Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Cutter Sutra eventually does. Then we become free from oceans of samsaric suffering,
achieving ultimate happiness. Without talking about enlightenment, just that is unbelievable.
Our whole life is spent being afraid of something happening to this I, to this real I that
appears to us from there. We totally, one hundred percent believe it is real and do everything
we possibly can to protect this real I, which is not there. We see all the possibilities of being
hurt. “This will make me sick. This will kill me. This will hurt me.” We take every possible
precaution to prevent this real I that doesn’t exist from being hurt.
Determined to keep fit, we do hours of exercise every day, jogging or working out on
machines. There is a big industry making new types of machines for our real I to keep fit on.
After a machine has been on the market for a few months a new one comes out and our real
I has to have it. Each machine makes us exercise differently—from lying upside down to
putting our head between our legs—and we are forced to buy new ones because the experts
in advertisements convince us that these new ones are better.
All this is done for our real I, for the I that appears real and we believe one hundred percent
is truly there. Even exercising the body, doing many hundreds of pushups, is for this real I.
Everybody jogging, running and exercising is doing it so that this I does not get sick. They
are protecting this I. They have injections to prevent diseases before they happen. They take
every single precaution they can to protect this real I.
If we were to meditate for just one day, analyzing, checking, going to a subtler level, we
would see that this real I is not there. What appears as the real I, what we believe one
hundred percent to be real, is not there. However, we don’t check and this labeling process
goes on continuously. It has been going on since we were born and will continue up to
death.
Because the aggregates—the body and mind—are there, because they exist, they are the valid
base on which the labeling mind merely imputes the I. Then, depending on what that base
does, the labeling mind merely labels the action.
The labeling thought merely labels I on the subject and the merely labeled action on
whatever the aggregates do. It has been and will be like that, from the time our
consciousness entered the fertilized egg in our mother’s womb until our death, when the
extremely subtle mind, what we call the subtle mind of death, 19 leaves from the heart, the
place where it entered the fertilized egg at the very beginning. This happens after the person
is clinically dead: after the breathing has stopped, the heart has stopped beating and there is
no more brain function.
When we analyze, we can understand very clearly the great difference between the reality of
the I and actions and how we believe they exist when we don’t think about it. The way we
normally think is a total hallucination, a total illusion; it is like a dream.
From beginningless rebirths up to now there has always been the continuity of existence of
the aggregates, although not necessarily always of the physical body—a formless realm
rebirth doesn’t have a physical body. And just as there has always been the valid base, the
aggregates, their continuity, there has always been the labeling thought that merely imputes
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