct view if they’ve got teachers that are Vaibhashikas that are arhats?

Venerable Chodron: There are within the Pali suttas. There are many passages that actually explain the Prasangika view and show the people from the Prasangika tenant system can locate those passages. In fact, they are in the last chapter of volume eight. And it’s really astounding when you know, because you may study Mahayana for a while and you think those people are very selfish and they don’t have the right view of emptiness. Then you look at the Pali scriptures, and some of the things that are said, the quotations in there, and they’re just like Nagarjuna. So you’re wondering where is all this discrimination coming from? Or you hear, “Oh, you know, they don’t have bodhicitta. They’re selfish.” And, and that is really, totally uncalled for. How many people adhere to Mahayana but are also quite selfish?

I’ll give you one example. I was invited to Singapore to teach a long time ago. And one center invited me to come and it’s traditional that if you invite somebody to come you pay the ticket, and they said that they would and you know, so I went, and I was teaching at their center and then in Singapore, I tend to teach a lot of different centers. I was at their center and other centers, and they didn’t give me – they didn’t reimburse me for the ticket. And you know, I don’t have a lot of money, and they said, “No, we’re not going to reimburse you.” So this is the Mahayana group, the people with great compassion who are going to be buddhas. No, we’re not going to reimburse you. Show one day. I always teach at the Buddhist library in Singapore, and that is run – it’s operated by one Theravadan monk who was just – he’s wonderful. Bantay Gunaratana, and so I went to visit. I always just go, and we were talking. And then he said to me, “I hear that you’re having trouble with your ticket.” And I said, mmm, and he pulled out an envelope full of money for reimbursing the ticket. This is the Theravada people. It’s a good story, isn’t it? So I mean, the moral of the story is: Don’t get arrogant. Don’t be condescending towards other people. Anyway, that’s that story. I was floored. I was totally floored. It’s like, how in the world did he know that the other center said that weren’t going to reimburse it? And then he just did that on his own, and it was a flight from here to Singapore round trip. It’s not cheap.

Meditation on dependent arising and the realization of emptiness

How it works is – just talking very briefly here. If you meditate on dependence, and how things are dependent, like functioning things are dependent on causes and conditions. Everything’s dependent on parts, things are dependent on being conceived by the mind and being given a term or a name to identify them. So, when you see that things exist, in dependence, in dependence (two words) towards other factors, from there, you can know that they aren’t inherently existent. Because inherent existence means it doesn’t depend on anything else. It is self-instituting. It exists from its own side, that doesn’t need anything else to exist. So if something were inherently existent, you know, it would have to exist like that. When you realize that things are dependent then you realize that things are empty of inherent existence.

This whole thing takes time. It isn’t just you know, one meditation on dependent arising and then you realize emptiness. It’s repeated. When you understand emptiness well, you of course, know that things are dependent. You know that things lack being independent and if they aren’t independent, they must be dependent. So when you realize emptiness, then you know things are dependent. So, the realization of emptiness goes in the other direction. It dawns as the meaning of dependent arising. So that’s how dependent arising and emptiness, they converge. They come to the same point even though they’re two different things.

Audience member: You were saying in your talk that what happens when you meditate on emptiness? My answer is that attachment is reduced. Am I correct?

Venerable Chodron: Yes, then by meditating on emptiness repeatedly and cutting the grasping at inherent existence, then all the afflictions which depend on the ignorance that grasp inherent existence, all those afflictions can’t stand anymore, because you’ve pulled out their root. This material requires some thought. Okay, you need to think about it to understand how everything fits together. So put some energy into that. Unless of course, you’ve realized emptiness and it’s all crystal clear to start with. But if all you have is a correct assumption, because it kind of sounds good, but you don’t really know what emptiness is, and you don’t really know what dependent arising is. And it’s good to think about these things.