WHAT IS A ANYWAY?  
A PLAY OF THE MIND?

THE PLAYERS

- The Hero & Our Weapon, The Pervader –
Non-conceptual consciousness PERCEIVING
whether things inherently exist or in other
words whether they can be found under
analysis
- The Henchman - Consciousness that normally
PERCEIVES inherent existence, as if things
can be found
- The Damsel, The Reason – A (or anything
else), The Reason we will realise emptiness
- The Villain, The Subject – The inherent
existence of A, Our Target
The Happy Ending, The Predicate – Emptiness
or NO A

THE SCENE

At the moment we cannot help but
APPREHEND things as if they inherently
existed as if they can be found (the other two
ways are nominally, to one side for a moment,
and as illusion-like or void).

Because a Non-Conceptual Consciousness
perceiving whether things can be found under
analysis, finds nothing upon analysis the
subsequent pervasion of a/the reason by a
predicate (Emptiness) will invalidate the
subject. So because the reason is “where” it is,
in the subject, a successful pervasion of the
reason by the predicate will contaminate the
whole subject category, INHERENT
EXISTENCE. Each player must fill the roles
assigned above with no cast changes. The
reason why the players do what they do, the
action (the analysis); the success of the
pervasion is entirely up to you.

STORYLINE (PLAN) B

If we are to understand the Emptiness of A we
first need to acknowledge A’s appearance as
inherently existent.

STORYLINE (PLAN) A

We gain an EXPERIENCE of emptiness by
attacking/refuting the findability of A.

SCENE 1 The Villain has The Damsel –

Presence of Reason in subject
A or / - \ has been kidnapped by its appearance
as inherently existent or as if there is an entity
that can be found amongst / - \. Until we
realise that the Damsel cannot be found with
The Henchman (in fact cannot be found at all),
A exists in the category INHERENTLY
EXISTENT.

SCENE 2 Introducing our Hero

If we want to find Inherent Existence it would
make sense that the only weapon we can use is
our consciousness that analyses WHETHER
things exist inherently or whether something
can be found under analysis. When, finally,
we do try to find A, because it happily sits in
the inherently existent category the realisation
that we cannot find it should contaminate the
category inherent existence for us.

SCENE 3 Payback Time

Because we accept things exist the way they
appear we never have reason to look for them.
But if we use our hero to try and find
something simple like A then we should come
to the conclusion that it cannot be found.
Why? We want to profit, to experience
Emptiness, so we must activate our hero to
look for the A that in fact has been kidnapped
by the appearance (The Henchman) that it can
be found. If A exists it cannot exist separately
from its parts because of a very fair criterion;
to find A we must be able to point to A. But
we can never point to A or / or – or \. There is
no A we can point to. To realize emptiness
you must be utterly devoted to this criterion
and look for yourself over and over and
over…..

So if we 1) keep looking at A and 2)
simultaneously decide enough pussy footing
around we want to look for A, we activate our
hero. Then 3) sorry, you cannot find/point to
A either separately, outside its parts and not in
its parts either. It is no good to decide that if
we look for A we should find it; we must
employ our hero to go and look for the
damsel, A. Not finding A the category
inherent existence is incidentally
contaminated. So put aside valid
establishment, conventional and nominal
existence. The masters are clear – emptiness
means not finding something, remember we
are not looking for emptiness because it will
do for now to say that if you cannot find
something, it doesn’t exist! See The
TantricDistinction,Jeffrey Hopkins Chapter1

WHAT IS A ANYWAY?  
A PLAY OF THE MIND?  
WHAT THE CRITICS THOUGHT!

Critic A writes that when the hero comes
along, conceptual play is made redundant
because he doesnt find an A, amongst / - \, a
true damsel amongst the aggregates.

Critic B has an alternative understanding – the
hero is a hero because he is searching for a
specific damsel and not just coming in with his
gun ratta-tat-tat, refuting everything in sight
so that even the damsel “dies” & the play
ends!

Critic A understands the skilled reasoning
work of the hero could be used in another play
or to refute another self because the
story/pervasion has a good ending.

Critic B sees the performance of the hero as
focused and enough because the hero is only
looking for a specific inherently existent
A/damsel and that this is only successful as
focused confirmation of the non-existence of a
specific inherently existent A/damsel, nothing
else – because even after we stop looking at
“the play” in everyday life things like A are
seen all the time, they continue.

Critic A sees the space-like non-finding of A
under its basis of designation, / - \, as a green
light to write - “...because the hero's
performance is so strong reason undoubtedly
refutes as untrue the damsel and by extension
all other “plays” and productions, the play of
cause/effect, the I, an independent self, mine,
objects etc in the realization of the ultimate
ending (space-like non-finding Emptiness), so
final it beats all ignorance in all plays and
their accompanying philosophies”.

Critic B on the other hand allows themselves
to be deeply affected by the ending, for them,
because they allow the play to have a full
focused impact, the continual non-finding of
an inherently existent A acts as very freeing
confirmation of the utter non-existence of an
inherently existent self (the root of actual
innate ignorance) that serves as the basis of
the afflictions that contaminate experience
rather than seeing another philosophical
implication. Emptiness is not looked for or
“found”!

Critic B writes – “...the space-like realization,
the non-finding of an inherently existent A
achieved by the hero, is fundamental not just
to the way The Damsel and all conceptual
play is perceived but to the way “A” is
produced and hence to the way all “play” is
produced because the realization of the
Emptiness of one thing is as good as
realization of another’s Emptiness – the truth
pervades all existent things equally”.

Critic B then takes away the point of the
performance allowing it to pervade their
understanding of reality (what comes up) to
reach a hidden meaning, not just how we
perceive A as inherently existent.

Critic B writes “...A, / - \, is an analogy for
reality, so this “play” is trying to tell us
something deeper”. Reality is all existent
things that arise at once together but are empty
(of inherent existence) at once together (even
emptiness itself is empty). So it is said the
actual difficult meaning of the non-finding of
inherent existence, Emptiness, is dependent
arising as only by this view all cause and
effect is possible rather than annihilated by it!

Critic B most critically understands if we
dont qualify the performance of the hero and
if they dont exist as dependent arising’s - as
do-able conditions - the much higher
experiences of the actual existence of Ultimate
Truths via direct perception of Emptiness
couldnt be True Cessations of afflictive
experience and the achievement of cessation
of afflictions couldnt entail Nirvanas, so
pursuit of the irreversible experience of
Nirvanas as the complete liberation from
suffering would be a fools game.
(See The Great Treatise on the Stage of the
Path to Enlightenment Vol.3 Lama Tsongkapa
esp chapters 16&17)