KARMA, REBIRTH, AND SELFLESSNESS

Introduction to Buddhism 103

THE NALANDABODHI STUDY PATH

Under the Direction of The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

Introduction to Buddhism 100 Series

 The Nalandabodhi Study Path
Introduction to Buddhism 103: Karma, Rebirth, and Selflessness

Published by Nalandabodhi
3902 Woodland Park Ave. North
Seattle, WA 98103
U.S.A

© 2008 by The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

© 2008 by Nalandabodhi

All rights reserved. Second Revised Edition March 2011

Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book
may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission from Nalandabodhi or
The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.

This text is published as a part of the study curriculum of the

Nalandabodhi Buddhist Path under the direction of
The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.

Based on teachings by The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.

Compiled and edited by
Karl Brunnholzl and Stuart Horn.

Thanks to Nancy Sullivan for her editorial assistance,

and to Michael Gamble for his help with the layout.
Cover design by Donna Allen and Stephanie Johnston.

For further information:

Nalandabodhi
3902 Woodland Park Ave. North
Seattle, WA 98103
curriculum@nalandabodhi.org
www.nalandabodhi.org

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Introduction to the Nalandabodhi Study Path

Nalandabodhi Study and Meditation Centers offer a comprehensive curriculum in Buddhist

studies, which adapts the traditional curriculum taught in Tibetan Buddhist educational
academies for Western audiences. Students progress sequentially through basic Buddhist
introductory topics, continue with the increasingly complex topics of the hinayana and mahayana
studies, and conclude with the subtleties of the vajrayana. Completion of the Nalandabodhi
Study Path provides students with a comprehensive foundation in all aspects of Buddhist studies.

The Nalandabodhi Study Path is the product of many years of work in transmitting, translating,
and adapting the traditional educational system for students in the West. The core curricular
materials were drawn primarily from the teachings of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, who also
designed the curriculum. The Nalandabodhi Study Path is supplemented by an advanced
Buddhist studies program provided at Nitartha Institute, also under the direction of Dzogchen
Ponlop Rinpoche. Such a systematically organized curriculum of Buddhist studies, which leads
students through a gradual path, is for the most part unavailable elsewhere.

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche is acknowledged as one of the foremost scholars of his generation in
the Nyingma and Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Schooled in the traditional Buddhist
educational system, Rinpoche has also studied in Western educational institutions and has taught
Western students for many years. Fluent in the English language and well versed in Western
culture, Rinpoche has been able to develop practice and study curricula that address the needs of
Western students while maintaining a fidelity to authentic Buddhist teaching principles.

Overview of the Nalandabodhi Study Path

INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM 100 SERIES

HINAYANA 200 SERIES: THE PATH OF THE NOBLE ONES

MAHAYANA 300 SERIES: COMPASSION WITHOUT LIMIT

VAJRAYANA VIEW 400 SERIES: DEVOTION AND ENLIGHTENMENT

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After the intial Nalandabodhi Introduction to Buddhism Series, those interested in deepening
their understanding of Buddhist view and practice can continue with the remaining three levels
of the Nalandabodhi Study Path that are organized in terms of the three yanas (―vehicles‖ or
approaches) of hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana. The curriculum is designed to allow students
to master the basic teachings on the ground, path, and fruition of each yana.

All study courses up through the mahayana are available to the general public. The vajrayana
teachings are usually considered as a part of the mahayana, sharing its view and fruition, but
employing different methods. However, traditionally, the vajrayana is treated as an independent
division of studies. For students interested in the Nalandabodhi course on the view of vajrayana,
the prerequisites for participation consist of the completion of all preceding Nalandabodhi study
courses, full membership in Nalandabodhi, and being a personal student of Dzogchen Ponlop
Rinpoche.

The Nalandabodhi Study Path is offered in conjunction with the Nalandabodhi Practice Path.
Together, these two curricula provide students with a thorough training in the philosophical and
meditative disciplines of the genuine lineage of the Tibetan Kagyü and Nyingma traditions. For
more information on the Practice Path, visit www.nalandabodhi.org or contact a Nalandabodhi
center near you.

We wish to express our deep appreciation to Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche for these teachings and
for transmitting their heart essence with such precision, clarity, and warmth. May all those who
travel this path of study achieve realization and continue the sublime tradition of liberating
beings from suffering by pointing out the awakened heart.

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Table of Contents

CLASS 1: THE FOUR SEALS OF THE BUDDHA’S TEACHING I 7

What is Contemplation and Why is it Necessary? 7

How to Practice a Session of Contemplative or Analytical Meditation 10

The First Seal: All Conditioned Phenomena are Impermanent 15

The Second Seal: Everything Caused by Afflictions and Karma is Suffering 21

CLASS 2: THE FOUR SEALS OF THE BUDDHA’S TEACHING II 24

The Third Seal: All Things are Empty and Lack a Self 24
Who am I without ―me‖? 24
Tasting Our Own Ego 27
No True Reality Outside our Experience 28
Letting Go Too Fast 30
What is Wrong with Ego-Clinging? 30
A Person Without Self, Things without a Core 32
The Screen onto which we Project Ourselves 36
The Mind of Fixation 38
The Interdependent Self 38
How Body and Mind Exist 39
The Truth is Not Out There 41
Reality is Consensus 42
Understanding Selflessness in the Context of the Two Levels of Reality 43
Resting in Certainty 44
Finding the Middle Way 46

The Fourth Seal: Nirvana Alone is Peace 47

CLASS 3: THE FOUR REMINDERS 48

The Four Reminders and their Context 48

Precious Human Birth 51

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 What Makes our Existence Precious? 51
Confidence 52
Enthusiasm 53
Wisdom 54

Karma 55
Is Karma a Religious Belief? 55
Where does Karma Start? 58
Karma is not Fate 59
What are Positive and Negative Actions? 61
Four Basic Characteristics of Karma 63
Are there Past and Future Lives or not? 64
How to Work with Karma 65

Summary of the Four Reminders 67

CLASS 4: THE SPIRITUAL FRIEND—CONNECTING WITH BUDDHA’S HEART 69

The Ultimate Spiritual Friend 69

Acknowledging our Suffering and Keeping the Momentum Alive 71

Individual Path Vs Ego-Interpretation 72

Three Types of Spiritual Friends 73

Examing the Spiritual Friend 75

Misleading Guides 80

Following the Spiritual Friend: Right Relationship, Right Attitude 83

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Class 1: The Four Seals of the Buddha’s Teaching I

The introduction of contemplation as a form of mind training

 How to bring the teachings from our head to our heart

The first seal: All conditioned phenomena are impermanent

 Arising, abiding, and ceasing
 Coarse and subtle impermanence
 Death

The second seal: Everything caused by mental afflictions and karma is suffering
 Honey on a razor blade

What is Contemplation and Why is it Necessary?

From the Buddhist point of view, the main cause of all our problems is the basic ignorance that
expresses itself as our instinctive clinging to a personal self, to really existing phenomena, and to
a mistaken understanding of what happiness is and how we can attain it. This leads to various
afflictive emotions and the actions that ensue from these, all of which result in more suffering.
The only means for eliminating this fundamental blind spot of ours is to develop its opposite, a
sharp and clear awareness through which we see our mind and things as they really are. In
general, Buddhism provides a large variety of skillful means to generate insight into the true
nature of mind and phenomena. Contemplation or analytical meditation is the way in which this
insight is developed and enhanced in a very systematic and thorough way, leading to
incontrovertible certainty.

When we realize that afflictions and suffering are the negative repercussions of our ignorance
and clinging, this may strengthen our wish to tackle them. These repercussions not only manifest
on the private or personal level. Especially in this present day of globalization, it is easy to see
how devastating it can be for the whole world when even a single person clings to certain fixed

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views or mental afflictions such as anger, especially if this person has great power. When we
examine our personal or national defense of our territories and interests, it becomes clear that the
attachment and hatred developed in this process, and the many world conflicts these behaviors
produce, are basically rooted in ―ego clashes.‖ Of course, in the midst of such conflicts, be they
interpersonal or international, we usually have no idea where and how things started. Sometimes
that doesn’t even matter anymore, because we are so engrossed in justifying our emotions.

In this context, we could take a break from our usual behavioral patterns and contemplate,
―What are we doing here?‖ In other words, we could sit down and run a thorough check on
whether our highly subjective and habitual reactions make any sense and will give us what we
really want. When placed within a wider perspective, do our assumptions stand up to the facts?
Once we contemplate that a confusion concerning the clinging to a personal self is at the root of
our misguided behavior, then is it not possible that we can act in a way that produces benefit for
ourselves and others?

However, mere study and reflection on the teachings is not sufficient. Even if we understand
all the Buddhist teachings, particularly those on the lack of a self and on compassion, that alone
will not prevent us from continuing to behave in many ego-centered ways, disregarding other
people, and taking things to be solidly real. There is definitely a difference between
understanding a wall to be empty of inherent existence and being able to walk through this wall,
or between understanding suffering and not experiencing it anymore. However, the solution for
doubts and questions is not just blind faith or believing something that other people tell us, but
gaining certainty ourselves through investigating our own experiences through mindfulness and
meditation.

Furthermore, all Buddhist traditions agree that just resting the mind in a one-pointed and
tranquil state will not lead to lasting liberation from our habitual patterns. The main reason for
this is that whatever meditation we may practice, if it does not work to sever the root of our
problems, it will at best calm down our manifest suffering and afflictions. Moreover, it will not
eradicate the habitual tendencies or seeds in our mind that make suffering and afflictions arise
again when at some later point we meet the right conditions. Most of the fixating on ourselves

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and other phenomena, which provides the fertile ground for our habitual tendencies, operates at
the level of instinctive and largely unconscious impulses. Hence, this fixating can only be
brought into awareness as we scrutinize our ingrained worldviews and expose them to the light
of insight. Through contemplation we can gain unshakable certainty about what is really going
on in our mind and we can undermine these habitual tendencies.

When we hear and study the teachings, be it in the presence of great masters or on our own,
we may be convinced, even enthusiastic, about certain things, and our minds may seem very
resolved. But when we return to our everyday life with its challenges and other people who do
not share our views, it is very easy for what we considered certainty to become shaky and even
be lost completely. Our usual habitual tendencies of thinking in certain ways, our pattern of
emotional reactions, and our acting accordingly are very strong, since we have been acquainted
with them for a very long time. In particular, we have grown greatly accustomed to and solidified
our belief in our cherished self and in the need to defend it and provide pleasure for it. In fact,
this is our most deeply rooted conviction. However, our habituation to the Buddha’s teachings is
rather new and weak. Thus, it is very easy to forget this new habituation, especially in the middle
of difficult situations. Since our conviction in a self is so entrenched in us, we cannot expect that
a little bit of understanding of egolessness will have the power to overthrow this firm belief
immediately. Rather, the only way to replace this mistaken notion is by gradually and thoroughly
deconstructing it and cultivating its opposite, the living experience of there being no such self or
any unchanging, truly existing reality.

To properly understand and employ his teachings, the Buddha recommended working with
four reliances:

1) Do not rely on persons but on the teachings.

2) As for these teachings, do not rely on the words but on the meaning.
3) As for the meaning, do not rely on the expedient meaning but on the definitive meaning.
4) As for the definitive meaning, do not rely on ordinary consciousness but on wisdom.

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Contemplation of these reliances clarifies the method of how to investigate and cultivate the
actual meaning of the Buddha’s teachings. On the Buddhist path, it is always emphasized that
we should gain firsthand experience, direct knowledge, and personal certainty about the way
things really are. Just as with our ordinary experiences in life, whatever we have thoroughly
examined and found to be true becomes an incontrovertible part of our understanding. We no
longer need to rely on other people or books. Doubts will not arise, nor will our minds be
changed when others question our realization. Moreover, when we have an experientially
founded understanding of the correct view, we will increasingly be able to evaluate any
experiences that might come up in our meditation practice and our daily life. We can compare
them with the correct view as confirmed by our own certainty and see clearly whether our
practice and realization accords with what the teachings say.

How to Practice a Session of Contemplative or Analytical Meditation

Practically speaking, a session of contemplative meditation starts with a brief period of calm
abiding to create the proper ground for engaging in the actual analysis. Then, within this state of
calm abiding, we clearly bring to mind the particular object or topic to be analyzed, which can be
assisted by re-reading the particular materials that we will contemplate. However, the idea is not
just to echo these materials, but to be a bit more creative in our analytical approach once we are
more familiar with them.

Contemplative meditation is meant to provide the ground for experimenting with our basic
curiosity and openness to investigate ourselves and the world around us. Thus, it is often quite
helpful to consider what we actually want to know about this world and ourselves, what our real
questions of immediate personal concern are, and then apply our investigation to these rather
than just follow the beaten track of a standardized formula. For example, we may feel
overworked and depressed, have an identity crisis, quarrel with our partner, see someone as our
enemy, or be very happy and newly in love, or self-indulgent, or proud; all these states can be
scrutinized for their solidity and reality. This includes coming up with our own reasons,
examples, and questions. Furthermore, instead of trying to prove that there is no ego or real

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phenomena, we may as well take the opposite route, looking for reasons that our self and things
really do exist and then checking out whether these reasons withstand analysis.

Whichever approach we choose, it is important to pick a distinct object or topic, clearly bring
it to mind, and then stay with it as our object of analysis until some degree of certainty as to its
features, or the lack thereof, is achieved. This means that there is no point in just thinking in a
general way, ―Everything is impermanent,‖ or ―The whole world is suffering,‖ without relating
this to our concrete experiences. Nor is it helpful to jump from one object to the next every few
minutes without having gone any deeper. Especially in the beginning, it is very important to
restrict our analysis to a rather limited portion of a given object or topic and to try to gain some
certainty about it. This is accomplished through looking into it as thoroughly as possible. For
example, if we feel that our house is impermanent, we should not just leave it at some vague
feeling, but try to come up with as many reasons as we can find that explain why it is
impermanent and what this means in terms of how we deal with our house, or to find the absurd
consequences if it indeed were permanent.

The next step is to go beyond conceptual analysis in order to gain incontrovertible,

experiential certainty. In principle, conceptual analysis will serve only to enhance our conceptual
or intellectual certainty. Such analysis is important as a start, but it is not sufficient to affect the
deeper levels of our habitual tendencies and fixations. Hence, we need to let whatever degrees of
conceptual certainty we may have attained sink in into our mind and create a tangible imprint.
This means pausing the analysis once we have a degree of conceptual certainty and then resting
in our certainty. Through this method, we familiarize our mind with the insights we have gained
through the preceding investigation. Especially at the beginning, such insights may not be and do
not have to be world-shattering or fully enlightening. Rather, we may and should use any level of
new understanding about our specific object of analysis.

When we rest the mind in this way and thus absorb our newly developed convictions, the
analyzing facet of our mind naturally settles into mind’s basic ground, just as a wave rolls back
into the ocean. In this way, we allow for and cultivate a very lucid nonconceptual certainty on
the level of immediate experience that gradually can become an intrinsic and natural part of our

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way of seeing the world and acting in it. So the main purpose of contemplative meditation is not
only to gain increasingly clear insights into how things actually are, but to stabilize these insights
and bring them to deeper levels of our being. In other words, this kind of meditation is the way to
bring the teachings from our head into our heart.

What is the reason for alternating between analyzing and resting? Each approach performs a
different but mutually enhancing function. To analyze means to see through our useless grasping,
while to rest provides the space to adapt to this seeing. Through analytical meditation, we
relinquish our many-layered conscious and unconscious reifying tendencies of holding on to
fixed beliefs about ourselves and the world. The remedy for these tendencies is the irreversible
certainty about how things truly are. These two mental states — fixed ideas, which are to be
relinquished, and certainty about what is actually going on as their remedy — are mutually
exclusive and cannot exist in our mind at the same time, just as it is impossible to experience
love and hatred simultaneously. Therefore, to whatever degree our rigid views become gradually
undermined through analysis, to that same degree certainty about reality increases.

At this point, other than just resting in this very state of the lucid presence of such certainty,
there is no need to actively or deliberately redevelop it over again, since we have already
accomplished this certainty through prior analysis. For example, when we have determined
through close examination that a hose on the ground with a zigzag pattern is not a snake, this
very certainty stops us from apprehending the hose as a snake. To continue to analyze the hose at
this point and to keep telling ourselves, ―It is not a snake‖ would seem pointless and foolish.
However, we might need to take a minute to let that knowledge sink in and see the consequences
of having taken the hose to be a snake. Then, once we have gained irreversible certainty that
there is no snake and this conviction has become a natural part of our experience, the thought of
such a hose being a snake will never cross our mind again. However, if we become afraid of the
hose again the next time we see it, this is a clear sign that our certainty is not stable and that we
need to work on it further.

Thus, it is important not to do just a bit of analysis and then drop it, totally forgetting about
any insights (however limited they may be) that we have gained through this analysis and

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shifting into merely resting the mind. There should be some sense of the insights gained through
analysis being carried over into the phase of resting meditation. To facilitate bringing the
analysis into the resting phase, it is helpful to briefly summarize the insight from our analysis in
one sentence before engaging in the actual resting meditation. We even can briefly recall
whatever insight we have obtained a few times during the resting meditation and then let it sink
in again. After resting the mind in this way for a while, or when the mind starts to get dull, we
resume our analysis of the same object. We do not have to start our analysis completely anew but
can just continue from where we stopped before the resting meditation. Depending on how
complete our analysis has been, we may also shift to another object at this point.

As a simple example to illustrate this process, let’s use contemplating on the impermanence of
an apple. An apple is initially produced by many causes and conditions. Examine this in a way
that is as concrete and detailed as possible, that is, how impermanence applies to the individual
causes and conditions of this apple, such as an apple tree, water, earth, sunshine, minerals, and so
on. Trace back the origins of these factors themselves and find out how each one of them
influences the arising, staying, and ceasing of this apple. When we feel convinced that these
reasons for impermanence apply to the apple, do not continue the analysis further. Initially, we
may have gained only a somewhat more vivid and comprehensive picture of the many constantly
changing factors that are involved in the appearance of each moment of such a fruit. Then, just
let our mind rest one-pointedly in this certainty, or on this wider picture of the apple’s presence,
and absorb it for a while without reflecting on its impermanence or anything else. This provides
the initial opportunity for such an understanding to sink in into the deeper levels of our mind and
thus create a much more powerful mental habit than just saying a few times, ―This apple is
impermanent.‖

If in this process we get distracted and lose our focus on the object of analysis, we may
initially try to gently bring our mind back to the object and continue investigating it. However, if
our analysis becomes discursive and the mind runs all over the place, or if we become too tired
and thus cannot focus anymore, we should not push or strain. Strained analytical meditation
deteriorates into mere ordinary thinking, in which one train of thought just follows after the other
without leading anywhere. As long as there is precision, clarity, and mindfulness during the

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investigation, it is analytical meditation, but if these features are lacking, it is neither analysis nor
meditation. Hence, when we become aware that our analysis loses these qualities, then it is
definitely better to shift into a period of calm abiding. If that does not help either, we should
simply take a break. Just sit and relax, without trying to do any meditation at all for a while.
(Another possibility at that point is to end the session altogether and come back for another one
later.) After a while, we can resume the analysis where we left off while still in a state of clear
focus, and thus repeat this shift from analytical to resting meditation and back several times. To
conclude, it is recommended to end the session with a brief period of calm abiding.

It is generally much better to meditate repeatedly for short periods with good concentration
and wakefulness than to ineffectively prolong a state of distraction or mental fatigue and
misconstrue this as meditation. The latter will eventually make us fed up with meditation. Thus,
it is said that the best way to meditate is to start out by welcoming meditation like a dear old
friend and to stop meditating while we are still good friends. If we end our session while still
focused and awake, we will look forward to coming back to that state, but if we always stop our
session when we feel dull, distracted, or weary, this will not inspire us to return to our practice. It
will only create bad habits for our meditation.

Obviously, this process of alternating analytical meditation and resting meditation has to be
repeated many times in order to truly affect our strong tendencies to see things as really existent,
lasting, and unchanging. The purpose of all this could be said to be ―reprogramming our mental
habitual patterns.‖ Such is effected by gradually replacing concepts that are not in accord with
basic reality, and thus produce suffering, with stronger tendencies of progressively refined
concepts, finally leading to a direct experience of reality that relinquishes all concepts and
suffering altogether. As the contemporary master Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche says,
Buddhism is a system of increasingly subtle concepts that counteract relatively coarser concepts.
However, this should certainly not be misunderstood to mean that we try to brainwash ourselves
or make something up in our analytical meditation. Through the analytical approach, we proceed
toward realizing for ourselves how things really are. If we do not apply essential Buddhist
notions to the deeply ingrained habitual tendencies of our belief systems and only work with
them on a superficial intellectual level, the teachings will be merely words without a deeper

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impact on our experiential world. This is especially important with such key Buddhist topics as
suffering, impermanence, karma, compassion, and egolessness, since what governs our
experience and actions is precisely the instinctive assumptions of the opposites of these notions.
Making them personally relevant to our life cannot be accomplished without some degree of
personal investigation, which entails honestly looking into our own view of the world and being
willing to revise it.

The First Seal: All Conditioned Phenomena are Impermanent

Generally speaking, the difference between Buddhism and other approaches is threefold, in terms
of view, meditation, and conduct. First, the distinctive view of Buddhism is condensed in ―the
four seals‖ (see below). Secondly, the difference between specifically Buddhist forms of
meditation and other forms that are common to Buddhists and non-Buddhists is that the former
are designed to lead one completely beyond conditioned existence and any of its pleasant states,
while the latter seek for the best that you can get within conditioned existence, such as being
absorbed in the pleasures of blissful meditation experiences or being reborn in certain god
realms. The key point of the Buddhist approach to meditation is that meditation is nothing other
than becoming more and more familiar with the fundamental nature of our own mind, which is
buddha nature. Thus, it is coming to know or realize that something is not in any way distinct
from that which realizes it. It is your mind coming to know itself. Therefore, in their more
advanced forms, the difference between Buddhist and non-Buddhist meditations is quite subtle.

Thirdly, the difference in terms of conduct lies in the Buddha’s teaching that it is free of the
two extremes. These two extremes are over-indulging in sense pleasures and material comfort
versus severe forms of asceticism or self-punishment. The first one basically means that one
allows oneself to be afflicted and obsessed by the desire to acquire something one does not yet
possess. For example, we may think, ―I need a new meditation cushion.‖ Then, seeing a lovely
cushion better than the one we have, we become entangled in the desire to possess something
that we don’t have and which we think will give us more pleasure and comfort. This extreme can
also be characterized as lack of contentment. The other extreme is the extreme of tiresome toil

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and trouble. While it is necessary to be diligent, it is only so in terms of what has some genuine
use or purpose to it. It is unnecessary and inappropriate to be diligent and torment oneself with
certain rituals or behaviors that will produce no result. For example, there are certain spiritual
traditions in India with strict rules of behavior, such as avoiding acts of theft, which means that if
you partake of anything that has not been given to you, it counts as an act of theft, even if it is
something that belongs to no one. So, if followers of this particular tradition find themselves in a
place where there are no other people and they are dying of thirst on the shore of a lake, they still
won’t drink from it unless someone who owns that lake allows them to. They would die of thirst,
because they are so afraid of theft. Other examples include people who believe that lying is the
worst sin. Lying is committed with the tongue, so these people believe that the tongue should be
punished, and they impale their tongues on tridents in the hope that this will purify the negative
karma of having lied. As far as the Buddhist view is concerned, skewering our tongue doesn’t
purify any karma. All it does is to give us great pain.

As for ―the four seals,‖ they represent the four characteristics that the Buddha identified as
what essentially distinguishes his teachings. These four seals focus on the workings and the
nature of our inner mind. Most other spiritual or scientific traditions are comparatively more
oriented toward what is external (be it an external god or an external material world). The
Buddha taught that these four criteria are the seals or signs of his view, and that anything that
accords with them is in accordance with his teaching.

Everything conditioned is impermanent.

Everything contaminated is suffering.
All phenomena are without self and empty.
Nirvana (or the transcendence of suffering) alone is peace.

These four represent the basic view that is the common ground for all Buddhist traditions and
outline all the essential descriptions of relative and ultimate reality. It is also said that if you
accept these four statements or facts you can consider yourself a Buddhist, and if you don’t
accept them (no matter what else you may believe), you are not a Buddhist.

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 As for the first seal, the Buddha said that among the footprints of all animals, the one of the
elephant is the biggest and the one that makes literally the biggest impression. In the same way,
among all ideas or all notions in Buddhism, impermanence is like the footprint of an elephant; it
is the most important one and the one that makes the deepest impression. The statement
―Everything conditioned is impermanent‖ represents the ultimate view of relative reality, which
means that it is the most subtle understanding of the nature of relative reality. The second seal of
suffering is something that we experience directly, it does not have to be determined through
reasoning. However, impermanence, especially in its subtle momentary form, is usually not
experienced directly, but requires an additional step in our understanding.

The Buddhist master Nagarjuna said that if you understand what arising is, you will
understand ceasing. If you understand ceasing, you understand impermanence. If you understand
impermanence, you are very close to understanding what the ultimate is.

Usually, the teachings on impermanence are presented as contemplations on coarse

impermanence, subtle impermanence, and death. Obviously, it is easy to understand the coarse
type of impermanence. On that level, to be a conditioned phenomenon means first to be
introduced by certain causes and conditions. Then, that phenomenon’s continuum is sustained by
further causes and conditions. Finally, when these specific causes and conditions end at some
point, the conditioned phenomenon that was supported by them must necessarily cease too. For
example, if you take a house, it is first constructed through all kinds of causes and conditions,
then it starts to age and decay, and finally it completely falls apart. Thus, it has the nature of
being impermanent, since the Buddhist definition of being impermanent is to arise, abide, and
cease. Reflecting on this coarse aspect of impermanence serves as the primary means to reverse
our attachment to the things of this life. Realizing that we cannot really hold on to anything or
anybody, even our own existence, we are persuaded to not waste the opportunity to transcend
this attachment and the suffering it brings.

As for subtle impermanence, during the process of arising, abiding, and ceasing, there is a
very subtle level of momentary change as well, which is the basic essence of impermanence and
is much more difficult to notice. In fact, the aging of the house takes place continually in every

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single moment. Despite our delusion to the contrary, it is not that the house remains completely
new for some weeks or months and then suddenly changes into being old and deteriorating. We
usually perceive coarse impermanence in jumps, thinking that our car is new for at least a year,
until we have the first major repairs, but it ages in every moment from the point when it leaves
the factory. Or, in the case of an apple, it is not unchangingly fresh for a week and then it is
suddenly rotten. There are a great number of complex momentarily changing chemical processes
that eventually result in the coarse visible result of being perceived as rotten. When we consider
our own body, science tells us that every organ, tissue, and cell in it changes moment by moment
and that all these cells keep being completely replaced by others over certain periods of time.

When the understanding of this more subtle kind of impermanence is taken to its utmost limit,
it means that any given instant lacks true existence as a unit of time. There is no smallest
indivisible and lasting moment to be found. This fact is not easy to understand fully, let alone its
implications for how we see and behave toward ourselves and the world. It requires a gradual
process of study and meditation. But the closer we come to realizing it, the closer we come to
understanding that nothing has any independent existence of its own (aka emptiness), which is
the ultimate nature of all things. This is the essential purpose of contemplating subtle
impermanence.

In other words, the most subtle momentary impermanence is nothing other than the principle
of dependent origination, which is inseparable from emptiness. There is no doubt that something
is happening all the time, but when we try to find it, we can’t. If we don’t analyze it, it’s a very
vivid, clear, and present experience. But if we analyze it, there is nothing to hold on to or
pinpoint. Thus, if we understand what subtle impermanence is, moment by moment, rebirth
basically means being reborn in every moment. In every instant, we die, and in the next moment
we are reborn.

Again, we are back to the present moment; that’s where momentary impermanence happens.
It doesn’t happen in the past, it doesn’t happen in the future, but it always happens right now. If
we look at the present moment, we can investigate when it arises, from where it arises, how it
arises, what it is, how long it stays, when it ceases, how it ceases, and where it goes. When we

18
look for all of this, we can’t really find it, but at the same time, a lot of things keep happening all
the time. This is called subtle impermanence.

From that perspective, death is really no big deal at all. It is just another one of those instants
that are momentarily impermanent. Of course, every moment is different in terms of the flavor or
the experience of what exactly happens, but fundamentally, if we understand what subtle
impermanence is, then death is no different from any other moment in what we call life. And the
same goes for the intermediate state between two lives; it is just one continuous movie.

There’s a story of an old man with his young daughter approaching the Buddha after one of
his teachings, saying, ―Generally, I appreciate your teachings, but there is one thing that I really
don’t like, all this talk about impermanence bothers me. I don’t want to hear about things always
changing, deteriorating, and coming to an end or dying. Why do you always have to talk about
this, it’s really depressing.‖ Upon this, his daughter said, ―But father, I really like impermanence.
It is because of impermanence that I can change and grow up, learn things, go to school, and
develop in many ways.‖

This shows the two sides of impermanence, but usually when we think about impermanence
we always think that something comes to an end or changes for the worse. This is why the
message of impermanence has a depressing tone for us and why we don’t want to hear about it.
However, in Buddhism, impermanence does not just mean ending, it equally means arising.
Arising, abiding, and ceasing, this is how impermanence is defined. We usually forget about the
other two parts and just zero in on the cessation part and then get depressed. In addition, we think
about the ending of things that we like and hardly ever apply the notion of ending to things that
we don’t like. For example, when we are in a really bad mood, we usually don’t think, ―Oh, this
is impermanent too, it will pass,‖ but rather take it to be very real and lasting. In general, if we
think about impermanence, of course, it means that something ceases, no matter whether it is
pleasant or unpleasant, but then at the same time something else arises. So impermanence does
not only mean ending, but it also refers to every moment as being the potential for something
new.

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 In other words, subtle impermanence is a kind of package deal. Every moment slips away to
never return, but then another new moment arises. In terms of our actions, impermanence relates
to the principle of karma; in every moment, there is the potential for change to the better.
Impermanence does not mean everything always gets worse and worse, rather it means that there
is the potential to change in both directions ― better or worse. It is up to us in every moment. As
a brief reminder in everyday life, we can train in being more aware to catch the present moment.
This means to catch the potential of the present moment in a good way, being aware that it is
unique and never comes back, but at the same time seeing it as our chance for improvement and
the space for things to open up.

In terms of contemplating death as a particularly vivid instance of impermanence, there are

four main topics to be remembered. First, we should remind ourselves that death is something
certain; so far nobody has managed to make a deal and escape it. Secondly, at the same time, the
exact time of this event happening is uncertain, it could be any moment. In addition, it is helpful
to recall that we basically die and are reborn in every moment. Thirdly, there are many causes for
dying, even those that we usually consider as sustaining our life, which is amply illustrated at the
beginning of each episode in the Six Feet Under series.

Fourthly, we should consider that, at the time of death, neither our family, nor our friends, nor
our possessions, nor our own body, nor any medicine can prevent our death or will be of any real
help. The only thing that will be of help at that point is having previously trained our mind. If we
have trained in catching the potential of every moment and are able to apply this training
throughout our life and also at the moment of death, we will not be afraid and will have a good
transition. If we are habituated to catching the potential of the present moment of our mind, there
is a good chance that we will not freak out at the moment of death, but will catch its potential.
Then, there is a tremendous chance of actually realizing the nature of our mind and transcending
suffering and death. Thus, from that point of view, in Buddhism our whole life is basically a
preparation for the moment of death.

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The Second Seal: Everything Caused by Afflictions and Karma is Suffering

Usually we think we know all about suffering and we don’t want to hear more about it. There are
people who think that Buddhists are very gloomy and depressed people who always reflect and
talk about suffering. But Buddhism does not mean to become obsessed with or paranoid about
suffering, or even think about it all the time. It really just means to clearly identify the basic
problem of our existence. To understand the nature of this problem is the first thing to consider
before even studying Buddhist teachings. If we don’t see any problem or don’t understand
suffering, we cannot understand how it arises. If we don’t know how it comes about, then there is
no way to get rid of it either. If we just cut off the parts of the weeds in our garden that we see
and do not take out their entire roots, they will grow again from these roots and eventually take
over our whole garden. No being wants suffering, pain, and problems; everybody wants to get rid
of these. So understanding the nature of suffering is the first priority. Again, the reason why the
Buddha talks about suffering is not to make people depressed, but to pinpoint what suffering is
and then eliminate it once and for all.

As discussed before in detail, suffering is always presented in terms of the three types of
suffering. This is usually illustrated by licking honey from a razor blade. When you do that, it
tastes very good, but at the same time you are cutting your tongue. First, you don’t notice this,
because the razor blade is so sharp and the honey so delicious, so you are slicing up your tongue
without being aware of it. This illustrates the all-pervasive suffering. It means that we do not
notice that we continuously hurt ourselves by seeking pleasure without knowing how to properly
do so. Pleasure seeking may taste really good but trouble looms ahead.

Eventually, we will start to realize that we are cutting up our tongue by licking honey from a
razor blade. This also illustrates the suffering of change; seeming happiness turns into suffering.
Once we realize that we have cut our tongue completely, then we want to go to the emergency
room. We hop into our car, but then, on the way, we have an accident and break our bones, so we
drive to the hospital in an ambulance. Then, the doctors treat us or not, depending on whether we
have insurance. They will ask us what our problem is and then we realize we can’t tell them

21
because our tongue is cut, so we can’t even speak. This is the suffering of suffering. Of course,
we can imagine whatever our own favorite type of suffering is and elaborate on that.

A more modern example for these three types of suffering would be the latest word
processing software; the bottom line is, whatever we do it never works. If we get a new
wonderful version of this high-tech product, it looks so fancy and nice from the outside, it takes
up so much space on our hard drive, and those IT experts have been working on it for the last
twenty-five years to ever improve it, so it must work perfectly. This is the all-pervasive
suffering. Then, once it crashes for the first time, that is the suffering of change. In addition, it
not only crashes ever so often, but we have to run anti-virus software, which interferes with and
slows down the actual work that we want to do on our computer. We may still get all kinds of
viruses and worms, we have to download many patches and updates all the time, we get all these
unsolicited emails from the software producer, and they put cookies on our hard drive. All of this
is the suffering of suffering.

Thus, the brief slogan for contemplating suffering is, ―Whatever we do in conditioned
existence, it fundamentally never works out.‖ As long as we think that we can work out our
conditioned existence, we are continually trapped in the same way as when we try to make our
word processor work perfectly. No matter what we do, no matter how many patches we put onto
conditioned existence, it will never work properly.

Whether we contemplate on the three sufferings in terms of the traditional or a more modern
example, what has to sink into our mind is that conditioned existence intrinsically never provides
any lasting and true happiness. From a Buddhist point of view, trying to find true and lasting
happiness within conditioned existence is the big mistake. From other points of view there are
plenty of such promises, but not from a Buddhist perspective.

What is the reason that conditioned existence only produces the three sufferings? It is because
all results in this realm exclusively arise on the ground of our basic ignorance about what brings
true happiness and how to avoid suffering for good. This ignorance leads to various mental
afflictions that agitate our minds and make us do all kinds of actions that perpetuate the endless

22
cycle of these three sufferings. This ignorance, the ensuing afflictions and conflicting emotions,
as well as the actions that result from them are referred to by the phrase ―what is contaminated‖
in the second seal. Together, suffering and its causes constitute the basic dissatisfaction of our
existence, which can be summarized as the basic fear of losing or not experiencing what we are
attached to and having to experience what we do not want to experience.

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Class 2: The Four Seals of the Buddha’s Teaching II

Who am I without “me”?

 Tasting our own ego
 What is wrong with ego-clinging?
 Phenomena without a core ― the truth is not out there
 Finding the Middle Way

Freedom
 Nothing left to lose and nothing to gain

The Third Seal: All Things are Empty and Lack a Self

Who am I without “me”?

The third one among the four seals is that ―all things are empty and lack a self.‖ The fourth seal
is that ―nirvana alone is peace.‖ The statement that all things are empty and without a self―that
is, unreal, without true existence, or illusory―refers to the nature of all phenomena and what is
to be realized on the path. This realization produces the result of nirvana, the transcendence of
misery or true freedom. Thus, through discussing the third seal in more detail, we will
automatically come to understand what is meant by the fourth seal, ―nirvana alone is peace.‖

A contemporary Buddhist teacher said in one of his talks, ―Some people are afraid that by
following the Buddhist path they will lose their ego. That is true, but you can tell them that they
don’t have to worry, it will come back!‖ This statement is surely good for a laugh, but at the
same time it profoundly illuminates our most basic problem. Usually, upon first hearing about
the Buddhist notion of the lack of a self or ego, most of us will say, ―No way is this true!‖ It is
only upon a thorough and repeated investigation of the notion of a personal self that we may
come to think, ―I cannot really find a truly existent, unchanging self anywhere in my body or

24
mind.‖ But before we do that investigation, we will have all kinds of instinctive reactions and
resistance to this idea. We may feel threatened and insulted by the suggestion that we have no
self or ego, or that we should get rid of it. We may think that our sense of self is what makes us
human and that, without it, we are annihilated as a person, becoming completely nonexistent,
that we lose our unique personality with all its emotional richness and precious sophisticated
character, that having no ego must be incredibly dull and meaningless, and so on. We all know
what it feels like to have a self, but we cannot even imagine a life without a self or what that
would be like. Frankly, most of us don’t even want to find out in the first place.

So, is it really frightening or maybe just boring if we realize that we have no ego? Did the
Buddha want us to give up all of our individuality and become some lifeless enlightened
zombie? We wonder how we could survive and function in the world without this ego. However,
from the Buddhist point of view, we would be much better off if we realized selflessness. We
would function more efficiently and survive with less struggle; we would be stronger and benefit
others much more than we can right now. Realizing egolessness does not mean that we forget
how to do things. Rather, it means that we acquire the clarity and precision of mind that sees
every detail of our actions in the world. One reason why our actions are often not so effective is
that we do not have such clarity or insight; we lack the wisdom that sees our actions clearly in
terms of cause and effect. When we realize the nature of selflessness, however, we see very
clearly the subtleties of every movement of our body, speech, and mind.

Before we indulge in our usual reactions when we hear ―no ego,‖ it is very important to open
our minds and try to understand what the Buddha really meant by this. It is crucial to see that
―lack of self‖ does not mean that we lose anything, especially once we realize that we never had
any real solid and unchanging personal identity in the first place, and that there is a lot to gain
instead. The only things we will lose are all our misconceptions, conflicting emotions, problems,
and neuroses. However, if we don’t want to get rid of them, we can conveniently skip the
Buddha’s message of ―no ego.‖ The problem is that we are so used to our habituated mindset and
its ensuing suffering and that we don’t really know anything fundamentally different or better.
We hang on to all our complexities and problems for dear life. It is like in an intense love-hate
relationship; it is very painful most of the time, but we cannot let go and end this relationship.

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Though we know better, we still cling to the hope that it may work out one day, and we are
afraid of the unknown if we step out of this deeply ingrained pattern. Even if other people offer
us a new residence, a truly loving partner, supportive friends, a great job in another city, and free
therapy hours to process our pain, we still refuse. Why? Because we are afraid to step beyond
what we know so well, even if it is ever so painful.

From a Buddhist point of view, the main and most important message of ―no ego‖ is not one
of loss but of tremendous gain, joy, and relief—freedom from all suffering—when we are able to
let go of what ties us down and makes us suffer, which is our clinging and grasping to something
that does not exist anyway. When we realize that there is nothing to lose and no ―me‖ to be
harmed or benefited, we can relax and let go of the idea that we have something to lose. We can
also let go of our attempts to hold on to or protect this something called ―me.‖ Usually, we are
afraid that without our sense of ―me‖ and of real things we would not be able to live our lives in
an organized or coherent way. In fact, such grasping to real things and a real ―me‖ makes
everything quite heavy, complicated, and clumsy. In addition, it uses up a lot of our energy that
could be spent in more joyful and beneficial ways for both ourselves and others. In other words,
when we stop this misguided use of our mental potential, we have free access to the whole scope
of its dynamic vitality. The true qualities of the nature of our mind can shine forth in an
unimpeded manner, and life may become a playful dance of appearances. At the same time, we
don’t have to wait until we become a Buddha for this to happen. The true qualities of our mind
show during all phases of the path in accordance with how much we loosen our tight grip on
―me‖ and our solid world.

Our mind in its state of ―ego-constriction‖ resembles a tightly closed fist, squeezing itself as
hard as possible, inflicting pain on itself and being completely dysfunctional in that it is unable
to do anything else. How can we relieve the pain that is caused by clenching our own fist in that
way? In this case, leading doctors do not recommend taking painkillers or amputating the hand.
We just have to let go and relax our fingers. This will not only remove the pain and the
uptightness, but also allow us to do all kinds of wonderful things with our hand ― writing a
poem, embracing a person in grief, playing piano, and even performing complicated hand
gestures like in certain forms of Asian dance.

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 It all comes down to the basic question, ―Who or what am I without me?‖ This seems truly
inconceivable at first, but when we think about it, there actually are quite a few situations in
ordinary life that might give us a glimpse that not grasping at some solid personal or phenomenal
identity is not a dull nothingness, but a very joyful state of mind. Imagine that we start to play a
musical instrument. At the beginning, everything is very clumsy; we have to think a lot and
coordinate our mind, our fingers, the instrument, and the notes, and they all seem separate and
disconnected. But once we are trained to a certain degree, we might become completely absorbed
in the process of making music, ―losing ourselves‖ in our playing. We don’t think of or
experience ourself as a particular person or a player; there is not even a sense of ―me‖ anymore.
Likewise, we don’t perceive the instrument, the fingers, and our mind as different or separate
things. Still, or from the Buddhist point of view, because of that, this does not mean either that
there is nothing going on or that this situation is depressing. On the contrary, it is an alive and
happy state of mind. Everything flows together in a playful and lighthearted dance. In fact, the
less we think about ourselves, or anything else, for that matter, the better we can play, and the
more the instrument, the melody, and the player become one. On the other hand, once we
become ―self-concerned‖ we lose this lighthearted flow and our play becomes clumsy again.

For all these reasons, in Buddhism gaining certainty in the view of selflessness is very
important and necessary. If we want to find an expert who can fix the problems we face with our
emotions and ego-clinging, we will find that expert right within us. No one knows our emotions
and ego-clinging better than we do ourselves; we are the most expert person in the world to
understand our own emotions and to lay out the plan of how to work with them. It is from this
point of view that we should envision the building of our own enlightenment and the
achievement of inner freedom and calmness. We have to come to a realization of what reality is
and how it manifests, as well as communicating the message of enlightenment between each
individual’s heart. Such communication can only happen from our own heart.

Tasting Our Own Ego

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However, in the process of tasting the reality of enlightened mind, we have to experience a slight
sense of negative mind; that is, we must truly experience our emotions and ego-clinging. Without
that, there is no way we can taste pure awakening. When we experience anger, aggression,
jealousy, pride, or ego-clinging, we may feel that such experiences are negative, painful,
disturbing, or even insane in some way. At the same time, right within these experiences of
emotions, there is a message of awakening and a taste of peace and enlightenment—if we are
able to experience them. The question is, ―Are we really experiencing our emotions?‖

We usually have a whole list of complaints to discuss with our counselors, therapists, and
instructors. We tell them, ―I have a problem. I am experiencing some emotions. I am angry at
this guy‖. But are we really experiencing our emotions, or are we just experiencing the labels or
concepts of those emotions? The concepts of anger, jealousy and passion have nothing to do with
the actual nature of emotions. Genuinely experiencing one’s emotions is the best way to
experience the nature of reality.

When we say ―genuinely experiencing‖ an emotion, we are talking about experiencing

emotions without labels or conceptual elaborations. Be who we are when we start a conversation.
If we are feeling angry in that moment, be aware of it and be who we are in that moment. If we
are feeling passion in that moment, be who we are. It is not a permanent state. Even if we wanted
to be angry or passionate for a long time, we cannot, as we will lose track at some point. Thus,
being who we are, discovering who we are, begins with discovering the reality of our experience
in every moment. In that moment, we do not want to be someone else. We do not sit here and
think, ―I wish I were you.‖

No True Reality Outside our Experience

From the Buddhist point of view, there is no true reality outside the set of experiences and
emotions that we go through every day. At the same time, our ego itself wants to be free of these
attacks of emotions. Our inflated ego wants to be the first to get out of this insanity. When we

28
look at our mind, we all think the same way, we want to escape these problems of emotions and
suffering. We want to be the first person out of here. No one really wants to be last.

However, when we look at our ego, there is a lot of positive energy there—positive flashes of
awakening—right within our ego-clinging. We are not saying, ―I want you to be free.‖ We are
not saying, ―I want to practice so that you get out of samsara‖. Rather, we are sitting here saying,
―I want to be free. I want to calm my mind a little and experience some peace. I want to
experience some wisdom and insight‖. That “I‖ is what is called ―ego‖ or ―self -clinging.‖ It is a
―me first‖ attitude. Ego wants to be free from the root of suffering and emotions. But emotions
and suffering arise from nothing but ego-clinging. In a sense, there is a catch twenty-two here;
ultimately speaking, ego is searching for a way out of itself and for a path that leads to the
realization of egolessness.

―Ego wanting to be free from ego-clinging‖ is already an awakening message. Can we

imagine that? It is a crazy idea to think, ―I want to be the best enlightened person.‖ However, the
only way ―I‖ can become the best enlightened person is by going beyond ―me‖ or ―I‖ or ego.
Strangely enough, in a way, ego cherishes that thought. In some respects, there is a quality of
selflessness in that, and ego does not mind the sacrifice. Thus, when we look deeper into this
reality, emotions like anger, jealousy, and passion all are wonderful experiences, if we can just
experience them.

When we experience such a reality, there is tremendous value in being with that experience,
because that experience never repeats. It is a once in a lifetime experience. When we have an
attack of anger or jealousy, that attack does not happen twice. It happens only in that moment,
and that moment is as precious as meeting the Buddha. Being who we are begins with being
where we are. Being where we are is easy when the experience is pleasant. When we are in the
Bahamas lying down on a nice beach or going for a swim, it is easy to say, ―Oh yeah! I can be
here – I don’t want to be anywhere else.‖ However, the most difficult point is to be where we are
when we don’t want to be there. That is the time we have to try our best to experience reality and
be where we are. That is the whole process of the path and spirituality.

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 For that reason, unfavorable situations are valuable. When we can work with unfavorable
situations, we really have the quality of path. At the same time, when favorable situations arise
and we are somewhere we want to be, like Hawaii, we do not need to think about being
somewhere else or try to stop that experience. When we are in situations of joy and pleasure, of
appreciating the beauty of the natural world, we should be there as well. If we miss that moment,
then we are missing another big opportunity.

Letting Go Too Fast

When we try to experience something other than what we are presently experiencing, then we are
neither here nor there. We are lost in the middle. An example in the Buddhist texts speaks about
monkeys swinging from one tree branch to another. It is said that the most skillful monkeys do
not let go of the branch they are holding onto until they know they have a good grasp on the next
branch. On the other hand, unskillful monkeys let go of the branch they are holding before
getting a firm grasp on the next branch. As a result, they fall. Similarly, if we let go of our
emotions and our present situation too fast, before we fully experience awakening, then we will
fall like those monkeys.

At this point, we have a good grip on one branch. There is no problem with that, because our
grip on our emotions and ego is very strong within our daily experiences. In fact, there is value in
these experiences that goes beyond conceptualizations of ―good‖ and ―bad.‖ At the moment we
are experiencing intense emotions like anger, we do not have value judgments or a rational mind
that tells us, ―This is not good.‖ Rather, we are experiencing pure mental energy—it is just a
vibration, a pure message of emotions in everyday life. Therefore, from the point of view of the
Buddhist spiritual journey, it becomes necessary for us to go through the process of getting our
hands a little bit dirty, and then we can go through the process of cleaning up. That is the process
of accomplishing freedom.

What is Wrong with Ego-Clinging?

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How does fixation on a self engender conditioned existence with all our problems and suffering?
As soon as the concept of ―self‖ arises, the projection of ―other‖ also arises. When we project
and cling onto our self as ―I‖ or ―me,‖ this fixation naturally creates the corresponding image of
―others out there.‖ This is how self-clinging is the cause of duality. It creates a separation
between ―self‖ and ―other.‖ Clinging to the self, we develop attachment, which results in
cherishing the self. On that basis, we engage in all the mental afflictions to protect that self from
others.

All the mental afflictions—aggression, jealousy, judgment, pride, envy, and so on—develop
on this basis of self and other and the separation of these two. From the arising of mental
afflictions comes our subsequent engagement in negative actions, and it is at that moment we
accumulate karma. We may accumulate the seeds of both positive and negative actions, but
primarily negative ones. Through our involvement with such repetitive negative actions, we
wander in conditioned existence.

It is clear how the fixation on a self causes suffering, how it becomes the root of all the
suffering that we experience. We have many wonderful, beautiful illusions of the world, but
when we do not realize that they are illusions and get caught in clinging to them as real and truly
existent, we experience all kinds of suffering. On the basis of this self-clinging, we create
suffering not only for ourselves, but also for others. This is evident in our own immediate
experience. For example, we can easily see how much suffering we experience when we have
strong anger or when we have very strong attachment. We can see how much suffering we create
as a result of the mental afflictions of jealousy or pride. We can also see that this doesn’t happen
only once and then it no longer occurs, rather it happens again and again. This is what we call
conditioned existence, which has the connotation of a vicious circle.

Engaging in repetitive actions involving mental afflictions habituates us to these states of

mind. It becomes so natural, so normal, to arouse anger. Certain environments create the
conditions for us to give rise to strong anger. The first time we may experience anger as some
slight irritation and feel just a little uncomfortable. The next time anger occurs, it becomes a bit
stronger, like a small spark. Then it gets bigger and bigger and becomes like a flame to which the

31
environment adds oxygen. The next time we find ourselves in this situation, our anger is very
strong and we are ready to punch someone. The point is to see how the anger grows, especially
over time when we become habituated to it.

Such habituation is our main problem because it creates a pattern. In fact, the main thing we
are trying to transcend is our habitual patterns and tendencies. As for the mental afflictions
themselves, there is actually nothing to transcend. They come and they go. What we actually
have to transform is that which is hanging on to all these emotions and afflictions—our habitual
tendencies. We have to watch out for the habit of self-clinging.

We can see how ego-clinging brings us a lot of suffering, but how does the self, or ego, come
into existence? It is said that when we experience such habituation to self-clinging and the
mental afflictions, it is like having a dream when we do not recognize that we are dreaming. The
only difference is that the vicious cycle of conditioned existence is a very long dream. What we
ordinarily call a ―dream‖ is something much shorter, something that we wake up from every
morning, while the dream of conditioned existence just keeps continuing. As long as we do not
recognize we are dreaming, we see everything as very real and very solid; we experience many
kinds of suffering and pain, as well as some happiness. Between these alternating states, there is
so much struggle. Not recognizing that we are dreaming, there is no way to imagine awaking
from that dream. Our experiences seem so real, just as our sufferings do now, and we do not see
how we can free ourselves from such suffering. In the same way, we are all in conditioned
existence right now, and our ego-clinging is so strong that it is very difficult to imagine how we
could wake up, or what our experience might be like if we were to realize selflessness.

A Person Without Self, Things without a Core

In order to wake up to our true identity or being, we need to look at our ordinary sense of ―me‖
and ―mine.‖ Having our basic feeling of ―I‖ and then taking other things and persons to be real
are just two expressions of the same clinging; we take whatever we experience as being solidly
real, no matter whether it is ourselves or other than ourselves.

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 The most basic, instinctive sense of self-clinging is what all sentient beings are born with.
This is an innate sense of ―me‖-ness or ―I‖. This innate self-clinging is not conceptual or even
conscious most of the time. It is the fundamental sense of a reference point that is always there.
We all experience this basic reference point of being at the center of the universe, around which
everything else revolves. We think that everyone should be looking at us and listening to our
good opinions.

On top of that basic reference point, we develop many different levels of conceptual overlays
in terms of who and how we are. This starts with ordinary mundane labels, such as, ―I am
Heather; I am an American; I am a lawyer,‖ and then we may add some deeper philosophical,
scientific, or religious labels.

Just as we have the basic reference point of innate self-clinging, we also have such reference
points outside of ourselves, the basic reference points of ―objects.‖ We have such reference
points in relation to our sense perceptions, thinking, ―There is really something or somebody out
there.‖ On this basis, we add many other labels, such as ―a visual object,‖ ―red,‖ or ―a person.‖

Whether we are dealing with our self or other phenomena, the first layer of labeling is still
somewhat neutral, but the secondary levels of labeling become judgmental. They involve ideas
such as good and bad, sacred and profane, and other more subtle concepts. The judgmental
process that constitutes the secondary labeling process becomes deeper and more extensive once
it is supported through religion, philosophy, or science. We also try to justify this labeling
process by saying that things exist definitively in the way that we have defined or labeled them.

The whole process boils down to these two fundamental fixations: innate and imputed self-
clinging. In dealing with these two fixations, it is important to first recognize them as the basic
problem or target and then tackle them through investigating their true nature. Otherwise, it is
like shooting an arrow in the dark, we will miss our target and we might even hit an innocent
person. No matter what investigation or contemplation we use or how well we use it, if we do not
clearly identify its object or target, we are not likely to accomplish much. Here our target is

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everything that we cling to as truly existent and real. We are looking at how we think, how we
perceive, and how we conceive of this.

In terms of our clinging to what we think is ―me,‖ on the basis of our innate vague sense of
―me,‖ we generate several wrong ideas. These can be summarized as three incorrect ways of
perceiving our assumed self: clinging to it as being permanent, singular, and independent. Each
of these three types of clinging is associated with a corresponding type of ignorance. Clinging to
the self as being permanent arises due to ignorance about time. Clinging to the self as being
singular comes from ignorance about the objects that are mistakenly regarded as the self.
Clinging to the self as being independent arises from ignorance about causes and conditions.

Of course, when asked specifically, most of us would agree that we are not permanent or
completely independent. However, when we are directly reminded of our impermanence in ways
that we cannot ignore, such as getting gray hairs, falling ill, being in a car accident, or facing
death, we usually become very upset. Likewise, if asked, we would surely say that our left big
toe is not our personal self, but when it hurts or when we even lose it, we do not at all regard
ourselves as separate from this toe. Thus, a very effective contemplation on our sense of ―me‖ is
to consider how it affects our individual sense of our identity to imagine losing, one by one, all
our body parts. In addition, we can ask ourselves, at what point in this process of losing our
limbs do we still feel like the same person whom we believe we are now, in full possession of all
our body parts. Do we change in our existence as John or Mary when we lose one finger, or does
it take several limbs? What if just our torso and head were left? And when do we cease to exist
as a person altogether? The same contemplation can be applied to losing our relatives, our
friends, our possessions, and certain features of our mind, as with senility. Such contemplations
may sound strange, but in practice they are excellent and powerful tools for learning something
about ourselves and our attachments in a personal way that is quite different from mere
theoretical speculations about a hypothetical self. At the same time, they also work on our
concepts of regarding our body and mind as well as all other phenomena as real and distinct
entities, such as seeing the collection of many body parts as a single ―body‖; taking the diversity
of our momentarily changing feelings, thoughts, and perceptions to be one ―mind‖; or regarding
an assemblage of various wooden or metal parts as a ―chair‖ or a ―car.‖

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 In more detail, the first incorrect notion is that we see ourselves as being permanent. Of
course we never say to others in so many words, ―I am permanent,‖ but we basically think of our
self as being something lasting and definitely not as being momentarily changing. This comes
from ignorance about past, present, and future. Not seeing the nature of our momentary
existence, we lump all three times together as one and then say, ―This is me. I am the same
person I was yesterday, the day before, last year, twenty years ago, thirty years ago . . .‖ In this
idea that ―I am the same person,‖ there is a sense of permanence. This also extends into the
future, when we say, ―I will do such-and-such next month. I will retire in ten years. I will travel
around the world.‖ We do not see that the future is made up of moments that are yet to come;
that every moment we live is a separate, independent moment; and that there is not a single
unchanging self that exists throughout all these moments. All of this arises from our ignorance
with respect to time and the momentary impermanence of everything conditioned.

The second incorrect notion is that we cling to the self as being a singular entity. When we
say ―I,‖ we think of it as one, we see ourselves as one distinct person. But what is this ―self‖ or
―I,‖ when we actually look at it? When we look at the object of self-fixation, we find that the self
is not singular but multiple. The basis of self-clinging consists of nothing but all the many
different elements of our psychophysical existence. Therefore, the self is not singular, but is
composed of our body, our thoughts, our perceptions, our emotions, and so on. In brief, we can
say that there are two objects of self-clinging—body and mind. This means that the self is not
singular; it has at least two objects. And when we examine these two, we find that they, too,
consist of many parts. Our body has different parts and also the mind has many moments and
functions; neither is a single entity. Nevertheless, though the self cannot be singular, we have this
ignorance with respect to the singularity of the self.

The third incorrect notion is that we think the self is independent and that we are in control.
We believe that it is not dependent upon anything, while in fact, the very existence and notion of
a self is dependent upon many causes and conditions coming together. This is the ignorance
about such causes and conditions.

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 Thus, our many wrong ideas about the self can be summarized in these three incorrect
notions, or mistaken ways, of fixating on a perceived self. However, when we analyze these
different ways of clinging, we see that our fixations are based on a very coarse understanding of
the self. Through our analysis, we begin to develop a more subtle understanding. We begin to see
how we cling onto the self as permanent, while it is impermanent; singular, while it is multiple;
and independent, while it depends on many causes and conditions. In this way, we discover that
our original assumptions do not reflect reality. Moreover, when we look at this personal self, we
find two elements, the objects that we misconceive as our self and the mind that fixates on them
as a self.

The Screen onto which we Project Ourselves

When we look at our body and mind, we see that they are the basis upon which we think, ―This
is me.‖ So it is important to relate to these two objects and analyze each one to see exactly where
this ―self‖ is located. Our sense of ―I,‖ of ―me-ness,‖ is so strong and seemingly obvious that we
should be able to find this self, if it truly exists. Therefore, in the first stage of our analysis, we
should try to pinpoint the location of our self. Is it located in just our body or just our mind? Or
does the basis of the self consist of body and mind together?

Once we have reached a conclusion about the rough location of the self, in the second stage of
our analysis we look into exactly what this self is. What is it that we cling to as our ―self,‖ as
―me‖? If we think that the self is in the body, for example, then we would ask, ―Is the self the
whole body, or one of its parts? Is it the brain? Is it the heart?‖ If we have gone through all body
parts and conclude that none of them is the self, that there is not a self within any of them, then
we apply the same line of investigation to the mind. If we think that the self is most likely to be
located within our feelings, we would ask, ―Is the self the totality of feelings, or is it just one
particular feeling? If it is one feeling, which one is it?‖ Then, we continue in the same way with
our perceptions, thoughts, and all other mental events.

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 If we say that the self is our body, then it would follow that our body is permanent, singular,
and independent of other causes and conditions, because this is how we perceive our self. But in
that case, it would follow that the self, which is singular and is the body, could not include any of
the aspects of mind. Therefore, our self would exist as the body alone and lack any attributes of
the mind. The reverse applies if we think of our self as being just our mind. If we think that body
and mind together are the self, we would have at least two separate selves, or many more, if we
consider all the different parts of body and mind. However, this clearly contradicts our
experience and shows that the self is neither singular nor permanent, because when we think of
the self, we think not only of our body, but also of all the many things that are going on in our
mind.

When we examine in this way, the question is where we can find our self and the clinging to
it. Sometimes we perceive the sense of ―I‖ or ―me‖ as being our body. For example, when we
have a headache, we say, ―I have a headache.‖ We don’t say, ―The body has a headache.‖ In this
situation, we perceive our body or our head as the self. Similarly, when we cut ourselves in the
kitchen, we say, ―I cut myself.‖ Again, we see ourselves as our body. There are many more
examples that show us how we often perceive the body as the self. However, when we
experience mental suffering, we say, ―I’m unhappy. I’m depressed. ― In this case, we are
regarding our mind as the self ― our fixation has switched over to a different object. In everyday
life, we constantly alternate between fixating on our self as being either the body as a whole,
certain parts of it, the mind as a whole, or certain of its aspects. Much of our confusion and
suffering comes from not seeing this clearly, which is why we don’t really know who we are.

Therefore, we should analyze and gain some certainty about where and what the self is. Is it
the body or is it the mind? If the self is the body, then, from hair to toes, where is it? If the self is
the mind, is it in our feelings, discriminations, perceptions, thoughts, or any other mental
impulses? If it is within our consciousness, then which one is it? We have many types of
consciousnesses ― our five sense consciousnesses and the thinking consciousness. It is
important to analyze the objects of fixating on the self in this way.

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The Mind of Fixation

When we look at the self of person, as mentioned earlier, we find two elements ― the object of
self-clinging and the subjective mind that clings in this way. These two, object and subject, exist
only by way of their interdependent relationship. If we have thoroughly analyzed and found no
self in any or all the parts of our body and mind, then it naturally follows that the mind that
fixates on that nonexistent self must actually also be nonexistent. In other words, the mind of
fixation (the subject that seems to observe and cling to a nonexistent object) cannot exist really
either, it is just a fixed idea holding on to a phantom. Once we have determined that there is no
self anywhere in all these objects that could be its possible location, we can be certain that the
self simply does not exist. As a consequence, we can also be certain that the mind that clings to
that notion has no independent reality either. Therefore, there is absolutely no existence of both a
self and the clinging to it.

The Interdependent Self

From the Buddhist point of view, the self exists only on the level of relative reality and only as a
conventional imputation on the basis of our body and mind. That is why it is called
interdependent. We can illustrate this with the example of five matchsticks standing upright,
leaning together to form the shape of a tent. Any one of these matchsticks could not stand up
without relying on the support of the others. In the same way, the illusion of our self can only be
supported on the basis of all the elements of our body and mind coming together. However, this
means nothing other than that whatever is dependent on causes and conditions has no true
existence of its own.
In other words, whatever is based on a collection has no self-existence. This can be further
illustrated by the example of a car. What we call a ―car‖ is nothing but a collection of many
different components: four tires, a body, an engine, a steering wheel, gas and break pedals, seats,
windows, and so forth. If we look at it in this way, there is no separate entity called ―car‖ beyond
the coming together of these parts. But we cannot find the car in any one of the individual parts
or mechanisms either. The parts have their own designations, such as ―tire,‖ ―seat,‖ and ―steering

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wheel.‖ Each one has a different name and is clearly not the car. Thus, our illusory notion of a
―car‖ only appears as the result of the coming together of many causes and conditions. In the
same way, just as there is no inherently existing car, there is no independently existing self. The
self that we experience conventionally has the nature of interdependence. Accordingly, in its
own nature, it is devoid of anything permanent, singular, or independent—in fact, of anything
truly existent.

We can also say that the self that we experience as coming from a past moment into the
present moment and continuing on into a future moment is like a reflection of the moon in clear
water. This reflection appears so vividly and clearly, yet it has no solid existence. It appears due
to the coming together of certain causes and conditions: clear water, an absence of wind, the
moon above, and a sky that is free of clouds. In the same way, the self, which appears to us so
vividly and clearly, is just a hollow form. When all its causes and conditions come together, we
have the seeming appearance of a self that continues from the past and into future. However, that
self is as illusory and ungraspable as a reflection of the moon in water.

How Body and Mind Exist

When we analyze the two main aspects of our existence, body and mind, we must address the
question of how they exist. When we look at the body, we are starting with physical matter.
Conventionally speaking, we usually accept that matter exists on a subtle level as countless,
infinitesimal, particles or atoms, which represent the building blocks of larger forms. However,
according to Buddhist analysis and also modern physics, when we analyze these atoms using
logical analysis or experiments, we cannot find any solid matter or physical substance that truly
exists. Regardless of how deep and refined our analysis may be, we will not be able to find any
particles of which coarser objects are composed. TVs, telephones, newspapers, and our own
bodies, all of them are forms that can be broken down to an atomic level. But when we arrive at
that level, we find that these subtle particles are not solid entities either. They are not ―the last
remaining‖ thing, because they can be further divided. We cannot find anything that is, in itself,

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―partless.‖ Thus, if we analyze thoroughly and do not find any truly existing particles on the
most subtle level, what is the basis for the tangible forms that we see and use every day?

We can combine our understanding arrived at through reasoning with the insights of scientists
working in the field of contemporary physics. Many of these scientists are suggesting that the
basic make-up of existence goes far beyond the atomic level; whatever it is that exists as a
creative force is not solid matter, but exists more as constantly changing energy fields, to which
names like ―quarks‖ or ―strings‖ are given. Giving names to such energy fields makes it all
sound a little more substantial than if this were just identified as ―nothingness‖ or ―emptiness.‖
Emptiness scares people, but ―quarks‖ and ―strings‖ are somehow more comforting. They may
be nicer words, but in the end, they come down to the same thing, emptiness. So modern science
arrives, by it owns means, at the same conclusion as reasoning and logical analysis.

When we look at mind to see how it exists, we see that, like the body, the mind has many
parts, and each part is momentary. When we look very carefully at this momentary nature of
mind we can isolate a single moment of thought, and this single moment can be regarded as the
smallest unit of mind, akin to the atom. However, when we look further, we find that this single
moment of thought still has three parts, a beginning, a middle, and an end. Put another way,
thoughts momentarily arise, abide, and cease. Each thought goes through this three-stage
process, but when we examine what we actually mean by ―a thought,‖ we find that we are
usually talking about the second stage, which is abiding. For most of us, that is the only
perceptible moment. However, when we look carefully at this abiding moment of thought, we
find that it, too, has three parts, one that is just arising, one that is abiding, and another one that is
just ceasing. Finally, we begin to see that this very subtle moment of thought actually cannot be
found. This is the same for all moments of consciousnesses, regardless of whether we deal with a
moment of feeling, perception, or thought. Therefore, when we look at the mind and try to find
some true existence—a solid existence that is permanent, singular and independent—such a
nature of the mind cannot be found.

In brief, all bases of self-clinging (body and mind) are nothing but illusory forms, appearing
yet not to be found. Unanalyzed, these forms seem quite real and solid, but when we analyze

40
them, they are like mirages. Sometimes, when you are driving on a highway, you may see water
on the road ahead. You may even see the reflection of the lights of other cars in the water. But
when you get closer, there is nothing but asphalt and hot air. In the same way, body and mind
seem very real, and the world seems very solid, when we don’t analyze them. However, when we
look closely at our experiences, we find only the arising, abiding, and ceasing of selfless,
ungraspable, and transitory states, be they states of happiness or suffering. This may be bad news
if you have a happy mind, but its good news if you have a suffering mind.

The Truth is Not Out There

At some point in our analysis of our self, we may say, ―Okay, I cannot really find a truly existent
unchanging self anywhere in my body and mind, but I don’t believe that everything is simply
empty and unreal.‖ Of course, who would believe right away that their own bodies, friends,
houses, and cars are complete fictions and just illusions? At that point, it is time to investigate all
other phenomena in the same way as we did ourselves. When we do so, we may initially develop
doubt that everything is as solidly real as we think it is. Continuing the analysis, we may arrive at
the thought ―Probably all this is actually unreal and empty.‖ The end of our analysis is reached
when we have developed unshakable certainty that all phenomena are unfindable and lack any
inherent existence or nature of their own.

Normally we don’t say, ―This real table over there,‖ or ―The table that truly exists,‖ or ―Can
you bring me the table that truly exists?‖ Nor would we say, ―Please call that person who is truly
existing in such-and-such a form.‖ If someone asks us, ―What is this?‖ we will simply respond,
―It is a table.‖ What they are really asking us is, ―What is appearing in your mind? What do you
think is out there that appears in your mind?‖ When we answer, ―A table,‖ what we actually
mean is that the table appears out there and that it truly exists outside of our mind.

What we call ―a table‖ no doubt appears in our mind, but does it really exist out there, outside
the mind? And if so, how does it exist out there? How did it come to appear to be out there? How
can we tell that there is a table? We can see it, we can touch it, and it can support books and

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flowers. When we try to walk through it, we hurt our legs. That is how we think about a table.
No matter how many labels we put on top of that, no matter what scientific, religious, or
philosophical reasonings we apply, we always begin with the notion that a given object has some
real existence outside of our mind.

Reality is Consensus

We might also reason that all of our friends have the same experience as we do, they see it, touch
it, put things on it, and trip over it. We conclude that if all our friends experience the table in this
way, then there must be a table out there. If we reason this way, we imply that the existence of an
external reality can be determined through majority vote. If only one person sees something out
there, something other than what most people see, we question that person’s perception. Or, if
somebody sees something in the space right in front of us, something like ―Lucy in the sky with
diamonds,‖ everyone thinks they are crazy. There is no Lucy out there and no diamonds. We all
constantly vote on what kind of existence there is. Furthermore, we also vote with our senses.
We think, ―My eye consciousness agrees with my ear consciousness, which agrees with my body
consciousness; my eye can see these things, my ear can hear them, my body can touch them, and
my nose can smell them.‖ If all our senses agree that the object is out there, then we conclude
that it has an existence outside of the mind.

Accepting such ―majority confusion,‖ we agree on what is real and what is not. However,
even if millions of people have gone crazy, that does not change the nature of things. No matter
how many crazy people agree on a crazy idea, it is still a crazy idea. From the point of view of
someone who sees things as they actually are, no matter how many ordinary beings mistakenly
agree about the nature of existence and what is real, that does not change what is truly the case.

When we look at our senses, with which we decide what is real and how it is real, we find that
they are rather low tech when compared with most animals. Also, if our eyes were not set
horizontally as they are, but vertically, we would see the world quite differently from how we see
it now. So which seeing is the correct seeing? We humans see the world one way and other

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beings, dogs, cats, ants, grasshoppers, fish, and other creatures, see it very differently. Scientists
tell us that dogs do not see colors the way we do and that cats see shapes differently from us. If
the matter of true existence were put to a vote, the human perception of ―reality‖ would
undoubtedly lose.

All of our experiences of what we take to be actual color or actual shape are, in fact, a mix of
constructed and confused thoughts and perceptions. All of them come from the basic cause of
delusion and ignorance, clinging to our self and real phenomena. At present, we are extremely
well trained in seeing phenomena as real and nonempty. When engaging in Buddhist analysis,
we basically retrain in seeing phenomena as being empty of real existence. In other words, over a
long time we have managed to be completely and effortlessly accustomed to imagining the real
existence of ourselves and all phenomena. In the contemplative analysis that we do here, the
point is to grow equally accustomed to the complete lack of our self and real phenomena, which
is only possible through repeated familiarization with such analysis. The Sanskrit term for
―meditation‖ (bhāvanā) literally means ―to perfume.‖ Thus, meditation can be understood as
perfuming our mind with the insight into emptiness until the scent of this insight becomes
inseparable from and a natural part of our mind’s fabric.

Understanding Selflessness in the Context of the Two Levels of Reality

It is important to remember that the analyses described here are presented from the point of view
of ultimate reality, not from the point of view of relative truth or conventional reality. From the
perspective of the ultimate or absolute nature, we say that things do not have true existence but
are empty in nature. However, from the relative or conventional point of view, things do have
interdependent existence. Things exist, but in a state of interdependence. There is the
interdependent arising of self and the interdependent continuity of self, that is, a sense of self that
continues from the past into the present and on into the future.

Because there is this sense of continuity in relative truth, the Buddha presented the teachings
about karma (cause and effect) and how individuals can transform their mental afflictions and

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achieve freedom. However, any sense of continuity still refers to relative and interdependent
existence. Ultimately, nothing exists solidly; there is nothing other than the vast web of
constantly changing and interdependently existing causes and conditions. Relatively speaking,
there is a world, but its nature is entirely contingent. Therefore, when we study this view of
egolessness, we must separate the relative truth and the ultimate truth. If we mix them, we will
become confused. Once during a teaching on emptiness, someone asked, ―If everything is empty,
then isn’t your chair also empty?‖ I said, ―Yes, of course, my chair is also empty.‖ The student
continued, ―Then how can you sit on it? Why don’t you fall to the floor, if it is empty?‖ What
this person was trying to do was putting a relative, solid person on an absolute, unreal, and empty
chair, thus mixing the two truths. You must see that when the chair is empty, the person is empty
too.

Interdependent existence is the nature of the relative truth, which we call ―mere appearance,‖
or ―mere existence.‖ Everything merely appears to be real, much like in a dream. For example, in
a dream, when you see fire and put your finger into it, it gets burned. But when you awaken from
that dream, you realize that there was no fire, no person, and no action of burning. None of that
existed in actual reality. In the same way, when we are confused about the appearances of
relative reality, we may have many vivid experiences, just as we do when we are dreaming, but
when we realize the actual nature of reality, it is like waking up from a dream, we are no longer
confused about relative appearances. Therefore, distinguishing between the relative and ultimate
levels of reality is very necessary. We must understand that, when we are talking about
selflessness or emptiness, we are speaking from the perspective of absolute truth.

Resting in Certainty

When we have thoroughly practiced such analytical contemplations, have reached the point
where we have looked deeply and extensively into both body and mind, and have been unable to
find the existence of a self, we will experience a sense of a gap. That is the beginning of certainty
in selflessness. Certainty comes not only from hearing or reading words about selflessness, but
primarily from our personal experience of searching and analyzing, through which we reach our

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own conclusions. This is very important. So, when we reach that level of certainty, we should
rest in it without any concepts. Simply relax and let go of everything, all your thoughts,
including the thought of the observer. That is actually the point when the observer and the
observed merge. They come together and there is no more separation. It is like rubbing two
wooden sticks against each other to create a fire. The fire that is produced will burn both sticks,
not just one. In the same way, when you have realized selflessness, the fire of that wisdom will
transcend both subject and object. Thus, we should relax and rest freely. Whether we feel we
have achieved a complete experience of selflessness or only a glimpse, it does not matter. We
just rest in that nature of groundlessness.

This is the first stage of the meditation on emptiness, not finding the self and then resting in
the certainty of its nonexistence. We reach this point through analysis. Look at your body, look at
your mind — where is the self? Then rest in the very moment of not finding the self. It is crucial
not to miss that moment. Sometimes we may get lost in the analysis. We don’t find anything and
we think, ―Oh, I’ll just go back over it again and maybe find something.‖ Instead, at the point
when we don’t find anything, we should rest as much as we can. At other times, when we have
come to the point of resting, we find the experience so beautiful that we want to hold onto it.
Then grasping arises, and the thought process resumes. At that point, we should return to our
analysis.

The importance of repeatedly alternating our analyzing and resting minds lies in its leading us
to greater and greater certainty. The certainty that is grounded in such direct experience is much
stronger than the confidence we might have in someone else’s experience. If we merely believe
the words of gurus or other meditators who say, ―Yes, it is all empty,‖ then our meditation
becomes very shallow. At some point, we may be forced to acknowledge that we actually have
no idea what we are doing. But if we reach certainty through our own analysis, then that
certainty will be much deeper, because it is our own conclusion. When our own conclusion and
the Buddha’s words come together, we gain a much deeper and more valuable experience.

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Finding the Middle Way

As our practice of meditation on selflessness matures, eventually we will be able to rest free of
grasping at either existence or nonexistence, which are regarded equally as extreme beliefs. On
the one hand, if we solidly believe in the inherent existence of things, then we are denying their
ultimately unreal nature. On the other hand, if we entertain a solid belief in the utter nonexistence
of things, then we are denying conventional appearances, which do have interdependent
existence on the level of relative reality. No matter which extreme we fixate on, they are equal in
their power to obscure the direct experience of utter mental openness, which is beyond all such
conceptual fabrications.

In order to arrive at the middle way beyond these two extremes, it is necessary to first go to
the extreme of nonexistence. This means that, in our meditation here, we should emphasize the
empty or ultimate nature of mind and phenomena, and de-emphasize the relative appearing
aspect. This is because right now we have such a strong clinging to existence in general, to the
existence of the self, to the existence of our mind, to the existence of our body, and everything
else. Because our clinging to existence is so intense and predominant, we should first throw our
mind all the way to the other extreme of nonexistence. We should go in that direction as far as
we can. However, no matter how far we go, our mind will always be pulled back toward
existence and never become completely stuck in the view of nonexistence, because there is a
kind of gravity that naturally pulls us back. That gravity is the force of our clinging and grasping
at solid existence. So when we find ourselves drifting back in that direction, we again throw our
mind toward the extreme of nonexistence. It is like a pendulum swinging between two opposite
points. We do this over and over until, at some point, we find the middle way beyond the
extreme points of solid existence and utter nonexistence. Thus, at the beginning, in order to
counteract our deeply ingrained tendency to take everything to be really existent, resting in a
sense of nonexistence as the complete opposite of existence is very important.

Once we are able to stabilize our certainty in nonexistence and rest within that for a long time,
we should change the focus of our practice. We may find that we have become attached to the
view of nonexistence, which is also a fault. Then we should begin to dismantle the idea of

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nonexistence too and try to transcend that fixation as well. In the beginning stage of our practice,
however, we do not have to worry about that. We should simply rest in the nonexistence of our
personal self and all other phenomena as much as we can.

The Fourth Seal: Nirvana Alone is Peace

After having cut through ignorance as the fundamental cause of all our suffering, pain, problems,
and neuroses, the clinging to our ego and real things, there are no more results of that cause.
When we reach the level of no more ego, we reach the level of no more suffering, which ends all
our basic fear and also the fear of any further suffering in the future for good. However, this state
called ―nirvana‖ does not just mean the sheer absence of suffering and mental afflictions, but
represents the final manifestation of mind’s innate Buddha qualities unobscured by anything
whatsoever. True freedom means that there is nothing left to lose and nothing to gain. This
means that there is nothing to lose in terms of ignorance and suffering, and there is nothing more
to gain in terms of inner space, openness, wisdom, and compassion. Therefore, the Buddha said
that nirvana is the only reliable state of lasting liberation from suffering and profound peace of
mind.

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Class 3: The Four Reminders

Precious human birth

 What makes our existence precious?
 Confidence, enthusiasm, and wisdom

Karma
 Is karma a religious belief?
 Causes and effects in terms of body, speech, and mind
 What are ―good‖ and ―bad‖ actions in Buddhism?
 Four characteristics of karma
 Are there past and future lives or not?
 How to work with karma

The Four Reminders and their Context

When we look at the Tibetan term for what are usually called ―the four reminders‖ in English, it
is different, but together they give us a pretty good idea what these four are about. The English
means that these four things remind us of something, while the Tibetan says ―the four ways to
turn your mind away from something.‖ These two meanings are like the two sides of the same
coin, we remind ourself of something and we also turn our mind away from that something.
What we remind ourself of is what conditioned existence is all about, a vicious circle, and what
we turn our mind away from is this vicious circle. Once we remind ourself often and thoroughly
enough what the nature and the problems of this vicious circle are, we will eventually develop
enough weariness and determination to be serious about turning our back on it. This means not
only that we turn our mind away from everything that is very obviously problematic and painful
in conditioned existence, but also from everything that looks good and enticing, because we can
clearly see how it eventually brings us back to square one of the game of conditioned existence,
suffering. In other words, we turn away from conditioned existence as we ordinarily see it, or

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even like it, and remind ourself of what it actually is. One could also say, the four reminders are
designed to be a turn-off for everything that brings us suffering, no matter how wonderful it may
seem. The four are:

thw precious human existence

impermanence and death
karma (cause and result)
the shortcomings of conditioned existence

We can look at these four reminders in two ways. The usual order starts with the preciousness of
our human birth, which sounds pretty good, like something really valuable. But then, the second
one is, again, impermanence and death, and we are back in trouble. From there, it just keeps
going downhill, the third one is karma, cause and effect, which basically tells us that we don’t
get away with anything we do, and who wants to hear that? The fourth one lists all the defects,
shortcomings, and sufferings of conditioned existence, which we all know too well already and
have been told before in great detail. So we are stuck again with all our problems and headaches.
In this order, the first one still sounds fine, but then it just seems to get worse and worse.
Alternatively, we can also go the other way round, start with the headaches and then ascend to
the nicer things.

In their first order, for a lot of people the four reminders work very well to turn their minds
away; however, it turns their minds away not from conditioned existence, but rather from these
four reminders themselves! Or at least the last three sound really depressing. Buddhists seem
addicted to always speaking about how everything ends and decays, about death, misery, and bad
karma. However, as mentioned before, the Buddha did not teach on these topics in order to make
us depressed, but in order to clearly see our situation instead of running away from it. Without
seeing clearly what our problem is and what causes it, there is no way to get rid of it, no matter
how hard we try. Again, the Buddha taught about impermanence, suffering, and our karmic
(mainly negative) actions in order to overcome them, not to establish a religion of complaint and
hopelessness, or to further the sales numbers of Prozac.

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 Also, it should be clear that these four reminders are discussed from the point of view of our
relative experiences, or our relative seeming reality, and not from the perspective of ultimate
reality. After our discussion of selflessness (see class 2), you may wonder, ―Well, if there is no
self and all phenomena are unreal and illusory, who is suffering, who acts, who experiences any
result of any action, and who is reborn?‖ Again, we need to distinguish between the ultimate
nature of how things actually are and how they appear to us. Otherwise, this opens the way for
all kinds of wrong ideas and conduct, such as saying, ―Everything is unreal and empty, so what
does anything matter?‖ ―Since there are really no positive or negative actions, I can do whatever
I like.‖ Or, ―Things cannot be unreal, because we all experience a common world and the
workings of cause and effect.‖ Thus, the two realities are taught precisely in order to avoid
falling into these extremes of either total nonexistence or solid existence, because both notions
lead to wrong actions and ensuing suffering. As a rule, it may be said that as long as we
experience afflictive emotions and suffering (as the expressions of a dualistic mental framework
of ego-clinging), we are right in the middle of ordinary seeming reality, no matter what we might
wish for or pretend. In this situation, it does not help at all to deny or cover this experiential
reality with a misunderstood conceptual overlay of everything being unreal or emptiness. In
other words, as long as our experiences are bound to seeming reality, our mental development
and our actions have to be carried out within this framework, too. No matter how lofty our
theories or understanding may be, as long as we experience ourselves as distinct persons and as
subject to the causes and results of our actions, there is no way to ignore such causes and results.
Moreover, to do so would prevent us from using the causality of this very relative reality of ours
in an appropriate way, which is the only way to eventually transcend it.

In other words, while practicing or behaving in the context of ordinary reality, it is only for
the sake of the result—liberation from suffering—that we adopt the things to be adopted and
abandon the things to be abandoned on this level. But we do not simultaneously analyze our
actions for their ultimate reality in order to invalidate them. Moreover, to do so would just take
us back to square one, since the same analysis, when applied to the sufferings and difficulties
that we still experience on the seeming level, would equally annul the very problems that got us
started on doing something about them in the first place. Obviously, it does not help to try to just
analyze our miseries away. In addition, ultimately or when analyzed, not practicing on this

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nonexistent path is as empty as practicing. If a person is happy this way, not suffering and not
doing anything about it, that is surely fine. However, if we still feel uncomfortable, or feel even
more uncomfortable, after having analyzed everything to zero, we might want to get back to
good old conventional reality and do something about it. This is exactly the level the four
reminders address.

Precious Human Birth

What Makes our Existence Precious?

Among the four reminders, the second and fourth, impermanence and death and the
shortcomings of conditioned existence (aka the three kinds of suffering), have already been
discussed in detail under the four truths and the four seals above. Thus, our focus here is on the
first and the third reminders. However, when contemplating them as a set, all four should be
included according to their order.

The first contemplation is our precious human birth. What does precious mean? Merely being
born as a human being is not particularly precious as such, as the many suffering, destitute, and
diseased people in this world amply show. Within the overall chaos and unbearable suffering of
conditioned existence in general, human birth is no exception to being essentially prone to
problems. However, under certain favorable conditions, it is a somewhat limited form of chaos
and suffering. If we don’t suffer from extreme hunger or thirst, from illness, warfare,
imprisonment, and so on, there is a certain degree of space and freedom, so our existence is
workable to some extent. But even then, from a Buddhist point of view, our human existence is
not precious just because we have enough (or too much) money, food, clothing, housing,
entertainment, and sense pleasures. It only becomes precious when we can appreciate and use
this unique situation through contemplating things such as these four reminders and then make
efforts to transcend the essential problem of any form of conditioned existence.

More specifically, when we see the potential of every moment of this existence and then
actually work with it so as to realize the true nature of conditioned existence and go completely

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beyond it, that’s what precious human birth means. One could say that, among all dysfunctional
software programs on the market of conditioned existence, this is the best one. Fundamentally,
none of them really work, but at least with this one we have the chance to get out of the entire
software business of running after superficial happiness and success with all its crashes
altogether. Working with the present moment means not just to think, ―Oh yeah, it is
impermanent‖ and that’s it, but to not let it slip by without using its potential to eventually
realize the true nature of our mind and gain true freedom. As it is said, opportunity just knocks
once, that is, our precious human birth. It offers the chance to transcend suffering, but at the
same time it does not last forever, it is impermanent. In fact, every one of its moments is even
more precious precisely because it is impermanent. If we miss the present moment, there may
come another one, but you never know. As Tibetans say, ―You never know what comes first ―
the next moment or the next life.‖

When we reflect about this precious yet fleeting opportunity of working with our mind to
transcend suffering, if we watch the global news these days, it is very obvious how few people
have the luxury of space and the time to contemplate the teachings on how to end all misery and
work with these teachings. This does not even include all the many other beings, such as the
billions of animals, who don’t have that luxury. Just among humans on this planet, which
percentage of them have the opportunity to do that? The vast majority of people on this earth
struggle with scraping together a meager livelihood, or dealing with warfare, domestic conflicts,
epidemics, psychological problems, and so on. Most people don’t even have one second in their
whole life to think about such things as impermanence, karma, and the causes of their suffering.

Traditionally, many features are described that make up a precious human birth, but they all
boil down to three main elements: confidence, enthusiasm, and wisdom.

Confidence

In Buddhism, confidence does not just mean blind faith in the Buddha’s teachings or liking
certain charismatic teachers, but it refers to a kind of trust that is informed by preceding inquiry

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and the ensuing certainty about the qualities we put our trust in. This means that we know what
the qualities of the Buddha, his teachings, and those who practice and realize these teachings are.
Thus, first, we need to get the necessary information on what we are potentially going to trust
through studying the Buddhist teachings. This is just like developing trust in a person. In order to
do so, we first have to know whether this person has any good and trustworthy qualities, so we
observe and examine them. Likewise, true confidence can only arise if we gain a sufficient
understanding of what Buddhism is and is not about. This includes gaining confidence in the
pure wisdom nature of our own mind, confidence in this nature as accessible and workable, and
confidence in the teachings as the means to actually work with this nature. This is a very
important quality at the beginning. Confidence is our refuge and our protection. Without at least
some degree of openness or confidence, there is no path, no beginning point for our journey.

When we develop such confidence, we gain a certain form of protection and refuge. This can
be compared to the body of a very strong and safe automobile, in which we can enjoy a
comfortable seat and do not have to walk in the rain or under the hot sun. Developing the quality
of confidence is like developing protection all around us, which guards our positive qualities and
the energy we already possess.

Enthusiasm

The second quality, enthusiasm, is also known as diligence or joyous effort. Diligence does not
mean to become a Buddhist workaholic, but to have a genuine interest in our spiritual path and
taking delight in working with our journey. There is a sense of joyous energy and delightful
action. Thus, it means to really like and enjoy working with our mind, engaging in positive
actions versus negative actions, and working with other people and helping them. This is very
important; we all know that if we really like to do something and are inspired about it, nobody
has to force us and we also don’t get tired doing it. But if we don’t like to do something,
everything related to it becomes very hard, slow, and painful. If we just try to crank up some
energy, but our mind is not fully behind it, it may work for a while but, in the long run, we will
not be able to sustain our efforts. Here, the basic source for being enthusiastic about working

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with our mind and others is to really want liberation from suffering, ideally for both others and
ourselves. So, again, we are back to the question, ―Do we really want liberation or not?‖ If we
are not so sure, or if we sometimes want to be liberated and sometimes not, especially when we
are having a good time, our enthusiasm for overcoming suffering will be shaky.

Enthusiasm can be compared to the fuel that we need to run our automobile of confidence.
Even if we have a beautiful car with comfortable seats and a powerful engine, without gasoline,
the car will not move. Our pleasure will be limited to sitting in the car and enjoying its physical
qualities, but we neither get to experience how our car moves, nor do we reach any destination
other than where we are already. Likewise, in order to move along on the path of mind, we need
the inspired diligence to actually translate our confidence into beneficial actions. Without this,
we will not get anywhere and just be stuck with some nice concept of some kind of spiritual
journey. Thus, diligence is the real power that takes us to our destination.

Wisdom

However, confidence and diligence or enthusiasm need a certain degree of clarity, insight, and
wisdom, otherwise we may get lost in blind activism or make a lot of efforts in the wrong
direction. For these reasons, the third quality of a precious human birth is wisdom. This wisdom
begins with our fundamental intelligence, our common sense, and our rational mind. When we
become involved in spiritual or religious matters, we often tend to forget our basic common
sense and follow certain belief systems without much analysis or reflection. More fundamentally,
wisdom in Buddhism refers to the basic and genuine curiosity about our own mind. When we
cultivate this inquisitiveness, when we investigate what our mind is like and how to work with it,
when we really get into the depths of our own mind and see how it displays in all its different
facets, insight and basic wisdom will expand all the way through the transcendental wisdom of a
Buddha, which sees things as they truly are.

Such wisdom is similar to the knowledge of driving our automobile. We need to know both
how and where to drive. Even if we have a beautiful and comfortable car full of gasoline and a

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high-powered engine, if we don’t know how to drive, we still cannot get to our destination
safely. We are still stuck, although we have more qualities and a greater sense of richness than
before. If we try to drive without having the proper knowledge, with such a powerful car it may
be dangerous for us and others on the road, with this moving car being like a loose cannon. Also,
if we don’t know where to drive, once we speed along the highway it may be a nice feeling, but
we have no idea where we will end up. Likewise, the wisdom of knowing how to drive on the
spiritual path comes first, and then we need the wisdom of knowing where to go and how to get
there.

Having attained a beautiful, high-powered car, it would be such a waste for us not to use it. If
we lock it up in the garage, it is a waste; after a certain number of years it will be out of date
even if we have obtained the best, most powerful car. We waste our resources if we do not use
them. Once we have obtained a precious human birth, it is important for us to realize its
preciousness and to make the best use we can of it. The best use that we can make of this
precious human birth is to follow the genuine path, using this powerful car to reach our
destination, enlightenment.

In brief, if these three qualities of proper confidence, enthusiasm, and wisdom are complete,
this is what is called a precious human birth. It is truly a ―once-in a-lifetime‖ opportunity and
will not last longer than this life. A brief slogan as a reminder of this could be, ―Discover and use
every moment as a chance to work with your mind.‖

Karma

Is Karma a Religious Belief?

The third reminder is about karma. In general, there are a lot of misconceptions about karma.
Many people think that it is a matter of whether you believe in karma or not and that Buddhists
are the ones who do so. However, the question, ―Do you believe in karma?‖ is just as strange as
asking whether one believes in cause and effect. For karma is nothing other than the principle of
causes producing their results. In other words, if we believe in causality, we believe in karma,

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and if we don’t believe in causality, we don’t believe in karma, it’s that simple. However, the
problem here is that when we talk about cause and effect, almost everybody says, ―Of course, I
believe in cause and effect.‖ But then everybody has their own very private and special selection
of what causes and effects are. People usually do not apply the principle of cause and effect
equally to everything, but mostly to external things and preferably only to causes that they like to
have some effect. Also, people often think, ―If I do this, it doesn’t matter, it won’t have any
consequences, nobody will notice. I’ll get away with it, nobody saw it.‖

Literally, ―karma‖ simply means action; it has the sense of not getting away with anything we
do, no matter whether it is a negative action, a positive action, a big action, or a small action,
they all will have some effect. However, most people, when they hear the word ―action,‖
automatically equate this with physical (and maybe verbal) actions, but the notion of mental
action is not a common one. From a Buddhist point of view, ―action‖ includes mental, physical,
and verbal actions, with the primary actions being the mental ones. In other words, the most
crucial factor in the whole issue of karma is what goes on in our mind.

This also highlights another misunderstanding — many people think that inner or mental
causes, thoughts, emotions, and mental impulses (or at least some of them) do not really have
any effect and are different from external or material causes. And of course, part of this is that
there may be a lot of things in our mind that we really don’t want to look at, let alone want to
have an effect. However, it is clearly not a matter of whether we want something to have an
effect or not; the law of causality works independent of our likings.

From a Buddhist point of view, every mental, physical, and verbal action represents a cause,
which will inevitably have an effect, in just the same way that any other causes do. In particular,
even if we think that it does not matter if we get a little bit angry a few times (or entertain any
other one of our favorite conflicting emotions), it creates a habitual tendency in our mind, which
will inevitably at some point result in some physical or verbal action. Thus, mental actions are
not just some factors that may or may not trigger certain physical and verbal outcomes. They are
karma in themselves in that they create habitual tendencies, mental solidification, and rigid belief

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systems that directly produce mental suffering in ourselves and, via our physical and verbal
actions, in others.

In general, the notion of causality means nothing other than that something cannot come from
nothing and also that something cannot become nothing. Otherwise, anything could randomly
happen at any time or nothing would ever happen. Moreover, without cause and effect, all
intentional actions, such as farming to produce the result of a harvest, would be completely
unpredictable or pointless. Thus, it is not at all a question of just believing or not believing in the
law of karma. If we generally accept the process of cause and effect, we must acknowledge that
it does not make sense to arbitrarily exclude some causal phenomena, such as certain or all of our
physical, verbal, and mental actions, from this general principle. Neither the fact that we may not
see an immediate result of these actions, nor the vague hope of escaping their consequences,
prevent the results of our actions from happening at some point, once the right conditions have
come together.

If we really think about it, we generally do experience and actually count on the effects of our
impulses, emotions, and thoughts, since our physical and verbal actions are constantly driven by
them. When we plan a project or do our work, we do not think at all that our mental activities
have no results; we clearly take it for granted that our thoughts and imaginations will result in
visible actions and products. Also, we know very well the strong and possibly devastating effects
of certain mental impulses, such as falling in love or declaring war. That it might take a long
time for the effect of some action to ripen cannot be a basis for claiming that this action has no
effect. Otherwise, there are many absurd consequences, such as it following that the movements
of the original continents on earth are not the causes for the location and shape of the present
continents, since the beings at that time did not experience the effect that we see at present, nor
do we observe the causes of that time now. Also, the question would be after how long a time an
effect still occurs and from when onward there is no effect of a cause.

It is highly inconsistent to claim that some things, actions, or experiences have causes while
others do not. Likewise, this would also imply that there are two types of causes, some that have
results and others that have no results. How could we reasonably define and distinguish between

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such phenomena? Also, for those phenomena that supposedly do not have causes, all the above
absurd consequences apply, such as something arising out of nothing and the possibility of
anything happening randomly at any time. Furthermore, whenever someone discovers the cause
of something that was previously considered a random event—as has happened and continues to
happen in the history of mankind and science—the entire notion of causelessness or randomness
is fundamentally questioned. In addition, how could uncaused phenomena interact with
phenomena that do have causes? If they interacted in a purely random way, even phenomena
within an established causal continuum would become random phenomena. And if they
interacted in a way that is determined by causes, random phenomena would enter the realm of
causality. If there were, however, two entirely separate realms of caused versus uncaused
phenomena, they could not interact at all.

When we pay closer attention to our thoughts and emotions, we will see that we act upon
what goes on in our mind all the time, from the very point in the morning when we wake up.
This means that we tacitly assume that what goes on in our mind does have certain specific
effects, otherwise we wouldn’t even do the most basic things in life, such as getting out of bed in
the morning, dressing, having breakfast, and going to work, let alone engaging in all our
sophisticated projects to change the world at work. In this way, we are constantly creating mental
causes that have effects in both our mind and in our physical and verbal actions. Without any
preceding impulse, intention, thought, or emotion in the mind, there is no verbal or physical
action either. Not only is there such a cause-and-effect relationship in general, but it is very
specific. Obviously, our thoughts and emotions do not just cause some random physical and
verbal actions that are completely disconnected or contrary to our thoughts and emotions. For
example, based on the motivation to pay a visit to our new neighbors, give them a nice welcome
present, and greet them with friendly words, we will not go to the mall instead, steal from our
new neighbors, and angrily shout at them (that usually comes later . . .).

Where does Karma Start?

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So in order to understand and work with karma, the main point is to see where karma starts,
which is always right now in the present moment of our mind. Whatever we do is determined by
the present state our mind is in, no matter what you did before. This is also where the notion of
freedom in relation to karma comes in. The only freedom we have is in the present moment—it
is not in the past and it is not in the future. Thus, the only way and only chance to change our
karma is right now, and it starts in our own mind. If we are not aware of what’s going on in our
own mind, it is very hard to change karma because it does not happen just on a physical or verbal
level, which is only the outflow of the underlying mental actions. So, mindfulness of the present
moment and what is going on in our mind is the most fundamental way to work with karma.

If we have some control over what’s going on in our mind in the present moment and some
space to not just react habitually like a muscle reflex, we can decide on what is most beneficial
for both ourself and others in the present situation. Karma starts in the present moment and the
change of karma also happens in the present moment. Of course, our overall karma at any given
moment is influenced by what we did in the past and the habitual tendencies that result from
what we did, but depending on how strong these habits are, there is a greater or lesser chance to
step out of them in the present moment.

Karma is not Fate

Many people also think that karma means some kind of static and predetermined destiny or fate,
just as they think that impermanence means nothing but ending and decay. However, in
Buddhism, karma means the sum of all past and present actions, with each one adding to and
shaping the overall dynamic mix. In other words, our past actions carry a certain weight and
power to affect our present life, but our present actions also carry a certain percentage of such
power. If we were determined by our past alone, we could never change anything or work with
our habits; everything would just happen on account of some master plan or blueprint from long
before. The Buddha taught very clearly that we are not determined one hundred percent by what
we did in the past, but we have a certain freedom in the present moment to influence and change
our karmic mix. Otherwise, we could never end our suffering and attain liberation from

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conditioned existence, and any further teachings on the spiritual path would be completely
meaningless. This also means that we cannot deny the responsibility for our lives by simply
blaming our past karma, saying, ―Well, that’s just how I am, that is my karma, and there is
nothing that I can do about it.‖ This is absolutely not the correct understanding of karma as
taught in Buddhism.

From this perspective, our previous actions are more like the seed of a flower, which has the
potential to grow and produce a blossom. However, the seed alone does not bear one hundred
percent certainty to grow into a flower. It needs further conditions, such as water, warmth, good
soil, and space. We have a great opportunity in the present moment to decide how we want to
grow this flower and how to relate to it. We need space in this present moment in order for the
seed to grow one way or the other. Working with karma means to know how to balance our
previous and present actions and how to work with the energy and potential of the growing seed.

For example, we may have the karmic propensity to go hunting. If that propensity is rather
weak, say only twenty percent of all the necessary causal elements to actually kill an animal
(such as a deer), there is a natural sense of space which allows us to easily avoid repeating the
negative actions and the karmic consequences of inflicting pain on and killing a sentient being.
Nevertheless, a certain degree of effort to go against our propensity is needed. A friend might
invite you and say, ―How about going on a hunting trip for the weekend? I have a nice lodge in
the countryside and there is lots of game. I will even offer you my brand new rifle and hunting
gear. We will have a really good time.‖ We may get excited about this proposal. In addition, we
may have no plans for the weekend. Our other friends are out of town, and we always wanted to
see the area where our friend’s lodge is. In this way, all of the supporting conditions might come
together and the twenty percent of our propensity may grow into the hundred percent of a full-
blown hunting trip with lots of shot game. Alternatively, we could make an effort to decline our
friend’s offer and refrain from adding on to our pre-existing propensity.

On the other hand, even if our past propensity is very strong, but the overall karmic situation
to actually kill game during this weekend is to the contrary, even if we start out on our hunting

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trip it may happen that the weather turns very bad before we arrive at the lodge, there are land-
slides that block the roads and so on, and we have to return home.

In general, if our past actions and habits are very strong, it is more difficult to act in a
different way at present; it may be just a one-percent chance, since ninety-nine percent of the
situation is influenced by very strong past actions and propensities. In other cases, we may have
more room, a thirty-percent, fifty-percent, or ninety-percent chance to act against the habitual
flow of our mind. However, no matter how much space and freedom we may have in a given
moment, the training in working with karma is to catch the chance for change and beneficial
action in the present moment, no matter whether it is just one percent or ninety. The point is to
catch however much space the present moment of our karmic mix allows us and then act upon
that instead of just getting carried away by our usual habitual tendencies. All of this always
happens in the present moment, so the important thing here is to see how our thoughts and
emotions are causes, how they actually make us do things, and to be aware of that. In order to
enhance such awareness and mindfulness, meditation is helpful to discover more space in our
mind in a more relaxed setting and thus to prepare us to see and use this space in every present
situation, even if it is a very difficult and loaded one.

What are Positive and Negative Actions?

The Buddha illustrated negative versus positive karmic actions through the examples of chili
seeds and mango seeds. If you plant these seeds, you will naturally harvest the burning taste of
chili or the sweet taste of mangos, respectively, but not the other way round. Thus, the result is
always determined by the nature of the cause and it is up to us which result we want. If we plant
negative actions, we will harvest the burning taste of unpleasant results (suffering), and if we
plant positive actions, we will harvest the sweet taste of pleasant results (happiness). When the
Buddha spoke about negative or non-virtuous actions on the one hand and positive of virtuous
actions on the other hand, it is very important to see that this has nothing to do with some kind of
moralistic attitude of what is good and bad, or that somebody will punish us if we don’t behave
properly. What the Buddha means is very simple, it is like parents telling their child, ―If you put

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your hand on the hot burner on a stove, you will experience pain. If not, you will be fine. It is up
to you.‖

Again, it is just about cause and effect; committing a certain action will give us a certain
result, and not doing it will avoid this result. But whether we actually commit this action or not is
our own choice. Thus, in Buddhism, whether an action is considered ―negative‖ or ―non-
virtuous‖ is not determined by whether it goes against some social, ethical, or religious norms,
but by its having an unpleasant result in the form of suffering. Likewise, ―positive‖ or ―virtuous‖
actions are not recommended in order for people to be good girls and boys, but in order to avoid
suffering and to plant the seeds that ripen into happiness and well-being.

Put differently, the character of actions is determined by our motivations. Negative actions are
those that are motivated through conflicting emotions (such as anger, jealousy, pride, and
excessive desire) and hurt oneself and others. In addition, such actions leave mental imprints that
create habitual tendencies and thus further negative actions, which in turn result in more
suffering. On the other hand, positive actions are those that are motivated by wisdom and
compassion. Wisdom and compassion means to know which actions lead to pleasant and
unpleasant results for both ourselves and others and to accomplish the former while avoiding the
latter. At the same time, it means to help others to gain the same knowledge and apply it
accordingly.

In this way, our karma is the producer of this movie that we call our life, but the director is
our mind in the present moment. From a Buddhist perspective, there is no being outside of us
who judges our actions and decides whether we are good or bad, whether we are allowed to be
happy or damned to suffer. In a larger perspective of cause and effect, whether we lead a happy
and fulfilled life or whether we feel like we are in a horror movie depends entirely on our own
actions. However, even if we end up in a horror movie life, we cannot just leave the movie
theater or wake up from this nightmare of our life the next morning. The movie of our karma
runs in our mind and there is no emergency exit. Nothing that we think, say, and do will get lost.
This movie will continue even in our next life because, like all causes, our karma does not
simply disappear but will ripen as a certain result once the proper circumstances come together.

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Four Basic Characteristics of Karma

To summarize, karma has four basic characteristics. First, as with all causes, there is a definite
and specific relationship between our negative and positive actions and their respectively
unpleasant and pleasant results. In the long run, it is never the case that negative actions yield
happiness and positive ones reap suffering. It may seem that robbing a bank produces happiness,
because we then have a lot of money. However, we will be chased by the police and be thrown
into jail for a long time, where more suffering is waiting. And even if we do not get caught, we
have to hide all the time, living in a constant state of fear and paranoia that will taint the rest of
our life, even if we seem to have lots of fun on the beach somewhere in South America. Also, we
have to handle the money, make sure not to lose it, invest it properly. In addition, our
accomplices may cheat or kill us, and so on.

Secondly, the specificity of causes implies that we will neither experience the results of
actions that were committed by others in the past, nor experience something for which we did
not lay the causes at some point.

Thirdly, small actions can increase into large ones. For instance, a little bit of anger that meets
the right conditions and is further fueled is able to cause a war.

Fourthly, karmic causes never get lost; they will always have some result (which may, of
course, be influenced by other causes and conditions before it actually ripens).

Obviously, at least some of these characteristics mark the point where karma becomes
complicated. We cannot even remember all of our thoughts during the last five minutes, let alone
all what we thought, said, and did last year or during our early childhood. So how could we
remember all the many thoughts, words, and actions from countless former lifetimes? How could
we possibly determine which present results were caused by which long-gone actions? In
addition, nobody acts all the time in an exclusively positive or negative way, but we all have a

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complex mix of many good, bad, and neutral actions. Accordingly, the results of this mix will be
equally complex. It is because of this tremendous complexity of many billions of individual
causes and results over a long time in each sentient being that the Buddha declared it to be
impossible for ordinary beings to understand all the details of karmic causes and effects.

Are there Past and Future Lives or not?

Now, whether we ―believe‖ in past and future lives or not, the least we can acknowledge is that
there is neither one hundred percent proof that they exist, nor one hundred percent proof that
they don’t exist. Just to say that ―there are no past and future lifetimes because we cannot see
them‖ is no proof. There are many things that we have never seen and yet take for granted to
exist, such as our own heart, or atoms. Also, to say that everything ends when we die is just a
claim, but not proof. Just the death of our physical body does not mean that our mind ceases to
exist. In fact, there are many examples of clinically dead people who came back and could even
report on conversations of other people at their bed while their bodies were dead. In other words,
though nobody has seen their past and future karma and lifetimes, there is also nobody who can
put some conclusive evidence before our eyes that they do not exist.

From the perspective of logic, if we accept the principle of causality as functioning in an all-
encompassing way, then there have to be infinite chains of specific causes and results. For
example, a tree that we see now has a beginningless ―case history‖ of its infinite causes and
conditions, such as its seed, which came from another tree, and so on. In turn, each of these
infinite causes and conditions entail their own causes and conditions. Likewise, the present
moment of our mind does not come out of nowhere, but arises from the immediately preceding
moment of this mind. By extending this backward and ahead in time, we naturally arrive at a
mental continuum without beginning or end, which manifests as what is called the different
lifetimes of conditioned existence. On the other hand, logically speaking, to arbitrarily postulate
any starting point or a total extinction of this continuum—such as the beginning or the end of
this present life—amounts to nothing more than saying that something can come from nothing or
something can become nothing. In other words, the first moment of this life would have no cause

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and the last one would have no result. Obviously, this greatly contradicts the entire notion of
cause and result in the first place.

We can also consider the immense range of differences just among human beings at their time
of birth, such as being born healthy or with a severe disease, being very intelligent or of lesser
faculties, being born rich or in a slum, in a loving family or a violent one. Why is it that some
very young children can play complex pieces of classical music at an early age without any or
much training, or excel at sports, while others are never able to do nearly as well even with a lot
of training? In addition, how can we explain that some people ―have success‖ or get rich almost
without any effort and others always ―have bad luck‖ or stay poor even if they work hard? Even
conventionally, none of these facts can be sufficiently explained by causes that can be found in
this present life, but this usually just leads to subsuming them under rubrics such as ―fortune,‖
―fate,‖ or ―talent.‖ Basically, this just means that we have no idea about the causes of these
things and prefer to exclude them from our above-mentioned private selection of what is
included in the categories of cause and effect.

The most fashionable category these days seems to be that ―it’s all in the genes.‖ Without
going into details here, if we just consider how little the genetic code of human beings differs
from that of chimpanzees and some primitive worms—by just one percent and about thirty
percent, respectively—it is quite amazing to assume that the genes alone can serve as an
explanation for all the differences between humans and other beings. To be sure, these
differences do not consist of only physical features, but include the entire range of the human
mind and its expressions, such as all developments in diverse cultures, sciences, philosophies,
and religions over many hundred thousands of years. Not to mention all the mental and
behavioral diversity of human beings themselves, who have even less genetic variance from one
another.

How to Work with Karma

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On a more practical level, there is a method that can help us to understand the complexity of
karma and that we constantly produce causes and effects. This is mindfulness. When we start to
become more aware of our actions, we can learn to deal with them in a better way.

For example, when our alarm clock beeps in the morning, we might get upset, because we are
abruptly woken up, are forced to quit our nice dream, and have to get out of our snuggly warm
bed. We start the day in a bad mood and we hate the alarm clock. We might even hit the alarm
clock or throw it against the wall, knocking over a precious vase. Becoming more upset, we
clean up the shards, and then realize we are getting late for work. We have to hurry and don’t
even have time for breakfast. Jumping into our car angrily and with an empty stomach, we drive
like a kamikaze to our office, honking and making ―friendly‖ gestures at everyone who does not
get out of our way. When we arrive at work in this state, still riding on the increasing wave of
our bad mood and feeding it further, we may shout at our colleagues, mess up our important
project because we are so distracted and upset, and so on. On top of all that, during all this time
we may feel entirely entitled to be in a bad mood and blame everything and everybody but
ourselves, feeding our frenzy instead of looking at our mind right from the moment when the
alarm was beeping.

In this vein, how could we possible understand the complexity of karma if we are not even
aware of our behavior toward our innocent alarm clock? Before we can even think of
recognizing the big picture, we need to start with the present moment of encountering karma.
Mindfulness needs to start when we become angry at our alarm clock and then carry that
mindfulness into our day. Working with karma means to become aware of every detail of our
actions. It starts with the beep of the alarm in the morning and ends with the good reminder of
setting the alarm for the next morning. Do we want another day of mindlessly running through
our life, stepping on everybody else?

When we decide to work with our conduct and make the commitment to try to be mindful of
every single action in our life, we not only see the action itself, but also the state of mind that
produces that action. We see how these two are connected as cause and effect. We also develop
the insight that sees what is positive and what is negative, because we become more aware of the

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results of our actions. This leads to recognizing the importance of distinguishing harmful actions
from those that are beneficial for ourselves and others. This is a practice of living in a mindful
wholesome way that makes our life more workable and beneficial for everybody.

Summary of the Four Reminders

In brief, when we contemplate the four reminders in the order that we did here, we start with
acknowledging the precious opportunity we have right now to discover our enlightened nature
and free us from all suffering. This includes the resolve to actually use it as best as we can.
Secondly, this big chance for freedom and happiness is not an unlimited offer. We need to make
sure that we use it while it lasts, but there is no way of telling how long that will be. Therefore,
from this perspective, postponing our job of working with our mind is not really an option.
Thirdly, the actual way to use this opportunity is to recognize that it is primarily our mental
actions that cause suffering and happiness, respectively, and to bring them under our control
instead of being carried away by them. Being mindful of these actions and thus cultivating those
that bring pleasant results, while avoiding those that lead to unpleasant results, means to work
with the reminder of karma. Fourthly, if we fail to accomplish this, we arrive at all the many
shortcomings of conditioned existence, which are nothing but the results of our improper actions.
Even if we accumulate many conditioned positive actions without turning them into the path to
liberation from conditioned existence, we just end up in a more pleasant specific existence within
the overall vicious circle. However, even the best places in this vicious circle, which may be
without manifest suffering, are subject to the all-pervasive suffering and the suffering of change
among the three kinds of suffering. Since they are produced by certain causes and conditions,
they will inevitably end one day too and we start all over again.

To illustrate the relationship between these four reminders, it is somewhat similar to winning
in Wall Street in just two hours. Somebody gives you a hundred thousand dollars and says, ―You
have two hours from now to make a fortune, good luck, it’s up to you!‖ This is precious human
birth, use it. So we walk into the stock market on Wall Street, and as we all know from TV, it is
an incredibly busy, hectic, and confusing place, where everything changes constantly. If anything

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ever was impermanent, it’s definitely right there. And remember, we’ve only got two hours.
Thirdly, right within this incredibly noisy and hectic place, we have to make all these decisions
about our money― buy, sell, buy, sell, buy― and we have to make them very quickly, otherwise
the chance is gone. Here, ―sell‖ means non-virtue and ―buy‖ means virtue; so that’s karma,
properly knowing what and how to adopt and to reject. Then, at the end of our two hours, we will
see the effects of our buying and selling, either we lose all our hundred thousand dollars, or
maybe we have some left, or we have become a millionaire. However, no matter what, even if
we win a fortune, we still have problems because then we have to take care of that fortune and
invest it properly. Since it consists of stocks, it is not something that lasts either, but might be
gone the next second. These are the defects of conditioned existence. So, from a Buddhist broker
point of view, so to speak, the solution here would be to make a fortune through cleverly, but
only temporarily, investing our hundred thousand dollars, and then to leave Wall Street forever,
living off the interest for the rest of our life. In other words, the strategy would consist of using
the only substantial value in this situation to get out of the vicissitudes of the stock market
altogether instead of remaining subject to its everlasting ups and downs.

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Class 4: The Spiritual Friend—Connecting With Buddha’s Heart

The ultimate spiritual friend

Acknowledging our suffering and keeping the momentum alive

Individual path vs ego-interpretation

Examining the spiritual friend

Misleading guides

Following the spiritual friend

The Ultimate Spiritual Friend

In Buddhism the role of the spiritual friend, or spiritual teacher, is very important. What is meant
by spiritual friend? What does it mean to be a student? What does it mean to have a relationship
with a spiritual friend?

The teachings of the great nineteenth-century master, Dzogchen Patrul Rinpoche, help us to
understand this idea of the ―spiritual friend.― His book, The Words of My Perfect Teacher
contains great instructions and is highly recommended for every level of practitioner. He
discusses the spiritual friend in Chapter Six of this book.

Generally speaking, the idea of the spiritual friend is a very down-to-earth concept. There is
no need for us to fantasize about what a guru is, or to imagine what a spiritual friend is beyond
our ordinary concepts. A spiritual friend is a human teacher who is an enlightened, realized, and
compassionate human being. There is no mystery about it.

In the Buddhist view, the true or ultimate spiritual friend is the basic nature of our own mind.
That basic nature represents the state of a fully awakened being. The true nature of our mind is

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not separate from the heart of enlightenment; it is not separate from the realization of Buddha
Shakyamuni or other great enlightened teachers. Our own basic nature, the nature of our own
emotions and ego-clinging, is the true guru or spiritual friend.

Therefore, the true spiritual friend is fully present within our ordinary state of confused being.
Whatever pain we may be going through in this conditioned existence, we want to be free of it.
Our strong, aggressive ego is saying, ―I want to be free.‖ What is that mind that says, ―I want to
be free?‖ That is our ego, which is the notion of ―I.‖ It is that ego, with its self-clinging, that
says, ―I want to be free.‖ It is a paradox: the ego wants to be free from ego itself. There is great
magic in that. There is a tremendous power of magic, a tremendous presence of enlightenment
and of awakening mind within that very simple thought. That itself is a true expression of the
presence of the ultimate guru. The ultimate spiritual friend is teaching us that there is a peaceful
and blissful state of enlightenment, beyond this ego, beyond this conceptual realm. This thought
that conceptualizes the state beyond thought, this concept that there is an enlightenment beyond
concept, is in fact a genuine expression of the fully awakened state of our true nature. It is the
sign of the existence of our true spiritual friend within our hearts.

It is important for us to realize what a precious opportunity we have as human beings; how
precious this opportunity is for our ego to give rise to the ego-centered thought of wanting to free
itself from itself. Traditionally, it is said that our human birth becomes a ―precious birth‖ when
it is endowed with the three qualities of confidence, diligence, and wisdom. Without at least some
degree of openness or confidence, there is no path and no beginning point for our journey. Once
we set out on the path, we need continuous enthusiasm and diligence in order to keep
progressing on it and ―not run out of gas. ― In addition, we also need knowledge or wisdom to be
able to discern where we are going and what is the right thing to do in a certain situation.

Once we have obtained such a precious human birth, it is important for us to realize its
preciousness and to make the best use we can of it. The best use that we can make of this
precious human birth is to follow the genuine path in order to reach our destination,
enlightenment. With the help of the spiritual friend, towards whom we have feelings of trust and
devotion, and through our mutual efforts, we can reach our destination.

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Acknowledging our Suffering and Keeping the Momentum Alive

Trust in the spiritual friend is developed on the basis of renunciation. Renunciation is a feeling of
disgust with our neurosis, disgust with our ego-clinging. However, renunciation is not only a
feeling of disgust, it is also an acknowledgement of our pain, of our suffering, of our ego. Our
ego has created this world of suffering. Our ego has created this world of conditioned existence;
thus, when we feel the need to be free from suffering, we must work on the path of complete
willingness to acknowledge and relinquish our ego. That is the path of renunciation.
Renunciation is not difficult if we are searching for liberation, because renunciation is the factor
that generates the path of enlightenment. We must see that in order to start our car, we need to
acknowledge our suffering, we need to acknowledge our neurosis. Without renunciation, there is
no way we can truly begin our journey with this beautiful and powerful car.

Therefore, in order to begin making the best use of our life, we should develop renunciation,
as well as trust and confidence in our spiritual friend. With these qualities, it is possible to
develop the path of enlightenment, which leads us to the same state as the one of our true guru,
buddhahood. Our actual goal is not only to find the outer guru, but also to find our inner guru,
which is our inner heart of enlightenment.

We need the close guidance of a spiritual friend in order for us to follow the spiritual journey
in an egoless manner. In one sense, the function of a spiritual friend is to find our faults, to find
our weaknesses, to find our sensitive spots. The spiritual friend is a member of the third refuge,
the sangha or spiritual community. The function of the sangha is to keep alive the momentum of
enlightenment, of wakefulness, of the realization of selflessness and liberation. The momentum
is kept alive in every passing century by means of the power and blessings of the sangha and the
spiritual friends. Traditionally speaking, the spiritual friend will help us keep our motivation and
intentions pure and genuine on the path of liberation.

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 The teachings of the Buddha were heard and restated in many different ways by different
individuals in different environments and times. When the teaching of Buddha was restated in
India, it became ―Indian Buddhism.‖ When Buddhism was restated in Tibet, in Tibetan language
and within the Tibetan environment and Tibetan culture, it became ―Tibetan Buddhism.‖ When
the same teachings that Buddha taught were restated in China, in Chinese language and within
Chinese culture, it became ―Chinese Mahayana Buddhism.‖ In Japan, it became ―Zen;‖ and in
Southeast Asia, it became ―Theravada Buddhism.‖

Individual Path Vs Ego-Interpretation

That process of hearing and restating what the Buddha taught is what we call ―the individual
path,‖ teachings that are suitable for the individual practitioners. In whatever way one can fully
understand, fully experience, and fully take the teachings into one’s living experience, that is a
suitable manner of the Buddha’s teaching. Thus, an individual path and individual practice are
absolutely fine. The problem is when we go beyond that and reinterpret the teachings of the
Buddha in either a scholarly or an experiential way. When we do that, there is a problem
because our ego starts to be involved in that interpretation. As soon as we open our mouth and
try to present something about our experience or some theoretical understanding of the teachings,
mostly unknown to us, our ego slips in very fast.

In other words, we must make distinctions between one’s individual understanding of the
teachings, one’s suitability for particular teachings and practices, and one’s individual
interpretation of these teachings. Ego-centered interpretation of the teachings in our own self-
styled way is different from our individual path within the teachings. For example, if someone
tells us a painful truth about the path, we do not want to hear it; we close our ears and eyes. If
someone tells us something about the path that feeds our ego, we open up; we like it very much.
Even when we listen to the teachings from our own teacher, we can only hear the things we like
to hear, the things we want to hear—things that we are actually starving to hear. We hear and
adopt the teachings in a selective manner. We do not hear and adopt all the teachings, but only
those that we call ―good,‖ which in fact are the teachings that make our ego feel comfortable. We

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selectively agree with and accept everything and anything that suits our ego, our self-centered
view. However, with the presence and the transmission of an authentic lineage, there is very little
room for this kind of individual interpretation of the teachings.

At a certain point, we may realize that we are protecting our view, protecting our experience,
protecting our teacher, protecting our teachings, and protecting our territory. The Buddha’s
genuine teachings have become an ego-centered interpretation of these teachings. In this
situation we need spiritual friends because they can help us balance our individual paths and our
individual understandings of the teachings with our ego-centered understanding of them. The
spiritual friend plays a very important role here.

Three Types of Spiritual Friends

At this point, we need to know the different kinds of spiritual friends and our relationships with
them. What is meant by a ―spiritual friend‖ and what does it mean to have a relationship with
such a spiritual friend? Generally speaking, the idea of the spiritual friend is a very down-to-
earth concept. There is no need for us to fantasize about what the spiritual friend is, or to imagine
that a spiritual friend is beyond our ordinary concepts. A spiritual friend is a human teacher who
is an experienced, realized, and compassionate guide ― there is no mystery about it. According
to the three approaches explained above, there are three different kinds of spiritual friends, with
whom we may have different kinds of relationships.

The Elder

As discussed before, on the most fundamental level, the spiritual friend is seen as a senior
companion, someone who is older and wiser in understanding and realization, someone with
more mature experience on the spiritual path. This elder is our good and trustworthy friend. We
can have confidence in this person from whom we learn the basic teachings: who is the Buddha,
what exactly are his teachings, what it means to practice them, and so on. In the mundane sense,
a good friend is someone with whom we can chat and get positive ideas, good understanding,

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and guidance. It is the same with the spiritual friend who helps us on the spiritual path. The only
difference is that the spiritual friend may not be an expert in mundane things. For example, he or
she may not be a good person to ask about problems with your car. But what such friends are
good at is offering us help on the spiritual path, which is why they are called ―spiritual‖ friends.

The Spiritual Master

In the context of the vast and profound approach of working with the Buddhist teachings, the
spiritual friend, who is our general guide on the path, becomes a spiritual master. From such
spiritual masters we can learn many helpful pragmatic things on the path. During the first stage,
we are relating to these friends primarily on the level of ideas, but during the second stage, we
are benefiting from advice that is more personal and comes from practical experience. It is like
the difference between speaking to a law professor and a lawyer. From a law professor, for
example, we may get good information about the law. He has a theoretical understanding and
can give us some good general advice and understanding of basic law. But if we wish for more
practical advice about the law and how to use it in specific cases, we would rather to go to a
lawyer who knows every trick and loophole and all the grey areas. The lawyer has a lot of
personal experience and down-to-earth advice that can be of more benefit to us. In a similar way,
the spiritual master has more experience working with karmic misfortune than the elder. When
we have misfortune in the mundane sense, lawyers can help us. When we have misfortune in a
spiritual sense, our spiritual master can help us experientially to work with that. For the spiritual
master, working with others is not only theory and ideas. Spiritual masters have gone through
every detail of the process themselves, so they have very hands-on and heart-to-heart advices to
give us. This is the role of the spiritual friend in the vast and profound approach.

The Diamond-Like Master

Compared to the above two types of spiritual friends (the one being like a law professor and the
other being like a good lawyer), the third kind of spiritual friend is like ―Judge Dredd.‖ Such a
spiritual friend possesses the genuine qualities of the enlightened mind that manifest very vividly
and strongly, with a very sharp edge of power, like a double-edged sword. Such a sword can

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easily cut whatever we want to cut. At the same time, if we are not careful with it, we can cut
ourselves equally easily. The sharpness of the blade not only cuts outwardly, but it also cuts
inwardly.

Dealing with the diamond-like master means that there is not the slightest room for egoistic
games, neurosis, power trips, or spiritual entertainments. Everything that does not conform with
the true, and sometimes quite raw, nature of how things really are is cut through on the spot with
―merciless compassion.‖ Such extraordinary teachers are constantly and extremely challenging,
as our ego cannot feel safe for a second. At the same time, their challenges provide us with the
chance to tear apart our musty cocoon of self-complacent egocentricity and its neurotic patterns
on the spot and breathe in some real fresh air.

Examing the Spiritual Friend

According to Patrul Rinpoche, before we choose our spiritual friend, even before we approach
the spiritual friend with the thought of making such a big decision, it is most important that we
first examine this teacher.

By not examining a teacher with great care

The faithful waste their gathered merit.
Like taking for the shadow of a tree a vicious snake,
Beguiled, they lose the freedom they at last had found.1

In this verse, Patrul Rinpoche compares the heat of conditioned existence to a desert. It is as if
we are walking in this endless space of the Sahara Desert. We are sweating with great suffering
in the heat of conditioned existence, when we see a tree in the middle of this desert. We see its
beautiful shadow and we fantasize about how nice it would be in the cool shade of this palm tree
in the middle of the desert. There are no clouds in the sky, so we have no protection from the

1
Work Cited: Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher [Kunzang Lama’i Shelung], rev. ed., trans.
Padmakara Translation Group, Boston: Shambhala, 1998, p. 138ff.

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sun. It is so hot that even the sand is burning. We are sandwiched between these two heats—
totally sandwiched in the heat of conditioned existence. Therefore, when we see the shade of the
tree, we fall in love with it. There is not much hope that we will actually investigate that shadow,
we just feel drawn toward it. We can imagine the many good qualities of the shade: it is cooling,
we can rest there, and we will be totally protected from the sun and the hot sand. However, the
fact is, a poisonous snake is coiled under this tree. If we rush into the shade without looking
carefully and lean back against the tree, then, Patrul Rinpoche says, it could be dangerous. We
may be bitten by that poisonous snake. The attack may be inadvertent, it may be in self-defense,
or it may be with the intent to hurt us. We may be squeezing the snake without knowing it; if we
hurt the snake and it becomes frightened, then it will bite us and release its venom.

If, without thinking much about it, we give up walking in this desert of conditioned existence
and just fall under a tree in the shade, we may be bitten by a poisonous snake and die.
Consequently, all the merit and virtue we have gathered with our precious human birth, as well
as the rare opportunity we have had even to see such a tree in the desert, will be wasted.
Therefore, it is important for us to be more patient, more calm and more courageous—to walk a
little further in this desert to find the right palm tree, one without a snake, upon which we can
lean without any danger.

Examining the teacher is very important in Buddhism. At the same time, it is equally
important for the teacher to examine the student. It seems that, in our present society and even in
a Buddhist context, this process of examination is disappearing. Therefore, it is important for us
to emphasize this first stage of examining the teacher and examining the student.

Examination’s Limit

There is a story of a great Tibetan vajrayana master who went to China in the old days. The
Emperor wanted to take this great master as his guru, so he invited him to the palace. The teacher
did not prostrate to the Emperor, thinking, ―I am the guru to whom the Emperor should
prostrate.‖ Meanwhile, the Emperor was thinking, ―This spiritual friend is not prostrating to me,
the Emperor who rules the continent.‖ Consequently, out of pride, the Emperor said, ―I am not

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going to accept you as a spiritual friend now, but I will examine you for several years.‖ By the
time the Emperor had figured out that this teacher was the best teacher for him and he finally had
decided to ask him to become his spiritual master, the teacher had been dead for two or three
years. Therefore, it is said that while we must examine the teacher, that examination must have
some limits. The life of the student is precious and the life of the teacher is equally precious.

The Fragrance of Sandalwood

Just as the trunk of an ordinary tree

Lying in the forest of the Malaya mountains
Absorbs the perfume of sandal from the moist leaves and branches,
So you come to resemble whomever you follow.

We examine the spiritual friend in order to find the sandalwood tree. We do not want to find a
poison oak or a tree with a poisonous snake; we want the precious, fragrant sandalwood tree.
The trunk of an ordinary tree that is lying in the sandalwood forest of some Indian mountains
will begin to smell like sandalwood. Similarly, if we are close to this enlightened being, the
spiritual friend, we will become more and more like an enlightened being. We may not be quite
an enlightened being, but we will appear like an enlightened being, we will sound like an
enlightened being, we will be closer to having the qualities of an enlightened being. In effect,
what we are investigating is the quality of the tree. Is it a sandalwood or a poison tree? We need
to recognize and approach the sandalwood, while we need to recognize and avoid the poisonous
tree. That is the whole point of examining the spiritual friend.

Finding the Hard to Find

Patrul Rinpoche gives very good, pragmatic advice about the qualities to look for when we
search for a teacher.

All the qualities complete according to purest dharma

Are hard to find in these decadent times.

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 But trust the teacher who, based on pure observance of the three vows,
Is steeped in learning and great compassion,
Skilled in the rites of the infinite pitakas and tantras,
And rich in the fruit, the immaculate wisdom that comes through riddance and
realization.
Drawn by the brilliant flower of his four attractive qualities
Fortunate disciples will gather like bees to follow him.

Essentially, Patrul Rinpoche is saying that, in our times, it is difficult to find a person in whom
all the supreme qualities of a genuine teacher are embodied. Since that is the case, we should not
look for a teacher with the idea of finding supramundane dazzling qualities, but we should look
for certain basic qualities.

First, teachers should keep their vows. In Tibetan Buddhism, there are three sets of vows that
may be observed. The first one consists of the lay or monastic vows of individual salvation. The
second one is the bodhisattva vow, the precepts of the vast and profound path to benefit all
sentient beings. The third one consists of the vows of the indestructible path.

The lay or monastic vows of individual salvation, the Buddha said, are like a ceramic vase. A
ceramic vase is beautiful, but if it is dropped, it will shatter into thousands of pieces. It is
impossible to put the vase back together. Likewise, if you break these vows, you cannot retake
them; you cannot mend them in this life. The bodhisattva vow, Buddha said, is like a vase of
pure silver. If it is dropped, it may be dented, but a good silversmith can mend it. The vase may
not look exactly the same as before, if the silversmith is not skilled, but still it can be mended.
Therefore, on the bodhisattva path, we can make mistakes; we can break our vows, but like a
good silversmith, we can retake them again and again and purify them. The third kind of vows is
like a vase of pure gold. Pure gold is very soft, very sensitive. The slightest touch of a finger will
leave a mark, but it is also easy to mend with our own hands. Therefore, Buddha said that these
vows are very easy to break and it is easy to make mistakes, but at the same time it is very easy
to mend them.

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 Therefore, Patrul Rinpoche says if we see teachers who are keeping their vows properly,
whether they are a lay person, a monastic, a bodhisattva, or a teacher of the indestructible path,
that is a principal quality which shows that they are working on their path of liberation and
enlightenment.

Furthermore, the teacher should be learned and compassionate. We cannot learn much if the
teacher is not learned. The teacher must be someone who can answer our questions with
certainty, saying, ―Yes, that is right‖ or ―No, that is wrong,‖ because the Buddha said such-and-
such in this sutra and such-and-such in that tantra. In this way, the learned quality of the teacher
helps us clarify our confusion and responds to our doubts, which is very important. Sometimes
people think the teacher should not be learned but should be some wild and spontaneous yogi.
This romantic idea is not very pragmatic; if we are really confused, such a yogi does not help
that much.

Patrul Rinpoche indicates that a teacher should be learned in the three sections of the
teachings taught by the Buddha. The first one is the path of monasticism. But it is a mistake to
say that these teachings are not for us lay persons, but only for those people with shaved heads,
who wear red and yellow robes and who live in a monastery or a nunnery. In these teachings the
Buddha taught not only the ―do’s and don’ts‖ of the monastic rules, but he also taught basic
social interaction, basic Buddhist social philosophy. Since we live in a society, when we
organize a Buddhist society or spiritual community, we must look at these teachings of the
Buddha. Therefore, a teacher should have mastered them.

The second section are the sutras, the discourses in which the Buddha taught the vast and
profound approach of the bodhisattva, the path of compassion and loving-kindness. Here he
taught not only individual salvation, but liberation for all sentient beings; therefore, it is
important for the teacher to be learned in this second section of the teachings.

The third section represents the details in which the Buddha taught all the different elements
of the nature of outer phenomena and the inner science of mind.

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 Thus, the teacher should be learned in these three sections of the teachings, as well as in other
subjects in regard to the indestructible path. If we find such a teacher—a teacher who observes
the vows and is learned—then we should be satisfied and follow that teacher. We should not be
too picky and take the qualities overly literally, but when we see the major qualities, we should
accept that person as a spiritual master.

Misleading Guides

Patrul Rinpoche instructs us that on this path of finding a spiritual friend, there are some teachers
who should be avoided. This point is important for us to see.

A Millstone of Wood

The first kind of teacher to be avoided is the teacher who is like a millstone of wood, which
looks like a genuine millstone, but actually has no strength and no power. When a teacher has no
strength of learning and no power of realization, then that teacher is like a millstone made of
wood. Patrul Rinpoche says:

These teachers have no trace of the qualities arising from study, reflection and
meditation. Thinking that as the sublime son or nephew of such-and-such a lama,
they and their descendants must be superior to anyone else, they defend their caste
like brahmins. Even if they have studied, reflected and meditated a little, they did so
not with any pure intention of working for future lives but for more mundane reasons.

Patrul Rinpoche is attacking natural hierarchy, basing his reasoning on the monastic rules, in
which the Buddha said that the abbot of a monastery should be the one who is the most learned,
the one who has the most experience and realization. Furthermore, he should be someone who
has compassion, a good heart to help other beings. The Buddha said teachers should not be
chosen by their caste, like the Brahmans; they should not be chosen by any kind of family
connection either, but they should be chosen on the basis of their knowledge and realization.

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A Frog that Lives in a Well

The second kind of teacher to be avoided is like a frog that lives in a well; that is, someone who
has a very narrow understanding of the teachings, someone with a limited view, limited
experience, and limited realization.

Teachers of this kind lack any special qualities that might distinguish them from
ordinary people. But other people put them up on a pedestal in blind faith, without
examining them at all. Puffed up with the pride by the profits and honours they
receive, they are themselves quite unaware of the true qualities of great teachers.
They are like the frog that lived in a well.

Patrul Rinpoche tells the story like this: The frog living in the well encounters a frog who
comes from the ocean and asks him, ―How big is the ocean?‖ The other frog replies, ―It is very
big.‖ ―Is it one-third of my well here?‖ ―No, it is much bigger.‖ ―Is it half as big as my well?‖
―No, it is much bigger than that.‖ ―Is it the same size as my well?‖ ―No, no comparison; it is
much bigger.‖ So the frogs hop together to the ocean. When the frog from the well sees the
ocean, he has a heart attack and dies. Teachers with narrow training and a limited view cannot
withstand the vast view of great teachers.

The Mad Guide

The third kind of teacher to be avoided is the mad guide. Patrul Rinpoche says:

These are teachers who have very little knowledge, never having made the effort to
follow a learned master and train in the sutras and tantras. Their strong negative
emotions together with their weak mindfulness and vigilance make them lax in their
vows and samayas. Though of lower mentality than ordinary people, they ape the
siddhas and behave as if their actions were higher than the sky.

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 There are teachers who may act like the greatly realized, but very unconventional, yogic
masters of India, but have no realization like these masters. These people are mad guides, since
without a genuine master’s realization, their actions are simply those of a crazy person.

The great masters of the past often appear to be totally crazy. Their behavior seems lunatic,
but their realization transforms their actions. For example, the master Tilopa pushed his student
Naropa off a hundred-foot cliff. Then he climbed down to where Naropa was lying and asked,
―How is my son Naropa?‖ Naropa replied, ―I am dying.‖ But Tilopa also had the power to heal.
He placed his hand on Naropa’s back and patted him three times, healing Naropa’s broken body
and his pain.

These days we have guides who may mimic the actions of such masters, but do not have their
power of realization. They know how to push us from the cliff, but they do not have the
compassion to come down to us, nor the power to heal our pain. Thus, we should avoid these
mad guides.

The Blind Guide

The fourth teacher to avoid is the blind guide.

In particular, a teacher whose qualities are in no way superior to your own and who
lacks the love and compassion of bodhichitta will never be able to open your eyes to
what should and should not be done.

Teachers like this are called blind guides because they do not know what is to be adopted and
what is to be avoided. If we follow them, we become like one of them.

Therefore, we need to examine the teacher, know the teachers to be avoided, and know the
qualities in teachers to be adopted. If we see any teacher possessing those qualities, we should
follow their guidance and we will definitely achieve liberation and realization swiftly. As
Padmasambhava warns in a poem that Patrul Rinpoche quotes:

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 Not to examine the teacher is like drinking poison;
Not to examine the disciple is like leaping from a precipice.

Following the Spiritual Friend: Right Relationship, Right Attitude

Following the spiritual friend begins with having the right attitude towards our teacher. Our
relationship begins with the right perception of the spiritual friend. This kind of right perception
is described by Patrul Rinpoche:

As the sick man relies on his doctor,

The traveller on his escort,
The frightened man on his companion,
Merchants on their captain,
And passengers on their ferryman,
If birth, death and negative emotions are the enemies you fear—
Entrust yourself to a teacher.

Cultivating the right relationship begins with developing the right attitude. The wrong attitude,
according to Patrul Rinpoche, is to look at our teachers with a hunter’s eye looking at a deer for
its musk, at an elephant for its tusks, or at a rhinoceros for its horn. That aggressive attitude is
just the notion of acquiring something very precious. We do not care how we get it, we have no
compassion; there is no heart in it, just a business mind. We see something very valuable, and we
just want to get it. That kind of motivation, Patrul Rinpoche says, is the wrong start to our
spiritual journey because it is egocentric, it begins with self-clinging. We want to get some
mundane benefit for ourselves out of the relationship we are developing. We want to be rich and
famous. According to the pure teachings of the Buddha, there is a problem in that approach.

Like a Sick Person Relying on their Doctor

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Instead, to approach the teacher as a sick person relying on their doctor requires certain
acknowledgments. We have to acknowledge that we are sick. That is not an easy step. When we
start to get sick, we want to deny it, saying, ―No, it is not the flu, I just have a headache.‖ We do
not want to get the flu, so we do not acknowledge that we are actually getting it. We know we
are going to be in bed for the next week or two. It is very painful and irritating. In a similar way,
we must recognize ourselves as a sick person who has been infected by the disease of ego-
clinging, who has been suffering from the symptoms of passion, aggression, and ignorance.

Buddhist Theraflu: Treating Conditioned Existence’s Symptoms

It requires effort for a sick person to rely on the doctor. We have to work with our ego-clinging,
with our pain and with our suffering. We have to treat our symptoms of passion, aggression,
jealousy, pride, and ignorance. There are remedies in the Buddhist teachings, just as Aspirin and
Theraflu, that can give us temporary relief. When we sit in basic calm abiding meditation, we
can get rid of our symptoms for four to six hours, and whenever we feel the symptoms again that
means it is time to sit again. Such medicines help us get rid of the symptoms, but they do not
touch the root of our problem. For that reason, acknowledging the root of the symptoms and
acknowledging ourselves as a sick person is the first step in relating to our spiritual friend.

Pride

That gesture of acknowledgment is naturally working with our pride. Pride is our biggest
problem in approaching a spiritual friend. When we are working with our pride and can
acknowledge that we are sick, then we can view the spiritual friend as a professional doctor—
one who knows all of our diseases, all the causes of our symptoms, and the kind of medication
that will relieve our pain, both temporarily and ultimately.

Faith

A sick person must rely on a doctor with complete faith. Complete faith means we are ready to
follow any instructions and take any medication that the doctor might prescribe for us. Without

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that kind of commitment to and trust in the doctor, the treatment is not going to work. For
example, if the doctor tells us to take certain drugs, but we do not like the ingredients in them,
we may not fill the prescription. We go to an alternative doctor to get a second opinion, but we
do not really trust the alternative doctor either. The alternative doctor may give us some weird
herbs to boil in water and drink, but we are not satisfied with this logic. Jumping from one doctor
to another and not fully trusting any doctor, in effect we are not really taking care of our
sickness. We are wasting our time and we are wasting the doctors’ time. If we do not trust the
doctors, we should not take up their time, because there are many other patients waiting to get an
appointment. Shantideva, a great Indian master, said, ―For the patient who does not follow the
instructions of the doctor, there is no hope of curing his disease.‖ It is like having the finest
doctor on earth by our side, reading to us the names of the latest drugs. But if we as the patients
do not actually take the medication or follow the treatment, then we will not be cured.

Devotion

Therefore, being a sick person who relies on a doctor requires a great deal of trust. In Buddhism
that trust and confidence is known as ―devotion.‖ It may also be termed ―faith‖ in the sense that
we trust the wisdom of doctors and their experience. Devotion and confidence here involve
basic openness. We need to open ourselves to the doctor. Patrul Rinpoche also gives us the
examples of ―frightened persons who rely on their escort‖ and ―the passengers who rely on their
ferryman.‖ We could add, ―the passengers who rely on their pilot. ― We are putting faith in the
pilot when we board an airplane, and this is what we are doing on the spiritual path; when we
board the plane that goes to the destination enlightenment, we are putting our life in the hands of
the teacher who is sitting in the cockpit.

That devotion is the same as the relationship between a sick person and the doctor, the
relationship between passengers and the ferryman, or the relationship between frightened persons
and their escort. All these analogies show us that we need a great sense of trust and confidence,
and this is called ―devotion.‖

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 Devotion and trust do not arise naturally. Initially, we examine the teacher and the teacher
also examines the student. Our spiritual masters examine us, and we examine them. Then we
can move toward that level of trust called devotion and mutual love. Love and compassion arise
from the spiritual friend toward us, and also love and compassion arise from us toward our
spiritual friend. This understanding is very important for us as we begin our relationship and our
journey with the spiritual friend.

Positive Skepticism

Patrul Rinpoche points out that appearances can be deceptive; therefore, we should not rely on
appearances alone. The simplest manifestations of reality are polluted by our conceptualizations
of how they should or should not be. The appearance of the teacher and spiritual friend is as
deceptive as all other appearances. Thus, Patrul Rinpoche says:

Do not misinterpret how he acts.

Most of India’s siddhas lived
As common evil-doers, beasts, outcastes,
More degenerate than the lowest of the low.

For example, look at the Indian master Tilopa, who was a human teacher and the founder of one
of the four main Tibetan Buddhist schools. He spent his life on the banks of the Ganges river as a
fisherman. On the Ganges today, we can still see the same outer appearance of people who look
like Tilopa. There were hundreds of fishermen, and Tilopa was one of them out there on the
riverbank catching and killing fish every day. He appears to be a common evil-doer, committing
countless negative actions. Nevertheless, Tilopa proved his realization in action when he taught
his student, Naropa. Patrul Rinpoche continues:

Tilopa was not killing those fish just because he was hungry and could find nothing
else to eat. Fish are completely ignorant of what to do and what not to do, creatures
with many negative actions, and Tilopa had the power to free them. By eating their
flesh he was making a link with their consciousness, which he could then transfer to a

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 pure Buddhafield. Similarly, Saraha lived as an arrowsmith, Shavaripa as a hunter,
and most of the other mighty siddhas of India, too, adopted very lowly lifestyles, often
those of outcastes. It is therefore important not to take any of your teacher’s actions
in the wrong way; train yourself to have only pure perception.

It is not suggested that we should follow any spiritual friend blindly. At the same time, we
must consider these issues as well. Sometimes we get so sensitive about blind faith that we go to
the other extreme. We become too negative; our skepticism, our cynical mind, and our doubt
outshine all possibility of virtuous qualities. Whenever we see our mind going to that extreme,
we should read this verse from Patrul Rinpoche and have some skepticism towards our
skepticism. Our skeptical mind may say, ―This teacher is like one of those masters from India
doing outrageous things.‖ That is positive skepticism and doubt. Whenever we feel our mind
being too skeptical of the extreme of blind faith, we should also think about the extreme of
excessive skepticism.

Finding Fault with the Buddha

Patrul Rinpoche tells the story of Sunakshatra, a student of the Buddha, and one of his close
attendants. This is what that student said:

Apart from that light around your body six feet wide,
Never have I seen, in twenty-four years as your servant,
Even a sesame seed’s worth of spiritual qualities in you.
As for the Dharma, I know as much as you—and will no longer be your servant.

Sunakshatra served the Buddha for twenty-four years, and after all that time, the only spiritual
quality he saw in the Buddha was this light. What Patrul Rinpoche is saying is that if our mind is
not tamed and if we do not work with our mind properly, we can see faults even in the Buddha.
Even if we had Buddha Shakyamuni right in front of us at this moment, we might still find some
faults in him. Maybe he would have an Indian accent, so he would be very difficult to

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understand. If we find fault with the Buddha, how will we see our ordinary spiritual friends? We
will find many faults with the teacher, if we do not work with our own mind.

Patrul Rinpoche instructs us that our relationship with the teacher should be kept very
carefully; it should be maintained with great awareness and mindfulness, because a mistake
could be quite dangerous. An example we could use here is fire. When it is cold, it is nice to
have a fire to keep us warm, but if we are not careful with the fire, and if we get too close, we
might get burned. On the other hand, if we are too far away from the fire, we will not benefit
from its warmth. Therefore, the middle way is a very profound and skillful means of
maintaining the relationship with the teacher.

When we are close to the teacher we must be careful, and we need to be aware of our rare
opportunities. When Sunakshatra was with Lord Buddha he did not appreciate his rare
opportunity. When we are close to the spiritual friend and following the path, we may not see the
teacher’s qualities. We may by blinded by ego or ignorance. Sometimes we do not see the
precious opportunity. Sometimes we do not see the preciousness of that teacher and the
preciousness of our relationship. As an ordinary person in this moment, it is very possible that
we will not appreciate our spiritual friend. Therefore, we must be very careful and train our mind
in order to appreciate our opportunity and appreciate the spiritual friend.

Connecting with Buddha’s Heart

Patrul Rinpoche tells us how we can obtain the greatest benefit from our relationship with the
teacher.

Like a swan swimming on a perfect lake,

Or a bee tasting the nectar of flowers,
Without ever complaining, but always receptive to him,
Always wait upon your teacher with exemplary conduct
Through such devotion you will experience all his qualities.

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If we want to achieve enlightenment, this is the path, the way that we can truly benefit from the
spiritual friend. The swan swims on the perfect lake; the bee tastes the nectar of the teachings
coming from the teacher. If we are never tired of being with our teachers, if we never develop the
hatred and anger that the monk Sunakshatra felt, then we are going to benefit from this
relationship. That benefit is the experience of all the qualities of the Buddha, all the qualities of
the spiritual friend.

Finally, Patrul Rinpoche tells us how to proceed with a spiritual friend:

In the beginning, skilfully examine the teacher;

In the middle, skilfully follow him;
In the end, skilfully emulate his realization and action.
A disciple who does that is on the authentic path.

Why should we do this? Buddha Shakyamuni lived 2,500 years ago. In the twenty-first century,
we do not have the good fortune of seeing a living buddha, such as Shakyamuni Buddha. We are
powerless to fully understand his teachings on our own. We are powerless to fully realize the
true nature of mind on our own. The only way we can connect with Buddha’s heart, the only way
we can obtain the wisdom of the Buddha’s teaching, and the only way we can achieve the
realization of the spiritual community in our own living experience is through the spiritual
friends who are there for us right now. Because of such spiritual friends, we are connected to the
heart of the Buddha. Because of them, we are actualizing the path of the Buddha’s teaching.
Because of them, we are able to live the experience of realization in this moment.

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