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reflect whatever object comes before it clearly. Similarly, since the mind is unobstructed by substance,
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form, objects can appear to it. The phenomenon that is mind perceives objects.
So, that is the base. In relation to that phenomenon, our thought creates, merely imputes, the label
 mind, and that s how the mind exists. The mind also exists merely in name; what we call mind has
been merely labelled by thought. It s like when a person is given a name. Mine is Zopa. Actually, it s
Thubten Zopa, and it was given to me by my abbot. According to tradition, when an abbot ordains
new monks, he gives them his first name. My abbot s first name was Thubten, and then he added the
Zopa. With his mind, he labelled me  Zopa. You received your name in a similar way. Whether you
named yourself or it was given to you by your parents, your name is a mind-created label.
In the same way, then, what s called mind is also a name. We think there s a real mind  a real
mind existing from there. That s how it appears to us and, without a shadow of doubt, we believe one
hundred percent in this appearance. But if we analyze this phenomenon called mind, it s no different
from the name given to you by your parents, which was created by their mind. What you call mind
has been merely labelled by your thought in relation to its base, that formless phenomenon that has
neither shape nor color, whose nature is clear and that has the ability to perceive objects. That is the
base and  mind is the label. They re two distinct phenomena, not one. They re not separate, but
they re different. That s what we have to realize  that these two phenomena are different. This is
what we have to discover through meditation. By doing this we can begin to free ourselves from the
hallucination that is the root of all suffering. This is how we start to liberate ourselves from samsara.
Schools of Buddhist philosophy and the object of refutation
I started this discussion by saying how everything exists as merely labelled by mind, and then went
on to clarify that simply labelling things is not enough to bring them into existence, that just because
something is merely labelled, it exists. Then I went on to mention the three things required for
something to exist: a valid base, not receiving harm from another s valid mind, and not receiving
harm from the wisdom realizing emptiness.
Now, going back to the bell. As I mentioned before, the way the bell appears to us and the way in
which we believe it to exist are slightly beyond the way it actually exists, which is in mere name, as
merely labelled by the mind. This difference is a very subtle hallucination that, in Buddhist
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philosophical teachings, is called the  object to be refuted, or the  object of refutation.
There are four schools of Buddhist philosophy  Vaibashika (che-tra-mra-wa), Sautrantika
(do-de-pa), Cittamatra (sem-tsam) and Madhyamika (u-ma-pa). The fourth of these is the Middle
Way school and is divided into two: Svatantrika (rang-gyu-pa) and Prasangika (thal-gyur-wa).
According to the Prasangika school, the object of refutation (or negation, gag-cha) is an extremely
subtle object that is ever so slightly more than  a little over and above  what is merely labelled by
the mind. The object of refutation is what appears to us; it is that in which we believe.
In order to attain liberation from the entire round of suffering and its cause, we need to cut its very
root, the fundamental ignorance that keeps us in it. Of the many kinds of ignorance, which is the
specific one that we have to eradicate? It is not the concept that believes the bell to exist the way it
appears, which is what the texts usually describe as the root of samsara  except that in the case of
the root of samsara, we should be talking about the I, not the bell that I ve been using as an
example here.
When the I appears to us, we believe that there is something slightly over and above what is merely
labelled by the mind and that this is how the I exists. Then we believe that this is one hundred percent
true and let our mind hold on to that. It is this specific, particular ignorance that is the root of all [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]