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the sun of wisdom (3)

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THE SOURCES OF CONSCIOUSNESS 21 day; someone who is exceptionally fast can read three volumes in a day Well, Machig Labdron could read all twelve volumes of the extensive Great Mother Prajflaparamita Sutra in a single day, which she did on one occasion for thirty days in a row When she did this, she read, for example, that form, the first of the six outer sources of consciousness, is not white, it is not red, it is not rectangular, it is not circular-form is empty of inherent nature As a result of read­ ing this again and again, she realized emptiness directly and became known as the Prajfiaparamita siddha, the siddha who realized emp­ tiness by means of the Prajflaparamita Sutras After she passed away, her son, Gyalwa Dondrup, sang a song in which he praised her for this incredibly unique feat, because while most other siddhas gain realization through Vajrayana6 practices, she was able to so from simply reading the Prajflaparamita Sutras' descriptions of empti­ ness In honor of her accomplishment, Gyalwa Dondrup praised her as "Mother, Prajfiaparamita siddha-mother." Thus we can see that it is indeed possible to realize the nature of reality by gaining an understanding of emptiness By meditating on emptiness, if we be­ come skilled at it, we too can become siddhas Nagarjuna composed this chapter in answer to those who argued that phenomena are not empty, that they truly exist, because each of the six inner sources of consciousness perceives its respective object among the six outer sources of consciousness For example, they would say, "This flower exists because my eyes perceive it." Thus, in order to help these people overcome this mistaken belief, Nagarjuna analyzes the sources of consciousness and demonstrates that they not truly exist after all In the course of his analysis, Nagarjuna asks, "If these six inner and six outer sources of consciousness truly exist, then how they exist in terms of their time sequence?" There are three possibilities: first, that the inner perceiving sources of consciousness exist before the objects they perceive; second, that the perceived objects exist Vajrayana, or "adamantine vehicle," is the set of Mahayana practices that is kept secret 22 T H E SOURCES O F CONSCIOUSNESS before the subjects that perceive them; and third, that the perceiving subjects and perceived objects come into existence simultaneously In fact, all three of these possibilities are logically impossible The perceiving subject cannot exist before the perceived object, because then there would be a perceiving subject without any object to per­ ceive Similarly, it cannot be that the perceived object exists before the perceiving subject, because a perceived object cannot exist if there is no subject perceiving it-the term perceived object necessar­ ily implies the presence of a perceiver Thus, the perceiving subject and the perceived object cannot exist sequentially They also cannot come into existence simultaneously, because two things that exist simultaneously cannot have any connection or relationship with each other They cannot have the relationship of being cause and result, for example This is because something that arises simultaneously with something else has no opportunity to be that second thing's cause It only arises at precisely the same time as its supposed result, so how could it have produced that result? It would have had no time to so It can therefore only be that things that arise simultaneously so independent of each other In this case, it would be impossible for the perceived object and the perceiving subject to be unrelated in the way that two things that come into existence simultaneously are unrelated, because the perceived object and perceiving subject are cause and result-the cause for there being a perceiving consciousness is that there is an object to perceive If they arose simultaneously, however, they could not have such a relationship, because the perceived object would have no opportunity to cause the perceiving consciousness to arise Thus, we see that in fact there is no way that the inner and outer sources of consciousness can truly occur, because they cannot occur sequentially, they cannot occur simultaneously, and there is no other possibility So then what are they? They are mere appearances, like illusions, like e-mail, and like movies They have no true existence Snap your fingers and then analyze by asking, "What comes first, the finger snap or the ear consciousness perceiving it?" We have to T H E S O URCES O F C O N S C I O U S NE S S 23 analyze based on our own experience, so how did they happen? Did the finger snap come first? Or did the ear consciousness perceiving the finger snap come first? Or did the finger snap and the ear con­ sciousness perceiving it occur at the same time? The snap you perceived could not have come before the con­ sciousness that perceived it, or else there would have been a per­ ceived object without any perceiver of that object Similarly, the consciousness that perceived the finger snap could not have come first because then it would have preceded the finger snap that it perceived Finally, the consciousness perceiving the finger snap and the finger snap could not have truly occurred simultaneously, be­ cause if they did, they would have been unrelated entities-the fin­ ger snap would not have been the cause of the arising of the consciousness that perceived it Thus, they did not exist sequen­ tially, they did not exist simultaneously, and there is no other possi­ bility Your finger snap and the consciousness that perceived it, therefore, were dependently arisen mere appearances that did not truly exist This is an analysis using logical reasoning that Nagarjuna first applies to the eye seeing forms, but, as we have just seen, it is also applicable to the ear hearing sounds and to all the other sense expe­ riences as well The verse that explains this is the eighth in the chapter: Know that these reasonings refuting the faculty that sees Refute the faculties that hear, smell, taste, touch, and the mental faculty as well, Refute the hearer and the other perceiving consciousnesses, Refute sound and the other perceived objects Sometimes it might seem as if the object exists before the con­ sciousness that perceives it For example, when we light a candle in 24 THE SOURCES O F CONSCIOUSNESS the morning, w e might come back a little while later and see the candle again, so it seems that the candle flame existed before our perception of it That is not really the case, however, because what we are doing in that situation is mixing together all of the moments of the continuum of the candle flame and thinking that they are all the same thing They are not just one thing, though, because each moment is completely individual, different from every other mo­ ment; each individual instant of the candle flame arises only in de­ pendence upon its own independent set of causes and conditions, then ceases, and then is replaced by a completely different candle flame in the next instant Thus, the individual moments of flame arising and ceasing one after the other in succession are not all the same thing, but rather they are many different things that only look alike, which is why it is so easy to mistake them for being just one thing So the candle flame we perceive when we walk back into the room did not exist for even the slightest instant before the moment we perceived it to be there In the same way, whenever we talk about a perceived object, whatever it is, we are talking about something whose existence is only momentary, perceived by an equally mo­ mentary consciousness Analyzing in this subtle way helps us to see why an object that is perceived cannot exist before the consciousness that perceives it We can also look at the case of a father and his son and see that the father cannot really exist before the son, the son cannot exist before the father, and they cannot come into existence simultane­ ously either, so they too cannot be real If we asked people, "Who comes first, the father or the son?" everyone in the world would answer, "The father comes first." The reason people would say that is that they mistake an entire continuum of separate instants for one thing If it were really the case that the father existed first, then the man would have been a father before the birth of his son, and even when that man was a little boy he would also have had to be a father That is not the case, though, because every instant in the continuum of his existence is different from all the other instants T H E S O U R C E S O F C O N S C I O US N E S S 25 We have to see how it is that we confuse individual entities in a continuum for one thing, how these confused appearances exist in accordance with worldly convention, and then we have to distin­ guish this confused way things appear from the way things actually are, which we can determine with logical analysis Thus, the father cannot exist before the son, because if he did, he would be a childless father The son cannot exist before the father, because if he did, he would be a fatherless son They cannot exist simultaneously either, because if they came into existence at the same time, one would have no opportunity to bring the other into existence Therefore, they not truly exist They are not real Then what are they? They are mere appearances that arise due to the coming together of causes and conditions, like dreams, water­ moons, and rainbows Their true nature transcends conceptual fab­ rications It is open, spacious, and relaxed ... opportunity to bring the other into existence Therefore, they not truly exist They are not real Then what are they? They are mere appearances that arise due to the coming together of causes and conditions,... before the consciousness that perceives it We can also look at the case of a father and his son and see that the father cannot really exist before the son, the son cannot exist before the father,... are doing in that situation is mixing together all of the moments of the continuum of the candle flame and thinking that they are all the same thing They are not just one thing, though, because

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