Cracking the Walnut, page 21
The collection of the five skandhas is just like a river. When we were small we had our picture taken. There are also photographs of us at twenty, thirty, forty years old and so on, and there are pictures of us now. Although these photographs are somewhat different from each other, they are in fact pictures of the same person. People think that there is an immortal and unchanging subject that is going through time in this way. We say “I live” just as we say “the river winds.” I am the subject of the verb and live is the verb. If there is living without an I, who is living? We feel that the action of living must have an I or another subject.
When we observe a river deeply, we see that there is not a persistent subject in it. The river is made of many drops of water connecting with one another. We cannot bathe twice in the same river or get in touch twice with the same water. The river is changing at each moment. We ourselves are also changing at each moment. The cells in our body are like drops of water flowing in a river. The body is also a river, and if we look carefully at it we will not find something that can be called a subject.
Looking at the physical body, we see its cells are born and die at each moment. Looking at the mind is also like this. Our feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness are also like drops of water or cells of the mind. The mental formations of sadness, anger, worry, or happiness are drops of water in the river of consciousness. In this river there does not need to be an I, an actor, and an action—a subject and an object. Normally we think that the fire is a kind of subject and the fuel is a kind of object.
This verse is to help us contemplate the self—the ego. We say that consciousness makes the body alive, just like the fire comes from somewhere to burn the candle. This is a dualistic concept—that the candle cannot burn if fire does not come from somewhere else to burn it and bring it alive. Our body is a kind of fuel, and the soul is a kind of fire. We normally think that thanks to this kind of fire coming, the body can live. This chapter helps us to see that our dualistic idea concerning fire and fuel, body and spirit, actor and action is mistaken. As long as we are still unable to see this, we are not able to overcome fear, and we are not truly liberated. When the mental formation of anger arises, there is only that mental formation. If we analyze anger, we see that anger is always about something: our teacher, our friend, the cat, or the weather. Anger always has a subject and an object.
According to phenomenology, consciousness is always consciousness of something—Toute conscience est conscience de quelque chose.* Each of the fifty-one mental formations must have its own object. A mental formation arises; it lasts uninterruptedly for anywhere from half a minute to three minutes, and then gives way for another mental formation to arise just like successive drops of water in a river. There are only mental formations succeeding one another; this gives us the impression that there is a continuous self, but this self is an illusion. At night, when it is dark, we can light a torch and move it around in a continuous circle. Someone standing one hundred meters or more away will see a clear circle of fire. In truth there is no circle; there are only dots of fire continuously succeeding one another giving us the impression that there is a circle.
What we call a soul, or self, is an illusion. In reality there is only a continuous succession of mental formations; a mental formation arises and then gives up its place for others to follow. There is an uninterrupted continuation that gives us the impression that there is a self (the fire) that makes the body (the fuel) alive. Looking carefully, we do not see an actor. When we talk about sadness, we are talking about a mental formation that arises and has an object. To be sad is to be sad about something. Sadness does not need an actor. Normally we say, “I am sad”; but who is sad? Actually we do not need the I. Sadness can be there by itself. Thinking is the same. When a thought comes up, there is no need for a subject sitting there who has that thought, i.e. “Je pense, donc je suis” (“I think, therefore I am”). There is a thought (pensée), but there is no I (je) because in the thought both subject and object are there. Earlier, we discussed how we tend to say: “I hear the wind blowing” and “I know the wind is blowing.” Wind that does not blow is not wind. In the wind there is the blowing. It is absurd to say “The wind is blowing,” when all you need to say is, “Wind.”
In English there are verbs that are derived from nouns. House is a noun, but we can also use it as a verb, as in, “This building can house twenty people.” In what we call subject or author, there is already the action. The house must house. If it does not house, it cannot be called a house—just like something that does not float cannot be called a cloud.
Remember the teaching of Confucius that we looked at earlier: “The king kings, the citizen citizens, the father fathers, the son sons.”* The king must act as a king, citizens must act as citizens, fathers must act as fathers, and sons must act as sons. The noun is also a verb. Speaking about a monk you could say, “The monk monks.” If you don’t monk (verb) then you are not a monk (name). Monking is the practice of meditation and keeping the precepts. The verb and the subject of the verb are not two different things. In the same way we can also say, “The cook cooks.” If he does not cook, we cannot call him a cook.
The thirteenth verse uses the example of fire and fuel in order to speak about all other things. A pot has the function of a pot, which is to contain something. Clothes have to clothe, which means they do the work of covering and warming the body. The function of a thing goes together with its nature. When we talk about something, we have to look deeply into it so that gradually we learn and see clearly that in it there really is no distinction between subject and action. Actor and action cannot be two separate realities existing outside each other. There is a fundamental mistake when you say, “I live” or “I die.” When you see this mistake you begin to see the truth and you can overcome fear and grief.
Geometry has a definition of a point and a line. What is a point? It is the meeting of two lines. The idea of a point is possible because of the idea of a line. Without the idea of a line there is no idea of a point. What is a line? It is a moving point. If we want to define the point we rely on the line, and when we define the line we rely on the notion of a point. This is a mere designation—an argument, a supposition—that we use to map out a strategy—a labyrinth. And we enter that labyrinth of speech and ideas. Nirvāṇa is the absence of all ideas—we are no longer controlled by ideas like self, human being, living being, or life span.
When we use the term psychesoma (nāmarūpa), nāma means the feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness, while rūpa means the body. There is a differentiation; nāma is not rūpa. The body is one thing and the mind is something else. This is exactly where we are caught. When we study the Manifestation-only teachings, we discover the truth that both body and mind are a manifestation of store consciousness—which sometimes manifests as nāma and sometimes as rūpa—but that these two do not exclude each other.
Researchers in particle physics have discovered, to their surprise, that elementary particles such as electrons sometimes manifest as waves and at other times manifest as particles. Particles are distinct from waves. How could a particle be a wave or a wave be a particle? It seems absurd; nevertheless, subatomic scientists have seen in their research that something can manifest as a particle at one moment and as a wave at another moment. In our macroscopic world we see that a wave cannot be a particle and a particle cannot be a wave. If we want to enter the microscopic world of particles and atoms, we have to put our normal way of looking behind us to enter that world where we see that particles are waves and waves are particles. In the West, the new word “wavicle” has been coined to describe this. It helps us transcend our dualistic notion of particles and waves—and likewise of body and mind.
We cannot realize liberation and enlightenment as long as we think that we leave our body here for our mind to be born again somewhere else—that our body is wholly other than our mind and our mind is wholly other than our body, or that the fire is wholly other than the fuel and the fuel wholly other than the fire. This does not mean that when our body disintegrates our mind also disintegrates. We have the impression that the body disintegrates, but this is not true. Though there is no candle left after we burn it for a few hours, this does not mean the candle is no longer there. It is still there in new forms. The disintegration of this body does not mean we are no longer there. The idea that after the dissolution of this body the consciousness wanders around and waits to enter a new body belongs to popular Buddhism. This is not deep Buddhism. We are fortunate to have the conditions to learn the teachings of deep Buddhism, so we must let go of the simplistic and naïve concepts of popular Buddhism. Looking again at verse 12:
The fire is not there because of the fuel
but without fuel as a cause there is no fire;
the fuel is not there because of the fire
but without fire as a cause there is no fuel.
When we read a verse like this, we should ask ourselves: Is it related to my suffering, fear, and craving? If we cannot see that it has something to do with us, we have not yet understood it. If it can shed a light that stops us from being attached, fearful, or worried, we know we have understood it. You should keep this fact in mind when you read the great Mahāyāna sutras such as the Avataṃsaka Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, or the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa. You ask: “Are these deep and wonderful ideas related to my suffering?” If the reply is “yes,” you have understood them. If all you can do is talk intellectually in a superficial way about them, you have not understood them.
The fire is not there because of the fuel, but without fuel as a cause there is no fire. Again, imagine you are holding a pen horizontally, viewing its right and its left end. To say that the left arises because of the right is not correct, but to say that it does not arise because of the right is also not correct. The same is true for the fire and the fuel. The fire does not arise due to the fuel, but without the fuel it cannot arise.
Phenomena are not born from themselves,
nor from others,
Things do not arise from themselves. The egg is not born of itself, but neither is it born from something else. These are two ideas; the idea that something creates itself, and the idea that something is created by something else. Here it is the same; the fire is not created by the fuel, but neither is it created by itself.
Nor both from themselves and others, nor without cause.
Therefore we know they are unborn.
All theories about creation are based on four ideas: the first, that the world arises by itself; the second, that the world arises because of something else (i.e. God); the third, that this world arises both from itself and because of something else; and the fourth, that the world arises without a cause. The idea of creation has to lie within one of these four categories.
However, Buddhism teaches us about the unborn, or the uncreated. The unborn is the highest fruit of the Buddha’s teachings—the fruit that people like and desire most. What is the unborn? It is nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa is unborn and undying. Birth and death are only ideas in our head; they are not the true nature of things. The unborn is the foundation of existence and of the world. It is the foundation of all of us, but since we are caught in an idea of birth and death, we worry and become afraid. The French chemist Lavoisier said something similar: Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme.* He was not a Buddhist, and had never studied the Verses on the Middle Way; he observed reality and saw clearly that nothing is created and nothing is destroyed. Birth and death are ideas in our head; they are not real.
We believe that the candle’s life begins when we first light it and ends when it burns itself out. Birth is “becoming something from nothing” and death is “becoming nothing from something.” There are, on the other hand, scientists who, while observing the object of their research, see that there isn’t anything that becomes something from nothing, and vice versa.
A cloud could never become nothing; it can only become rain, snow, or ice. That is its no-death nature. No death always goes together with no birth. The cloud is not born; it does not come from nothing. Before it was a cloud it was water vapor and heat. That moment when we think it was born was the moment it manifested as a cloud. In Buddhism we can say, “You are not a creation, you are a manifestation.” When Sister Trang Nghiêm was born she did not come from nothing. She was there before, only in different forms. What was called the moment of her birth was just the moment of her manifestation.
The cloud can hide its form of manifestation as a cloud to manifest in its new form of rain. This is not birth or death. Rain is not born and a cloud does not die. One manifestation follows the other. No-birth is nirvāṇa; we do not have to look for it in a far off place. It lies within our reach. When we realize no-birth we no longer have any fear.
Phenomena do not arise by themselves, but neither do they arise because of something else. The fire is not there because of the fuel means that fire does not arise from something else; but without fuel as a cause there is no fire means that neither does fire arise by itself. Phenomena do not arise from other phenomena and they do not give rise to themselves. It is wrong to talk about this arising because of that, but it is also wrong to talk about this not arising because of that. To say that the right is there because of the left is wrong, but it is also wrong to say that the right is not there because of the left. Why is this? Because if the right relies on the left in order to be there, the left must have been there already for the right to rely on it. But if the left were already there, it would be something independent of the right. In this way it would not need to rely on the right—it would be already there! Arising by oneself and arising because of another are both wrong.
Let us be concrete. Our dualistic concept of body and soul needs to be reexamined. Most of us believe that the body is different from the soul. Fire symbolizes the soul, or the metaphysical body—and fuel or wood symbolizes the physical body. We believe that thanks to consciousness or soul (fire) entering the body (wood), the body comes alive; without the soul the body is inert matter. Human beings have the wrong idea that the soul leaves or enters the body. This dualistic view is a fixed idea in human consciousness that is difficult to remove. These verses are like the very sharp strokes of a strong axe that help us to shatter our dualistic view of body and soul. If we do not understand this, we will not understand the chapter on the Examination of Fire and Fuel, though we may study it for a thousand lifetimes.
There are places in the world where, when someone dies, people still hope that they could come back to life. In Vietnam the corpse can be lowered on a mat to the ground in the hope that by receiving the substance of earth it will be able to live again. There is also the custom of taking some of the clothes of the deceased, climbing on top of the roof, and waving them around to call the soul back to the body. These customs arise from the belief that the body and the soul are two independent realities. In many religions—Buddhism included—we can find beliefs of this kind. Such dualistic beliefs of a body and a soul are not real or deep Buddhism, but rather an incorrect popular view.
This is because that is; the right arises from the left. If the left does not exist, however, how can the right rely on it to arise? If you want to rely on something, that thing has to be there beforehand. In the example of the fire and the fuel, neither thing is present first for the other to rely on it. If this does not rely on that, there is no such thing as arising from the other. Therefore the fire does not arise from the fuel, and yet it also does not arise from itself. This is the meaning of The fuel is not there because of the fire / but without fire as a cause there is no fuel.
Nothing has a self-nature, including fire and fuel. If one of them relied on the other to arise, that other would have to be there first. If it is already there it does not need to arise. Thus there is no possibility of something arising from something else; the argument that things arise from what is not themselves does not stand. In both cases—either things arise from themselves or arise from others—we come to the conclusion that there is no birth or creation.
Soul and body, fire and fuel both are without a separate self-nature. If they had a separate self-nature, they would not need to arise. So they are unborn. Nāgārjuna’s reasoning is very keen. We talk and do not know what we are saying; we think and do not know what we are thinking.
We are deceived by our habits of speaking and thinking. We have already seen that there cannot be a wind that does not blow, and yet we still keep saying: “The wind blows.” We say “Those practitioners are practicing,” and yet, if they were not practicing, they would not be practitioners! The practice is already present in them.
We can conclude that the nature of reality is no birth and that the idea of creation is mistaken. There is only manifestation. When a marker is held horizontally, are the left and right born or do they manifest? If they are born, they have to be born from something. Do they rely on one another or are they born from themselves? Birth and death are an idea; birth and death are manifestations. If we go all the way with the deep logic of Nāgārjuna, we see that it renders all our ideas about reality absurd. Nirvāṇa is the reality that transcends all notions.
