QUESTION
Dear Venerable,
I hope you are well.
Recently in a talk we spoke about how we can’t see the I at our current level because it’s too subtle, but we can see the signs of the I. Anger, jealousy, attachment, etc.
Given that the I cannot be pointed out as it doesn’t exist as something that can be pinpointed, therefore it’s only its symptoms that can be observed.
I’d agree that one could observe anger, attachment, etc. down to very subtle levels. But the I, not sure?
Much love,
V
ANSWER
Dear V,
I understand your point, and I agree.
As you say, we can’t point out the I because it doesn’t exist, but we have to point out clearly how we think the I exists, don’t we? We have to recognize the object to be negated: the inherent I.
Only then can we realize the emptiness of it.
So I suppose we could say that we can recognize the misconceptions, the delusions: the attachment and how it exaggerates the nice qualities of an object; anger and how it exaggerates the ugly aspects of an object, etc.; and finally the root ignorance, how it exaggerates the status of the object itself, seeing it as independent of causes, its parts and, finally, the mind labeling it.
What do you think?
Rx
QUESTION
Dear Venerable,
That makes sense.
Though it’s still tricky. I think we are talking about inference: knowing something by examining its signs.
If we follow smoke eventually we’ll find fire.
If we follow anger we won’t find the I. We’ll follow an endless continuum of that anger that transforms, as one analyzes it going back into beginningless time.
This is why examining the I through its signs is very difficult.
Much love,
V
ANSWER
Now you’re losing me, V!
Please explain again your earlier point and your conclusion.
Robina
QUESTION
Dear Venerable,
We are taught to look at the symptoms of the I. Anger, etc. as the I is too subtle for us to see at normal person levels.
My point is: that’s all there is. The symptoms… an instance of anger comes from earlier moments, so on and so forth. There is no other thing that we can point to from which it came.
We sometimes say that the I rises up when wrongly accused. From there, minds of anger arise.
I’d argue that it’s just anger or other deluded thoughts that rises up. Why call it an I?
Perhaps I’m just going around in circles.
Will keep thinking about it.
Love,
V
ANSWER
Okay we’re communicating!
Here’s my thinking, my process:
We have the delusions/afflictions, the root one and therefore the hardest to notice, being marigpa, ignorance, ego-grasping: the primordial belief in an independent I and everything else.
The branch delusions — I like to call them the voices of this ego-grasping — are mainly attachment and anger, the main one of course being attachment.
In the middle scope we focus on the suffering nature of attachment especially, and then start to become familiar with aversion/anger; and then the others, especially pride and jealousy, it seems to me.
And then there are the other 83,997 neurotic states of mind! The young Ling Rinpoche says that 21,000 of these 84,000 are rooted in ignorance, 21,000 in attachment, 21,000 in anger, and the other 21,000 in all three. I find this so helpful.
Even though in the middle scope we mainly focus on the disturbing nature of the delusions, gradually we can’t help but become familiar with their delusional nature: the fact that they’re literally misconceptions. As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, delusions decorate on top of what is there layers upon layers of characteristics that aren’t there.
With attachment and anger, that’s pretty clear: attachment in our mind causes the cake to look way more delicious than it really is: it literally exaggerates the deliciousness, and then of course we believe it’s true.
Anger definitely exaggerates the badness of the person who’s harmed us, and we believe in that picture that our anger has painted. Pride exaggerates our own importance; low self-esteem exaggerates our lack of importance.
Then we need to identify what ignorance exaggerates: it exaggerates the very existence itself of the delicious cake, of the ugly person, of important me. It causes them to appear as existing out there, from their own side, having nothing to do with our mind labeling them.
This is the hardest to recognize! Way more subtle!
In other words, we have to keep identifying the exaggerations until eventually we get to the actual thing that does exist — the self and everything else — making sure we don’t chuck out the baby with the bathwater!
As Rinpoche says: when we’ve realized emptiness it’s as if the thing – the self, the cake, whatever – doesn’t exist; but it does, but what exists is so subtle it’s as if it doesn’t exist. That’s the view of the yogis!
Love,
Robina