Tag: meditation

Inherent Existence

We talked about how Buddha gave two types of teachings. Compassion and Wisdom. For the past 22 episodes, we have been discussing compassion teachings or some version of it. Although we still have 5 or 6 sessions to go for compassion teachings, I thought I would introduce part of wisdom teachings today. We will talk about what is known as inherent existence. It is a deep topic so we may take a couple of sessions discussing this. So what is inherent existence? If you think about most of us take the existence of all phenomena as inherent. What does that mean? Well, let’s talk about any object. A car, or a house, or clothes, or a computer, and so on. We think it exists and does not think twice about it. As a matter of fact, we think exists inherently and cling to it. This grasping or clinging is what brings the most suffering in our lives.

I know this sounds crazy. So let’s break it down. Any existence is either inherent or it is not. What is inherent existence? A phenomenon that exits from its own side is considered an inherent existence. In reality, there is no such thing. No phenomena exist from its own side. For anything to exist from its own side, either it is the same as its part or collection of its part. There is no other possibility. Let’s take an example. Here is a flower. I think we all agree that it is a flower. If you don’t agree, please raise your hand in your participants’ window – I want to make sure this is an interactive experiment. As long as we all agree it is a flower, we will continue. Now, Is this a flower (removed one petal and only showed one petal)? How about this (showed another petal)? How about now (one more petal)? How about this (showing stem)? So we all agree that none of the parts of the flower are flowers themselves. Let’s look at the collection of the parts. All of these parts if I gave you, you would not call it a flower. So there is no inherently existing flower. Well, then what is this thing we called flower. It is nothing but imputation. It is a flower because we called it a flower. It has no inherent existence. Another way to look at this is that it is a dependent existence. Let’s say a blind person walks in the room – don’t worry this is not a joke! There is a flower on the table. For the blind person, the flower does not exist because it is not in their experience.

Let’s look at this pen. Can you point to the pen? Where is the pen? Is it on your screen? Is it in my hand? You see this pen because your eye senses look at a picture of the pen, your brain interprets that as a pen. In other words, the pen is in your mind. Without your brain interpreting this object like a pen, the pen does not exist for you. In other words, it is a dependent existence.

So there are people who believe everything exists inherently meaning from their own side. As we just discussed that is just not the case. There are people who believe nothing exists at all. That is surely not the case since we are experiencing these phenomena. There is a middle way. That says that all phenomena are imputed or dependent on existence. Nothing exists inherently and all existence is imputed.

Let’s look at another example, we all have a car parked in the garage. Let’s find if the car exists inherently. For a car to exist inherently, it can either be found in its parts or it is a collection of its part. So let’s begin with its tires. If someone gave us four tires, we will certainly not call it a car. How about if someone gave us a bunch of bucket seats? Well, that is not a car. How about a door, or an engine, or brake pads? None of these parts is a car. If you take all the parts of the car put them on the ground, we won’t call it a car. So there is no inherently existing car. It is a car because we all decided to call it a car. In other words, it is an imputed existence.

Again, this is a deep subject. I would like to pick this up next week on the same topic. So we can investigate a little more to make sure that we are all on the same page as to inherent existence.

Temptation – Sensual Desire

I want to talk about temptations today. I am sure you all heard the story about Buddha was visited by Mara just before he was enlightened. Mara is not some evil creature. Mara is the temptation in our hearts. Buddha knew it was temptation and ignored it so he was enlightened. We, on the other hand, do not recognize temptation.

We always say we are supposed to enjoy so if it feels good, it must be good for us. Not true. A lot of things feel good at the moment. For example, we all want to meditate on a daily basis. How many of us actually take the time to do it? We don’t because we prefer that last piece of news or show or sleep or game or what have you. One of the biggest obstacles for us is sensual desire. We have five senses and they are physical in nature. There is nothing wrong with enjoying what you see, what you taste, etc. The problem comes when we try to want what we are sensing. For example, if there is a beautiful flower, by all means, we should enjoy it. But if we want to take the flower from the plant, that is when we must stop.

Sensual desire actually also affects your meditation sessions. It is a sensual desire that wants to move this way or that way to be just a little bit more comfortable. Nothing wrong with being comfortable but if you are not, please don’t keep adjusting. When you start adjusting you lose concentration. If you actually do let go of that sensual desire to adjust, you will have a peaceful meditation session. The joy that comes from that meditation session far outlasts the sensual gratification from the physical world.

Let’s take the example of food. Say you love pizza. You begin to eat pizza from your favorite pizzeria. You are taking down a few slices. Now you are full. Can you continue? No. If you did, you will eventually throw up. You lose the pleasure of anything that lasts too long. So sensual gratification wants something else as soon as it is satisfied. It is a momentary enjoyment that does not last beyond that moment.

Buddha gave a few solutions to overcome this. The first solution is to let go of the want. If we recognize the sensual desire and decide to ignore it, we will have a lot more joyful time. For example, sitting in a position that may not be comfortable, will allow us the opportunity to learn about sensual desires. Because moving around to find a comfortable position is no different from people working 80 hour days or getting bored when there are no live sports on TV or looking for constant excitement. Once you get out of one situation the next one will start bothering you. Just like during meditation if we move our right leg when it bothers us, a few minutes later left leg will begin to bother us.

Another solution Buddha gave to keep sensual desires in check was moderation in eating. Stop eating after a certain time. In those days they used to start their day around 4 in the morning so he suggested stop eating afternoon. In our times, we should try and stop eating say latest by 6 pm. It allows us to control ourselves and also gives us intermittent fasting that is supposed to be good for our body.

Another solution was to not seeing the whole and seeing just the parts. What does that mean? Say you like someone and have a lust for that person. Instead of seeing the whole person, if you only see their hair or their teeth, the lust actually goes away. Similarly, if there is a luxury car you are drooling for, instead of seeing the car, if you only see the tires your desire will actually reduce.

Q: When I meditate, before I can even label the thought, the next one comes in. So there is this constant flow of thoughts that does not allow me to concentrate.

A: This happens when our mind is agitated and we have not settled down in our hearts. The best way to approach this is to stop and go back to the sensation of our breath. If your mind is muddled for some reason, spend more time on breath sensations. This will allow the mind to settle down. Just like when you have a muddy water glass, you need to let it sit for the soil to settle down at the bottom and the glass to be clear.

The root of all evil: Self-Cherishing & Self-Grasping Ignorance

Now that the holidays are over, let’s examine what brings delusions in our lives and how to reduce them. I am sure during the holiday season, most of you at some point confronted your delusions. These come in any form such as anger, jealousy, hatred, attachment, ignorance, greed, etc. If we look at the root of our delusions, usually it boils down to Self-Cherishing and Self Grasping Ignorance.

Self-cherishing is a mind that thinks “I am important”. Self-Cherishing is nothing but a belief that our happiness, our comfort, our views, our thought process is superior to that of the other person. In other words, it is the same a supremacy. Let’s explore this a little. When we have a disagreement with someone it is because we consider our opinion to be superior to that of another person. Because of our ego or “me” delusion, all of our viewpoints are tainted. If we have tinted windows on our car, everything outside looks of that color. Look at all the wars in the world; they are rooted in this belief of supremacy. Let me tell you an interesting story. A few years ago, I was getting a massage. My masseuse asked me how my day was going. I casually mentioned I was dealing with some not so competent insurance people. Out of nowhere, she said do you think you are smarter than everyone else? I said most days I have this Smartest Person In The Room syndrome. What she said next was very profound. She said the universe gives you what you want. You want to be the smartest person so it sends you people who are not as up to speed! I thought it was a unique way to look at the world. But in essence, it was supremacy that was bringing frustration. Geshe Kelsang Gyasto put it wonderfully; “The moment we let go of our obsessive concern for our own welfare, our mid naturally relaxes and becomes lighter.”

The second reason we experience our delusions is Self-Grasping Ignorance. It is just a fancy way of saying we grasp at ourselves and its inherent existence. When we talk about wisdom teachings we will dive deep into inherent existence. Self-grasping ignorance is also known as separation. We have created this boundary around us separating ourselves from other living beings. This is similar to a saying that goes; my cold is worst than yours because it is happening to me! If we erase the boundaries around us, the world would be a much better place. How so? Let’s look at it. We strongly identify with ourselves and grasp it so tightly that nothing is more important than our I. If our boundary only includes us then we focus on our happiness over all else. If our boundary includes our family then all of a sudden we are willing to make little sacrifices for the greater good of our family. Most people stop there. If we all begin to erase boundaries around our community we would all try our best to make sure everyone in our community is better off. If you think about the war analogy I just pointed out, it also applies here. There are wars because there is separation. We all identify strongly with something or other. Man, Woman, American, Indian, Republican, Democrat, Black, White, Brown, Hindu, Christian, Jew, so on and so forth. The politicians of the world are actively creating more identities based on race, gender, and so forth. We are actively trying to divide the world instead of uniting it. That causes delusions.

In other words, if we begin to identify a little less with ourselves and start erasing boundaries around us to include more living beings, we will begin to notice that our delusions are decreasing. Similarly, if we reduce our self-cherishing, we will reduce our delusions.