The View of the Transitory Collection

Manjushri told Je Tsongkhapa that we need 4 things to gain a realisation of emptiness:

• A Spiritual Guide
• Purify negativity/obstacles
• Accumulate merit
• Meditate lots on emptiness

The view of the transitory collection (VTC):

• Recognising the view of the transitory collection and its faults
• Recognising the difference between the observed and the conceived object of the VTC
• Identifying the view of the transitory collection in our own experience
• Etymology of the VTC
• To understand the difference between VTC conceiving I, and VTC conceiving mine.
• Difference between innate and intellectually formed VTC
• How to abandon the VTC
• The need to also abandon self-grasping of phenomena
• Developing compassion for beings who are afflicted by VTC

There are 2 types of self-grasping: of persons, and of phenomena

VTC views the I that exists and then mistakenly apprehends it as inherently existent.

There are 5 objects of mind:

• The appearing object
• The observed object
• The apprehended object
• The engaged object (the object that is understood by the mind)
• The conceived object - exists only for conceptual minds, i.e. thinking / remembering / dreaming. Not minds of sense awareness.

Everything that exists, exists through a conceptual mind. But conceptual objects do not exist.

Chandrakirti said of Aryadeva’s 400:

for an inherently object to exist, it cannot depend on other factors for its existence. But everything depends on other factors to exist, so there can be no inherently existent things.

If we understand dependent existence it’s easy to understand emptiness.

I depend upon the 5 aggregates. If they appear, I appear. If any of these do not appear, the I won’t appear. It doesn’t go somewhere else, it simply disappears. It cannot exist. However, the conceived object of the VTC views this I as INDEPENDENT of the aggregates.

The observed object of the VTC is the conventionally existent I, the I that actually exists.

The appearance of the I is dependent on the appearance of the aggregates. It is merely a label.

We need to recognise the VTC in our own experience. The irony is that it’s there all the time, but when we try to recognise it, it’s so hard to find. We’re looking for the inherently existent I - what does it look / feel / taste like?

The root of all our problems is observing an object that exists but then conceiving one that doesn’t.

The view of the transitory collection does not refer to just the aggregates, but to the I as well.

Subtle impermanence states that objects are momentary - in order for an object to arise, the object of the previous moment has to cease to exist completely. There is no “essence” of the object that carries on from one moment to the next.

Production and disintegration occur in the same moment.

The continuum of the object is mere imputation. There is no such thing as a partless object. And so every object is merely imputed upon its parts.