Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 28-minute session, Kyabje Rinpoche opens the ninth chapter of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra with a four-line verse from Nāgārjuna on ego-grasping. He explains how ego-grasping—mistaking the self as independent of causes and conditions—is fundamentally deceptive and produces the aggregates that perpetuate saṃsāra. The core insight: realizing the aggregates as non-truly-existent directly exhausts ego-grasping, the root cause of suffering, and opens the path to liberation. He announces that subsequent sessions will systematically prove the body and person non-truly-existent using logical reasoning. The teaching closes with Q&A on analytical methods and the continuity of the self through the bardo state. For practitioners already grounded in Buddhist philosophy.
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File metadata (for organising)
File: 1994-10-24 – 13B – 9th Chapter – KR.mp3
UUID: 03a2ece3-e9b6-4e54-9098-7158b2e8fa46
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra
Date: 1994-10-24
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~1,344
So about four hundred and so forth years subsequent to Buddha’s passing away, Nāgārjuna came into being. Yeah. Would you like to would you like to write down the actual lines if you have papers So the first line starts. The aggregates produced by ego grasping. Aggregates produced by ego grasping.
Those ego grasping, the second part. In meaning are deceptive. Those ego grasping in meaning meaning are deceptive. Continuing saṃsāra, whose seed is deceptive.
True birth. Whose seed is deceptive, true birth. Sorry. True birth, how can? So it will be reversed later on.
The aggregates are not true are not true. Having seen that, the ego grasping be forsaken. Ego graspings. Having forsaken. Henceforth, Henceforth, there will be no aggregates.
Also, that’s the lines. And if you think on the meaning and meditate, it will be very good. Yeah. How can it be reversed? So it doesn’t matter.
We can do really that. So the meanings of the lines can be explained where it can start with that out of ego grasping, there comes about the body or the aggregates. And the ego grasping is mistaken, deceptive, and confused. The reason for that is our the the reason for that is the I or the ego or the self comes about with dependence on its cause and conditions and so forth. But the ego grasping views opposite to that, so it is deceptive, mistaken, confused, and so forth.
As ego grasping the ignorance mind which is like the seed, the seed producing our aggregate that the ego grasping is mistaken and deceptive, that very is reasoning enough to confirm that the body or the aggregate, the product cannot be truly existent. It equally is mistaken, deceptive forms. Also, if one has realized the aggregate being not truly existent in that way of thinking, then by that very power of realizing the aggregate or the body as not truly existent is by that very power of such realization one would be able to exhaust the ego grasping. One would be able to terminate the ego grasping, the ignorance mind. One would have terminated the very basic cause of all one’s suffering, that one would have terminated ego grasping, it is quite As obvious that from then onward one would be free of all sufferings and impure thoughts and as consequence it can be said that one has become liberated from saṃsāra, the mundane existence.
We then need to we then need to realize the body or the aggregates as not truly existent. And in trying to realize the body as not true truly existent, need to apply as sharp and various reasoning as one can. Therefore, from next Tuesday evening onward, we shall continue from the ninth chapter where we go through proving the body, the person as not truly existent by way of applying major reasoning, major reasonings to prove that. Therefore, whatever has been gone over this evening, especially the last main points, please keep in your mind and please try your best to meditate on them and think on their meanings. They are extremely beneficial, inspiring, precious, therefore precious.
So we then will stop for tonight. And if you have any questions, we shall have few minutes for that. There would be difference between the entity, analysis of the entity and the analysis of the cause. For example in the case of the flower as an entity when one investigates one is only thinking about it as an entity and one does not bother investigating into at that point about its result. This can be more clearly relatable through another example, mother and a child, where when the investigation looks at the analysis of the, or the investigation of the entity of the mother, then it only thinks and investigates the very being, the mother as an entity.
And whereas when the investigation or analysis investigates into the result of the mother then it would be thinking, the investigation thinks about the child, how it is truly existent or not and by that way related back into the mother as not truly existent or truly existent. And then mother herself would have her own mother of which she was produced. So analysis into the cause relates more specifically looking to the mother’s mother as truly existent or not. So there clearly are those three entity, result and cause and each investigation is a way of redefining clearly into or elaboration further into each of them specifically. Flowers result can be sprout coming out of flower further branching out germination of from flower.
Perhaps you do have flowers which can be saved and let on be used as seed for further flowers. Same. No. So far, the way of looking to the three doors, so liberation is three doors to complete liberation is a general way of looking. One can as well go specifically with same object of reference.
For example, that the three doors to complete liberation can as well be investigated or related upon the same object. Say with the flower that the flower as entity can be investigated being one door of liberation, complete liberation. And then there is a part with flower which is flower as a cause of certain result or effect it produces. So the very flower can be investigated in viewpoint of it as a causal thing or anything. And then there is a part with flower which is a result, meaning a flower as a thing which was produced by its seed therefore it is a result and that can as well be seen as the investigation into the flower as a result thus covering the spectrum of the result investigation.
So Upon the same object of flower all three doors to complete liberation can be related and investigated. And that eye as well is dependent on aggregate or a body. So the self or the eye depends on the body in the sense aggregate, even after death and transfer to the next rebirth through bardo. So your question was put in this way: if the teaching says that there is no I independent from the body or the aggregate then what then goes, that I which goes through the bardo, is it independent of the body or not? So here firstly, yes, there is an I which goes to next rebirth through bardo independent of body but not of aggregates.
For example there are five aggregates both form, feeling, recognition, karmic formations and consciousness. At the time of death the I is independent of the body amongst the five aggregates but it does depend on the four aggregates on way towards our next rebirth. So there cannot be any I or ego which does not depend at all on any of the five aggregates. Even with bardo being, it does depend on a body, a subtle body. So there is a dependence on the body.
Of course at the time of death it forsakes the gross body of the lifetime. But the very moment the bardo state is assumed, one acquires subtle bardo body. So it would be said it still depends on that form. So that’s more of, yeah, language difference. When one attains liberation, one gets rid of the ordinary contaminated body and the aggregates.
So in that term it can be said that that bardo body has been freed and nothing of that is there. This is still being in accord to your way of relating. But at that point there is a new body of uncontaminated state assumed which is blissful, peaceful and so forth. So there is still a physical state. So there is no contaminated body which is full of misery and suffering.
Instead, there is an uncontaminated body with bliss and it is newly acquired at that state. But anyway your question would perhaps need a bit of discussion with other students later on. That’s a different context. And it’s sometimes impolite not to relate it to the teacher.. Normally, it’s just a matter of language.