Cracking the Walnut, page 2
Since there is no self-nature,
how could there be an other-nature?
如諸法自性
不在於緣中
以無自性故
他性亦復無
The self-nature of phenomena is not found in the conditions.
What do we mean by self-nature (svabhāva)? It is the real existence of a separate entity, standing on its own. When we recognize something as being real, we give it a self-nature. Your self-nature is what makes you different from another, who has other-nature (parabhāva). Can we find the self-nature of phenomena within their conditions? It seems that we can’t. Can we find self-nature—whether it is for something that has arisen or is yet to manifest—in the conditions that have given birth to that thing or are about to give birth to it?
For example, we may look for the self-nature of a flame in a box of matches. In the box are matches made of wood and sulfur. Outside the box is oxygen. When we search inside the wood, sulfur, and oxygen can we find the self-nature of the flame? Whether the match has already been lit or not, we cannot find this self-nature. What we call the self-nature of something cannot be found in its conditions at all.
Since there is no self-nature, how can there be an other-nature?
Self-nature and other-nature go together just as left and right, inside and outside go together. If there is no right there cannot be a left. Self and other are a pair of opposites. If you remove one of them, you remove the other.
When we talk about self-nature we mean that something is an entity, and we do not confuse that entity with a different one. For example, fire has the nature of fire. Since it has that nature, it cannot be confused with ice. Fire is hot and ice is cold. So, the self-nature of fire must be heat and the self-nature of ice must be cold. This is how most people understand self-nature. If something cannot maintain its self-nature, then it is no longer the same thing as before. This is why we believe that everyone and everything has a self-nature. But in this verse Nāgārjuna invites us to look a little deeper and to see that the self-nature of which we are speaking does not really exist. This is the first cannon shot of Nāgārjuna that begins to destroy our notions about self.
In Chinese Buddhism there arose two schools of thought that almost seem to oppose each other. On the one hand there was the Dharma-characteristic (法相) school, on the other hand the Dharma-nature (法性) school. The Dharma-characteristic school specialized in the outer characteristics of things and used analysis to see that one thing is different from another. It was represented by the Manifestation-only (Vijñaptimātratā) teachings.
The Manifestation Only school defined a dharma (phenomenon) as “something that can retain its nature—i.e., the principle which gives rise to our thought about that phenomenon.” For example, the nature of ice is hardness and coldness; a piece of ice must retain those characteristics so that we may perceive it as something different from what is not ice. This is how the Manifestation-only school defines a dharma.
In Buddhism the word dharma has many meanings. In English usage, when Dharma is capitalized it stands for the teachings of the Buddha. When it is not capitalized (dharma), it means “phenomenon” or “thing.” A flower, a cloud, and a pebble, for example, are all dharmas. Nowadays, Buddhist scholars translate the word dharma as elements of existence or elements of being, a formulation considered to be closer to the meaning of the Sanskrit word. We should remember, however, that a dharma is first of all an object of mind.
We have six sense organs: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. The objects of these six sense organs are what we call the six sense bases: form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas. Dharmas are the object of our mind. Ice is an object of our mind, and fire is also an object of our mind. Therefore, the best and most fundamental definition of dharmas in the Buddha’s teachings is that they are the objects of our mind. To define them as elements of being, things, or phenomena is not the best because it could lead people to think that they exist independently from our cognition. We have to translate this term in such a way that we remember that dharmas are only an object of our mind and that they do not have a separate reality outside of our mind.
While the Dharma-characteristic school specialized in looking at the exterior appearance of the dharmas, the Dharma-nature school specialized in understanding their nature. This school wanted to break the shell in order to penetrate the core: it wanted to break through the outer appearance in order to penetrate the nature within. The nature here is 自性, which is sometimes translated as “own-being.” Ice has the nature (自性) of ice and fire the nature of fire. The two of them cannot be confused. In verse 3 we read, Since there is no self-nature, how could there be an other-nature? According to the Dharma-nature school, that which we call self-nature is only an idea. When we look deeply into something, we see that it does not have a self-nature, and we conclude that there is no self-nature (niḥsvabhāva, 無自性).
The Dharma-characteristic school is not only concerned with the outer characteristics (lakṣaṇa). It also helps us to penetrate the true nature. This means that when we look deeply at phenomena, we are able to touch their ultimate reality. The phenomenal world is the world of signs (相), and this world is the object of study for the Dharma-characteristic school.
The object of study of the Dharma-nature school is the noumenal world or ontological basis. The aim of the Dharma-characteristic school is not simply to examine the characteristics of all things; it has the deeper aim of breaking through to the noumenal world. This is the meaning of the sentence “from the phenomena we penetrate the noumena” (從相入性). When I was twenty years old I wrote in the poem, “The Boat Returns to its Old Moorings”:
Paddling in the direction of the water and the drifting clouds,
from the world of phenomena the boat returns to the noumenal.*
We apply this principle in our practice. The Dharma-nature school is often called the empty of intrinsic nature (svabhāvaśūnya) teachings. Nature goes together with empty of nature. The North American poet Gary Snyder brought out a collection of poems entitled No Nature in 1992. Few people understood what was meant by this title. People thought it meant there is no natural world, but Gary Snyder is a student of Buddhism and practices meditation.
The statement “the self-nature of phenomena is not found in the conditions” is essential. Looking at and around a box of matches we see that all the conditions are present for creating a flame, but we cannot find the self-nature of the flame in any or in all of those conditions.
To recap the four conditions:
The seed condition can be compared to a grain which, thanks to supportive conditions such as the cloud, the rain, the sun, and the earth, will sprout and become a plant. Without the continuity condition something cannot come about. If you take a grain that has just sprouted and put it in a drawer, then replant it three days later, it cannot continue to grow. The object of cognition as a condition belongs to the philosophy of perception. Everything that exists is an object of consciousness. If there is no object of consciousness, how can there be consciousness? The object of cognition is a condition for the presence of consciousness. Only when there is consciousness can there be the earth, the heavens, this, and that. All of these things are the object of cognition as condition.
As we look into these four conditions, can we see the effect produced from them? Can we see the flame? In the match, in the matchbox, in the sulfur, and in the oxygen do we find the heat of the flame? We do not. If we look into the conditions that make the coldness of ice possible, can we find coldness in those conditions? Coldness is the self-nature of ice and heat is the self-nature of fire. We cannot find heat and cold in the four kinds of conditions that make heat and cold possible. This principle is the lynchpin of the empty-of-intrinsic-nature teachings. Further evidence of this emptiness is found in the examination of supportive conditions that help a seed to grow and become a plant. The seed needs the earth, the manure, the rain, the sun, and the farmer.
Nāgārjuna reasons to the point where no response is possible. Having reached this impasse, we are given a chance to look again, to look deeply, and to let go of some certainty around our theories and points of view. The method Nāgārjuna uses to teach in this way is called dialectics. His particular type of dialectics is called “arguing to prove that you are absurd, that you are wrong” (歸謬論證), which we refer to in Latin as reductio ad absurdum. Throughout the Verses on the Middle Way Nāgārjuna uses reductio ad absurdum to put his opponents at a loss to respond, but he does not intend to disgrace them.
The path of the intellect and concepts is like a railway line. As long as the railway line continues, the train proceeds. If the railway line is removed, the train can no longer run; the train will have to find a different way to travel. It may have to find a way to take off, like an airplane.
When people are caught in words and notions, they are unable to touch the true nature of all that is. Once someone is caught like this, they cannot take the path of intuitive understanding; all they have is the path of the intellect. Using the intellect is to play with words and concepts, rather than to realize how things really are.
The experience of enlightenment is like that. It is a direct experience of reality, realized by an understanding called understanding of all aspects (sarvākārajñatā), or nondiscriminative or nonconceptual wisdom (nirvikalpajñāna). This wisdom is like an airplane flying up into the sky. Discriminative or conceptual knowledge holds fast to a two-dimensional plane—not able to take us very far. There are many philosophers and students of religion who are caught in the intellect. They engage in a kind of mental gymnastics that manifests itself in the realm of concepts and reasoning, but remain unable to fly up into the sky of intuition. Intuition or direct experience is nondiscriminative wisdom.
The intention of Nāgārjuna is to bring us to an impasse so that we see for ourselves that the intellect is not ultimately capable of taking us anywhere. When we see this, we have a chance to transform ourselves from a train to an airplane.
Since self-nature is empty, how could there be other-nature? Self-nature is svabhāva; it is the opposite of other-nature, which is parabhāva. There cannot be one without the other. Self-nature is our own nature, while other-nature is the self-nature of something else.
The Sarvāstivāda school (from the first century BCE), which was one of the Mainstream Schools of Buddhism in India, taught that “the self is empty, but dharmas exist.” The name of this school, Sarvāstivāda, means “all things are.” It maintained that all dharmas have a true existence in the past, present, and future. The school moved to Kashmir in its early days, where it continued to flourish for a thousand years. Kashmir’s location on the Silk Road resulted in the teachings of the Sarvāstivāda being brought to China.
The Tamraśāṭīya school, a branch of the Vibhajyavāda, which later came to be known as the Theravāda or Mahāvihāravāsin tradition, moved to the south of India and became established in Sri Lanka. The Vibhajyavāda rejected the notion that all exists.When the Prajñāpāramitā sutras began to appear in the first century BCE, they stated clearly that the Buddha taught the emptiness not only of the self (ātman), but of all dharmas; all dharmas are without self-nature. Nāgārjuna was one of the first people to systematize these teachings on emptiness, which are also known as Śūnyatāvāda.
The four lines of the third verse bear the mark of Nāgārjuna’s technique of reductio ad absurdum. For example, we can imagine that there is a white screen in a hall, and that there is an eye looking at the screen. The eye senses that there is nothing on the screen. In the back of the hall there is a roll of film and a light bulb. The lightbulb shines through the film and projects the image of a person onto the screen. A sound system produces sound and music. The screen, the film, the electric light, and the sound system are all conditions that come together to create the image of someone singing a song on the screen. At that moment the eye sees a singer. The singer singing is what we call the fruit or the result; it is a manifestation, just like ice, a flame, a nun, or a novice monk is a manifestation. We cannot say that the image of the singer is not real. In the same way, we cannot say that ice or flames are not real. If we put our finger in the flame, we will get burned; if we put ice in our mouth, our tongue will go numb. We cannot say that these manifestations of ice and flame do not exist. They are objects capable of interacting with other objects around them. The same is true for the image of that singer—it is capable of interacting with other objects around it. That image can make us happy, or it can make us feel sad so that we sob. Anyone who has watched a film knows this. Many people cry in the cinema.
Let us look for the self-nature of the image of the singer on the screen. To think that the image is something that exists of itself is not correct, because the singer needs to have all the conditions we have mentioned to manifest. This is what the Śūnyatāvāda school calls empty of a separate existence.
This example helps us to see that although it seems there is nothing real on the screen, the image there still has an effect on people. After watching a movie some people might go as far as to commit suicide. Others might go and get drunk, and yet others might look for a prostitute to satisfy their sexual desire. We cannot say that this movie does not exist. It is truly there, and it has a strong effect on its surroundings, just like fire or ice.
Whether we are a young girl, a young man, or an old person, we are like that. We are created by the coming together of many different conditions; we do not have an independent self-nature. We are also a dharma, just like the singer on the screen, the piece of ice, or the flame. We have a clear effect on our world, and therefore a responsibility toward it; at the same time we do not have an independent existence, and thus we are said to be empty of a separate nature.
We believe that we are we, but in fact we are not we. Since we are formed of conditions, we have to see those conditions in order to remove the idea we have of ourselves.
In our—we have to use the word our, although it is not quite correct—mouths live many beings. They rely on us to live and sometimes we rely on them to live. Our health depends on the bacteria that live under our tongues. If we destroy all of these bacteria we are likely to get sick. Though there are bacteria in our mouths that make us sick, there are also those—especially the ones under our tongues—that keep us in good health. Therefore, a dentist once advised me not to scrape the tongue to remove the bacteria. The population of bacteria in our mouth is greater than the population of Germany and France put together. Also, in our intestines are countless bacteria and fungi, some of them essential for our health. If we were to destroy them all, we would fall sick. They are countless, but we cannot see them with the naked eye. Science in this way helps us to see something of the interdependent and nonself nature of the Buddhist teachings.
Inside every cell of our body there are tiny organelles called mitochondria. We believe that they belong to us, but actually they don’t. They have a completely different genome and DNA from us, and they replicate by themselves; in doing so they produce a kind of energy called oxidative energy. If we did not have this type of energy, we would not be capable of lifting our feet, of tapping our fingers on the table, or of moving at all. We owe our capacity to do these things to these tiny organelles and to the energy they produce inside of our cells. They are not us, but they are also not not-us. We live in symbiosis with them. If they die, we die; if they live, we also live.
Beans are another example of the interdependent and nonself nature presented in the Buddhist teachings. On the roots of a bean plant is a bacteria called “rhizome bacteria.” The beans and these bacteria live in symbiosis. If these bacteria are not there, the bean plant will not be able to develop or to produce flowers and beans. Likewise, if the bean plant is not there, these bacteria have no chance to live and grow.
We rely on each other in order to manifest. When you sing, the mitochondria are singing for you. When you think, do not imagine that you are thinking. It is they who think. They sing our song, they think our thoughts, and they walk our walk. Our whole spiritual and genetic heritage—the suffering, the happiness, the mistakes, and the insights of our ancestors—continue in every cell of our body. We have the Buddha, we have our teachers, and we have our father and mother in every cell of our body. When we walk, we should know that Thầy, the Buddha, our mother, and our father are walking too. Do not think: “I am the one who is walking.” What are you, after all? You are quite empty, and you have to see this. Insight is the ability to see this.
A young novice monk was struggling to work on the computer. He had only been acquainted with computers for half a year, and he found working on one difficult. He practiced breathing short, then breathing long. At that moment, an elder brother with more computer experience came along and said, “Let me do it.” The novice was so happy; his elder brother was a computer expert! Joyfully, the novice monk moved aside to let his brother sit in front of the computer. How miraculous were the fingers of the elder brother! He only had to press a few keys, move the mouse, and everything that the novice was looking for appeared. Once I told a student, “You should practice like that. Every time one of the afflictions or some difficulty arises, leave space for the Buddha. Invite the Buddha into that space so the Buddha can do what you need to do.” This is a practice that I have applied successfully. Let the Buddha walk your walk; let the Buddha breathe your breath; let the Buddha sing your song, and everything will be ok. “Dear Buddha, please take this step for me. I will not make the next step; I’ll just let you do it. Dear Buddha, please breathe for me. I will not take the next breath; I’ll just let you do it. Dear Buddha, please smile for me.” When we say this, we can quickly overcome the difficulty that we are struggling with. Why do we get stuck in our difficulties? Why do we stand our ground, even to our own detriment? Why don’t we allow the Buddha to help us?
