QUESTION
Dear Venerable Robina,
I have a question which I wanted to ask.
Given the self is not the ego/mind and is actually beyond, I wonder if that just magnifies the ego to another level of magnitude – like a web of egos all interconnected by karma across lifetimes? Like a string running through all those empty boxes. Each empty box not just a lifetime but all the infinitesimal ego/moments of that lifetime. (In calculus, we use the word infinitesimal to describe the smallest possible that is not zero.)
And then where do these lines of boxes start and end? (Again in calculus, we integrate/sum all these infinitesimal units from +∞ to -∞ [plus infinity to minus infinity].)
But there’s still this feeling of “me” in it somewhere. It just feels like that “me” is this giant integration of these infinitesimal egos that spans across time from +∞ to -∞.
How do I make sense of it?
Actually, I think I have an answer: The only way that integration/sum of all the infinitesimal parts (self) can be zero (no self) is if the infinitesimal parts/egos are also zero. Sum of infinite zeros is zero.
Voila, emptiness!
ANSWER
Happy to hear from you, H.
Not sure your assumptions are valid — although interesting!
The universe consists of countless phenomena, things, existents, such as a dog, a cup, a cloud, which exist conventionally as dependent arisings but which can’t be found ultimately—the two truths.
One of those things is a self, a person, an I, a me—they’re all synonyms. So, what is it? Conventionally, it’s the label we give to the component parts: the body and the mind.
Right there, therefore, we can see that mind cannot be the self because it’s one of the parts of the self.
Of course, we get confused when Buddha talks about no self. He’s not saying there is no self; he’s saying there is no independent, inherent, intrinsic self. The trick is to understand that.
For sure, there is a feeling of me in there: the most powerful feeling there is! But what we think is there isn’t. It’s a fabrication. And discovering that is realizing its emptiness.
So it’s not so much that the self doesn’t exist at all; it’s more to do with the way it exists.
All the best,
Robina
QUESTION
Dear Venerable Robina,
So happy to hear and learn from you as always. Thank you for your time.
I understood the part with co-existence of conventional existence (dependent arising) and lack of intrinsic existence of things like dog, cup and the “self” (body, mind).
I am not clear about the “soul” part. If not the mind-body, then I assumed I would be the “soul.” But, if I am a soul, then again a self exists albeit a different one – without the material body or conditioned mind but rather with karma across lifetimes. There’s still a feeling of “I.”
I read your recent writing on karma. The question I grapple with is – “Whose” karma is it?
I am sorry if I’m bothering you with my curiosities, Venerable Robina!
Love to you,
H
ANSWER
Good you understand, H.
First, the Buddha talks about a “self,” not a soul. There is only body and there is only mind and, as I said, they are the components of the self.
Buddha’s discussion about the nature of self is the main basis for his diverging in his own direction, away from the views about self prevailing at the time; and his teachings, of course, come from his own direct, experiential findings about the nature of self.
He posits a dependent-arising self, not an intrinsic one. That’s the key difference to understand: which means understanding how things exist, both conventionally and ultimately.
So, there is a self, a dog, a peanut, a tree. First we establish their conventional existence — they exist in dependence upon various factors — and then we need to see that they don’t have an intrinsic existence, which is what we instinctively believe.
We tend towards either one of the two extremes: the eternalistic view that there is a self and the nihilistic one that there’s no self. The middle way is seeing that the two truths come together and are not contradictory. In other words, positing the emptiness of H doesn’t deny the existence of H.
So, who creates karma? H does! Karma too, like everything else, doesn’t exist from its own side.
So, things do exist, though not intrinsically, not from their own side. But, as Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, what does exist is so subtle it’s as if it doesn’t.
Robina
QUESTION
Thank you, Venerable Robina.
I was confusing things not existing intrinsically to things not existing at all.
Thank you so much, Venerable Robina. I am grateful to have found you on this journey.
Love and gratitude,
H