Lama Zopa Rinpoche

The emptiness of the Z
I want to end by mentioning this example for you to get a better idea. You might have heard
it before because it is a common example I give, but I think using it again here will make this
clearer.
Go back to your childhood before you knew your ABCs. Your teacher draws three lines on
the blackboard, a Z. Before she teaches you what those lines mean, you see them but you
have no appearance that this is a Z. You do not see those lines as a Z. Then the teacher
introduces you to the name for that: “Z.” Before that, you didn’t have the appearance that
this is a Z, there were just three lines. That is clear.
Once the teacher has introduced you to the label “Z” you believe in that. Following what the
teacher says, your mind merely imputes Z and then, the next moment, you have the
appearance of the Z. But the big question is this. It should appear as merely labeled by the
mind if that is how you apprehended it the moment before, but you do not see that at all.
Why is that?
The next moment, for you, there is this wrong projection, a real Z from there, a Z that never
came from your mind, that was not merely labeled by your mind. That is so totally wrong;
that is a hallucination.
In that second moment there is the appearance of a real Z and then, in the third moment,
you totally believe this to be true, to be real. As it appears real, you believe it to be real. This
is the fundamental wrong concept that gives rise to all other delusions. Seeing the merely
labeled Z, seeing it as truly existing and then believing in that not merely labeled, trulyexisting
Z, those are the steps. I hope that makes it a little clearer. Thinking back to when
you were a child, the first time you saw these three lines, helps to clarify this.
Another thing is to look for the real Z. Where is the real Z? Is it on the top horizontal line?
Or the diagonal line? Or is it the bottom horizontal line? Or even all three lines? There is no
real Z there, even on all three lines.
It is exactly the same as the valid base, the five aggregates of form, feeling, cognition,
compounding aggregates and consciousness that we have. These are the basis to be labeled,
the basis on which the mind merely imputes the I. Thus the I exists in mere name.
That is the reality. None of the aggregates separately is the real I nor are all the aggregates as
a whole. These five aggregates are the possession and the I is the possessor of those
aggregates, so how can the possession also be the possessor? They are not separate but
different. For example, if we own a car we are the possessor and the car is our possession.
How can it be possible for the possessor, we ourselves, to also be the possession, our car? It
is not possible for possessor and possession to be one.
The aggregates are the possession and the I is the possessor, therefore they are not one.
There are other logical arguments that prove the aggregates are not the real I; for example,
because the real I is one, singular, then all the aggregates would have to be one, singular.
That dangerous mistake can arise.
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