Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Kyabje Rinpoche’s 45-minute discourse tackles the refutation of production from other, a cornerstone of Madhyamaka philosophy. After grounding the teaching in the foundational attitudes of love and compassion, he systematically walks through how different Buddhist schools understand causation. The central reasoning is striking: if a result were truly existent and independent of its cause, what would follow logically? Using parallel examples of seed and sprout, fire and darkness, he shows that asserting natural existence leads to the absurd conclusion that any object could produce any result. He clarifies why the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school uniquely rejects natural existence entirely. Suited for practitioners familiar with Buddhist philosophical debate.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1991-07-04 – 16A – KR.mp3
UUID: 9173399c-5106-46d6-a5ef-8d086435867a
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Entering the Middle Way
Date: 1991-07-04
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,579
Begin by cultivating the two attitudes of love and compassion. Compassion being expressed in the thought, may sentient beings may all sentient beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. And love in the thought, may sentient may all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. The reason that it’s necessary to initially cultivate love and compassion is that the foundation of the great vehicle is the awakening heart, and as preliminary to the development of the awakening heart, it’s necessary to cultivate love and compassion. Additional to the development of loving compassion, go on to develop exceptional resolve.
Resolve. That we determine that I myself will free sentient beings from their suffering and the cause of their suffering. That I myself will bring all sentient beings happiness and the causes of happiness. In order to in order that I might free all sentient beings and place them in happiness, then if I myself do not eliminate all my suffering and place myself in happiness, then I will never be able to do the same for others. In order to achieve that, myself must first be able to identify all my various faults in there and abandon them, and I must be able to recognize all the excellent qualities thereby set about to achieve them.
Having abandoned all of these various faults and developed all the excellent qualities, I will have brought about my own welfare. In the course of recognizing my various faults and then thereby abandoning them, beginning to recognize what are the excellent qualities, and thereby practicing to achieve them. It’s necessary that I understand well what are the various faults, and what are the various excellent qualities as set forth in the great vehicle. In order to come to such a clear understanding, necessary that I engage in the activities of listening, reflecting, and meditating. And so we’re going to cultivate it for the next three minutes, the awakening heart, developing motivation that I am going to engage in the process of listening, reflecting, and meditating as a means to be a vast benefit to all sentient beings.
So we’re discussing the refutation of production by way of the four extremes, and we have previously finished our discussion of the refutation of production from self, and now we’re proceeding with the refutation of production from other. So if we were to question who is it that asserts production from self, that would be the Samkhyas, or the Enumerators. It’s a non-Buddhist school. And the prior question, well, who asserts production from other? And this would include both Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools.
Amongst the Buddhist schools, it is only the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school which does not accept production from others. The other schools, such as the Autonomy Middle Way School, the Mind Only School, the Sūtra School, and the Great Exposition School all accept production from others. What do we mean by production from other? First, what don’t we mean by production from others? We don’t merely mean that a result is produced from something other than itself.
Merely that is not what we mean by production from others. We do accept that a seed sprout is other than a seed which produces it. So when we talk about the production from other, we don’t merely mean something other than oneself, a result which is other than itself. We merely mean that. For example, a child is produced from a mother other than itself.
A child relies on the mother which is other than itself for its production. Is not what we merely this is not what we mean by production from other. Even the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school asserts this. So what is it that the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school is not accepting when they refute production from other? What they are saying does not exist is the production of production of a naturally existent result, which is other from a naturally existent cause.
There is no production of a naturally existent result which is other from a naturally existent cause. This is what is being refuted. Why does the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school not assert such a mode of production? Because they do not assert at all natural existence. If they were they hold that natural existence.
If they were to accept natural existence, then this would depreciate emptiness, that emptiness would not exist. Therefore, not only do they not they, in general, they do not accept natural existence, but in reference to production, they do not accept the naturally existent result as being produced from a naturally existent cause. What is it that the lower tenet schools, that is to say those beneath the consequence of middle way school, are accepting? Their assertion is that whatever is an established base, that is to say, all phenomena whatsoever are naturally existent. Another synonym of naturally existent is self defining.
And therefore, for them, a naturally existent sprout is produced by a naturally existent seed, and therefore they accept that a naturally existent result is produced by a naturally existent cause. Both Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti are seeking to establish an emptiness, is the emptiness of natural existence. And therefore for them to establish their assertion of emptiness as being the absence of natural existence, they must go on to refute the production of a naturally existent result from a naturally existent cause. Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti are seeking a means to establish the emptiness of natural existence, and therefore they are seeking a means to overcome the assertions of the lower tenet systems who are holding production from others, and this meaning a production of a naturally existent result from a naturally existent cause. And as a means to achieve, as a means, they go about the refutation in a manner of presenting two consequences, as we discussed previously.
The first consequence was that if a naturally existent result is produced from a naturally existent cause, then thick darkness arises from a blazing fire. And what they are doing is they are, if they are to, as a consequence of their premise, they necessarily have to accept an unwanted consequence, and this serves as a means of refuting their misconception. So, what it is there is a parallel which is being presented in the sense that if given the premise that from a naturally existent from a naturally existent cause, naturally existent result is produced by a naturally existent cause. As a consequence of holding that premise, then you must accept that from a blazing fire thick darkness arises. Why?
Because you do accept that from a naturally existent seed, a naturally existent sprout arises. And these are parallel, these are parallel, these are symmetrical. These are parallel. If one exists, if they either both exist, or neither exist. Either blazing either In general, we say that thick darkness does not arise from a blazing fire.
In general, we say that. But it does exist if you assert that from naturally existent causes, naturally existent sprouts arise. They either both have to exist or neither has to exist because they’re parallel. So there is a reasoning working here which has great meaning. We’re using this example of a blazing fire and thick darkness.
In general, there is no relationship between fire that from a fire any type of darkness would arise, or a darkness arises as a result of fire. These are mutually unrelated phenomena. What Candrakīrti is trying to get at here is that the production of a naturally existent sprout from a natural existent seed is a parallel case as thick darkness arising from a blazing fire. Why?
In what way are they parallel? Because a naturally existent sprout and a naturally existent seed are mutually unrelated to one another. There is no relation existing between them just as the blazing fire and the thick darkness are mutually unrelated. In the same way that they are both mutually unrelated, if one exists, then it’s necessary that the other exists also. In what way are we to look at this unrelated quality between the naturally existent sprout and the naturally existent seed?
If the sprout and the seed were naturally existent, then they would be truly existent. And by truly existent, we mean that they rely nothing other than themselves, that they are established independent of causes and conditions. Therefore, a truly existent sprout would arise independent of the seed. It would not rely upon the seed. If the sprout were truly existent, then it would be established without relying upon any other factor outside of itself.
If, in fact, it it did rely upon something other than itself for its coming into existence, then it would be a dependent arising. It could not be truly existent. Dependent arising and truly existent are mutually exclusive. If the seed and the sprout sprout were naturally existent then there would exist no relationship between them, that the sprout would not rely upon the seed, and it would be the same as a darkness arising not relying upon fire. But the lower tenet system is saying these are not similar.
That is to say, your parallel example of darkness arising from fire is not parallel. That, in fact, the seed does, is produce in dependence upon the sprout, though it is naturally existent. And, therefore, in reply, it’s necessary to make use of a second reasoning. So if you say that the sprout and the seed are naturally production of the sprout does depend upon the production of the seed. If you say that though they are naturally existent, still the seed is the cause of the sprout, then that sprout is a result of the seed, is produced from the seed, then the sprout would be caused not only by the seed but is produced from those things which are not causes of sprouts.
For example, stones, water, fire, every functional object would be a cause of a sprout. All products, both causes of sprouts and non causes of sprouts, would become the causes of sprouts because you are saying that the result, that even those things which do not bring about the result are causes of sprouts. That is to say, all things would be causes of sprouts. Even those things which do not bring about the result would be causes of sprouts. Why is that?
Because what you are asserting is that even those things which do not bring about the result are causes, and therefore all things would be causes of the result because everything either brings about or does not bring about the result. You are saying that everything, the cause, that which is the cause does not necessarily have to bring about the result. So, this is the second consequence which is established. What is being said is that that which is a cause of the result does not necessarily have to bring about the result, that the result does not have to rely upon that cause. Therefore, we can say for example that our mother, you know for example we have a relationship with our mother of this life.
Our mother brought us about. We have a relationship with our mother. If you say that the cause, that is the mother of ourselves, of this life, not necessarily, we don’t necessarily have to have a relationship or that the mother doesn’t necessarily have to bring about us, then we can say that all sentient beings are the mothers of this life because with respect to all sentient beings of this life we have no relationship and not all sentient beings have brought us about.. Therefore, they would all be our cause. So, these are the two main consequences used to refute this assertion.
So we should try to understand the meaning which is being presented, try to gain a sense of what is being said because if we can understand one example then we can apply this to others in terms of this consequence. We can use other parallel examples. What is being said is that if the seed and the sprout are naturally existent then there is no relationship between the two. The two, they exist independently independently of other. They do not rely upon one another.
If they did rely upon one another, then they would be a dependent arising. If they are dependent arising, then they are not truly existent. To be naturally existent is to be truly existent. To be truly existent means there is no relationship between the two factors. Just as in, if the seed and the sprout were truly existent, they would be mutually unrelated, other.
There would be no relationship, there would be no reliance upon one another. Therefore, a sprout, the seed is the cause of the sprout. Anything could become the cause of the sprout. But the adversary answers that the seed is the cause of the sprout, but that doesn’t mean that everything arises from everything, because the sprout does not arise from a non seed. For example, we say a wheat sprout arises from a wheat seed.
A wheat seed produces a wheat sprout. Pea seed, corn seed, barley seed do not produce a wheat sprout. Therefore, not everything arises from everything. A wheat seed has a potency whereby to create a wheat sprout. It is because it possesses a specific potency, in this case a wheat, the potency, the potential or the ability to produce a wheat sprout that we say it is the cause of the wheat sprout.
And the wheat sprout is the result of that potency. Such types of seeds as peas, corn, barley, rice do not have such a potency. Therefore, wheat, pea, corn, barley seeds are not the causes of wheat sprouts and wheat sprouts are not the results of these particular seeds. Why do we say that a wheat sprout is a result of a wheat seed? Because they have a relationship of cause and effect and are in the same continuum, that they are not other continuums.
For example, in general the cause and effect are of the same continuum. For example, if the father is Chinese, the son which is born by that father is Chinese. If the father is Australian, the child is Australian. If the father is Tibetan, the child is Tibetan. The continuum of the lineage is through the father.
They are the same continuum. And likewise, the wheat sprout does not arise from a barley seed or a pea seed because they are of different continuums. A wheat sprout and a wheat seed are of a single continuum, but you could, but in talking with the opponent, but you cannot accept this because you hold that these would be truly existent. If a subsequent result arises in reliance upon a previous cause, but if these are truly existent causes and results then there is no reliance and therefore there is no single continuity or continuum between the cause and the result. If you assert true existence then you cannot say that this is in the same continuum, that this cause is in the same continuum of this particular result because this result does not rely upon the cause, then how can they be the same continuum in not having a relationship between them?
Or therefore there is nothing with either there is nothing which is of a single continuum or