(9.91) (Other schools) “So what you are saying is that painful feelings do not occur at that time
Because the delicious taste is a cause of their opposite – pleasant feelings.”

Here the other schools are trying to trap the Prasangikas into saying the delicious taste of the cake is a cause of the pleasant feelings, therefore pleasant feelings have external causes.

Whether it is a cause of pleasant or painful feelings depends merely upon conceptual imputation;
Thus, feelings are established as having no inherent existence.

The Prasangikas reply that no, they are not grasping at an external cause of pleasant or unpleasant feelings, they were simply showing that the analogy the other schools were using does not work even for them. Whether any external phenomena is experienced as pleasant or unpleasant depends entirely upon the mind experiencing that object. We see this all the time. One person experiences some food as delicious and someone else experiences that same food as disgusting. Which is it?  It is neither delicious nor disgusting. How it is experienced depends upon the mind experiencing it.

For example, we can consider broccoli.  Before, I did not like it at all because I was making decisions based solely on what is good for my mouth.  But then I started thinking about what is good for my body, and I ate broccoli even though my mouth didn’t like it.  Then over time, due to my change of attention – focusing more on the health benefits and less on the taste, I actually came to like the taste of broccoli.  What has changed?  Not the broccoli, just my mind.  By considering this example, we can change our experience of anything, even at the level of feelings.  We can even come to experience painful feelings as enjoyable. 

The key point is we need to assume personal responsibility for our own experience of things.  Our experiencing something as pleasant or unpleasant has nothing to do with the object and has everything to do with our mind and our view.  We can think about different types of music that some like and some detest.  It is primarily a question of attention.  The world we experience is the world we pay attention to.  We need to choose to pay attention to the good qualities of an object, and by doing so, we can enjoy everything.

We can literally come to experience everything as great bliss.  This is what a Buddha does.  A Buddha pays attention to the ultimate nature of the object, its being the nature of bliss and emptiness, as the dominant characteristic of the object, and as a result, they experience all objects as bliss and emptiness.  We need to stop attributing our experience of an object to the object itself, and realize instead it comes from our mind.  This will solve so many of our problems because then we will just work on changing our mind.  If we change objects, we constantly have to change objects (this is what most people do their whole life – in search of new objects that will do something to them).  If we change our mind, the job is done forever.  It is much more efficient.

(9.92) The antidote that abandons grasping at truly existent feelings
Is meditation on and analysis of lack of true existence.
The superior seeing that arises from analysis of this emptiness, conjoined with tranquil abiding,
Is the food that nourishes the Yogi’s realizations.

Our concern for our own, present feelings distracts us from our spiritual training that brings enjoyment.   We choose to pursue a samsaric pleasure, which will bring us nothing but suffering, and it takes us away from authentic spiritual practice.  Why do we allow ourselves to be distracted?  Why do we allow doubts to arise? I think mainly it is because we’re not enjoying ourselves with our Dharma practice.  We look to other places than our spiritual practice for our enjoyment, don’t we?  We do this because we make a false distinction between our spiritual practice and our enjoyments.  The truth is we can enjoy everything more if we relate to it in a spiritual way.  Then, there is no problem, everything becomes part of our spiritual training.  If we are not enjoying our spiritual practice, we will look to other things for enjoyment.  Since we know everything else is in the end harmful, we should really put effort into learning how to enjoy our spiritual practice.  It is worthwhile to revisit the chapter on effort, recalling that effort in a Dharma context means enjoying our spiritual practice.  If there is no enjoyment in our spiritual practice, there is no effort, and without effort, there will be no spiritual attainments, no matter how long we “practice.”  The easiest way out of this problem is to let go of our concern and attachment to feelings.  If we are no longer driven by feelings, but instead by wisdom, we will breeze through any problem.

It is helpful to recall that the dharmakaya of a Buddha is called the truth body. The clear light emptiness is a body whose nature is bliss and emptiness. When we have a direct realization of emptiness and our mind is absorbed single-pointedly in tranquil abiding on this realization, we are nourishing our truth body. We are bringing it to life and feeding it a steady diet of our attention. If our mind is able to be 100% focused on the union of bliss and emptiness and our mind never leaves this union then we will have attained enlightenment. Unpleasant feelings will never arise again.