Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen explores the 9th Chapter of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra by unpacking “general chief,” a non-Buddhist philosophical concept that illuminates how consciousness engages with sensory experience. He explains the mechanism: when the “general chief” wants to hear, smell, or taste, it directs attention and the sense-object is perceived — creating desire, action, and the cycle of samsaric experience. When a serious meditator investigates this movement deeply, the “general chief” becomes self-aware, withdraws its projections inward, and consciousness is liberated. Geshe Jampa draws a parallel to modern psychological models of ego and self. This 5.4-minute talk is pitched at practitioners engaged with Buddhist philosophy texts and meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1994-06-21 – 7A – 9th Chapter – KR.mp3
UUID: 20b0c84e-cfa0-4037-b168-2c86e536015a
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra
Date: 1994-06-21
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~403
This transcript was generated using AI speech recognition and has been reviewed for Buddhist terminology accuracy. Some inaccuracies may remain. Please refer to the original audio recording as the authoritative source.
# 9th Chapter B Deeds 7a 1994-06-21 **Collection:** Rinpoche Recordings — Bodhicharyavatara – 9th Chapter Wisdom (1994) **Duration:** 5.4 minutes **Words:** 403 **Model:** Deepgram Nova-3 **Corrections applied:** 0 **Transcribed:** 2026-02-28 00:07 — On term they use in reference to the cell. There are other characteristics they talk about cell. So one is general chief, which is considered the one topmost….
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# 9th Chapter B Deeds 7a 1994-06-21
**Collection:** Rinpoche Recordings — Bodhicharyavatara – 9th Chapter Wisdom (1994)
**Duration:** 5.4 minutes
**Words:** 403
**Model:** Deepgram Nova-3
**Corrections applied:** 0
**Transcribed:** 2026-02-28 00:07
—
On term they use in reference to the cell. There are other characteristics they talk about cell. So one is general chief, which is considered the one topmost. And these actually are not these actually are not that unrelatable from psychological, western psychological way of describing things. They got very similar way of describing things.
So it’s more like archetypal thing. But the term they have used is called the general chief and what they say is general chief is the cause which does all the actions not the self. General chief which does all the actions and so forth. For example when the general chief wants to hear a song then it engages and the sound is heard. When the general chief wants to smell an odor then it engages and smells the odor.
Similarly if it wants to taste a flavor it engages into taste flavor and that’s how they accept it is a course bringing the results and it is the one which does the activity. Is entirely separate from the concept of self or is it a self factor? Self from the self. It is very comfortable theory because it says, it implies when one wants to eat cake one would eat it. When one wants to eat the Tibetan delicious dumpling, Momo, then it would eat the Momo.
The implication behind it is according to that theory, whenever a person wishes things would happen. It is explained the general chief. General chief manifests transforming things for the self to be enjoyed and to be used and so forth. And it is through this general chiefs doing that the self wonders in the mundane existence. Later on when a practitioner such as yogi in their usage of the word, when a serious practitioner goes into a profound meditation then one realizes goes into a profound meditation the chief realizes its doings and becomes embarrassed and all the manifestations aspects are withdrawn inward and finally there is only the consciousness left and one becomes liberated and that is our liberation in their interpretation.
It’s not very dissimilar to modern interpretation of the self and archetypal and finally omnipsychic being left. Yeah. I was earlier doing some work with the psychology as part of Buddhists and it’s very similar to those classical non Buddhist description of general chief and the ego. How it is withdrawn that’s all the activity. Oh, yeah.