Self and Selflessness

by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

I am very happy to have the opportunity to speak at this famous university and especially to the Centre for Study of World Religions. When I arrived, I felt an immediate warm feeling for all of you. A deeper human relation with each other is very important. Mere politeness and diplomacy are, of course, nice but cannot reach the depths. Openness, straightforwardness, and sincerity can reach more deeply.

If we want real harmony and friendship, first we must know each other. Knowledge is the basis, for without knowing each other it is difficult to build trust and to reach a state of genuine unity, without which it is hard to get peace. Heart-to-heart contact is essential. Nowadays, in some cases we are lacking real human relations; with this, we lose respect for the value of humanity, coming to regard human beings as if parts of a machine.

If we lose recognition of the value of human beings, it is extremely unfortunate. A human being is much more than just material — money and wealth. Wealth and money are meant for human benefit, not human beings for money. If we concentrate in an extreme way on wealth and external progress, neglecting human values and human dignity, the result will be unhappiness, mental unrest, discouragement, and depression.

If we realise, “I am a human being. A human being can do anything,” this determination, courage, and self-confidence are important sources of victory and success. Without will power and determination, even something that you might have achieved easily cannot be achieved. If you have will power and reasonable courage — not blind courage but courage without pride — even things that seemed impossible at a certain stage turn into being possible because of continuing effort inspired by that courage. Thus, determination is important.

How can this be developed? Not through machines, not by money, but by our own inner strength based on clear realisation of the value of human beings, of human dignity. For, once we realise that a human being is much more than just material, much more than just money, we can feel the importance of human life, from which we can feel the importance of compassion and kindness. Human beings by nature want happiness and do not want suffering. With that feeling everyone tries to achieve happiness and tries to get rid of suffering, and everyone has the basic right to do this. In this way, all here are the same, whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, Easterner or Westerner, believer or nonbeliever, and within believers whether Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and so on. Basically, from the viewpoint of real human value we are all the same.

For instance, I come from the East, more specifically, from Tibet. Materially, our general situation is very different from that in the United States, but if we look deeper, I am a human being, you are human beings — the same. If we go into deep space, from that perspective this small planet has no boundaries; there is just one planet. All these demarcations are artificially made. We fabricate distinctions based on colour, geographical location, and so forth, and then on the basis of a feeling of separation, we sometimes quarrel with each other, sometimes criticise, and sometimes fight. From a broader viewpoint, however, we are all brothers and sisters.

Socially speaking, this type of attitude of valuing others is essential and, at the same time, it is beneficial in our own daily life; with it we can remain mentally calm, having much inner peace. Though in daily life not everything is successful — it being natural for some of our tasks to fail — we will not lose a sense of inner peace and stability. If you have a basic concern for others, even failure cannot disturb your mind.

Many problems are minimised because of inner attitude. Despite obstacles, you can remain in peace and calm, whereby the people you associate with can also share that calm and peaceful atmosphere. If, however, you become tense and angry, you yourself lose your inner peace and from strong emotions of anger and attachment, cannot sleep well and cannot eat even if good food is in front of you. You will do something; your family members and even your pets, dogs and cats, will suffer; you might even throw out your friends. As a result of anger and hatred there is no peace. We all know this from our own experience.

When truly considered, strong emotional feelings of anger and hatred are not at all good for your own happiness, and because they create a bad atmosphere, your neighbours, friends, and even parents are affected and become distant. Thus, for our own daily life and for society as a whole, our mental attitude is important. As a result of highly developed science and technology, we are going deep into space. This is very good. From my childhood I have liked science and technology; they are absolutely necessary for human benefit. At the same time, if you look inside, though your head is not big, there is much space yet to explore. Thus, it would be worthwhile to direct half of our energy outside and half inside. Think more: Who am “I”? What is the nature of mind? What is the benefit of good thought? What is the benefit of bad thought? Make this sort of investigation. Think, think, think. Through such thought, we can gain clear recognition that a certain part of our mind is a trouble-maker, worthwhile to control, whereas another part is beneficial for ourselves and others, worthwhile to increase. In this way, self-examination is valuable.

Though my experience as a Buddhist monk is not exalted, by my own little experience I can feel the benefit of these attitudes — love, compassion, recognition of human dignity, human value. Now at age forty-four, I have spent many years trying to develop compassion and kindness; I feel that as a result of these practices I am quite a happy person. Despite many difficult circumstances, I am happy. If because of these difficulties I always felt sad, I could not be effective since a sad person cannot influence reality. Still, accepting unfortunate events does not mean that one has to be discouraged. We are trying to over come these difficulties and tragedies, yet remain peaceful and stable.

Out of my experience, I tell my friends, wherever I go, about the importance of love and compassion. Though the words are not elegant, they are meaningful and valuable. Further, it is easy to talk about love, compassion, and kindness, but the mere words are not effective. If you develop these attitudes and experience them, you will know their real value; so, it is worthwhile to try to develop them. If you agree, please try. If not, leave it.

Originally, I had no particular purpose in coming to this country except to exchange ideas, but the purpose has grown into the promotion of compassion and love as well as closer understanding between the various religions. Over the last few weeks I have had quite a few chances to meet with followers of different faiths. Certain basic motivations or basic points of all religions are the same — love, a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, and an ultimate goal of the happiness of human society. The different, often opposing, philosophies are methods aimed at the same result. The main theme is the same. With respect and sincerity we can see that all religions are good — techniques through which different persons can gain peace.

I have only a few days left in my visit. I feel it has made some small contribution in the field of love, kindness, and unity; so I am happy.

The second part of my talk, being about the nature of self, is more technical; so, my English will say goodbye, and I will speak through an interpreter.

To cultivate compassion — altruism — in meditation it is necessary to have the assistance of wisdom. It is said that with the help of wisdom, compassion can become limitless. This is because afflictive emotions prevent the development of limitless compassion, and in order to destroy these afflictive emotions it is necessary to know the nature of phenomena. The reason for this is that the afflictive emotions superimpose a goodness and badness upon phenomena that exceeds the measure of what is there, the sign of this being that after we are either very desirous or very angry and that emotion has subsided, when we look at the same object, we see it entirely differently and even burst into laughter at ourselves. To counter this super imposition and hence prevent the arising of afflictive emotions it is necessary to know the final nature of phenomena correctly, without superimposition; we need to know the absence of inherent existence in all phenomena.

This mode of subsistence pervades all phenomena; however, due to the type of substratum or subject it is easier for this final nature to appear to the mind with respect to the person than it is with respect to other phenomena. Thus, it is important when first ascertaining the final status of things to initially settle the final status of the person. However, without ascertaining what the person is, it is impossible to understand the final nature or reality of the person.

Therefore, what is a person? What is the self? Buddhism asserts selflessness; is it not that self is non-existent? If Buddhists did assert that there are no persons and that selves are non-existent, there would not be anybody to meditate on selflessness, and there would be no one with respect to whom one could cultivate compassion. Hence, our own experience establishes that there are persons, selves.

If the self is established by experience, what is this theory of selflessness? Is this not a big contradiction? It is not. Let me explain. Analyse whether there is a difference between the way the “I” appears when you are relaxed and the way it appears when you are excited. For instance, if someone mistakenly accuses you, “You did such and such awful thing,” and you feel, “I didn’t do that,” how does the “I” appear to your mind at that time? Similarly, when you take an enemy to mind, thinking, “This is my enemy,” that enemy appears to your mind to exist in its own right in a self-instituting way as something concretely pointable with a finger.

Thus, phenomena appear to exist from their own side whereas, in fact, they do not. Their being established from their own side, their inherent establishment, is called “self ”; its non-existence is “selflessness,” and it is similarly true with respect to both persons (the other meaning of self ) and other phenomena.

There are many different ways in which the person or “I” appears to our minds. In one way, the “I” appears to be permanent, unitary, and under its own power; in this mode of appearance the “I” seems to be a separate entity from mind and body with the person as the user or enjoyer and mind and body as what is used or enjoyed. No Buddhist school of tenets accepts that such a person exists; there are qualms about a couple of the sub-schools within the Great Exposition School that need to be eliminated, but otherwise there are none.

In another mode of appearance the “I” seems to have its own substantially existent or self-sufficient entity but to be of the same character as mind and body. There are both innate and artificial [or learned] forms of consciousnesses that conceive the “I” to exist in accordance with this appearance.

Again, in another mode of appearance, the “I” does not appear to exist ultimately but appears to exist by way of its own character conventionally. Another is the appearance of the “I” as if it exists inherently; our innate misconception of “I” is a consciousness that views the “I” in this last way as concretely existent in accordance with this appearance. This form of misconception exists in all beings, whether they have studied and been affected by a system or not.

Now, although all of these appear, in fact none of these exist. According to the various Buddhist systems, the non-existence of these respective levels of self, of reification, constitutes selflessness, progressing from the coarser to the subtler.

But then what is the conventionally existent “I” that undergoes help and harm? Within the Buddhist schools there are many different assertions on what the person who undergoes help and harm is. Some systems assert that consciousness is the person; others, the mental consciousness; others, a mind-basis-of-all (alaya - vijñana, kun gzhi rnam shes) which is separate from the mental consciousness. However, according to the most profound school of Buddhism, the Middle Way Consequence School, the person is merely designated in dependence upon the aggregates of mind and body. Also because, between mind and body, mind is more subtle and more continuous, the “I” or person is merely designated in dependence upon the continuum of consciousness.

Only this mere “I” — a dependently designated “I” — can be posited as that which, without any investigation and analysis, appears to an innate awareness when we think, “I am going,” “I am staying,” and so forth. Because it is dependently designated, it is dependent. Dependent and independent are explicitly contradictory, a dichotomy. For instance, although horse and human are mutually exclusive, they are not explicitly contradictory, a dichotomy, whereas human and non-human are. In the same way, dependent and independent are explicitly contradictory; anything considered has to be either the one or the other — there is no third category.

Because the “I” is dependently designated, there cannot be an independent “I” under its own power. This non-existence of an independent “I” under its own power is called the selflessness of the “I.” Since this is the case, it is through the dependent nature of an existent basis, the “I,” that one can speak of its selflessness. For this reason, when you understand selflessness well, you must have understood the existence of its basis. Since the dependence of a particular existent base is used as the reason why that base is empty of inherent existence, it can be easily seen that emptiness is not nihilism.

When the meaning of the emptiness of inherent existence appears in the context of dependent-arising, the extreme of utter non-existence is avoided. When dependent-arising is understood as the reason why something is empty of inherent existence, the extreme of the reification of existence is avoided. To ascertain the view of the middle way, it is necessary to be free from these two extremes of utter non-existence and reification of existence into inherent existence.

In this way, the various Buddhist systems of tenets identify in many different ways, coarser and subtler, the “I” that serves as the basis or substratum for ascertaining the nature of reality. The innate forms of false appearance, not involving investigation and analysis, occur even for small babies. A sign that the earlier levels of the appearance and misconception of self, both in innate and artificial ways, are more coarse and the latter ones more subtle is that even while you ascertain the non-existence of the earlier ones and the functioning of that ascertainment has not degenerated, the conception of self of the latter, more subtle varieties, can still operate. However, when you ascertain a subtler level of selflessness and the functioning of that ascertaining consciousness has not deteriorated, the coarser types of conceptions of self cannot operate at all.

To ascertain the meaning of selflessness, in general you must engage in analytical meditation, reflectively analysing with reasoning. This is why in Nagarjuna’s Treatise on the Middle many reasonings are presented, all for the sake of proving from many viewpoints that all phenomena are empty of being established under their own power, empty of inherent existence. The Kashyapa Chapter Sutra (kasyapaparivarta, ’od srung gi le’u) in the Pile of Jewels Sutra (ratnakuta, dkon brtsegs), in the context of presenting the three doors of liberation, says that, in brief, forms are not empty because of emptiness, forms themselves are empty. Therefore, emptiness does means not that a phenomenon is empty of being some other object but that it itself is empty of its own inherent existence. Thus, it is not an other-emptiness but a self-emptiness in that objects are empty of their own intrinsic establishment.

Similarly, the Heart Sutra says, “Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.” Taking form as the example, that form is emptiness means that the final nature of forms is their natural voidness of inherent existence; because forms are dependent-arisings, they are empty of an independent self-powered entity.

That emptiness is form means that this final nature, emptiness, which is the absence of a basic self-powered principle of these things which exist in the manner of depending on other factors — this natural voidness of inherent existence — makes possible the forms that are its sport in that they are established from it in dependence upon conditions. Since forms are those which are empty of true establishment — since forms are the bases of emptiness — emptiness is form; forms appear as like reflections of emptiness.

This final nature of forms, which is their absence of not depending on other factors, is the emptiness of forms, and thus forms are the sport of emptiness. Like the two sides of the hand, when looked at from this side, there is the emptiness of inherent existence, the final nature, but when looked at from the other side, there is the appearance that is the substratum of emptiness. They are one entity. Therefore, form is emptiness, and emptiness is form.

Contemplating the meaning of emptiness in this way, you gradually make progress over the paths. The progression is indicated in the mantra in the Heart Sutra: gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha (Proceed, proceed, proceed beyond, thoroughly proceed beyond, be founded in enlightenment.) The first gate refers to the path of accumulation; the second, to the path of preparation. Over these two periods you ascertain emptiness in the manner of dualistic appearance of the wisdom consciousness and the emptiness being realised. Then, “proceed beyond” (paragate) indicates passing beyond the mundane level to the supramundane level of the path of seeing in which dualistic appearance has vanished. “Thoroughly proceed beyond” (parasamgate) refers to the path of meditation during which you familiarise again and again with the emptiness that was first directly seen on the path of seeing. Through it, you finally pass beyond cyclic existence to the level of enlightenment (bodhi) — a state of being a source of help and happiness for all sentient beings.

Question: If there is no self, what goes from one lifetime to another?

Answer: The mere self or mere “I” — a self that does not inherently exist — goes from one lifetime to another. Also, even though consciousness is closely related with matter, consciousness is an entity of mere luminosity and knowing and thus cannot be produced from matter but must be produced in dependence upon a former moment of mere luminosity and knowing. Therefore, the continuum of consciousness also has no beginning and no end. The existent self or “I” is designated in dependence upon this continuum of mind. The self that is negated is inherent existence. 

Question: What is the role of desire in the nature of the self? 

Answer: There are two types of desires: false desires based on superimposition of what does not actually exist and desires based on reason. Desire generated by afflictive emotions creates a lot of trouble whereas reasoned desire can lead to liberation and omniscience. To sustain our lives day by day we must use reasoned desire and must control desires motivated by unreasoned afflictive emotions.

Question: Do you dream while sleeping?

Answer: Of course. For someone who is practising yoga, there is much that can be done during dreams. First it is necessary to recognise a dream as a dream during the dream. You must have such experience yourselves.

In conclusion, there are many young students here, and the future depends upon the younger generation. Knowledge is important, but at the same time, more important than education is the mind implementing that education. If we use knowledge while lacking something in our hearts — if we use only the brain — we can bring more trouble and tragedy to human society. The human brain must be balanced with a good heart.