B O N DAG E A N D L I B E R AT I O N 101 in it If there is no one wandering in samsara, samsara cannot be real We can identify two possibilities for what the wanderer is: Either it is the set of five aggregates that constitutes the sentient being, or it is the sentient being who possesses these aggregates Whichever of these two is wandering in samsara, it must be either permanent or impermanent if it truly exists There is no other possibility First, let us examine the aggregates It cannot be that permanent aggregates wander in samsara, because permanent aggregates would never change states or phases They could not go from one life to another, even from one place to another, because they would be unchanging Impermanent aggregates cannot wander in samsara ei ther, because something that is impermanent ceases as soon as it arises-that is the definition of impermanence If it remained the same for any period of time, it would be permanent, not imperma nent Something that is impermanent, therefore, has no time to go anywhere, because as soon as it arises, it disappears Therefore, im permanent aggregates would have no time to wander around in samsara, because they would cease immediately after arising Thus, neither permanent nor impermanent aggregates can wander in sam sara, and since there is no other alternative for how the aggregates could be, it is logically impossible that the aggregates wander in samsara The same is true for sentient beings There could not be perma nent sentient beings that wander in samsara because such beings would never change in any way; impermanent sentient beings could not wander in samsara either, because the first instant they would exist and the second instant they would be gone They could not go from one place to another, let alone one life to another, because they would not have time to so Thus, sentient beings cannot logically be the wanderers in samsara either Since it is logically impossible for either permanent or imperma nent aggregates or sentient beings to wander in samsara, and since there is no other possibility for how they could be, the only conclu- 102 B O N DAG E A N D LI B E R AT I O N sion to draw is that no wanderer in samsara actually exists Since no wanderer in samsara actually exists, samsara does not truly exist either Samsara is not real; it is just a dependently arisen mere ap pearance The third verse presents another line of reasoning It reads: If the individual really wandered from one existence to the next, Then in between existences, there would be no existence! With no existence and no appropriated aggregates, What individual could possibly be wandering? If this life, the next life, and the transition in between the two truly existed, then there would be an individual sentient being who would appropriate one set of aggregates in this life, then leave them behind, then appropriate another set of aggregates at the start of the next life In between the two, however, there would just be the individual, the appropriator, without any appropriated aggregates The sentient being would not have any aggregates at all at that point That would be illogical, however, because there would be nothing to call a sentient being if there were no aggregates to compose that sentient being-there would be no body and no mind The sentient being is defined as the one who appropriates the aggregates, so how could that appropriator exist without any aggregates to appropriate? Take, for example, the situation of being a human in this life and a god in the next life In between dying as a human being and giving up that set of aggregates and then being born as a god with a new set, there would be an empty gap Then the question is, during that empty gap, what is it that is going around in samsara? It would be illogical to posit anything, because there would be nothing there The whole notion of samsara as an uninterrupted continuum of B O N DAG E A N D L I B E R AT I O N 103 lifetimes would be inapplicable if things actually transpired in that way Someone might say, "In between the two existences there is the sentient being in the bardo, the intermediate state." It is fine to posit that, but the question would then be, what is there in between the time when one abandons the human aggregates and one appro priates the bardo aggregates? Sentient beings in the bardo still have aggregates, just of a more subtle variety than our own So positing the existence of the bardo changes the form of the question but does not make it go away Let us look at the example of being a pig in the past life and a human being in this one First you are a pig and then you are a person So if you go from being a pig to being a human being, the question is, are the human being's aggregates the same as the pig's aggregates, or not? If they are the same, then that pig would be a permanent pig If the aggregates were different, however, then you would first have the pig's aggregates, then you would have nothing at all, and then you would have the human being's aggregates The human being's aggregates would have no cause, because they would have just emerged from that nothingness of the gap in between the two lives Therefore, neither the possibility of permanence nor that of impermanence is feasible, and therefore samsara's existence is not feasible either This becomes clear once we analyze with logical reasoning in this way Samsara is the beginningless cycle of existence in which sentient beings wander in the six realms from one lifetime to the next We can see from this analysis, however, that samsara is just a depen dently arisen mere appearance, like a dream There is nothing real to it or in it Since samsara is just a dependently arisen appearance, it is naturally open, spacious, and relaxed Therefore, we not have to cleanse ourselves of samsara, only of our thoughts that sam sara truly exists In his Authentic Portrait of the Middle Way, Jetsiin Milarepa sang, "So even the name 'samsara' does not exist." Not only the basis to 104 B O N DAG E A N D L I B E R AT I O N which the name samsara is given does not exist, but even the name itself does not exist After all, the name samsara is comprised of three syllables When you say the first syllable, sam, then sara does not exist When you say sa, however, sam and not exist, and when you say ra, samsa does not exist If the name really existed, all its parts would have to exist at the same time! In fact, both the basis to which the name samsara is imputed as well as the name itself are appearance and emptiness undifferen tiable Milarepa described this when he sang in The Eight Kinds of Mastery: Not separating appearance and emptiness This is mastery of the view Thus, we can see that Milarepa's intention and Nagarjuna's inten tion are the same When someone argued, "Samsara truly exists because there is nirvana, the transcendence of samsara's suffering," Nagarjuna re sponded by analyzing nirvana in the fourth verse: No matter how they might be, It would be untenable for the aggregates to attain nirvana No matter how they might be, It would be untenable for sentient beings to attain nirvana Nirvana does not truly exist because when we analyze, we cannot find anything or anyone that can actually attain it For example, the aggregates cannot attain nirvana, because permanent aggregates could not change states-they could not go from the state of sam sara to that of nirvana-and impermanent aggregates would arise and then immediately cease, so they would not have time to attain nirvana Similarly, permanent sentient beings could not logically B O N DA G E A N D L I B E R AT I O N 105 attain nirvana because they would be unchanging, and imperma nent sentient beings could not attain nirvana because they would not have time to so Another reason nirvana is not truly existent is that samsara and nirvana are dependently existent There can only be samsara in de pendence upon there being nirvana, and there can only be nirvana in dependence upon there being samsara Since these two things exist only in mutual dependence, they not inherently exist It is for these reasons that in An Authentic Portrait of the Middle Way, the Jetsun sang: No meditator and no meditated, No paths and levels traveled and no signs, And no fruition bodies and no wisdoms, And therefore there is no nirvana there, Just designations using names and statements This whole passage is a logical reasoning that progresses in stages First, Milarepa sang that there is no meditator There is no medita tor because there is no self If there is no meditator, there cannot be any object of meditation, and if there is no object of meditation, there cannot be any path or any signs of progress on the path If there is no path, there cannot be any fruition at the end of the path in the form of the fruition bodies and wisdoms.23 If there are no fruition bodies or wisdoms, there is no such thing as nirvana All of these terms then are just designations, mere names and imputations The Heart of Wisdom Sutra teaches that there is "no path, no wisdom, no attainment, and no nonattainment either." The teach ing that is neither attainment nor any absence of attainment is a perspective that we have to apply to the other subjects mentioned 23 "Bodies" is a translation of the Sanskrit kaya; for a description of the three kayas, see notes 28 and 29, page 145 ... signs of progress on the path If there is no path, there cannot be any fruition at the end of the path in the form of the fruition bodies and wisdoms.23 If there are no fruition bodies or wisdoms,... because they would have just emerged from that nothingness of the gap in between the two lives Therefore, neither the possibility of permanence nor that of impermanence is feasible, and therefore... appropriate another set of aggregates at the start of the next life In between the two, however, there would just be the individual, the appropriator, without any appropriated aggregates The sentient