Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey)
Ltd.
Personal Self Habit, Phenomenal Self Habit -Part 4
John D. Hughes
Recorded
Teachings
Buddhist Discussion Centre
(Upwey) Ltd.
33 Brooking St
Upwey, Victoria
Australia
3158
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488
Phone: (03) 9754
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email: wbu@bdcu.org.au
Disclaimer
Teacher: John D. Hughes
Date of recording: 25/6/88
Transcribed by Alec Sloman
Checked by Leanne Eames
CD Reference
25_06_88T3S2i
File Name: 25_06_88T3S2i_JDHtranscribe.rtf
5 Day Meditation Course
Recording Title: "Personal Self Habit, Phenomenal Self Habit"
So the, we get to this phenomena of where the Teacher has out breath, out breath, out breath, out breath or, in breath, in breath, in breath, or in breath and out breath. And you discern the change of your mental phenomena. It is because your habitual self habit should have had contact with the mind of the Teacher.
If you have paid respect to your Teacher enough, your mind comes to seek the mind of the Teacher so you can learn the Dhamma. So if the Teacher, if you have established refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, which is your Teacher, then your mind, your habitual self habit, a part of it, skews off the attachment to the phenomenal world and wants to run towards your Teacher’s mind, which is itself, as far as you’re concerned, a part of the phenomenal world. Then when your self habit strikes that part of the phenomenal world, the Teacher’s mind has a Dhamma array. And then the sparks produced from that phenomena appear as Dhamma knowledges. Very, very low practice, not higher practice, because still dependent on the Teacher outside. But it's a bridging point to where you become self reliant.
You've got to pay respect to your Teacher, you've got to have, you've got to pay enough respect to Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, as exemplified by your Teacher, your Teacher is part Sangha, until you've established refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, and then your self habit mind tends towards the outside phenomenal world of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha. Until that refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha is established, very powerfully, and your mind will not go towards your Teacher's mind, then you keep striking the phenomenal self habit of the samsara and you’re indistinguishable from anyone else, and so you become like . . . someone who doesn't practice the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha. For this reason you need to establish refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, and you need to do that until, unattended, your self habit mind veers towards the desire to learn the Buddha Dhamma.
Now of course if your refuge is not strong enough, you get into Sunyata and your mind just wanders off as it did since beginningless time. So an enormous amount of practice is put into establishing refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, and then your self habit mind will have one of two possibilities: either you'll be stopping from grabbing, or if it veers off it will veer to somewhere where it’s safe, a safe refuge. It will hit a Dhamma field, a Buddha Dhamma field, and on that Buddha Dhamma field you get a display on your mind of worldly Dhamma, which might be of benefit to you.
So as Chandrakirti says in the Four Hundred Commentary, the “self” is the “intrinsic reality”. That's what you think; that the sparks are the Self, that the sparks are real, but they're not. They are a secondary production of two types of things. One is self habit. If you want to call something real, call your self habit real, at this point call the outside samsara real, but down play the phenomena that arises when the two hit each other.
But as Chandrakirti says in his Four Hundred Commentary: "The “self” is the “intrinsic reality” which is that objectivity in things independent of anything else. Its absence”, the restrained, the restrained exercise, “its absence is selflessness.” Because if you restrain it, it won't produce too many sparks. Therefore there's no phenomena to call a Self produced, and then you experience selflessness or anatta. “It is understood as twofold by division into persons and things called personal selflessness and phenomenal selflessness.”
“As for the objective condition of personal self habits, (Chandra) explains in the Introduction to The Middle Way”, and then we went through all those combinations and variations of what different, different views or different practitioners had in those days. Remember the Buddha Sangha divided into about twenty-two different views. We're not going to go into those views, they can be reconstructed by yourself out of errors. With regard to the innate, innate means natural, egoistic view, which is the self habit. The ego is the self habit hitting and producing the phenomena.
In the Introduction, Chandra refutes the position that its object, that's the object of the innate ego view, is the aggregates. He refutes that the ego view is the aggregates, five aggregates. And comments that its object is the dependently designated self, the sparks are dependently generated by the clash of the habit mind with the phenomena of the outside. So they arise, the Self arises dependent on phasa, contact, of your vipakic return from your kamma plus the self nature of the samsara.
He also states that the conventional self is not the mere conglomeration of the aggregates. Thus, as its object is neither the conglomeration of the aggregates, the object is neither the conglomerate, it's not, it only hits them one at a time, it's not the conglomeration of the aggregates, because it only hits one at a time. It hits rupa or vedana or sanna or sankhara.
It's only striking one of them at a time. It's not the mere conglomerate, it's not trying to weld together the five groups to make a unified self. It's duped enough that anything will do. Thus, as its object is neither the conglomerate of the aggregates at any one time, it'll conglomerate on one, it'll say “that is me”. I'm my feeling, I'm my memory, I'm my self images, I'm my consciousness, I'm my body. At any one time it will hit one, spark it against the outside, and identify those sparks.
So as its object is neither the conglomeration of the aggregates at any one time, nor the conglomeration of the temporal continuum of the aggregates. “Temporal” means “existing in time”, “continuum” means “stream of the aggregates”, the five aggregates have never stopped from the day you were born. One must take the mere "person", and the mere "I", as the objective basis of the mere thought of “I”. So this, at one level, you remember you examine the five groups one at a time. And the cloud says . . . now, having examined five things, the five aggregates, knowing them as anicca, dukkha and anatta, because the examination of rupa produces body sparks if you like we'll call it, an "I" notion of the body.
Examining rupa produces a mind striking rupa, you own rupa. Or if you've got your mind outside external rupa, produces rupa sparks. And then you describe your rupa, or the outside rupa, in terms of what those sparks were, those mental objects. So then you start describing all sorts of magical properties to your body. So if you meditated on rupa for a million years you'd produce a millions views of it, and then if you try to aggregate all those views into one mental object soup you would be flooded with data. And then, not willing to separate the soup that you've made, you walk away, leaving misinformation on your mind ready to come up.
So if you made soup and put in a carrot, you put in a parsnip, you put in an onion, boiling them all together, you say “That is soup.” You think it's a homogeneous thing, but it's an aggregated combination of different vegetables boiled together. Now when you boil together your misinformation that you've gathered, you believe you have a homogeneous view of your own body or your own feelings. But you're quite wrong. You've got to let, you've got to say "That carrot was produced from habit karma striking rupa and a carrot appeared. That onion was appeared by habit karma striking rupa at a different angle and an onion appeared. That parsnip was caused by striking rupa from a different angle" and so on and so on and so on.
To do that you must constrain the self habit from striking again, because as it tries to analyse something, if you've got a shower of old sparks, and you strike it with your self habit, you'll just add more confusion, more blindness, more stupidity, more misinformation. That won't do. So the mind that you use, or the series of minds that you use, for things like kayanupassana are put down.
So Chandra refutes the position that the object of the innate egoistic view is the aggregates, the five groups. And comments that its object is the dependently designated Self. It postulates a “me”. It says, “Alright, I know I'm not the five groups but I'm still me.” That "me" is the dependently designated Self and it is empty of any existence whatever. It's just a shower of sparks. Because sparks appear you think there must be a “me” producing them. And you forgot that it can only appear when there are two things. You’re trying to maintain a view that there is one “me” producing the shower of the phenomena, where in fact there is two things: one, your vipaka, two, the external samsara. And it is those two hitting together which produce the mental objects.
Until you understand that the mental objects which occupy your whole infinite number of lives in the past, and will occupy your infinite number of lives in the future, until you understand those mental objects arise from contact of two things: one, your vipaka, your personal, and two, the samsara.
And why do you insist that there is one “me”, producing them. You have got the world's best piece of misinformation. Two things in contact produce them, and you suppose quite, in total error, that there is some dependently designated Self. Chandra also states that the conventional self is not the mere aggregation of the aggregates. You know the aggregates are not Self, but there is another delusion, another mental object which you call "me". And it's not real! It's empty! It's about as much importance as a carrot or a parsnip or an onion. And yet you've always overrated it. And it's just a phenomenon. It's called an error.
It's in error, error, error, error. It arose out of two things. It's, “it” is the dependently designated Self. You designate it as a Self and yet you have no control over it whatever. Just as you bring a piece of steel and a flint together and you strike them you must get sparks. Just like you put a match to dry wood you must get a flame. There's no Self in it. The flame arises. The sparks arise by the mere act of bringing two things together. Now when you're hypnotised by the flame, by the sparks, or whatever you like to call it, and you call that, you suppose there is a single "me" producing that display. It is not true.
There is not a "me" producing it. There is not something there at all. There is not a Self producing the phenomena. The phenomena, there is not a Self in the five groups, most of you know that now, but there's not a Self anywhere else either. There's not a “me” anywhere else either. There are two things clashing, like that. You must restrain them from hitting, and then you'll know there are two things, both empty.
The one we’re concentrating on, the one we’re concentrating on is the self habits. Your stream of vipaka, kammic return, clashing against the objects in the samsara. Restrain the self habit. Knowing there are two things there, neither of which are a Self, nor is there a third Self. Until you restrain the self habit from hitting the phenomenal self, the phenomenal self habit, until you restrain, you will still think, when the shower of sparks stop, you will think the "me" is dead. But you won't even have that thought, because you'll have lost it. Constrain, constrain to stop the clash.
Errors occur because you’re not experienced. Showers of phenomena occur. And out of stupidity you say, “Me is doing this meditation.” No. Not “me” at all. There is no such thing. So if, in regard, in this regard, Chandra refutes the position, with regard, the position of the regard for the innate egoistic view which is the self habit. The self habit is the innate egoistic view, that its object is the aggregates, the five groups, “and comments that its object is the dependently designated Self. He also states that the conventional Self is not the mere conglomeration of the aggregates.” You can't mix oil and water. You can't make rupa into vedana. You can't make vedana into sanna. You can't make sanna into sankhara. You can't make sankhara into vinnanam.
You can't transpose one of the five groups and make it into another. So you've got a mess, you've got, you've got five groups. Each arising and falling, anicca, impermanent, each unsatisfactory and each not Self. And then you've got a clouded misconception that there is still a "me" around. And then the innate stream of that, five groups appearance and disappearance clashes with the, whatever the object is that's being conjured up, and then the shower of sparks go again.
The present is unreal. The infinite past is real. The infinite future is real. So the clashing is tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Unreal! Discount. As its object is neither the conglomeration of the aggregates, the mind, the "me", the cloud, the ignorance would love to spot weld all the five groups together and make it into a permanent, beautiful sculpture. You're so dopey if you'd do it you'd probably weld on unpleasant feeling permanently, unhealthy body permanently, unpleasant memories permanently, awesome sankharas permanently and low consciousness and you'd make yourself into a permanent hell being. Ah, terrible mistake! Ah, I made it permanent, ah [no], no wonder hell’s long. Hell is long because the people who get there have been trying to make a permanent five groups. That's why hell beings long. That's why hell being is long. They want it permanently so much, they weld it together. Unsatisfactory mind. Unsatisfactory bodies. Unsatisfactory memories. It’s easier to stick [mud] to [mud]. [Mud] sticks nicely to [mud]. Take five pieces of [mud], squeeze them together, and they will stay together for a while. And that is a hell being. Very hard for the hell being to break up the five loads of [mud].
The next session of these Teachings is entitled 'Conventional Self, Dependently Designated
Self - Part 1'.