The Self and Karma: Guilt versus Responsibility

Defining the Self or “Me”

Now, we can begin our discussion of the self, “me,” and the relation of the self with what we have been discussing. We’ve seen that all the various components of karmic cause and effect during an action, after the action and at the time of the result can be classified under the five aggregates. An aggregate is a composite of many factors, and these make up each moment of our experience. The five aggregates include all nonstatic phenomena. Static phenomena such as categories and voidness are not included in the scheme of the five aggregates.

The self, “me,” being nonstatic, is part of the five aggregates and is classified in the aggregate of other affecting variables. It’s not separate from the five aggregates but is part of the five. It is a nonstatic imputation phenomenon on the basis of all the other components of all five aggregates. As such, it is neither a form of physical phenomenon nor a way of being aware of something.

We have seen that there are many types of nonstatic imputation phenomena that are neither a form of physical phenomena nor a way of being aware of something and which change from moment to moment. Other examples besides a person, “me,” are age, time, and speed. From the Sautrantika point of view as explained in the Gelug traditions, these imputations phenomena are objective entities and can be cognized non-conceptually. We can see, for example, a person. We don’t just see pixels, colored shapes and a body. We also see a person. 

Imputation, Designation, and Mental Labeling

There’s a big difference between what I call imputation, designation and mental labeling, although all three are the same word in Tibetan and so I use “imputation phenomenon” as a general term for all three. Since there can be confusion if we don’t make this differentiation, let me explain it briefly. 

I use imputation for the imputation phenomena that are nonstatic. They are objective entities, and they can be known non-conceptually. Although some imputation phenomena can be forms of physical phenomena, like a whole object, and some can be ways of knowing something, like a mood, others, like a person are neither a form of physical phenomenon nor a way of being aware of something. Let’s restrict our discussion just to them. 

We can see a person or see that a moving object has a certain speed, these sorts of things. We can hear a sentence. Do we ever think about that? We only hear one tiny little syllable of a sound at a time. We don’t hear the whole sentence in one instant simultaneously; nevertheless, it would be nonsense to say that we don’t hear the sentence or what people are saying. A sentence is an objective entity and can be known with hearing, non-conceptually. 

Whether someone hears a sentence or not doesn’t matter. We are still saying a sentence when we speak. Whether someone thinks that there is a person here or not, we are still a person. These are objective entities, and it doesn’t matter whether someone else sees or knows them. This is objective reality. Okay?

When we talk about mental labeling, it has to do with static categories. Designation has to do with words that are ascribed to categories. Categories can only be known conceptually, not non-conceptually. Whether anybody sees us, whether anybody thinks of us doesn’t matter. We are still a person. However, a concept, a category, only occurs when somebody thinks it. This is the same as the name of something or the word for something. It only occurs when we are actually thinking of some item as belonging to a category with that name. Both categories and their names, the words for them, are involved only with conceptual cognition. We’re not talking about hearing the sound of someone saying a word – hearing it is non-conceptual.

Conceptual cognition is through the use of a category, while non-conceptual cognition contains no categories. A category is like a mental box. For example, we have the category of a “dog,” and therefore any animal that has certain characteristics, we perceive it as fitting into this category of a “dog.” We don’t have to have the word “dog” associated with it. Dogs don’t have words associated with that category, but as a human, we have a word associated with it. We call it “dog” in English. Others call it something else in Russian. Those are conceptual processes and have to do with what category “an animal” fits into. Objectively it is a dog; it’s not a cat. However, how we know or perceive that this animal is a dog is by fitting it into the category of “dog.” 

When we see that thing over there with four legs, it’s not nothing. It’s not a chair. It’s a dog, isn’t it? We are seeing a dog; whether we know if it is a dog or not doesn’t matter. It’s still a dog and not a chair, and it’s not a nothing. This is conventional or commonsense reality. So, in short, to know that it is a dog, to fit it into a category, is mental labeling and to know what it is called is designation and that is with a word. 

There are object categories, like a dog, and there are also what are called audio categories. When someone utters the sound “dog,” it doesn’t matter what the volume, voice quality, or pronunciation, we can understand it as fitting into the audio category of it being the sound of the same word. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to understand different people speaking a language. 

There is also a meaning category that we associate with the audio category. That’s how language works. It’s conceptual. It’s the same thing with reading a written word. How is this possible? Take for example the written word “dog.” It doesn’t matter the font, the size, the color, or handwriting with which the word appears, we put them all into the category of all being the word “dog” and we assign to it a meaning category. 

The same thing applies to the self, “me,” as does to a dog. A self is a nonstatic imputation. We have to differentiate the objective imputation “me” from the conceptual mental label “me,” and the conceptual word “me” or our own name. They are quite different types of phenomena.

An Experiment for Analysis of the Self as an Imputation 

A very interesting experiment is to lay out a series of photographs of us spanning various phases of our life, starting with when we were an infant all the way to the present time. Who are these photographs of? They are all of “me” as an imputation on these photographs. It’s objectively “me” and not somebody else. 

How do we know that they are all “me”? They all look quite different. We have a conceptual category of “me” and we fit all of these photographs into this category. They are all “me” fitting into this box of “me” and not the box of “you.” We know our name, so we can give the category “me” a name and then apply the name to all the photos. However, if it’s a series of photos of somebody else, we might be able to recognize that they are all photographs of the same person by seeing that they all fit into the category of some individual person, but we might not know their name. Designating the category with a name is optional.

The distinction between these three terms is very fundamental and very important to understand. All three are the same word in Tibetan because they all share a certain characteristic. They all can only exist on the basis of some basis for imputation and cannot be known separately from also cognizing that basis both first and then together with them. This is quite complex to understand. Nevertheless, imputation, mental label and designation are quite distinct things.

The Difference between the Conventional Self and the False Self

With these distinctions in mind, we need to examine the characteristics of the self. There is the conventional self, which is the self that is not to be refuted and there is the false self, the self to be refuted. This false self is one that we imagine to be a solid entity, isolated from everybody and everything else, but in fact it doesn’t correspond to anything real. There is a total absence of anything that it corresponds to. This absence is called voidness, a total absence – it doesn’t exist, it never existed and never will exist.

At Christmas time, there are people in Moscow that dress like Santa Claus or Father Christmas and this is a good example. There is a person who is dressed like Santa Claus. They look like Santa Claus, but they aren’t really Santa Claus because there is no such thing as Santa Claus. Nevertheless, they still are a person, a person who looks like something impossible, Santa Claus. It doesn’t correspond to reality. That’s the difference between the conventional self, the person, who looks like Santa Claus, and the false self who actually is Santa Claus. 

This is actually the Svatantrika Madhyamaka understanding, but it is a good place to start for understanding voidness. The Prasangika example would be a cartoon of Santa Claus. The cartoon looks like Santa Claus, but it isn’t Santa Claus because there is no such person. But when we stop examining about Santa Claus, there are nevertheless persons. But let’s stick with the Svatantrika example since it is easier to understand.

The Self that Experiences Karma Verses the False Self

There is the conventional “me” who experiences karma – that’s equivalent to the person dressed like Santa Claus. And then there is the false “me” who is a horrible person who is guilty and to blame for everything that they experience. That horrible person is equivalent to Santa Claus himself. The conventional “me” is the one that is responsible and has to deal with what is going on and with how they respond. The false one, Santa Claus, the horrible one, is the one that is guilty and to blame for what they’re experiencing. But, in fact, there’s nobody who is guilty because the one that we imagine is guilty doesn’t correspond to reality. There is no one who is the one cause of everything that happens to them or that they experience, the sole cause as in the example of the person who thought, “My team lost the football game because I was there.”

Characteristics of the Five Aggregates: The Basis of Imputation of the Self

We need to understand, then, just what the self, “me,” is. The self is an imputation on the continuum of the five aggregates. The five aggregates are known as the basis of imputation. Their characteristics are that they are nonstatic – they change from moment to moment – and they are non-monolithic. They are made up of many parts that are all changing at different rates. A body, even a dead body, does not exist separately from and independently of being the body of a person. The same is the case with the other aggregates. A mind, anger, happiness and so on cannot exist separately from and independently of being the mind, anger or happiness of a person.

The self that is an imputation on the aggregates having these characteristics as its basis also has the same characteristics. Like the aggregates that are nonstatic and changing all the time, the self is changing all the time. If it were not changing all the time, it couldn’t be affected by anything that is happening and wouldn’t be able to do anything in response. It couldn’t be the agent of karmic impulses, couldn’t build up karmic aftermath and couldn’t experience anything as its result if it didn’t change from moment to moment. 

Like the aggregates, the self isn’t monolithic or partless, because if the self were partless, then it couldn’t have the two distinct aspects of the “me” that commits the action and the “me” that experiences results. These are parts over time. 

If a self were independent and could exist separately from and independently of a body and a mind, then it should be able to do things without a body. It should be able to think things without a mind. The body should be able to do things without any intention by itself. It doesn’t. Furthermore, the self, “me,” would be able to do destructive things and not experience the results of its actions.

Therefore, there is no static, partless and independent self, separate from the five aggregates – a self that lives inside the body and mind and operates them as if they were its possession. Such a self is what I have been referring to as a solid “me,” the false “me.” It’s just an easy way of describing such a self: a solid “me” is one that never changes and doesn’t have any parts. It’s just one solid, monolithic thing that is independent. It comes into the body and mind and operates them like a machine to do things and so to commit karmic actions without being responsible for experiencing its consequences. That’s nonsense and doesn’t correspond to reality. However, that’s what it feels like. It feels like there is a “me,” a thing inside our heads that is talking, that is the author of the voice going on in our minds: “That shouldn’t happen to me. That’s not fair. I’m no good.” It complains and says all these sorts of things. 

Coarse Selflessness: The Coarse Voidness of a Person

The total nonexistence and absence of anything that corresponds to this false conceptual construct of a static, partless, independent self is what is known as the coarse selflessness or identitylessness of a person – basically, the coarse voidness of a person.

The process for understanding the coarse voidness of ourselves as a person in the context of karma is that first we need to know all the components of karma, its aftermath and its results. Then, we deconstruct the moments of our experience into the five aggregates and fit these aspects of karma into them. We then examine the “me” that is an imputation on the basis of the five aggregates that contain all these aspects of karma. We try to see that just as the five aggregates as the basis for the self are nonstatic, have parts and cannot exist independently of a self, so too the self, “me,” as an imputation on the basis of all of them in each moment also is nonstatic, has parts and cannot exist independently of and separately from these aggregates. A self, a person, cannot exist apart from a body, mind and emotions, etc. This is the type of self that experiences karma.

That’s the first level, the grossest level of understanding the voidness of the conventional “me” as an imputation and what it actually means as a nonstatic imputation on a multipart, everchanging basis. This is the first step of deconstructed the false “me.”

The next level that we have to deconstruct is that it feels like the self can be known all on its own. It seems self-sufficiently knowable, that we can cognize and know it without knowing first some of the aggregates that are the basis of imputation in a given moment and then that basis and the self at the same time. If a person could be known just by itself – for example, “me” – and I had hurt someone, then I could exist and be known dissociated from what I had done. I could think of myself as someone who never did anything wrong, and I would be right. But that would be fooling myself and not facing up to reality and taking responsibility for my actions. The absence of a self-sufficiently knowable “me” is the subtle selflessness of a person or the subtle identitylessness of a person.

The third level to deconstruct is the misconception that the self, “me,” has self-established, so-called “inherent” existence, and that it has a self-established identity as “the guilty one who is to blame.” How do we establish that there is a self and that we exist? When we examine our aggregates – our body, our mind, our emotions, etc. – we cannot find anything in any of them that makes me “me.” Even if we consider our unique genome, is there anything findable inside any of the chromosomes of DNA that makes it “me”? No. The self is merely what the concept and word “me” refer to when labeled onto the multipart everchanging aggregates. 

When we deconstruct this whole conceptual construct that we are some horrible, guilty person, we see that this belief is not referring to anything real. It’s not that anybody who sees us knows that we are bad and guilty without even knowing anything that we had done. That’s clearly absurd, isn’t it?