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Buddhist Hour
Radio Broadcast on Hillside 88.0 FM
Script 360 for Sunday 19
December 2004CE
2547 Buddhist Era
This script is
titled:
Personal Self Habit, Phenomenal Self Habit. (Part Two)
We continue today in our series of
readings from transcriptions of recorded Buddha Dhamma teachings
given by John D Hughes at the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey)
Ltd.
The series called Personal Self Habit, Phenomenal Self
Habit was taught during a five day meditation course held at the
Centre in June 1988.
The authors apologise for any errors or
misunderstandings that may have occurred in the process of
transcribing the talks from the original audio tape recording.
We
begin with the story of the man and the imagined snake as an analogy
to the desires, memories, and all the mental phenomena, that are like
a snake imagined, you know like, often they say 'you see a rope you
think it's a snake'.
The story goes like this: There's a guy
that came into the pub [hotel] shaking, he said, “give us a
beer”.
He [the publican] said, “You look upset.
What happened?” He said “I was walking along the road...and
I stood on a stick...and I thought it was a big snake”. He [the
publican] said “Well, why did that upset you?' He said 'that
didn't upset me, but I picked up a stick to kill this imagined snake
with and I made an error, the stick I picked up was a snake”. So
that’s why he was shattered.
So like a snake imagined in
a rope, in so far as they are mentally constructed, while not
existing objectively, we imagine something in error, because our
personal self habit strikes the phenomenal self habit and they
together constitute miss-knowledge.
So if you get someone who
is fearful, like paranoid, it doesn't matter where you put them,
every... their paranoia mind, their personal self habit mind of that
type, strikes the phenomenal self habit, the outside world, and
produces fearsome things. So for example: If they were walking along,
say the back of a house and there was a piece of pipe say on the
roof, the paranoid person would look at the piece of pipe and think
it is a gun barrel. Someone is aiming a gun at me.
Their
paranoia mind, their mis-knowledge mind. Very bad, very bad....would
strike the reality of the piece of metal pipe and instead of saying
that is a piece of metal pipe, would see a gun barrel.
Then
the paranoid person runs up to someone and says “there is a man
on the roof with a gun aimed at me”. The same man then takes
this mad man back, takes him to the roof where he saw the bit of
pipe, picks up the bit of pipe and shows him. “This is a bit of
pipe, it is not a gun barrel”.
Now depending on the
intentional action of the past...the paranoid person will say 'you
are duping me...I really did see a man with a gun. And you are in
this conspiracy too.'
One of the funny things if you like, if
you've got a sense of humour, its funny from my viewpoint but its not
funny from the paranoid persons viewpoint, is that paranoid people
I've met tell me of hundreds and hundreds of people who conspire
together and they are really out to kill them.
And when I say
to the paranoid person 'how do you think all these hundreds of people
who are out to get you, who pays them, how do they live?
And
then they say 'they pay them'...and I say...'well...you
know...professional gunman might, you know, might charge $5000
dollars a week.
And professional phone tappers might charge
$2000 dollars a week and I add them all together and....you know....
you can say it, so the net result of all these people persecuting you
is people are spending a million dollars a week to come and get you.
Why are you so valuable that people would waste that sort of
money?”
Of course if anyone's got any sense of humour,
their sense of humour might break their paranoia.
You know
the old quote: “just because you're paranoid don't think they're
not out to get you.”
Now the phenomenal self habit of the
samsara has no intention. It is empty of any intention. And
similarly, when you sit in Sunyata, the Sphere of Nothingness, you
might realise that the karmic return of your personal self habit is
also empty, Sunyata, empty of any intention.
But the personal
self habit striking the phenomenal self habit is like a steal and a
flint stone will produce a spark ...you're fascinated with the spark.
Stop looking at the phenomena and look at the personal self
habit. It is empty of phenomena. Empty. It is empty of phenomena.
However that, not knowing it to be empty.
If something is
empty of phenomena, empty of intention, your own, your own personal
self habit karmically returning to your vipaka, empty of intention
comes and strikes the samsara, the phenomenal self habit which has
its own forms.
If empty strikes empty, the phenomena, the
sparks themselves are like an accident, they themselves are empty.
There's two empty things striking together must produce an empty
phenomena.
So this world is a mental construct.
Chandrakirti comments that this means the worlds are not
objectively established but merely constructed by conceptual thought.
Conceptual thought, the one you can think of is your personal self
habit thought.
Again Ariyadeva states in his “Four
Hundred” since there is nothing [existent] in desires and so on,
whatever mental objects re-appear, there's nothing existent without
mental constructs.
What intelligent person adheres to so
called true objects? There is no true objects in the mental...there's
nothing true because they're empty, empty of self, empty of function,
empty of desire and so on.
And the clashing of your personal
self habit, which is your vipaka, the clashing of that, the
unskillful hitting of that on the phenomenal self habit, on the
samsara, the outside world... naturally produces something. It must
produce something. Because when two things come together, as the
Buddha points out, once you get contact, phasa [pali language],
contact, things arise.
So they're like a snake, that the
phenomena that you place so much importance in is like a snake
imagined in a rope. And similarly the very personal self habits are
equally empty. They have no use anywhere. They're useless. The
outside samsara is useless...because it goes its way. Your personal
self habits are useless and yet the two strike together, there must
be some phenomena.
You're so fascinated with the phenomena.
Bring your attention back to the stream of personal self habit which
is your vipaka, the kammic return and examine that.
So ...like
a snake imagined in a rope.... in so far as they are mentally
constructed while not existing objectively, they have no inherent
existence. No inherent existence.
As existence itself goes
only with mental construction since a rupa form has no existence, it
is just rupa ...existence, the becoming, the becoming, the becoming
this becoming that, the striking again and again, the ever changing
phenomena, that great kaleidoscope of events which you call my life,
my life, my happiness, my events, my this my that. That...has no
objective status in things because it’s not rupa. Just like a
snake imagined in a striped rope.
This teaching is on Buddha,
Dhamma, Sangha.
Buddha, Dhamma Sangha Teaching – not
anything else, not anything else. This is Buddha Teaching. It's based
on teachings of Tsong-ka-pa. And it's the method of determining the
view.
The identification of afflictional mis-knowledge and it
appears from the personal self-habit, which is the vipaka using the
Pali, (kammic return) and phenomenal self habit of the Samsara. The
two strike together and produce a phenomena which fascinates you.
You['re] arms length ... ignore the phenomena of the
striking, like a stone strikes on a flint and gets a spark, ignore
the spark. Direct your attention to the two things, but the one we
are looking at now is the personal self habit, the vipakic return
which comes empty ..... if you've been following.
Nargajuna
states in his philosophical Sixty "the perfect Buddhas do
declare mis-knowledge is the condition for the world, so why should
it be wrong to say that the world is a mental construct?"
It's
quite reasonable to say that the world is a mental construct. And
Chandrakirti comments that this means that the worlds are not
objectively established but merely constructed by conceptual thought.
And again, Ariyadeva states in his 'Four-Hundred', “Since there
is nothing exist[ing] in desires and so on, without mental
constructs, what intelligent person adheres to true objects and
constructs?" They are in quotes.
There are no true
objects in the world because they are empty. So for example, to go
back to our example of the waterfall. The water is empty of any
wisdom, it is empty of any intention. Now a true object would be pure
wisdom mind. The purpose of this meditation is bringing you to
omniscience.
For this purpose the past is real, the vast
quantity of past, the future is real, the vast quantity future yet to
come. Whereas the present is just one tick, tick, tick, tick ... the
striking of the personal self habit with the phenomenal Samsara self
habit.
So like a snake, imagined a striped rope, we mislabel
these phenomena.
Now when you strike one mind against
something you get fuzz or contact, something must appear.
If
you study the law of dependent origination you will realize that is
happening all the time. But don't be interested in what appears from
the striking of the blow. Be interested ... we are going to do both
sides, but at this point we want to focus on the personal self habit
which is just a karmic stream, your karmic stream.
Now it's
the results of good and bad, or unwholesome or wholesome karma that
makes our lives different. Our lives are different apparently.
Because your streams are your streams because you've had different
grabbings, different graspings.
And out of that grabbing
which has been going on for an infinite time. Past is real, future is
real. This present is unreal, it is just where the past karma
strikes, the future karma is formed.
The reasons, these
reasons of talking about imagined things, these reasons bring out the
mode of the habitual sense of truth status ... it brings out the,
[it] negates the things that are not to be attended too.
Which
is the habitual notion that it is not merely imposed by force of
beginingless mental constructions. The infinite past is real. Never
had a beginning in time, always been mental construct, mental
construct, clang, clang, clang, clang, ding, ding, ding, ding ...
producing phenomena and then the phenomena produced in itself becomes
a cause for the future.
So you've got to establish upon
objects as to their own objectivity. The presumed conceptual object
of that habit pattern, the presumed conceptual object, the thing that
appears from striking the personal self habit against the phenomenal
... against the Samsara self habit.
The stuff that forms,
whatever that mental, mentally, mental construct is, is called the
self. In other words you strike the flint against the stone and the
spark you call the self, or the intrinsic reality.
But behind
the self can be anything at all, you can have any phenomena.
You
can hit the stones in any way and you will shower with different
coloured sparks maybe ...and the error was that you presumed that the
sparks formed were a self. My self, himself, herself. Or self is
real, spark is real. But the sparking occurs in the present driven by
the infinite real past creating the infinite real future. The present
is unreal.
In reality there is this phenomena of habitual
striking, hitting, touching, contact. You never, ever constrained to
stop the contact. You've got to constrain the self habit. You don't
have to constrain the Samsara, you don't have to stop the world but
constrain from the habitual self habit side and don't let it
strike!
Don't let it strike the Samsara. So this requires
enormous constraint. It's like holding something slippery. Since
you've never practiced this constraint you find it difficult to do.
But decide, I am going to constrain the personal self habit from
striking the phenomenal self habit which is the world.
I am
going to really do it this time, and to do it, so you don't get
hypnotised by the sparks or the mental constructs formed by the clash
of the two things. Ignore any mental phenomena that appears because
the phenomena that appears, you call self. And it is a fraud, it's
only mental constructs.
So therefore don't designate as
person the phenomena of the striking of the personal self habit and
the phenomenal self habit. Don't say, don't designate that as a self,
a person, a being or something coming. It is just like a spark, it's
there and it's gone, but it stains the future karma. So exercise
great restraint, STOP.... do something totally different. Don't
strike the Samsara.
If you constrain then, if you make error
there will be showers of phenomena, you might see a million past
lives, IGNORE! Celestial eye might open, Dhamma eye might open.
Anything can happen, IGNORE! That is not a person, Dhamma eye is not
a person, celestial eye is not a person, worldly knowledge is not a
person.
They are just phenomena only, they are mental
constructs out of stupidity of letting that self habit hit against
the external Samsara.
So don't, although, do something which
you have never done before. Past is real, future is real, present is
where the past runs into the future.
There is no self, so any
phenomenon, any mental constructs, universes of devas, universes of
Buddhas, anything that appears is still not a self, it is just
psycho-phenomenon. IGNORE!... go back to the root of one of the two
things striking, and know that the root of the striking thing is
empty. Empty of intention, empty of person and so on.
In one
of the Japanese texts it compares like this. A bell is empty, Sunyata
and yet you strike it, it makes a sound. Your body, which we
identified [in]the earlier discussions, same as a dead body only it
moves, is empty. Sunyata, empty. Empty of intention, empty of self.
Restrain the personal self habit from striking the outside
Samsara.
It's absence, the presumed conceptual object of this
habit pattern is called self. That's what we called it in the past,
or, intrinsic reality. Intrinsic reality is the shower of sparks, you
call THAT reality.
But there are two underlying realities
higher than that. And one is the personal self habit of infinite
duration, and the phenomenal self habit of the Samsara.
So
it's absence of self in the designated person, don't designate the
fireworks display no matter how brilliant it looks. Don't call that a
person, it's just rubbish. It is called personal SELF-LESS-NESS!
Label the error of letting the personal self habit striking, label
the sparks, the phenomenon, the mental objects produced as personal
self-less-ness. Why personal? Because it was personal self habit.
We've all got different lives, because we've got different
wholesome and unwholesome karmas coming out of that infinite past,
we've all had different tracks. So what, when your mind strikes a
Samsaric object, say the marble table, depending on your view, some
of you like the reflection of the light of the marble, some of you
like the colour, some of you like the shade, some of you like the
shape. You're all seeing differently because your personal self
habits, which are selfless, hit in different ways.
So
whatever the phenomena, this room, the people in it, the Buddha
images in it, my voice, my opinions, is nothing but personal
selflessness. And it's absence in things such as eyes, ears, smell,
you know all the sense bases, is called selflessness of things. Or,
if you like, phenomenal selflessness.
All phenomena is empty
of self. It is thus, understandable by implication that the habitual
notions of the existence of that intrinsic reality in persons, and
things are the two self habits.
The self habits of the
external, water falls down a waterfall, that's the habit of a water.
Nothing to do with you. But then your comment "the waterfall is
beautiful" or "the waterfall is dangerous" so all the
self is formed out of two components striking together.
As
Chandrakirti says, quoted by Tsong-ka-pa in his Four-Hundred
Commentary, 'the self' is the 'intrinsic reality'. Which is that
objectivity in things independent of anything else. Independent of
anything else. It's absence, the absence of this imputed self or
person. It's absence is selflessness. It is understood as twofold by
division into persons and things.
We arbitrarily divide it up
this way we might argue. If you had vast minds we could extend it
much further than this but because of the small scope of your minds
we keep it manageable by calling two things: persons; your minds,
your self habit minds clash with persons, who happen to be mind and
body. And that's called personal selflessness.
Thank you very
much.
We conclude this talk given by Buddha Dhamma Teacher
John D Hughes during a five day meditation course held at the
Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd in June 1988.
The MP3
file of the original recorded teaching that today's program was
transcribed from is available online at www.edharma.org.
May
you not be duped by the phenomena created by the striking of your
personal self habit and your phenomenal self habit.
May you
be blessed by the Triple Gem.
May you be well and happy.
May
all beings be well and happy
The script was transcribed,
prepared and edited by Julian Bamford, Frank Carter, Anita Hughes,
Julie O'Donnell, Andrew Pilskalns, Alec Sloman and Paul
Tyrrell.
Readability Statistics
Word count:
3,256
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