Teaching Summary Podcasts

The Tibetan Psychology of Karma and Death — Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen

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A teaching summary podcast of The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996 Jul-Sep by Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen, recorded at Buddha House, Adelaide.

The Heart and Mind of Awakening

Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Tradition: Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism
Venue: Buddha House, Adelaide
Recordings: 16 teaching sessions (1996, July-September)
Source: Corrected transcripts from the Bodhi Archive

Overview

This extended series of sixteen teachings by Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen at Buddha House offers a comprehensive introduction to the graduated path to awakening (Lamrim) within the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Drawing on Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path, the teacher presents the entire framework of Buddhist practice — from the preciousness of human life and the contemplation of death, through the detailed physiology and psychology of the dying process, to the logic of rebirth, the six perfections of the Bodhisattva, and the foundational teachings on karma.

What distinguishes these teachings is Geshe Dhawa’s integration of Western psychological and philosophical language with traditional Buddhist exposition. He speaks of “epistemological fantasy,” the “pathology of epistemology,” paradigm shifts, and self-actualisation alongside classical presentations of the nine-round death meditation, the subtle body of channels, wind energies and drops, and the clear light of death. His approach consistently frames the Buddhist path as a practical programme of mental health and personal transformation, rooted in the conviction that we can change our fundamental maps of reality and thereby change our experience of life.

The series moves through the topics systematically: sessions 1-2 lay out the meaning of “path” and “realization” and introduce the meditation on death; sessions 3-5 explore the value of human life, the power of commitment, and the truth of suffering; sessions 6-8 present the death process in fine physiological and psychological detail; sessions 9-11 cover the six perfections (paramitas) as the practical training of the Bodhisattva; sessions 12-13 establish the logic of rebirth; and sessions 14-16 introduce karma — the law of cause and effect internal to sentient beings — and its implications for how we perceive and experience reality.

Key Teachings

1. The Meaning of Path and Realization (Session 1)

Geshe Dhawa defines “Lam” (path) as “clear realization” — the removal of superimpositions from reality. Using the analogy of sunglasses making a white mountain appear green, he explains that realization is seeing things as they actually are, stripped of the fantasy images our minds project. He describes a vast “subterranean network” of erroneous premises, presuppositions, and mistaken beliefs within our minds. When this distorted worldview collides with reality, suffering inevitably follows.

He introduces the concept of “epistemological fantasy” — unhealthy ways of knowing the world that produce unhealthy ways of relating to it, and therefore unhealthy experience. He contrasts backward-looking (“cosmological”) and forward-looking (“teleological”) orientations, emphasising that Buddhism focuses on where we are headed rather than where we have been. The future is not determined by the past; with awareness and intention, we can interrupt compulsive patterns and create a radically different future.

2. The Nine-Round Death Meditation (Sessions 2-3)

The teacher presents the three roots of the death meditation, each with three supporting reasons and a conclusion:

• Root 1: Death is definite. No being has ever been exempt from death. Our lifespan is constantly decreasing. Little of our life is dedicated to genuine self-development.
• Root 2: The time of death is uncertain. People die at every age. There are many causes of death. The human body is extremely fragile.
• Root 3: Only the development of our minds can help at death. Possessions, loved ones, and even our own body cannot assist us.

He frames this contemplation not as morbid but as “life-enhancing,” citing the Buddhist teaching that “suffering which leads to happiness is to be thought of as happiness.”

3. The Power of Beginning and Commitment (Session 3)

Drawing on the Goethe quotation — “the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too” — Geshe Dhawa teaches that commitment to a consistent direction, supported by faith, constructive anxiety, and (for the Bodhisattva) great compassion, is what transforms mere wishing into reality. He emphasises that we can always begin again, and that the thousand-mile journey of awakening is made up of “seemingly insignificant choices” in everyday life.

4. The Truth of Suffering (Session 5)

A deeply moving session in which Geshe Dhawa enumerates the pervasiveness of suffering — from the suffering of separation and unwanted contact, to the suffering of maintaining self-image, inauthenticity, fear of meaninglessness, and “the suffering of an unlived life.” He quotes Don Juan from Carlos Castaneda on “men for whom an entire life was like a Sunday afternoon.” He argues that suffering is not an interruption to life but a truth about it, and that acknowledging this truth is the starting point for real change.

5. The Death Process: Gross and Subtle Body (Sessions 4, 6-8)

These sessions present a detailed account of the Buddhist understanding of the dying process:

• Three levels of body and consciousness: Gross body (four elements: earth, water, fire, wind energy) supports gross consciousness (six sense consciousnesses). The subtle body (channels, wind energies, drops) supports subtle consciousness (eighty indicative consciousnesses plus white attainment, red increase, and black near attainment). The very subtle body (life-bearing wind energy) supports the very subtle consciousness (the clear light).

• The channel system: Approximately 72,000 pathways with three main channels (central, right, left) and major channel wheels (chakras) at the crown (32 spokes), throat (16), heart (8), navel (64), and secret place.

• The dissolution process: Earth dissolves into water (mirage vision, feeling of being crushed); water into fire (smoke vision, feeling of drowning); fire into wind energy (sparks or fireflies, body growing cold); wind energy into consciousness (sputtering flame, breathing ceases). Then the subtle dissolutions: white drop descends (white moonlight vision — white attainment); red drop rises (red/orange sunlight vision — red increase); drops enclose consciousness (pitch blackness — black near attainment). Finally, the clear light of death dawns — a vast, luminous clarity free of whiteness, redness, or blackness.

• The indestructible drop: At the heart centre resides the unity of the most subtle wind energy and most subtle consciousness, encoded with an individual’s entire evolutionary history. This is described as “a being’s deepest state of pure soul, where the being is intelligent light, alive, and singular” — what is meant by Buddha nature.

6. The Five Forces at the Time of Death (Sessions 8, 10)

For ordinary practitioners, Geshe Dhawa presents five practical strategies:

1. Force of positive seed: Give away possessions, let go of attachments, dedicate everything to sentient beings.
2. Force of aspiring prayer: Focus on ultimate concerns, pray never to be separated from the Dharma.
3. Force of repudiation: Develop deep revulsion toward afflictive emotions and cyclic existence.
4. Force of determination: Maintain a positive state of mind throughout the death transition; the last thought has enormous determining power.
5. Force of familiarity: Practise throughout life so that compassion and wisdom arise naturally at death. The recommended dying posture is lying on the right side, blocking the right nostril, practising tonglen (taking and giving).

7. The Six Perfections (Sessions 7, 9, 11)

The Bodhisattva’s practical training, motivated by compassion:

1. Generosity (dana): Not merely giving things, but letting go of attachment — to possessions, territory, privacy, security, knowledge. The emphasis is on the willingness to give rather than on what is given.
2. Ethics (sila): Aligning with one’s own basic sanity and decency. Three types: cultivating positive states, restraining from dysfunctional patterns, and working for the welfare of others. The Dalai Lama’s summary: “If you can help others, do. If you can’t, at least don’t harm them.”
3. Tolerance/Patience (kshanti): Not “damn patience” (repression) but developing mental dexterity to maintain an undisturbed mind in adversity. The teacher explains that enemies are potentially greater contributors to awakening than friends. Three types: accepting harm from others, enduring hardship in service, and bearing the “legitimate suffering” of growth.
4. Joyous effort (virya): Exerting oneself toward positive ends and delighting in doing so. The story of Geshe Chakawa who prayed to be reborn in the hells for the sake of others illustrates the Bodhisattva’s exhilaration.
5. Concentration (dhyana/samadhi): Calm abiding — effortless, blissful focus on a chosen object. The teacher warns against using meditation as escapism; supramundane concentration uproots causes of suffering rather than merely suppressing them.
6. Wisdom (prajna): Three types — conventional wisdom (the five sciences), wisdom of benefiting others, and wisdom understanding emptiness (the absence of inherent existence). Without this wisdom, all the Bodhisattva’s efforts remain incomplete.

Method (the first five perfections, motivated by compassion) and wisdom (the sixth) work together “like the two wings of a bird.”

8. The Logic of Rebirth (Session 12)

Geshe Dhawa builds a logical argument using two concepts:

• Substantial cause vs. cooperative condition: The substantial cause supplies the identity of the result (clay determines a clay pot); cooperative conditions shape but do not determine identity (the potter shapes but doesn’t make it clay).
• Similarity of type: Causes produce effects similar in type to themselves (apple seeds produce apple trees, not carrots).

He argues that mind (defined as “clear and knowing” — non-material) cannot arise from matter (which is neither clear nor knowing) as its substantial cause. Matter can only condition mind, not create it. Therefore, each moment of mind must arise from a previous moment of mind. This chain extends beyond birth to previous lives, and the notion of a “first moment” of mind is logically untenable. Hence the Buddhist assertion that mind is beginningless.

9. Karma: Actions and Their Effects (Sessions 14-16)

Karma is defined as the law of cause and effect internal to sentient beings. Two types of action: actions of intention (the mental urge or directionality of mind) and intended actions (speech and physical behaviour motivated by that urge). Actions deposit latencies (conditioning factors, potencies) upon consciousness, which ripen when meeting appropriate conditions.

Four types of karmic effects:
1. Ripening effect: The overall realm of existence one is born into.
2. Effect experientially similar to the cause: Like begets like (generosity brings wealth; miserliness brings poverty).
3. Effect functionally similar to the cause: The tendency to repeat past actions (habit).
4. Governing effect: The resultant environment and resources.

The teacher demonstrates how perception is conditioned by karma using the famous old woman/young woman optical illusion, showing that what we perceive depends on our prior conditioning. He argues that since phenomena are empty of inherent properties, it is our karmic latencies that determine whether we experience objects as attractive or repulsive. “Knowing is an organizing into the known.”

10. The Nine-Round Breathing Meditation (Session 5)

A practical technique taught as a preliminary to meditation:
– Visualise the three channels (central, right, left).
– Breathe in brilliant white light through the right nostril, down the right channel; exhale thick black smoke (desire and attachment) through the left nostril. Three times.
– Reverse: breathe in through the left, exhale through the right (anger and hatred). Three times.
– Breathe in through both, exhale through the central channel and out through the brow point (ignorance and confusion). Three times.

Key Terms

Practice Points

• Reorientation as daily practice: Every session begins with going for refuge and generating motivation. Geshe Dhawa treats this not as ritual but as the fundamental act of redirecting the mind — “like bringing the compass needle back to magnetic north.”

• Begin now, begin again: Whatever has happened in the past, we can always begin again. The Thai monk’s advice: “Whatever happens, we can always begin again.” The journey of a thousand miles is made of seemingly insignificant daily choices.

• Contemplate death to enhance life: Death meditation is not morbid but “life-enhancing.” Ask yourself: “How would I live if I had one year?” Use this to bring intensity and quality to each day.

• Legitimate suffering vs. illegitimate suffering: Some suffering is to be eliminated; other suffering is the necessary tension of growth as our beliefs realign with reality. Be willing to bear this legitimate suffering rather than retreating into numbness.

• The diving board metaphor: “You are standing on the diving board in your swimsuit. The obvious answer is to jump.” Each small leap of other-centredness undermines self-centredness and builds the habit of compassion.

• Transform enemies into teachers: The only time you can practise patience is when you do not want to. Enemies offer the irreplaceable opportunity to develop tolerance. Geshe Dhawa suggests viewing difficult people as spiritual teachers.

• Use the five forces when dying: Give everything away, pray to remain connected with the Dharma, repudiate afflictive emotions, maintain a positive mind with determination, and draw on a lifetime’s familiarity with compassion and wisdom. Die practising tonglen if possible.

• Nine-round breathing meditation: Use as a daily preliminary to clear and centre the mind before other meditation practices.

• Karma is empowering, not fatalistic: Understanding that we are the agents of our own experience through our actions gives us a handle on the quality of our lives. We can consciously create the conditions for the happiness we seek.

• Self-centredness is the most immediately addressable problem: While overcoming ignorance is a long-term project requiring deep wisdom, simply becoming a kinder, more caring person is immediately available to each of us and will improve the quality of life at once.