Understanding Our Mind

by Khöndung Ratna Vajra Rinpoche

Generally speaking, whether we experience suffering or not when we face problems or challenges, depends on how we react to them, how we handle the situation. For example, if two persons experience the same suffering or face the same challenge, and if one is a Dharma practitioner while the other is just a mundane person, then although they may be facing the same problem and the same suffering, they will most probably handle the situation in different ways. Each one’s suffering will be different from the other’s. The one who faces challenges with an understanding of Dharma– not only a knowledge of Dharma, but also the capacity to apply their intellectual understanding of Dharma into their practice - will experience less suffering.

The Dharma can be a powerful tool in helping us to handle life’s situations. In order for this to happen, we first need to gain knowledge of the Dharma, we need to study it. And then we need to use our knowledge in our approach to our challenges. The Lord Buddha gave an enormous amount of teachings, and the purpose of all these teachings is to help us to subdue our mind, to tame our mind.

In his seminal text Bodhisattva Acharyavatara, the great Acharya Shantideva said that if we tether the mind, if we control it, then we will be able to control all the fears that assail it, and we will gain all the virtues that lead to its happiness. Shantideva said that if we are successful in taming our mind, we can control any fearsome animal, any evil spirit, any enemy whatsoever– we become completely free from fear.

Shantideva also said that cannot cover the whole universe with an animal skin or with a leather sheet. We can, however, cover our feet with leather. Similarly, as Shantideva adds, we cannot defeat all our enemies, but we can protect ourselves from them. We can apply this to our crises – we cannot defeat every single one of our obstacles, but we can protect our mind by controlling it, thereby overcoming all our obstacles. The outcome doesn’t depend on external factors but, rather, it depends on our own mental state.

Furthermore, whether we feel as if we are facing big problems or not also depends on our mind. The importance we give to problems depends on how strong our attachment is to the mundane world. If we don’t have much attachment to the mundane world, then even if we face problems, we won’t place too much importance on them. We won’t be so affected by them, they won’t cause us to suffer so much.

If we lose an object that has little value, we won’t feel sad. But if we lose a precious object, then we will experience sadness. Whether we feel sad or not doesn’t depend on the object itself – it depends on the importance that we place on it, it depends on our mind. If we’re attached to it, we’ll experience suffering; if we’re not, then we won’t experience suffering.

For example, if we buy a disposable product like a plastic plate or cup, and we know that we will only use it once and then throw it away. If we lose it, we won’t feel sad, because we don’t feel attached to it. But if we buy something precious like a car or a house and lose it, then we will feel sad, because we’re attached to it. It all depends on whether we feel attachment or not.

If we feel attachment to an object, it means we have attachment to samsara. If we have attachment to samsara then, as Manjushri says in his four-line teaching “Parting from the Four Attachments”, we don’t have the renunciation thought.

Also, an object, the same object, can produce different kinds of feelings. In Spain, for example, saffron is commonplace, we can get it anywhere. And so, if we lose saffron in Spain, we won’t feel sad. But elsewhere, saffron is rare and if we lose it there, we will feel regret, we will feel some suffering. So we can feel more or less attachment to a particular object depending on the circumstances.

Therefore whether we feel suffering or not doesn’t depend on the object itself. It depends on our own mind, how we perceive the object. If we have attachment to the object, then we feel pain when we lose it; if we don’t, then we don’t feel pain. Everything is mind. And so it is very important to control our mind. This is the key.

The Buddha gave an enormous amount of teachings to tame our mind, to subdue our mind. He taught the Dharma in many ways, but all his teachings can be combined into truths: the relative truth and the absolute truth, also known as the ultimate truth.

It is important to know and understand these two truths. If we can concentrate on these two truths, if we can meditate on them, then not only can we overcome the problems of this life or even of the next life, but we can also overcome all of samsara and attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. We can gain ultimate happiness and ultimate wisdom, power and all the other great qualities of the Buddhas.

So there are two realities. One is the reality of relative truth and the other is the reality of ultimate truth. The reality of relative truth refers to all the phenomena that we perceive, which in actuality are not truly existent. They only seem to exist. They are like a reflection in a mirror, like a magical show or like a dream. As ordinary beings, we cannot realise this. We see things as truly existent. We have a strong attachment to phenomena and cling to them as real. We don’t see the reality of relative truth. Due to this, we become more materialistic and we focus on the outside world. We don’t focus on our mind.

According to the reality of relative truth, these phenomena are not truly existent but, rather, they depend on their own causes and conditions. All phenomena depend on interdependent origination.

In the world today, we see the world getting smaller and smaller, i.e. we are more and more interdependent. We can very much see this interdependent origination everywhere we look.

What interdependent origination means is that the phenomena that we perceive are not truly existent. If they were truly existent, they wouldn’t depend on anything else to exist. But in order to exist, everything depends its own causes and conditions.

Interdependent origination means that things are not real the way we think them to be. Things are compound things, i.e. they are impermanent. They are not inherently existent. They depend on other things to rise. What’s more, everything that arises will eventually cease, everything is impermanent.

For example, all beings born in this world will die. There’s not a single person who is born is this world who will not eventually die. Not only living beings, but also material objects – whatever materialises will eventually cease. Even something as solid as iron can be destroyed and cease. Everything can be destroyed and cease.

So everything is impermanent and nothing is intrinsically true. Everything is like a dream. In one of his sutras, Lord Buddha gives the example of a young woman who dreams of having a son, which makes her very happy, only to find that her child dies, which plunges her into despair. In actuality no son was born to her, which means she has no reason to rejoice, and no son died, which means she has no reason to feel dejected. Similarly, all phenomena are like this.

We have good and bad dreams, and these make us feel happy or sad. But when we awaken from sleep, these feelings will not prevail during our waking life, because we know that dreams are not true. It is the same with the reality of relative truth. Our waking life is like a vision, like a dream. But at the moment, we look at our waking life as real, different from the dreams that we experience while we’re sleeping. This is because we have a stronger propensity to believe that our daytime experience is real.

It’s important to know the reality of relative truth. By doing so, we can definitely lessen our suffering, we can definitely control our mind, and we can definitely reduce and eventually subdue our negative thoughts.

And by suppressing our negative thoughts, we can eventually know the reality of absolute truth, which eliminates all negative thoughts from our mental continuum.

The reality of ultimate truth refers to a state that is free from all extremes. In reality, there is no self at all. If we analyse it thoroughly, we cannot find the self. For example, when we say “my car”, it means that this car belongs to me, but it doesn’t define the car itself. Likewise, when we say “my body”, the body is not self. It belongs to me, but it is not my self, just like my car.

If we examine the body and try to determine what in it is ‘self’, we won’t find it anywhere. As it says in the Bodhicharyavatara, “the teeth are not self, the hair is not self, the nails are not self, etc..”

And so in the reality of relative truth, there is a self, but it is like a vision, a dream, a magical show. And in ultimate truth, there is no self at all. We cannot find a self. But this doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything there. This is not right either. Both views are faulty – to say that there’s nothing there is a nihilistic view, whereas to say that something exists inherently is an extremist view.

The truth is that actual reality is neither existing nor non-existing. The truth lies beyond these extremes. In short, by knowing the reality of relative truth, we can subdue our negative thoughts, which are the cause of our suffering. And by knowing the reality of ultimate truth, we can completely eliminate negative thoughts from our awareness.