Rinpoche began the teachings with question and answers, the question was: what is the valid base to call ‘I’. Rinpoche explained what is needed for a valid base, to then have the label on it. Rinpoche then explained how the I is merely imputed by the mind, depending on what the valid base, the aggregates are doing. From birth to death, all that we do is not only labeled but merely imputed by the mind. There is no real I, real action, real object, existing from its own side, existing from outside. That is a hallucination. It is not that it does not exist but it is like that. This is a very subtle meditation to think this. You have to have a lot of merit to understand how the I exists. If you don’t have much merit, then there is danger to fall into nihilism and then it is difficult to come to the correct point, to realize the absolute truth and the conventional truth. Rinpoche then explained how according to the 4 schools of emptiness, how each school understands how the I exists. It is helpful to understand all the views, so that you can really recognize the Prasangika view of emptiness. All the sufferings that we experience come from ignorance and it is only the realization of Prasangika view of emptiness that can cease this ignorance. When you experience this, it looks like there is no I at all, like you have totally lost the I, but just there, from where the I is appearing, when you recognize this is hallucination, then suddenly what you have been believing as real, is false, suddenly it cannot stay as it is, it dissolves. Your mind has been habituated in this wrong way, how you have been believing that the I exists, so then there is incredible shock when you realize this. Rinpoche then explained what happens when you realize emptiness, the dangers that can happen, especially right before and what happens after you realize emptiness
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