Conventions

by Ven. Thubten Gyatso

We all carry memories of those few times in our life when we believe our real self has broken free from its psychological cocoon and enjoyed unrestrained happiness. The wish to recapture and increase such treasured moments is a deep hope that maintains our momentum in life, despite the obstacles mounting up against us. We desperately want our partners to know the "real me" that we are convinced is a nice, loving, humorous, relaxed, and wise person. So often we bite our tongues for having spoken spiteful words that we feel do not come from our real self, and we think, "Why do I have to be this person, why can't I just be me?"

With others, however, we allow no space for mistakes; we judge their behaviour as always coming from their "real selves" and so we build up a fixed view of them as persons with self-existing likable or dislikable characteristics. Thus our world becomes populated with concrete entities, our own self, friends and enemies, who we see as self-existent and, tragically, we lose sight of the possibility for ourselves and others to change. As children we can easily transform from aspiring astronauts to rock-stars to famous footballers, but as we grow older we lose that flexibility. The solidification of our self-image is a mistake, and it weakens our ability to adapt to the inevitable and often rapid changes that occur in life.

Before going any further, I must say that the idea of a real self is a complete illusion because what we take to be the "real me" does not exist. It is a wrong appearance. Like lost travellers in the desert expiring in pursuit of a mirage, we waste our lives trying to uncover and present to the world our real self. Also, our inappropriate emotional reactions of desire and aversion towards the real selves that we mistakenly project upon others bring a continual stream of unhappiness into our lives.

When we think "I," the mistake in the way the self appears to our mind is that it seems to exist as an unchanging entity that stands on its own. Just as there is no real water in the desert mirage even though there is the appearance of water, there is no unchanging, independent self in the thought "I" even though the self appears to exist this way.

The self, or person, that does exist is a mere convention established by our name, or the thought "I," directed towards our combination of body and mind. This conventional self is an entity that exists merely in dependence upon its name and its basis, the body and mind. If it existed as an independent entity as it appears, it would be findable if we search for it. But the self is empty of being an independent entity because if we look for an unchanging, independent self within the body and mind, or separate from them, it cannot be found.

Discovering that we and the people in our life are mere conventions, empty of existing in the way we have always thought we existed, is a major psychological step forward. It breaks through the illusion that has brought all the troubles in our life, and enables us to live without harming ourselves or others. The dissolution of the concrete world we have always believed in is a little scary at first, but then we become accomplished skywalkers. During my first parachute jump, when I let go of the wing-strut of the plane my feet began kicking, looking for the solid world I had left behind. In my next jump I adapted to the new medium, stabilised my fall, and felt a rush of exhilaration and freedom.

Seeing whatever exists as merely conventional brings the freedom we have always sought. Conventional existence in this sense, however, is more subtle than our normal use of the word. To be conventional in the ordinary sense is to follow the established ways of society with faith that they are the path to happiness. Being unconventional may follow recognition that social traditions fail to bring happiness, and often create the opposite. The unconventional thumb their noses at social conventions and seek happiness in alternative ways. The trouble is, unconventional things become conventional, torn jeans and men with long hair become the norm, because although the unconventional see there is a fault in grasping at conventions, they cannot identify the real nature of that fault. So they merely create new social conventions.

Bound by the wrong conception, "I exist in my own right," our selfish pursuit of pleasure at the expense of others is the root cause of all misery in our lives. Real happiness can only be achieved by loving others, and we can only truly love others when we see no difference between them and ourselves. All beings equally want happiness, do not want suffering, and are equal in being mere conventions. To discriminate against others through attachment, hatred, or indifference is as unreal as two reflections in a mirror hating or liking each other.

Buddha's revolutionary insight that everything is just a convention, in the sense that nothing exists from its own side, is pure nectar for the troubled mind. It liberates us from our psychological prison, from the reflections of confused minds that we take to be real, and enables us to break on through to the other side. Yeah!

Gyatso

This teaching is by the Venerable Thubten Gyatso (previously Dr Adrian Feldmann), an Australian monk and old friend now working in Mongolia. One of the senior students of Lama Yeshe, Lama Zopa Rinpoche (and also Geshe Roach) he is currently teaching at the FPMT centre in Ulaan Baatar. These teachings originally appeared in his local English language newspaper in Ulaan Baatar and arereproduced with his permission.

Thanks to Diane Olander (pelmo@got.net), these teachings first appeared on the Internet on the website (www.gepeling.org) of
The Jangchub Gepel Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies,
6960 Highway 9, Felton, CA 95018, Tel: 01 (831) 335 1217
where you can find many more teachings and other interesting material.