Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 26-minute teaching, the Dalai Lama guides students through the philosophical foundation of the Middle Way Consequentialist school: the doctrine that all phenomena lack inherent existence. He begins with the problem of misconception — how we naturally project inherent existence onto things like pillars and pots, mistaking conventional reality for ultimate reality — and explains why this arises only in minds shaped by philosophical views rather than innately. Moving through Buddhist schools’ competing positions on emptiness, he clarifies the razor’s edge between nihilism and eternalism: things exist, but not inherently or independently. He illustrates this with practical examples, including a lost ring and the philosophical puzzle of designating a flower as a cat, showing how valid conventional identity requires functional capacity and worldly consensus, yet even that capacity itself is empty. Suited for students with prior exposure to Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-08-14 – 14A – Opening The Eye – KR.mp3
UUID: 601a1efe-e691-4da1-b715-bf470136d024
Teacher: HH Dalai Lama
Collection: Awareness and Knowledge
Date: 1989-08-14
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~1,160
# Opening The Eye 14a 1989-08-14
**Collection:** Rinpoche Recordings — Opening the Eye of New Awareness (1988-89)
**Duration:** 25.8 minutes
**Words:** 1,158
**Model:** Deepgram Nova-3
**Corrections applied:** 0
**Transcribed:** 2026-03-01 05:12
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Conception and conceiving of a pillar and a pot to be inherently existent. Would be an example of a conception and conceiving of inherently existent? Conception and conceiving of a pillar and a pot to be inherently existent. A pillar and a pot, pillar, pot. When you see a pot you can see them as one?
And that was your question, so you can see that there was many, right? So this is if we when we look at one thing, we conceive it to be inherently existent in one. If we look at two, then we conceive it to be inherently existently different or inherently existently many. Now this is, Ratnākara says that this only arises, such a type of conception only arises in a mind which has been affected by tenets. That it’s an acquired artificial conception.
It is not innate only upon being affected by inherently existing as unity or many. So the Buddha and Dharma are not inherently existent. They exist dependently in dependence upon. Not in dependence upon any other thing or they’re they’re. They lack inherent existence.
They’re not inherently existent. They lack inherent existence. That was my question. Did you know that? They lack inherent existence.
Oh, they do that. They lack. They do not have. Are without. So all things lack inherent existence.
Yeah. Everything. So this is the real doctrine. This is the real view. There’s the view that nothing exists is nihilism.
The view that things exist permanently is eternalism. The view that things inherently exist is the view of eternalism. And the view that they lack inherent existence is the correct view of emptiness and it is the real view. So for the Middle Way Autonomy school, they and all the lower tenets including them, the view that things lack inherent existence is held to be a view of nihilism. View of nihilism.
The Middle Way Consequentialist school, that’s considered this lack of inherent existence is the correct view. The view which holds that things inherently exist is seen as the view of eternalism. So it exists but it doesn’t exist inherently. If something doesn’t inherently exist doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to not exist. It doesn’t mean that it has to not exist.
Because something doesn’t inherently exist doesn’t mean because something doesn’t inherently exist that doesn’t mean that it does not exist. So the inherent existence is a factor which is superimposed upon phenomena, which is imagined and projected onto phenomena. Projected by the mind. Yeah, by the projector. Why do we all have ignorance?
Because we don’t understand the lack of inherent existence, we have ignorance. Yeah. And? Here it is. We’re trying to feed a fish to a flower.
What is the difference? What from what point of view? So this is not an appropriate basis for designating cat. It does not have the characteristics of a cat, it is not able to perform the activities of a cat. Therefore it is not an appropriate basis for designating cat.
Why is that a delusion? Why is that a? So it would be improper to designate you the Prime Minister of Australia because you do not perform the functions, activities of the Prime Minister of Australia. In order to be a proper basis for being designated the Prime Minister of Australia, you have to be able to perform that function, those activities. All those qualities. You’re projecting all those qualities.
Tendzin. I can’t think of the word. So the final mode of being, final mode of being, the most profound mode of being is that the flower exists merely imputed by conception and is not inherently existent. There is nothing more than that.
There is nothing behind that. There is no more than that. There is nothing more for further analysis. There is nowhere other place we can go. So yeah.
In this example, for example, the thing that doesn’t exist maybe was like a ring, you had a valuable ring and you wore it and you put it away in one of the boxes and then some time passed and you knew you put it in one of these boxes and you went to look for it and looked in this box, wasn’t there, not there. Maybe a thief stole it, maybe something happened to it and there arises in the mind, Oh, I don’t have my ring, my ring doesn’t exist where there arises the non-existence of the ring in the mind, the non-existence of the ring in relation to the boxes. Whether existent or nonexistent, it lacks inherent existence. Both nonexistent and existent lack inherent existence or are not inherently existent. So, you know, we were talking about whether we could call the flower a cat and since everything is merely imputed by conception.
So this is one of the reasons that the lower tenets try to refute the Middle Way Consequence school. They say, well, we had a pile of stones and we were walking along and we see the stones and we see it as a person, well, isn’t it a person? We’re imputing, we’re designating that pile of stones as a person. We see it as a person. Isn’t that a person?
So, you know, we just can’t call anything anything because, you know, we can’t simply call the flower a cat. It must as was mentioned, it must be able to perform the function, the activity, it must be a proper basis of designation of whatever we want to designate it as. It must be able to withstand harm by either worldly conventions, a conventional valid cognizer or an ultimate valid cognizer. For example, you know, you said this was a cat and then people walk, you know, you’re crazy, people would say that’s not a cat. People in the world, it wouldn’t be able to withstand such a valid cognizer as a worldly valid cognizer and it would not and also it would not be able to for something to be a proper basis of designation it must be able to resist harm by worldly valid cognizers, conventional valid cognizers and ultimate valid cognizers.
So the basis of designation must be able to perform that activity or the function in order to be a proper basis for applying that name. But also that function, that activity is also not inherently existent. So that, so again that has parts, it is dependent and it is also empty of being inherently that particular activity. So that is also empty and the emptiness goes back further and further. Lack of inherent existence.
So it was asked that we begin a new tradition. And at the end of our teaching we recite on the back page there is a prayer for the long life of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. So we recite that before the dedication prayer.