In Exile From the Land of Snows

by John Avedon

  JA: Does this, from the Buddhist perspective, explain the story of Jesus Christ?

  DL: Though one couldn’t say definitely, it would seem that this was a case of an enlightened being manifesting in an appropriate way to lead others on. It is definite, though, that he was a superior being.

  JA: Do these manifestations that appear like physical reflections of a higher being have a sense of “I,” a relative sense of self?

  DL: There are many possibilities. For instance, a Bodhisattva who is able to perform emanations could emanate himself as a certain being. Then that being would have a sense of “I.” However, if that being in turn emanated out another form, then that one would appear to be a person but wouldn’t be. So there are many cases. Some have a sense of “I,” and some do not.

  JA: The second emanation would be a body with consciousness, but not have a sense of “I”?

  DL: The secondary one could perform the function of a human being but wouldn’t be a separate person. For instance, if an enlightened being emanated a hundred forms at one time, there would not be a hundred persons, there would still just be the one central being.

  JA: Would the central emanator be simultaneously cognizant of everything occurring to the one hundred manifestations?

  DL: There are different levels here. For those of lower realization, it would be necessary for the central emanator to control each one separately. For those of higher realization, the emanations can control themselves. The factor of spontaneity and acting without exertion is involved here. It is the difference in where the control is. When one can spontaneously emanate forms without exertion, then each of the emanations is under his or her own control.

  JA: Is such a person simultaneously aware of their own self as well as their existence as an emanation?

  DL: Yes. There are cases in which among one hundred emanations, each one knows what the other ones are doing. Certainly for a Buddha or a high Bodhisattva, this is true. But this is difficult to explain. Until one experiences it oneself, one might think that this was just talking about something that was senseless. Something like science fiction or religious fiction. (laughter)

  JA: To what degree do you feel the tulku28 system in Tibet was accurate? How many past incarnate lamas do you think were genuine?

  DL: Oh, that is difficult. There are two things that are very important in this. One is that examining the tulku should be done very thoroughly. It’s very easy for this examination or investigation not to be done properly. Secondly, we have got to see how the tulku leads his life. We have to judge by that also. The very purpose of voluntarily reincarnating is to produce some good result. Without that good result, then it is doubtful. The reincarnation takes rebirth with choice, intentionally, deliberately, with the definite purpose of serving humanity through religious or other means. Anyway, there must be some concrete result. In some cases where there is not this result, then I am doubtful. So I think fifty-fifty. It might be a little presumptuous on my part to say this.

  JA: I know it’s hard to generalize. How has discovering incarnations worked since coming into exile?

  DL: There are still a few who are being recognized. Some are quite authentic. Mainly it is the child’s own behavior: showing some significant signs.

  JA: It’s obviously decreased in number.

  DL: Quite a lot! In the past, you see, there was a population of six million. Now there is only one hundred thousand. If you compare, I think it has decreased quite a lot. (laughter) We have some American lamas, also. (laughter)

  JA: What do you mean?

  DL: Yes. At least two, I think, recognized as Tibetan lamas.

  JA: Can you say a little bit about them?

  DL: I don’t know much.

  JA: Are they certified in the same way?

  DL: Maybe they themselves investigate it. I don’t know the details.

  JA: Do you approve them?

  DL: I have nothing to do with this.

  JA: I’d like to draw a parallel to your description of emanations. Each cell among a hundred trillion in the human body performs its own function, yet all work in the same body. Could all sentient beings be similarly related as parts of one organism? In other words, are beings components or emanations of a single body?

  DL: All sentient beings are of the same taste—in the sense of being the same type—in that the nature of their consciousness is mere illumination and knowing. Otherwise, they are not connected. If you suppose that many sentient beings come out of one source like a God, the answer is no.

  JA: You believe they are independent of one another?

  DL: Yes. They are separate. Even when they are enlightened, they remain separate though their realization is the same.

  JA: How do you think the one hundred trillion cells work together?

  DL: Wouldn’t there be a body consciousness pervading them throughout? For instance, where the eye sense is, within that matter, the eye consciousness holds or occupies that area. At the same time so does the body consciousness. The body consciousness pervades throughout the body.

  JA: Though each cell contains the genetic code for the entire body, only certain genes are activated to determine its fate or role. What do you think guides this regulation?

  DL: This is a physical function. It’s body, not consciousness. It’s held by consciousness, but the body performs the action.

  JA: Before you stated that the mind and hence, beings, are beginningless. How far back does the memory of a sentient being go?

  DL: For people who are untrained, the more one’s consciousness becomes subtle—such as at death—the more one becomes less aware. For one who is trained to utilize these consciousnesses, however, one has much greater awareness and much greater memory as the subtler states manifest. Among some people that I know, when a more subtle consciousness is produced, they are clearly able to remember seven, eight hundred, a thousand years back—with that consciousness.

  JA: Can memory recall infinite time?

  DL: To go back a very long period of time, it is not sufficient merely to generate and utilize a subtle form of consciousness. For times way, way back, it is necessary to remove all the obstructions to omniscience. I am referring to super, super sensory objects far off in time and space. For instance, even though he had great clairvoyance, Shariputra did not know about a very subtle root of virtue that was in a particular trainee, but Buddha did. Maudgalyayana’s29 mother was in an extremely distant place in space and time and he didn’t know where she was, but Buddha did. Since objects can be super, super sensory in respect to time or place, it is not enough just to manifest a subtle consciousness. One has to overcome the obstructions to omniscience, too.

  JA: Are you saying that when these obstructions are overcome space and time are eliminated and that events throughout the universe—past, present, and future—are simultaneously known?

  DL: Time and space are relative. They are relative to a particular consciousness. What for us would be a year, for someone who has manifested a subtler consciousness, would be a shorter period of time. Also, it is possible for a person who has obtained great meditative stabilization to transform or change a moment into an aeon or an aeon into a moment—that is, for himself or herself only.

  JA: Where is memory stored?

  DL: It is not just in the brain. At such times as we are discussing, it is not necessary to have a brain. Consciousness alone can apprehend the past events. It must be with the subtle consciousness. For example, when the subtle mind of clear light30 manifests at death, the brain is already finished. From the point of view of its cognition, it’s called consciousness, and from the point of view of its engaging, or moving to its object, it’s called inner air or energy. The very subtle air and consciousness are one undifferentiable entity. They are one entity differentiated only for thought or by way of their opposites.

  JA: Does this energy-consciousness carry traces of every event? Is this very moment being imprinted onto that?

  DL: Yes. If you remember your
last lifetime, the brain of that lifetime is no longer around, and this brain is new, right? So the picture can only be imprinted in the consciousness. This is similar to what the president of the University of Virginia described to me concerning the complete change of brain cells every several years.

  JA: Is this most subtle energy-mind the final demarcation point between one person and another?

  DL: There is a mere “I” that is designated in dependence upon the continuum of consciousness. There are two types of “I” or self: coarser and more subtle. There is the “I” that is designated on the gross mind and body and that which is designated on the subtle mind and energy. When the one is active, the other is not.

  JA: Is the “I” associated with the most subtle mind beginninglessly one with it?

  DL: The very subtle mind and energy is the base of designation for the subtle “I.” When you speak of designating the “I” to this energy-mind, it’s not necessary that the designator actually be among them. Someone once asked a question of a great geshé. He said that if a person was in a house looking at a pillar, that pillar could be designated to exist by thought, and he could understand that, but when no one was in the house, how could the pillar be designated? So the geshé said, “Yes, it does seem difficult.” Now, as soon as the questioner left, the geshé turned to a friend nearby and said, “Well, this person seems to think that a designating consciousness has to be wrapped around and tied up with every object.” So you see, it means this. The fact that a designated object cannot be found to ultimately exist when sought in analysis means that necessarily the object is just designated by a conceptual consciousness. Now, when you examine whether it is designated by this or that person’s conceptual consciousness, ultimately you won’t find that either. This constitutes a mode of ultimate analysis of something’s being conceptually designated. You won’t be able to find it. Thus, that things are conceptually designated is also without inherent existence. It’s also empty.

  JA: I’m not sure I understand. Is the “I” the subtle mind?

  DL: The coarse “I” is designated in dependence on the coarse mind and body. But even when they are not operating, there has to be an “I” designated. That is then designated to the subtle mind and body, which are then present. For instance, a highly developed yogi who is able to manifest a subtler consciousness and at the same time view conventional phenomena, for that person there is an innate sense of “I”—not in the coarser sense, but in a far more subtle sense—designated upon the subtle mind and body. There is nothing else to posit. If either the very subtle mind or energy were posited as the “I” itself, then there would be the fault that is set forth in Nagarjuna’s Treatise on the Middle Way, that agent and object would be one, designator and designatee, the appropriator and the appropriated. For instance, when you say “my mind,” the controller or the owner is the “I.” In the case you are describing, the owner and owned would be one—impossible. If you posited one of those as actually being the “I,” this fault would be incurred. Because of this, it’s not the case.

  JA: What happens to the most subtle energy-mind when a being becomes enlightened?

  DL: The “I” of a Buddha, the self of a Buddha, is this subtle “I.” At the level of Buddhahood there is no coarse wind and mind. All of the five sense activities are done by the subtle energy and consciousness itself. Because that is all there is. It has become an omniscient consciousness. So at the time of the final vajra-like meditative stabilization of a learner,31 one passes through in the forward process the four consciousnesses32 and then just the mind of clear light is left; one doesn’t manifest ever again the coarser levels of consciousness. Thus, there would only be the subtle “I” which is designated on the subtlest mind. For instance, for Shakyamuni Buddha, who appeared with a coarse mind and body that we could meet with, for him you could posit a coarse “I”—but just the appearance of such.

  JA: A final question about memory: a human embryo develops through all the stages of evolution that have led to human beings. Why do you think it has to repeat every stage?

  DL: It is due to the five fundamental and five secondary winds or currents of energy, which control the human form. It must have something to do with the actual formation of these winds in the new body, but I do not know this well.

  JA: And the memory of those past creations abides in each of these energy currents as they produce the physical forms?

  DL: The very subtle wind refers to the very subtle form of the life-bearing wind. The upward-moving wind has a relation with speech, spitting, and so forth. The pervasive wind has a function throughout the body. The fire-accompanying wind has the function of digestion of food and increase of the body’s elements. The downward-voiding wind has to do with the increase, holding, and letting go of seminal fluid, blood, feces, urine, and so forth. I haven’t remembered this well, so take care.33

  Emptiness: The Two Truths

  JA: Can you explain why Buddhists believe the mind is beginninglessly ignorant?

  DL: There are different types of obscurations. In one way, there are two. The first is an obscuration of not knowing. The second is a case of misconceiving. If you ask from what an obscuration arises, it comes from the continuation of former moments of obscuration. If you seek another explanation, then there would have to be a first moment to obscuration. In this case there would be a contradiction with reasoning. As it says in Aryadeva’s Four Hundred, “Though there is no beginning to afflictive emotions, there is an end.” Because ignorant consciousnesses misconceive objects, there is an end to them. They can be stopped by right understanding, but since they are generated as continuations of former moments of that type of consciousness, there is no beginning to them.

  JA: Why is the mind not intrinsically enlightened?

  DL: Once it has defilements—is together with defilements—it’s impossible that it was previously without them. Still, because the basic entity of the mind is always unfabricated and clear, it is indeed thoroughly good. Therefore, it is called thoroughly good: Samantabhadra.34 It would contradict reasoning to propound that the mind is first pure and then later became adventitiously defiled. Thus, it can only be said that from the very start the mind is defiled.

  JA: Why is the enlightened nature just a seed? Why is it not thoroughly developed?

  DL: Because it is a seed its fruition is yet to occur. The fact that any consciousness is established as having a nature of mere illumination and knowing, and that that factor is capable of turning into enlightenment, is designated with the name “seed.” There is nothing more than that. If there was, you’d have to say that a God created it. Then you would have to explore the nature of God: investigate whether the nature of God had a beginning or an end. There are many such investigations in the ninth chapter of Shantideva’s Engaging in the Bodhisattva’s Deeds as well as Dharmakirti’s Commentary on Dignaga’s “Compendium on Valid Cognition.” I am not criticizing those who assert a creator God. I am explaining the Buddhist viewpoint. If there are many internal contradictions in a doctrine, revealed by reasoning, then one should drop that doctrine and choose one that doesn’t have such discrepancies. As it says in the fourth reliance, rely not on knowledge but on exalted wisdom. There are many phenomena that are not understood until one advances in mental development. There are many unusual phenomena that we cannot explain now with this type of consciousness.

  JA: Can you explain how the other mental afflictions come out of innate ignorance?

  DL: As I said, there are two types of ignorance. The first is a mere obscuration with respect to the status of phenomena. The other is ignorance that misconceives the nature of phenomena. The latter one conceives that phenomena inherently exist, which they don’t. Within this misconception of inherent existence, there are again two types: conceptions of persons as inherently existent and conceptions of other phenomena as also such. This division is made by way of a consideration of users of objects and objects used. Within the conception of persons as inherently existent
, there are cases of conceiving both one’s own self and other selves to truly exist. Viewing the transitory collection of body and mind as a real “I” is a case of viewing your own self as inherently existent. With respect to this view, there are two further types. One is a conception that observes the transitory collection, which gives rise to the thought of “I” and conceives it to inherently exist. Another observes “mine” and conceives it to exist in the same way. Now, first of all, one generates a conception of the inherent existence of those phenomena—the mental and physical aggregates—that serve as the basis of designation of the “I.” After that thought, the “I” which is designated in dependence on mind and body is conceived to exist in its own right. Then, with that view of the transitory as the cause, one conceives “mine” to inherently exist. As Chandrakirti35 says, “Initially there is attachment to the ‘I’—a self—and then attachment to mine.” Once there is the class of self, there is the class of other. Once these two classes are distinguished, one becomes desirously attached to the class of self and hateful toward the class of other. From this, are generated all the other problems. For instance, due to the view of the transitory as an “I” which is inherently existent, one generates pride in oneself as superior to others. Then, even afflicted doubt—since it’s a case of emphasizing the “I” that might not believe in something (the final reason being that “I don’t believe in such and such”)—depends on this. And jealousy. Also, extreme views are induced by this view of the “I” as inherently existent: views of permanence and views of annihilation. For example, believing that former and later births don’t exist or believing that once there is a self that this self will exist forever. So first a phenomenon appears to inherently exist, and when it does, its qualities of good, bad, and whatever also appear to exist in this way. The mind then assents to that appearance. Since this is an appearance based on a superimposition of goodness and of badness—beyond that which is actually there—one’s mind falls into extreme conceptions of genuine goodness and badness and the operation of improper attitudes, which, in turn, generate the afflictive emotions.