QUESTION
Dear Venerable,
I hope you are well.
In a teaching, in quoting Lama Zopa Rinpoche talking about emptiness and dependent arising – “When you’ve realized the emptiness of something” – you said the iPad – “it’s as if there is nothing there. But there is, but what exists is so subtle it’s as if it doesn’t exist.”
I don’t think you could use that same level of analysis with the iPad because the iPad exists concretely and can be negated at a more coarse level.
Thank you,
V
ANSWER
Dear V:
Good to hear your thoughts.
According to the Prasangika Madhayamika view, all phenomena — person or self, as well as everything else – exist in the same way insofar as, ultimately, they are totally empty of an inherent nature and, conventionally, they exist as dependent arisings.
Therefore, what Rinpoche said does indeed refer to all phenomena – a self, a buddha, an iPad, a universe, an atom.
The subtlety or grossness Rinpoche mentions is not related to the character of the conventional thing; it’s related to the various levels of dependent arising.
An example of a grosser level of dependent arising of the self, let’s say, or any other impermanent phenomenon, is that it exists in dependence upon causes; a subtler level is that it exists in dependence upon its parts; the subtlest level is that it exists in dependence upon the mind labeling it. The last two refer to all phenomena, not just impermanent ones.
What do you think?
Rx
QUESTION
Venerable:
I think we need to see what exactly is being said in the word “exists” when we say “it is so subtle that it is as though it doesn’t exist, but there is something that exists.”
Because that is the conclusion that we have come to upon analysing whether something exists independently.
So it sounds misleading.
ANSWER
V:
You’re exactly right: we do indeed “need to see what exactly is being said in the word ‘exists’” when we hear Rinpoche’s words – which, of course, we can trust because they’re the words of a yogi.
But of course we need to verify them.
The trouble is, as soon as we say “exists” we exaggerate it, we go to the wrong view of eternalism. Then when we say it’s empty, we go to the other extreme and throw out the baby with the bathwater: the view of nihilism.
To get to the middle way view, the truth of both of these – dependent arising (conventional) and emptiness (ultimate) – is the job to be done.
There is conventional reality and there is ultimate: you can’t have one without the other. How can you have the emptiness of inherent existence of a self without a self?
Emptiness not only doesn’t negate existence, it enables it. Things exist because they’re empty.
The point is, as you say, HOW things exist: the two truths. That’s the tricky bit that we have to work out, first theoretically, then in meditation.
So, keep thinking!
R
QUESTION
Dear Venerable:
I do want to keep talking and thinking about this. Thank you so much for taking the time to discuss it with me. I look forward to hearing you teach on this subject more please.
Much love,
V