Buddha’s saying that we can remove utterly from our minds all delusions and develop to perfection all goodness. That’s what’s implied by the Sanskrit word “buddha”: the full enlightenment, as Lama Zopa Rinpoche would say, of buddhahood.
What’s the logic for this? We’re not talking anything mystical here, which is how we tend to think of spiritual matters. It’s not just cross your fingers and hope for the best. It’s a doable job.
The logic of why it’s possible is rooted in the way the mind works. According to the Buddhist model of the mind, the delusions – the disturbing emotions such as anger and jealousy, as well as the views about how things are such as the idea that there’s no law of karma, that there’s a creator, that things are permanent, that the mind is physical, that things have an intrinsic nature – are in their essence misconceptions held deeply in the bones of our being. The extent to which they’re in our mind is the extent to which the world, our self – everything – appears wrongly to us; they misrepresent reality to us.
It’s easy to think that a view about something can be a misconception – the law of karma is either true or not – but to hear that it’s also the underlying component of all the neurotic emotions is harder to see. The definition of attachment, for example, is that it’s a conceptual state of mind, a thought, that exaggerates the deliciousness of something. When we analyze, we can see that’s true. Look at that cake on the plate out there, vibrating deliciousness at me, just begging me to eat it! Anger exaggerates the ugliness of something – look at the cruel boyfriend who has just cheated on me!
But we don’t notice the exaggeration, the misconception. All we notice is the intensity of the feeling, and in our bodies too. And this is because these misconceptions are so totally habitual: we came into this life programmed with them.
Bad enough that they’re in our mind, and bad enough that because the habits are so primordial things actually appear to us wrongly, but, as Rinpoche says, the worst thing is we totally believe that they’re true. That’s the killer. That’s what keeps us imprisoned in samsara.
How, then, can these misconceptions be removed from the mind? If you think one plus one is three, you’re mistaken; it’s a misconception. According to whom or what? It’s not an absolute; it’s a relative reality. We have a system called mathematics, it’s all laid out. And it’s not made up by somebody: some clever people have simply articulated what they’ve seen to be true. It’s how things are. It’s a conventional truth that we all agree upon, buy into. According to that system, one plus one is actually two, not three.
What removes that misconception from the mind? The recognition of the truth.
So, according to whom or what is the law of karma, let’s say, a misconception? It’s not an absolute! It’s not something that Buddha made up and makes us believe! No! It’s what he has seen to be true. He’s observed it. Just like we first learn the views of the mathematicians and take them as our working hypothesis, so as Buddhists we take Buddha’s views as our working hypothesis and then, with practice, eventually experience the truth of them – or not! As His Holiness the Dalai Lama says, if by following the steps of Buddha’s methodology we eventually find that he’s wrong, then we must reject him. Same with the mathematicians!
We’re attempting to see reality, not just believe it – that’s intellectual laziness and won’t get us anywhere. We don’t just believe that one plus one is two; we need to prove it to be true, to know it experientially. Same with karma, impermanence, and the rest.
Just like the misconception that one plus is three is removed utterly from the mind by the experiential knowledge of the truth that one plus one is two, so too the misconceptions of no cause and effect, attachment and, finally, the root misconception that there’s an intrinsic self and everything else are removed from the mind by seeing the truth, the facts.
This is the job to be done!