Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 49-minute session, Kyabje Rinpoche offers a rigorous philosophical analysis of karma and consciousness, drawing on the Compendium of Valid Cognition. After establishing the practice framework—developing the awakening heart, refuge, mandala offerings—he addresses the three causes of rebirth: misconceiving suffering as happiness, karma, and afflictive emotions. He explains how mental intention is the root of all action, then distinguishes between afflictive emotions negative by nature (jealousy, attachment, hatred) and neutral mental factors that become positive or negative through association—illustrated by garlic contaminating other foods through proximity. The session concludes with how consciousness engages objects through the mental factor of contact. For students with prior Buddhist philosophical training.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1993-08-27 – 14A – KR.mp3
UUID: be5f3ce4-a537-4d4d-920f-22c3ea738433
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Compendium of Valid Cognition
Date: 1993-08-27
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,310
Heart for ten minutes. Meditation in terms of developing the awakening heart what is the necessity. Because, because we are involved in the the practice of the universal vehicle, it’s necessary to initially develop a kind hearted attitude, and the greatest of the kind hearted attitudes is that of the awakening heart. And then this is this generation of the of the motivation is followed by going for refuge. And the mind generation where we where we I go for refuge to the Buddha, etcetera.
And this is to to to specifically orientate the practice of Buddhist practice. And we then go on to develop mind generation which is specifically that of the universal vehicle Buddhist practice. Then we recite the seven-limb prayer, where this is done as a means collection of greater potential that purify negativities that our practice may go well. And then this is followed by a offering of the mandala. And this is done as a gesture of offering in asking that the, to please teach the Dharma.
In requesting we give a gift in return. And then having developed a proper attitude through these various methods of preparation, then begins the actual teaching itself. And then once the teaching is completed, having listened to it with of the awakening heart, we have accumulated a vast number of skillful actions and these are then dedicated. So it is in this way that we can engage in a really an authentic activity in terms of first we begin with the adjustment of our motivation, developing as a motivation the awakening heart. Then we go on to listen to the actual teaching with the motivation of the awakening heart.
And then the skillful actions developed out of that practice are then dedicated. I must attain for myself and all living beings the state where I have purified all of my negativities. I have brought the consummation of all my positive qualities. In order to achieve that end, I am going to listen to, reflect upon, to meditate well, the essence of the universal vehicle, this commentary. According to a verse by Dharmakīrti where he is beginning to discuss the cause for taking rebirth within cyclic existence or condition being.
The Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas take rebirth due to the force of their great compassion. The foe destroyers for example, the foe destroyer of the individual vehicle or the lesser vehicle takes a mental abiding in a pure land under the force of uncontaminated karma. And those beings who have not realized directly emptiness, those who are not foe destroyers nor bodhisattvas take rebirth within cyclic existence due to their force of karma and afflictive emotions. On the other hand, ordinary individuals do not take rebirth under the force of on the orders of some otherworldly beings such as Īśvara, that is to say, someone who is ordering them to take but they take rebirth uncontrollably due to a seeking of pleasure as a means of avoiding suffering. That is to say, they take rebirth in craving a body out of attachment.
So it can be argued that there are those who argue that taking rebirth in order to avoid suffering and to attain happiness, take an unfortunate rebirth. So there are those who argue in taking a rebirth as a means to avoid suffering and to attain happiness, one will not take an unfortunate rebirth. But there is no contradiction in this assertion. That is to say that in seeking to avoid suffering and to attain happiness, then no one would take re birth in an unfortunate rebirth with that as a motivation. But in fact they do, because they, out of a distorted awareness as to what in fact is happiness, they label what is in fact suffering as happiness.
And in combination with this distorted conception, with craving, they take unfortunate rebirths. If one did not have a distorted awareness as to a distorted conception as to what is happiness, that is to say, rather than the distorted conception which conceives of that which is not happiness, which is in fact happiness, which is in fact suffering, conceiving it in distorted mode as being happiness along with craving. If one did not have these two factors in one’s mind, one would not take rebirth within cyclic existence. That is to say, for example, a foe destroyer. A foe destroyer or an arhat does not have this misconception as to what is happiness and nor does nor do they have craving.
Therefore, they do not have the causes for taking rebirths within cyclic existence. So these are the three causes for taking rebirth within cyclic existence. The first being a distorted conception, misconceiving suffering as happiness. The second, karma. The third being craving.
So of these three causes, let us just say the first being the distorted conception, conceiving suffering as happiness, the second being karma, and the third being of afflictive emotions. The main cause for taking rebirth with cyclic existence is karma. But the root of karma are the afflictive emotions. It necessarily must be accompanied with the afflictive emotions. The root, the foundation of process is afflictive emotions.
So in understanding how we’re going to take rebirth in a future life, it’s necessary that we be able to understand these two main causes of karma and afflictive emotions. We need to recognize what is karma and afflictive emotions. So previously we’ve discussed Karma in a very rough manner. We talked about the three doors doorways in which actions take place body, speech and mind. And we said that those actions those physical and verbal actions are actions of intention intentional actions, intentional actions, but they have their root in the mind, which is actions of intention.
So there is the intentional actions, actions of physical and verbal actions, and actions of intention with the mind itself. So the actions of verbal and physical actions depend upon the motivation. If motivation is positive, then the verbal and physical actions which proceed from such a type of motivation will be skillful. On the other hand, if the mind or let us say that the motivation for these actions is negative, then the action will be unskillful. And then thirdly, the motivation is unspecified, the verbal and physical actions arising from such a motivation will be unspecified.
Those are dependent upon the So it is so the motivation is the action of intention. It is mental action. So it all meets back down to the intention. If the intention is positive, then the verbal and physical actions arising from such intention will be positive. If negative, then likewise verbal and physical actions will be negative.
If the intention is haphazard, then the physical and mental actions arising from such a type of motivation will be unspecified. Actions of intention, which are either positive or negative, bring about a powerful result. On the other hand, actions of intention which are unspecified, not, are not powerful enough to bring about either a result which is happiness or suffering. So what we mean by way of illustration, of what we mean by unspecified action and intention would be to think to simply draw a letter, draw an A or B, or to draw a picture, to draw a picture maybe on the wall or whatever. This is not a neither positive nor negative, intention.
And the actions which, the activity which flows forth from this, the the physical action of actually drawing the letter would be unspecified. It would not it would bring neither suffering or happiness. So with actions of intention, either skillful or unskillful, we can differentiate two types. There are those which are those in terms of their very entity or nature very entity or nature one and in terms of accompanying, accompaniment, accompaniment. For example, in terms of an action, a skillful action of intention, would be when we initially generate a state of mind which is not dependent upon as when we initially generate a skillful state of mind which is not dependent upon any other factors in the mind.
That it by its own entity, it of itself, is skillful. What do we mean by the second type, we termed accompaniment, is that a particular factor of mine which is in itself neither skillful nor skillful unskillful. But it accompanies a skillful factor of mind. By the power of being associated with the skillful factor of mind, it itself becomes skillful. That is to say, its accompaniment, its accompanying a skillful factor of mind, though it in itself neither by way of its own entity is neither skillful or unskillful.
It becomes skillful due to the accompaniment of a skillful state, a factor of mind. And this also applies to negative states. There is negative factors by way of their very nature and negative factors by way of accompaniment. So if we give an illustration, we can take garlic. And that garlic usually has a very bad smell.
And its bad smell doesn’t depend upon else other than itself. It’s the very nature of the garlic from all its causes and conditions coming together that the very entity of the garlic itself, its very nature, is of this strong bad smell. And when garlic is mixed with other food, though these other foods do not have this bad smell themselves by associating or accompanying having been mixed with this garlic. Just through their accompanying the garlic, they too take on this bad smell. So if we give examples of unskillful factors which are unskillful by their very nature, there is a very afflictive emotion such as jealousy, attachment, hatred, non-shame, non-embarrassment.
These all are of their own very nature negative. They don’t need to be accompanied by any other factor to be that way, to have that entity or nature But there are other factors of the mind which do not have a particular negative or positive nature. Factors such as feeling, discrimination, intention, contact. These factors of the mind in themselves do not have a nature of positivity or negativity. But if they were to accompany a negative factor, as in this case a non shame or attachment, then through their association with this negative factor, they themselves through their accompaniment become negative.
On the other hand, such mental factors as compassion, shame, embarrassment, non hatred, non attachment, non jealousy are of their very entity or their nature positive factors. And then likewise, as previously listed neutral factors of mind such as feeling discrimination, mental application, contact, etc. Through their accompanying these positive factors under their influence, they too become positive. So first let’s understand these various types of karma that we’ve been discussing. There is the actions of intention which can be of skillful, unskillful or unspecified.
And this acts as a motivation. And due to this motivation, motivation is expressed either verbally or physically, bringing about either skillful, unskillful, unspecified types of verbal and physical actions. And then we went on to say that of these actions of intention, these mental actions, there were the two types, those which were either negative or positive by way of their very entity or negative or due to accompaniment? Those karmas, those actions which are skillful bring about a rebirth within a fortunate realm. Those which are unskillful, an unfortunate rebirth.
So the quality of the action being it whether it be negative or positive, bringing about a negative or positive result meets back to the root of afflictive emotions. So in discussing the afflictive emotions, we must differentiate between the mind and mental factors. Mind being, as it were, the king. But the mind is accompanied with mental factors, secondary mental factors, like as if they were servants of the mind? So there are six primary eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mental consciousnesses or minds.
Primary consciousnesses and minds are synonyms. So each of those consciousness has five servants. So the the eye consciousness sees the flower? Mainly the flower is seen by the eye consciousness in a a in a coarse manner. So this main mind, this eye consciousness is associated with five mental factors.
Feeling, discrimination, intention or attention. That’s three so far. Mental application. And fifth, contact.
So each of them performs a particular function or work. The fact that we’re able to, that the eye consciousness is able to see the flower is a function of contact. And then when like if we say, you know, like we touch something, we have contact with something, have contact with our clothes. We come it it bridges bridges the gap. That which is able to bring about contact between eye consciousness and the and in this case the flower, which enables us to see the flower, is that factor of mind which is contact.
It performs the function of bringing into contact the consciousness and the object. Another example to illustrate if, you know, if we, when we place our hand on the cloth, there is a physical bodily consciousness which, by coming in contact with the cloth, is able to understand it as to whether it’s smooth or rough. If the hand did not come in contact, then there would be no understanding as to whether the cloth was smooth or rough. And it is that which brings about the physical consciousness and the object, which bridges that gap, brings them together, that which is the factor of contact. It must be present.
When we see the flower, we begin to understand what is it about in terms of what colors it is. Is it white or yellow or red? What’s its shape? And that which is able to discern these qualities about the object is the factor of discrimination or recognition or perception.