Insight Into Emptiness

Book

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

This book is a compilation of talks on emptiness given by Khensur Rinpoche at Land of Medicine Buddha in Soquel, California, from October 2006 to December 2007.

Citation

Tegchok, Khensur Jampa. Insight Into Emptiness. Translated by Steve Carlier. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2012.

Teaching on

Vajracchedikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra

One of the most revered and recited scriptures of the perfection of wisdom genre (prajñāpāramitāsūtras), perhaps second only to the Heart Sūtra, both of which became especially popular in the East Asian Buddhist traditions. It is a crucial source for Mahāyāna tenets of selflessness and the emptiness of phenomena, and its discourse is framed as an explanation of how to enter into the vehicle of the bodhisattvas by developing and sustaining their enlightened perspective.

Text

Introduction 1
An Overview 2
The Origins of this Book 4
A Note on Terminology 5
Appreciation 6

1. THE BENEFITS OF LEARNING ABOUT AND MEDITATING ON EMPTINESS 7
- Motivation 7
- The Sources of This Teaching 8
- The Benefits in General 9
- Admiration for the Profound 9
- The Three Doors of Liberation 11
- Benefits According to the Sutras 12

2. WHY REALIZING EMPTINESS IS IMPORTANT 17
- Background 17
- Taking Refuge 18
- Cyclic Existence: The Five Aggregates and Six Realms 21
- Ignorance, Afflictions, Karma, and Liberation 23
- Renouncing Duhkha and Its Causes 25
- The Root of Cyclic Existence 28
- The Four Noble Truths 29

3. ENTHUSIASM FOR EMPTINESS 33
- Understanding Emptiness Is Crucial 33
- The Danger of Misunderstanding Emptiness 36
- Doubt Inclined Toward Emptiness 38
- The Power of Realizing Emptiness 39
- More than One Way to Practice 41
- Confidence 42

4. LOOKING AT THE LANDSCAPE 45
- The Four Seals 45
- Aryadeva's Advice 47
- An Overview of the Levels of Selflessness 49
- The Buddha as a Skillful Teacher 51
- The Value of Reasoning 53
- Emptiness Is an Obscure Phenomenon 54

5. WHAT IS A PERSON? 57
- The Person 57
- Persons and Phenomena 58
- The Five Aggregates 59
- The Continuity of Consciousness 62
- Who Is Joe? 63
- No Permanent, Unitary, and Independent Self 63
- Impermanence: Coarse and Subtle 65
- The Meaning of "Unitary" and "Independent" 68
- The Lack of a Self-Sufficient, Substantially Existent Person 70

6. SEARCHING FOR THE PERSON 73
- The Basis of Designation and the Designated Object 73
- An Inherently Existent Person Can't Be Found 74
- The Illustration of the Person 76
- The Illustration of the Person, the Mere I, and the Continuity of Mental Consciousness 80
- The General I and the Specific I 82

7. INVESTIGATING THE I 85
- Ignorance and Wisdom 85
- The Valid I-Apprehending Mind and the Erroneous I-Grasping Mind 86
- Valid and Mistaken, but Not Erroneous 89
- The Self that Exists and the Self that Doesn't 91
- Independence and Imputation 93

8. EXPLORING SELFLESSNESS 97
- Selflessness in the Four Schools 97
- The Two Middle Way Schools 99
- Mere Imputation Without the Slightest Existence from Its Own Side 103
- Mere Name 108

9. IMPUTED AND EMPTY 111
- What Is This Fluid? 111
- Not Findable, but Existent 113
- Searching for the Cart 115
- Appearing When Not Analyzed, Unfindable When Analyzed 117
- How to Learn about Emptiness 118

10. ENLIGHTENMENT IS POSSIBLE 121
- All Sentient Beings Can Attain Enlightenment 121
- Adventitious Stains Can Be Eliminated 122
- Inconceivable and Inexpressible 124
- Combining Bodhichitta and Wisdom 125

11. EASING INTO EMPTINESS 127
- A Review: How Ignorance Arises and Produces Afflictions 127
- The Sequence for Meditating on Selflessness 130
- Three Modes of Apprehending Phenomena 132
- Dependent Arising Contradicts Inherent Existence 134

12. DEPENDENT ARISING 139
- Nagarjuna's View 139
- The King of Reasonings 140
- Dependence on Causes and Conditions 141
- Dependence on Parts 143
- No Partless Particles 143
- Dependent Designation 144
- Mutual or Relational Dependence 145
- Dependence on Imputation by Name and Concept 147
- All Phenomena Depend on Mere Imputation 148
- Emptiness and Dependent Arising 150
- The Compatibility of Being Dependent and Empty 152
- Is There a Choice? 153

13. THE FOUR ESSENTIAL POINTS 155
- Meditation on the Four Essential Points 155
- The First Essential Point: Identifying the Object of Negation 156
- The Second Essential Point: The Pervasion 159
- One and Different 160
- The Third Essential Point: Are I and the Aggregates Inseparably One and the Same? 163
- The Fourth Essential Point: Are the I and the Aggregates Totally Unrelated? 169
- Expanding the Analysis 170
- The Correct Conclusion 171
- When to Reflect on Dependent Arising 172

14. HOW THINGS ARISE: REFUTING THE FOUR EXTREMES 175
- Not Arising from Self 175
- Not Arising from Other 177
- Not Arising from Both 181
- Not Arising Causelessly 181
- Summary of the Four Extremes 183

15. EVER-DEEPENING UNDERSTANDINGS OF SELFLESSNESS 185
- The Three Turnings of the Dharma Wheel 185
- The Chittamatra Perspective 186
- Subtler Meanings Revealed in the Three Turnings 189
- The Four Reliances 190
- Ever-Deepening Levels of Selflessness 191
- Deepening Understanding of Dependent Arising 195
- Phenomena Are Self-Liberated 197
- Self-Emptiness and Other-Emptiness 198

16. APPEARANCES 203
- Things Do Not Exist as They Appear 203
- True and False 204
- Minds and Their Objects 206
- Analogies 211
- Realizing It Does Not Exist as It Appears 212
- Real and Unreal 213
- Inferential and Direct Realization of Emptiness 215
- Two Levels of Mistaken Appearance 216

17. REFINING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF EMPTINESS 219
- Similes Showing the Five Aggregates Are Empty 219
- The Refutation of One and Many 222
- Perception is Not Truly Existent 223
- Nothing to Remove, Nothing to Add 224
- Avoiding the Views of Nihilism and Absolutism 225
- Abandon Meditating on the Nonexistence of Anything At All 227

18. THE TWO TRUTHS 231
- Basis, Path, and Result 231
- The Two Truths 232
- Conventional Truths 234
- Ultimate Truths 235
- Same Nature, Nominally Different 236
- Truth and Truly Existent 240
- Conventional and Ultimate 241

19. SIMILES FROM THE DIAMOND CUTTER SUTRA - PART I243
- The Simile of Star 244
- The Simile of a Visual Aberration 246
- The Simile of the Flame of a Lamp 249
- The Simile of an Illusion 250

20. SIMILES FROM THE DIAMOND CUTTER SUTRA - PART II 255
- The Simile of a Dewdrop 255
- The Simile of a Water Bubble 256
- The Simile of a Dream 257
- The Simile of a Flash of Lightening 258
- The Simile of a Cloud 259
- Conclusion: See Conditioned Phenomena as Such 261

21. HOW FORTUNATE! 263
- Meditating on Emptiness Is Crucial for Liberation 264
- Powerful Purification 268

Notes 271
More Reading 275
Index 277
Bibliographies 281