One way of presenting Buddha’s path is as a way to get rid of ignorance and get wisdom.
The root ignorance is a belief deep in the bones of our being – primordially held, ancient, countless-lifetimes-long – in a solid, definite, inherent, self-existent, concrete, in-and-of-itself, set-in-stone me (and everything else): a primordial misconception and the root of all suffering.
To get rid of this ignorance we have to use logic to prove that it is not valid. In the lamrim there is the delicious methodology called the “four-point analysis.” You have to “squeeze your brain,” as Lama Yeshe puts it.
Buddha’s saying, sorry, honey child, there is no intrinsic I, okay? But don’t just believe me: you need to look for it, you need to prove it to yourself that it’s not there.
The first thing you have to do is identify the object to be negated: you have to establish clearly how you think this I appears to you. Because how can you search for something if you don’t know what you’re searching for?
This sounds very tricky because Buddha’s already telling us there’s no inherent I, but then he says we have to search for it. We totally believe there is an intrinsic I, it’s just that we’ve never articulated it, we’ve never identified it.
As Lama Yeshe says, once you clearly have identified the object to be negated, you will, that next millisecond, realize the emptiness of it. So this is the hardest job, the first point.
So: 1. You have to establish what you think you’re looking for. Then 2. you have to establish the parameters of your search: it’s either separate from or oneness with the aggregates, the parts that make up the I – you don’t look for the I in the chair! And then you do the searching: the third point and the fourth point.
The third point, then: we totally believe that there is a piece, a part, in here among our aggregates that is separate from the other pieces. And we’ve got millions of pieces, okay? We know we’re made of many parts, and we believe utterly, because of this ego-grasping, that there is in here somewhere among the millions of parts that make up a person – the breast and the knee and the toenail and the eyelash and the anger and the love and the compassion – a very special part, the boss, the owner of the other parts, with a capital letter, with a shiny halo on it, called I, me, self.
We talk like that: “I have a nose.” This is such a tasty argument: they call it “one or many”: if something exists, it has to be either one or more than one.
I’ll make a statement, okay, conventional statement: “I have a tissue and a thermos.” Now, if you speak English and you hear words coming from over here, you will look in this direction, and you will establish the truth, the conventional reality of what I said. So it does help to speak the truth, doesn’t it? If I said, “I have an elephant,” you’d lock up poor Robina! Do you understand? So you can prove this is true conventionally, it’s very simple: I have a tissue and a thermos.
The point is this: how many phenomena did I mention? I mentioned 1. I, 2. a tissue, 3. a thermos. There are three things. And this is the simple point: if that’s a true statement, you have to point out three different things that are also independent – which means that each of them doesn’t depend upon the other for its existence.
This is easy peasy to prove: there will be a thermos, a tissue and a Robina: if you break the thermos, Robina’s still intact, if you throw the tissue away, the thermos is fine. That’s truth, that’s fact, you can prove it.
Now, I’ll make another statement that sounds similar, but it’s more nuanced: “I have a nose and an ear.” Without analysis, that’s a fact: you look over here and you see that Robina has a nose and an ear, no problem.
Let’s check. How many things did I mention? Three, isn’t it? A nose, an ear, and an I. And we believe that there are three phenomena there. We can point to the ear and we can point to the nose – but what about the third one, the I? Can we point to something that isn’t the ear and isn’t the nose? We just assume there is an independent I, an I that doesn’t depend upon the ear and the nose, and any of the other parts. So we have to prove that that’s impossible!
Let’s say you punch my ear. I will say, “How dare you punch me!” And you would say, “No, Robina, I didn’t punch your I, I punched your ear!” We would all laugh, of course – it sounds so silly. But if there were literally an I that isn’t the ear, that is separate from the ear, then it’s the truth.
We can tell that the ear is independent of the nose because when the ear is hurting, the nose doesn’t feel a thing. And so the nose would go, “Oh, poor ear, I’m so sorry she got punched!” – and the I would say the same!
“I have a tissue and a thermos,” is easy. This one – “I have a nose and an ear” – is more nuanced, you know? We’re very vague about all this. It demands really clinical thinking, you know?
The second argument – and the fourth point of the four points – is more subtle: the other mistake we make is that the whole of me is the I, all my parts are the I, all of this is I.
Here we have to start seeing how there can’t be an I that is oneness with the parts. The previous one is an I that’s separate from the parts. This is more subtle, this is more nuanced. We have to prove how the name, the label can’t be the base, as Lama Zopa says.
If the label is the base – if the I is the aggregates – then as many parts as there are is as many I’s there would be.
Or, point to any part, let’s say the mind: if it’s the same as the I, then why would we need to say, “I have a mind?” That’s like saying, “I have an I.” That would be silly.
This is the point: if two things are synonymous, if they have the same meaning – different terms, same meaning – if I is the mind, then they are the same: they’re one thing, identical. There can’t be two.
So if the I is the nose, then what about your ear? Where does that fit? “Oh, that’s confusing, I must have a second I.”
Clearly there is an I, but it is neither separate from nor oneness with the parts. They have a dependent relationship: they’re not separate but they are not the same.
I is the name: this is the conclusion we get to: “I” is the name we impute upon its parts: the combination of our body and mind.
And it’s the same with everything. Everything exists like this.