Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute talk, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen guides newcomers through the foundational Four Noble Truths, then focuses on the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination—the causal chain explaining how ignorance and karma propel beings through saṃsāra, the cycle of rebirth and suffering. He traces the sequence step-by-step: from ignorance and karmic action, through consciousness entering the womb, development of senses, contact with objects, feeling, craving, rebirth, and aging and death. Rather than presenting this as a prison, he frames it as empowering—understanding this system shows each person is “the helper of oneself” and can interrupt the cycle through ethical conduct, concentration, and wisdom. He concludes by introducing these three main trainings as antidotes to ignorance. For those new to Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 IBP no date.mp3
UUID: f4aa596e-2ced-45fc-8733-08deae324494
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1983 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.6 minutes
Words: ~4,538
Oh, see, when you do something, you know, nice for other people, when you help other people, they will obviously like you. You see? Not only people. If you are so nice and you give the foods to dogs and animals, even they can respond, you know, how to say it, in a similar way. They also, you know, try to gesture that they like you, you see.
Why? Why they do? Why they are doing such thing? It’s because they want happiness, you see. They want the good things.
They want happiness, you see. They want peace. They don’t want to be, you know, messed up or or they don’t want to be sort of beaten up. You see? So, I mean, how to say?
Yeah. And that is the reason that, you know, everybody wants happiness. You see? So if you cannot completely look after other people, cannot, you know, always, you know, ignore by ignoring yourself and the look of other people, at least one can be be be be fair, you know, sort of be fair, think that everybody also wants the happiness that and everybody does not want the so unhappiness. So how do you say?
Yeah. That’s why. So, I mean, this is the how, you know, actually, the benefit of, you know, being more or or or practicing on the sense of compassion. So so now in in terms of actual techniques of developing, so they are, you know, two ways, such as, you know, exchanging of this self-cherishing to cherishing other peoples or cherishing others, things like that according to according to Buddhist scripture or according to Buddhist, you know, lineage of doing such a practice, which may take a long time. So so what I was trying to say is, you know, as we said, the method, you see, the the the method side of the Buddha’s teaching is somehow, you know, sort of stems from that sort of philosophy or that sort of, you know, idea which we have been talking.
You see, on the basis of that sort of on the basis of that thing or what we talk, you see, the the method side of the Buddha’s teaching is comes how does comes forth or sets forth. That’s how, you know, from the side of the method, a method method side of Buddhist teachings, you know, based upon that sort of exercising exercising the mind, you know, through developing or cultivating the sense of compassion, you see. Now from the side of the wisdom’s teachings, now we come on to deal with the basic reality, you know, the basic reality, such as four noble truths, dependent arising, things like that, we talk from the wisdom side. And what we did was very sort of, you know, very short and, in actual fact, was trying to get you some kind of incentives to go forward. Yeah.
Finish. That this is all good right now. So now the time is finished. And then the end of We have been discussing about about the goal of spirituality in terms of practicing Buddhisms and and the the means or the method. You see, the method to achieve that goal in terms of practicing Buddhism.
And and also what is the basis of those those these two thing in terms of practicing. These are the sort of main topic within sort of, you know, these cat categories, you know, we sort of we try to cover the general introductions of Buddhism, and we will try. So practicing Buddhism is we have to find out, you see, in what in in what sort of conditions that we are trying to work in terms of practicing. So as the conditions or as the basis for that study is in terms or according to or in accordance with the Buddhist philosophy is the four noble truths. Technically, four noble truths.
Noble truth is the true suffering. The second is the cause of suffering. Mhmm. Third is the true path. Mhmm.
Then fourth is the true cessation or maybe freedom. First two categories are the divisions of the truth, the true suffering, and to cause of suffering. We basically, you know, try to find out how how the entire sentient being come into the experience of suffering, which in terms of Buddhist techno how to say in terms of Buddhist terminology, it is the cyclic existence or going in around. These two are the reality or these two are the things that we are, oh, sort of we are bound in. And as a method or as a means or as a techniques to get out of, from these two is or as the the power to counteract the these two or counteract the force of these two truths is the path the true path and the true cessation or somewhat which you can say freedom.
So how do say? Within the two two division of the truths, the true core true suffering and the true cause of suffering, you see, suffering, We will, you know, talk or we will discuss that how that we come into the existence of this experience of, you know, the suffering and the problems through through through the twelve links of interdependent or dependent arising or dependent originations. According to Buddhisms, the four noble truths are dealing with the general fact and the genuine way of getting out of the suffering. You see? So in the first two truths, first of all, we try to, I mean, try to recognize what is this suffering.
What does suffering mean? So and it is so obvious. Understandably, nobody wants suffering to come about. So so everybody wants to get rid of suffering. So this is the word general wish of everyone.
So with regards to attempt to to make this suffering cease, we have to find out what the what does suffering means. You see, what does suffering mean? What kind of thing do we call suffering? So as we as we said that as to, you know, as to cure the cure or heal the disease, one has to, you know, or the sentient beings has to be diagnosed first. Then one can, you know, apply the proper meditations as to get rid of that disease or sickness or pain whatever.
So similar to that patience, first of all, the things suffering that we don’t want to get rid of is very important to understand or recognize what the suffering is. Then what is the origin of that suffering? How does that suffering come into existence? And where does that suffering come from? These are the facts.
So these are the, how to say, exploring tool of or tool to explore the fact. So and whatever we said, functions function through the twelve links of dependent origination dependent originations or dependent arising. So the first link is ignorance. If somebody is sort of making note, first is ignorance. So the second is karmic.
I mean, the karma, perhaps you know the karma. Karmic formations are action formations or formation of actions. So third is the consciousness. Depending upon the topic of subject, the the order of the twelve links somewhat, differs or somewhat, you know, become slightly different. However, talking from the point of view of the how we come into the existence or how we come into the experience of the cyclic existence or the basic, you know, the the the life after life.
Yeah. The life after life. So in that respect, the fruit would be craving. Second is take sorry. Should be contact.
Yeah. Contact. Then should be the existence. Mhmm. Then it’s the birth.
Then name and form. So the then is the six how do you say? Sixth sphere of consciousness. Then is the becoming. Then the feeling.
Then death or how do you say? Aging. They’re becoming old and aging and death. Mhmm. Conditions, the ignorance, karmic formations or the formation the formation of actions and the consciousness.
The consciousness. So these three factors are are technically in terms of in terms of Buddhist terminology called as the propelling force. No. So after this after that, the three divisions are, as we said already, how to say, the the the force or the cause of causing the act actuality or actual things. Six called as the six results.
So now the first link or the first, ignorance. You see, ignorance is, in terms of or in reference to the Buddhist psychology, the meaning of this ignorance usually consists of two. The first is the ignorance regarding regarding the understanding of of, the of the cause and effect relationship. And the second ignorance, the meaning of the second ignorance is, is the ignorance, the an ignorance regarding, the understanding or the realization of the true, true nature of the entire phenomena or or the actuals, how to say it. No?
Actuality of entire phenomena. See? So the ignorance which we are referring in terms of this twelve link of dependent arising is the second actual second ignorance. Yeah. Yeah.
So the second the second ignorance yeah. The second ignorance, which we said, the ignorance regarding ignorance regarding the understanding of the actuality or the reality of entire phenomena’s existence. So this ignorance so this means basically the inborn sense of grasping, you know, grasping of personality or grasping of oneself or grasping of persons. You see, so that misunderstanding or that, how to say, that ignorance usually causes to causes the people or oneself to create different actions such as the worthwhile action or such as the right actions or wrong actions or positive action or negative actions. So the very the very doing of on these two actions, you see, the positive and negative actions is is called the formation of action or the karmic formations in terms of in terms of the second link of dependent twelve dependent arising, the karmic formation or the formations of actions.
I’d say having activated having activated by the the ignorance, one does or one performs the actions either positive or negative. See, and the very impressions of the very impression of that actions now comes onto the the mental consciousness, consciousness or impressions or imprint of those actions, positive and negative, is being implanted onto the mental consciousness, which is the third link of twelve dependent arisings, the consciousness. Apart from that, the craving, you see craving. Mhmm. So as as dominated by the the ignorance ignorance, which is the scent the inborn sense of grasping at the personality or oneself.
One one does or one creates a different actions, a positive and negative negative. So and impressions of those actions are not are imprint impressions of those actions got imp implanted onto the mental consciousness. Mhmm. So and very obviously, we do different actions, different types of actions, negative, positive. So So when this life, when the round of this life is being run out and one is the person whoever is about to die, about to die, and that time if the person is or if the person did a lot of positive action or a lot of any actions, which could be the cause of taking or which could be the cause of getting reborn animal or people or human or whatever.
You see? And how to say it? So that that how to say? That actions or that impressions becomes more sort of aware, you know, when the person is about to die. So when that actions or when that imprint of that actions becomes more how does it apparent, then that one craves, you know, for that.
You see? One craves the eventuality of that imprints, that is called cravings. You see? One craves. That thing that is called cravings.
So whatever the action one did and, you know, the time of dying or the time of death, whatever, you know, circumstances one is very familiar with, you know, becomes more apparent and becomes more feeling. So that time, you know, one craves for that sort of possibility. You see? So then as the sense faculties of the dying persons become ceased, you see, ceased, then so once the intensity of their cravings is being increased, you see, increased, So the very moment of, you know, the increased intensity of that craving is now called as taking or contact. I should say taking is better.
Yeah. That yeah. That is yeah. Mhmm. So after having, you know, after having gone through the whole process of death, so then, you know, the mental consciousness that we have now, you know, passes or left the dying person.
You see, dying person. So now this, you know, the consciousness or the mental consciousness is looking for another existence to, you know, to join and from there on, you know, you know, carry on another sort of thing. So so when the when the consciousness left the body finally and there is intermediate, how to say, intermediate living intermediate existence of the life before one you know get reborn into another realm or another places or whatever So that is called intermediate state. So you see? So when that consciousness after leaving the body joins into the intermediate state, the very first moment, first moment of joining this consciousness into the intermediate state, that time, that moment is called the dependent arising or dependent arising of existence.
So depending upon what sort of, you know, the action that one has done, you see, if one has done the actions which could be the cause of, you know, getting reborn as a human beings you see then how to say after passing passing through the intermediate existence then that very consciousness if he is or if she or he is whoever how to say it, is, you know, how does is going to be reborn as a human being, then after living that, it enters into the, you know, into the wombs, you see, or into the wombs. Okay? So that time, consciousness and the objects the how do say in which in which that consciousness enters maybe the parents you know parents sort of parents how should say now the parents sperm and eggs, I suppose. Yeah. So that that very moment is called as the the dependent arising of the names and forms.
And and that also that very moment is also the dependent arising of birth. When the feet when the fetus, you know, change into the, you know, some kind of better shape, where, you know, when when it’s a it’s a it’s a hard to say, when the openings of the sense faculties such as eye and so forth, you know, formed. So this term is called the dependent arising of the six sense six sphere of sense consciousness. Yeah. So after that, I think becoming I’m not sure that you shouldn’t say the word.
Contact. Yeah. Contact. So it means that yeah. So when the when the child yeah.
When that consciousness or when the fetus whenever it’s ready, that once it’s consciousness when how does she say now? When the meeting of the objects when the meeting of the objects or through the meeting of the object or through the seeing seeing the objects, you see, objects one, have the sense of seeing the or or seeing the objects or one has the sense of the comprehension of the objects. So when these three happens together, that’s that is called the contact because that time, the the person actually makes the contact with the objects, maybe sound and everything. Yeah. When when the actuals when the actual meeting of the objects with this with the mental consciousness through the sense faculties takes place, so that period is called that period is the contact because that time person is making actual contact.
Mhmm. So after having made the contact, then one begins to have feelings. Of course, when one sees the pleasant things, one have the pleasant feeling. And one when one sort of sees the unpleasant objects, one have one experiences the un how to say unpleasant feeling feelings. You see?
That’s how the feeling, you know, comes forth. Yeah. The feelings, then we have all the, you sufferings. We we when when due to, you know, things which we don’t want because of that, we have the, you know, feeling of the suffering. And when we have the things which we like, that causes the feeling of happiness.
So that’s how how does the whole process of whole in existence, you know, you know, moves, you know, goes into, how to say, around. So then, of course, then one, you know, begin to age or begin begin to, you know, grow older and becoming older and older. And then, yeah, then dies. Afterward, then, you know, then dies. That’s how according to Buddhism, the entire process of, you know, life after life Yeah.
Is sort of, you know, come through the twelve links of dependent origination or dependent arisings. As we as we said or as we discussed already, the philosophy of the twelve links of the dependent arisings, first, due to the ignorance, creates the actions, and due to the different types of actions, one, one imprints the different impressions. And due to the different familiarity with, the actions, you know, one creates the, you know, cravings for the different future births. And as the intensity of that, how to say, cravings, you know, grows, then, of course, then as we said in the begin as we said, whole process happen. You see?
Which leads one leads to another, and and that leads to other. So then we sort of, you know, eventually end up dying. You see? So meanwhile, after, you know, sort of after the contact, we begin to feel different things and things, you know, blah blah blah. So meanwhile that, you see, we also again, you know, we keep creating that actions, you know, through ignorance.
We keep, keep creating the actions. And as a result of that, we, you know, sort of how to say makes a different impressions thus, you know, thus there is no end and there’s no end of the the life after life. You see? And due to the different actions, sometimes, people or the person or the human beings or the sentient being get reborn into the better position on the better realm or the better places. And this or or sometimes due to the wrong actions or not proper actions, one get reborn into the some unpleasant places unpleasant places.
So the whole process of going around and around is somewhere else, the roundabout. You see, when the the wheel of the roundabout moves, sometimes, you know, we get on the top so we can see entire these nice things and and afterward, you know, we come down to the bottoms. We cannot see. And that’s how according to the Buddhism Buddhist system, you know, the how to say it? Cyclical existence or the saṃsāra to keep going, you know, in and in.
Yeah. So, however, the philosophy of the twelve dependent arising is not is not the ultimate possessor or the boss of the living beings or the sentient beings or oneself. So mhmm. So due to the different actions or if one tries, one can get you know, one can reverse whole systems or one can get out of that system which are the bound bounded with the ignorance. And the reason why we study or we acquire the knowledge of the philosophy of the twelve dependent arisings in terms of the secular existence is because this makes us aware that one is the helper of oneself because it makes us understand that due to the different actions of oneself it sort of determines the goodness or the badness of the birth or the positions.
In that respect, maybe by we try to, you know, try to improve the quality of the actions of in our mind, body, and speech through improving the quality of the mind, body, speech, we can definitely, you know, how to say, definitely get out of that, how to say, systematic systems of, you know, taking rebirths or life after life. Mhmm. Yeah. That’s an energy from teaching. The way of, you know, the way of reversing the systematic system of the link twelve links of dependent arising, which, you know, which leads us into the experience of the suffering or the problems.
Instead, you see, instead that that instead, if we do the right course or if you create the right course we will achieve the right result and that is basic fact. That is the basic logic you see of the cause and effect relationship. So the way of doing it is in case we did something wrong or in case we did the wrong actions in the past, we can reverse or we can change the consequences of that actions into a better sort of consequences by, you know, applying the proper antidotes or the proper powers or proper, how to say, opponents, you see, opponent that so maybe if we’d some if someone of us had did something like that, we can sort of at least have some kind of regret that whatever I did was not good. When you have that sort of strong frame of mind that actually helps to reverse, you know, that wrong actions. So result or the consequence of the wrong actions.
So and in the future, on the present, you know, that we might try to, you know, not fall into the create category of, you know, creating the wrong actions so we can avoid doing that sort of thing. And the very in doing like this is the only way to, you know, to free oneself from the chain of the twelve link of dependent arising. The first two, the true suffering. And everybody knows, you know, what does suffering mean. Of course, suffering of sickness, suffering of everything, you know, problems and difficulties and so forth.
A lot of problems, suffering that we don’t need to talk. So the main suffering according to the Buddhisms, the main suffering according to the Buddhisms is the suffering of the pervasiveness or the suffering of the extensiveness. So here, it means that the the very nature of taking this taking this body, you see, because this body is the the outcome or the result of having that sort of ignorance, you see, having that sort of having ignorance, you know, ignorance. And this body is the result of result of going through the twelve links of dependent arisings. So so so when we say that this body is the cause of suffering, it does not it does not mean that we have to be negative about the, you know, about the very existence of taking this body.
Rather, we try to understand, you know, this body can, you know, this body is the main sort of sort of cause of suffering. It means that, you see, since or as long as we have this body, you know, this body, it always sort of causes the problems supposing if at the how to say, a very little thing such as just a slight contact between the tip of the needles with the body causes us pain. You see, pain. So in that respect, this body is the the cause of suffering. The second, you know, the cause of the suffering.
The cause of the suffering is the ignorance. See, ignorance is the main cause which create the entire problems or entire troubles. See, troubles. Alright? So so in after having understood the fact of whole things by Buddha himself, then he told different antidotes.
He gave different teachings such as the teachings on emptiness. Perhaps it might be very unfamiliar to you. Teaching on emptiness or teaching on impermanence. All these teaching of the buddhas now, you know, geared towards the the ignorance, that basic ignorance, you know, how to counteract that ignorance and how, you know, what is the quickest or slowest or what is the easiest or what is the difficult difficult way of, you know, counter or taking down that ignorance. So then once the ignorance is, you know, gotten rid of, then the then there is no further the further going into round to experience the suffering on the problems.
So that’s how the Buddha tried in his every skills, his every understanding to counteract that very ignorance. Yeah. The work, you see, the work to deal with the ignorance and eventually get rid of this is the crux of the Buddhism or the main teachings of the Buddhist. And this is the ignorance is the second truth, cause of suffering. So now as the methods to counteract or to oppose or to get rid of this ignorance is ignorance the Buddha set forth three main trainings or three main techniques or the practice or three practice.
The first is the practice or the techniques of morality and second is the concentrations and third and third is the wisdom. So these three are the main sort of how to say techniques that Buddha founded or Buddha set forth or Buddha realized himself to actually, you know, or directly to get rid of or to uproot or to cut Okay. The root of ignorance. We very showed the meaning of the practice of morality is is generally keeping harmonies. So keeping harmony means such as, you know, not killings or not harming other people or not killing and so forth is the practice of morality.
In another word, keeping harmony with other people or the sentient beings. So these kind of things or this kind of practice is not very big deal we can do on this very lifetimes. To give you the general outline of practicing or or developing the concentration of the mentality, there are two ways. One way is the sūtra point of view or the the bit slower vehicles, and one is the faster vehicle, which we call the the mantric to say, mantric vehicle or should say some yeah. Man man mantric vehicles.
So, generally, to bring out the basic seed of the concentrations of the mentality has to be done or has to be achieved through meditations. You see, the wisdom is that uh-huh. After having, you know, developed the concentrations or the calm abiding of the mentality, then one develops the special insight special insight which which cognizes the real way of the existence of entire phenomena, which in Buddhist term, we call as Vipassana or special insight. So that is the wisdom. So through the combination of or through the mutual cooperations of special insight or Vipassana and the calm abiding of mentality or the concentration now works to how to say?
One, you know, one counteract or one sort of fights or one try tries to cut or uproot the basic, you know, basic domination of ignorance.