Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 31-minute talk, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen addresses a central question: if our body is completely replaced every eight years and our mental states constantly shift, what maintains continuity of self? He answers by mapping three nested levels of body and consciousness. First, the gross level: flesh and bones paired with ordinary sense perception and mental awareness. Second, the subtle level: channels and wind energies (subtle currents of life force) paired with refined mental states. Third, the very subtle level: the clear light consciousness—pure luminous awareness—unified with the subtlest wind, dwelling in the indestructible drop at the heart. This foundation is essential for understanding the actual death process and rebirth. For practitioners already familiar with Buddhist teaching.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 H and M of A.mp3
UUID: c6aa9683-18af-4dac-9ccb-7abc30f76dfa
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996 Jul-Sep (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1996 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 30.7 minutes
Words: ~3,985
Of our existence over time. You know, I was born in such and such a place. I grew up in such and such a place. I moved to another city. I went to school in another town.
I visited another country, and I came here. There’s been a continuity, but there’s been a constantly changing stream of who I am. You know, even in terms of the gross physiology of the person, our body is continually reconstructing itself day after day. You know, I think the figure is after eight years there’s not one single cell that was originally there prior to that eight years, that the whole process has been recycled. What is it that keeps the continuity?
Why is it that aside from growth and mutation, is there an identifiable entity that remains continually over time? In terms of the being, the deeper cause is one’s individual karma. Once that karma is exhausted, then there’s no replication of the being from the next moment. The continuum of the being ceases. There’s no — there’s the shaping force which took the materials, and out of that synthesized a human being in terms of their physical properties, in terms of their mental properties.
That the shaping, the conditioning forces has exhausted itself and the being comes to an end. So, you know, in terms of the karma, the breakdown of the cells, either naturally or through disease, is due to the breakdown of the continuum of the karmic flow, which is shaping that form. And the cells are in turn made up of a combination of four elements. You know, there’s various ways — like in Western chemistry, we take the physical world and we say it’s built up out of certain building blocks. And we can look at these building blocks in various ways.
When you say there are certain basic elements, like — I don’t know how many elements there are nowadays, but I remember when I took chemistry I think they had gotten up to one hundred and eight elements. You know, they just had a periodic chart with all these elements. And these were the building blocks of the universe, the material in the universe. And everything was merely a combination of different proportions of these building blocks. So within the context of — would you call it Buddhist cosmology — you know, the way the world, the way the universe is constructed, they essentially assign six elements.
Earth, water, fire, wind energy, space, and consciousness. Everything in the universe is made up of either of these or a combination of them in different proportions. So in terms of the body, the body is constructed and composed of earth, water, fire, and wind energy, sometimes called air. The air element. So these four elements are — and now, again, not to think of these as some kind of static thing, some entity, like a basketball, a grapefruit, you know, constructing models of molecules and things like that.
But these four elements refer to the four forces or principles which support a form, which support the cells, for example, of the body. So earth is the principle of extension or solidity, hardness. So rather than being a particular type of thing, it is a quality, the quality of hardness, quality of solidity, you know, the maintenance of physical structure, the pattern over time and in space. So the dense, solid, hard parts of the body — you know, for example, the flesh, the skin, the bones, the nails — that’s predominantly the earth element. Then there’s the water element, which is the principle of cohesion, the binding force of structures that keeps things together.
So this is the fluid and the flowing substances within the body, such as the blood, the urine, the saliva. Then there’s the fire element. Fire is the principle of temperature, the measure of the average intensity of movement, of underlying movement. I think you might call it the entropy. The motion on the microscale, the vibration.
That constitutes the warmth of the body. Then there’s the wind energy. Sometimes called wind element, sometimes called energy, sometimes air element. I’m going to use the term wind energy. Sometimes I might just for ease, just say energy.
Okay? But that’s what I mean by this. But energy — the notion is the principle of the vitalizing force of the body. You know, the currents of air or the energy which causes movement of the body and within the body. You know, it causes circulation of the blood, the flowing of saliva, of urination.
And wind energy also serves as a vehicle, which we’re going to talk about because it’s very important in our understanding of the process of death. Wind energy serves as a vehicle for consciousness. So these elements in various combinations constitute or evolve the gross body — you know, this body, what we’re going to be talking about in terms of flesh, blood, bones, how we normally think about the body — which in turn serves as a basis for gross consciousness, for gross mind. So, you know, the gross mind — so what do we mean by gross mind? Gross mind corresponds to the various sense consciousnesses.
There are six sense consciousnesses. There are the five physical sense consciousnesses: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body sense consciousnesses. You know, eye consciousness is that which sees shapes and colors. Ear consciousness is that which hears sound, etc. Then the mental sense consciousness is that which coordinates the inputs from these various sense consciousnesses and associates them with various concepts, thoughts and images in our mind.
So there are the five physical sense consciousnesses — eye, ear, nose, tongue, body — and then the sixth sense consciousness, mental sense consciousness. So these are called gross mind. They are supported by the gross body, the gross body which is made up of the four elements. And we’re going to see how this plays a part in the death process. We’re coming to understand how the death process evolves.
But there — so we’ve talked about the gross body. We’ve talked about its correspondingly dependent gross consciousness and gross mind. But there is a more subtle body. There are more subtle levels of body which serve as a vehicle for more subtle levels of consciousness. So a basic understanding, an important point is that there is a correspondence between the grossness of consciousness and the grossness of its vehicle or base.
You know, we’re going to talk about this more, but consciousness rides like a horse and a rider. Consciousness rides upon the wind energies. You know, consciousness and wind — the principal characteristic of wind energy is motility, movement. The principal quality of consciousness is cognition, the ability to know. But they are — when they act together in consort, dependent upon one another, then they’re able to move to an object and know the object.
Consciousness in itself can only know. It’s not able to move to objects. So it’s limited in its scope of awareness. But on the other hand, wind energy is without cognition. It’s an unknowing quality.
It’s like a blind man who has strong legs — this is wind energy. If the consciousness, which has sight but is crippled, gets on the back of the blind man, then together they can move to an object to know it. So they always act in harmony. They act in coordination with one another. They are each other’s indispensable cooperative condition.
They are always — and depending upon the grossness of the body, and we’re going to talk about the levels of body, there will be a corresponding grossness of consciousness. So in terms of the gross body, this body of flesh and blood made up of these four elements, this acts as a support for gross consciousnesses. But there are more subtle levels of body. For example, there is the body which is made up of channels, wind energies, and drops. So in this, the body — this is called a subtle body.
The body which is made up of channels, wind energies, and drops serves as a basis, as a vehicle for correspondingly subtle levels of consciousness. This subtle level of consciousness — there are groupings, for example, of what is called the eighty indicative consciousnesses. And I’ll explain more about this. There are eighty indicative consciousnesses. There are three more.
There is white attainment, red increase, and black near attainment. I’ll go through what these mean. White attainment, red increase, and black near attainment. So these are subtle levels of consciousness which ride or depend upon the subtle body. So I said the subtle body is made up of channels, wind energies, and drops.
Is this okay? Is this too technical? Okay. Yeah. Actually, I asked if there was a whiteboard around, but somebody borrowed it, and it’s gone.
Anyway. Yeah? So, channels. Channels — there’s an elaborate structure of wind energy pathways in the body arrayed throughout the body. It’s said to consist of seventy-two thousand circulatory passages in which the wind energy moves throughout the body.
There’s a central axis — a central channel and two side channels running alongside. The central channel runs from approximately the mid-brow, moving up toward the crown of the head, just inside the spine, down to the tip of the genitals. That’s the central channel within the body. Running parallel alongside are the right and left channels moving down alongside. But these join about three fingers below the navel, into the central channel. These are the main channels.
Then branching out from these are lesser channels. There are many — you have heard the term chakra. And we’re getting into what we mean by chakras. We use the term channel wheels. You know, these are like main junctions.
You know, you can imagine it’s like all of these arteries moving like streets. But there are a few main junctions where all the streets intersect. There are either five or six or seven, depending upon the explanation, of how many of these channel wheels, these main junctions, occur in the body. One explanation has it that in terms of five, there’s one at the crown of the head. So there’s a main junction — that is to say, along this main axis of the central channel, there are main junctions where many streets, many arteries, many of these channels are coming together. Like the spokes of an umbrella.
There are said to be — at the crown channel wheel, thirty-two channels coming together. There’s one at the throat — sixteen, one at the heart — eight, at the level of the navel, three fingers below the navel — sixty-four, and in the explanation of six, there’s one at the base of the spine called the secret channel wheel, and then there’s one at the tip of the genitals. So anyway, they’re not all particularly important. Some of them are important. In many meditations they’re made use of — one visualizes them as a template in order to work with these wind energies.
The most important in working usually is in terms of the channel wheel at the crown, throat, at the heart, and below the navel, approximately at the level of the navel. So anyway, the important thing — you know, we’re just trying to get an understanding of how this process of death is going to occur. So this requires some conceptual idea about these various channels within the body. But mainly there are the three channels — the central channel and two side channels which run from the nostrils alongside the central channel and join three fingers below the navel at the central channel. Then there is the wind energies.
So the meaning, the range of wind energies goes all the way from the airs that we breathe, that we inhale and exhale, to subtler airs or currents of energy moving through the body. And these assist in the performance of all the bodily functions and are instrumental in the operation of consciousness. They are a vehicle for consciousness. Consciousness is said to ride on these wind energies, on these currents of air. All the varying levels of subtlety of these wind energies act as a condition for corresponding, very subtle levels of consciousness.
And we’re going to see why this is important in bringing this out. So we’ve talked about channels, we’ve talked about wind energy. And then there’s a subject about drops, sometimes called creative drops. Anyway, drops are described as the essence of the fluids from the father and the mother. So they have evolved from the original white drop.
And so there are two types of drops basically. Now the system — there are various systems of explanation. Here in this system, there are two types of drops. There’s a white drop and a red drop. The white drop originates from the original drop which was present within the seminal fluid coming from the father, which was present at the time of conception.
And the red drop originates — originally comes from the red, the fluids from the mother at the time of conception, at the time of the union of the sperm and ovum. So the coarse drops are found — so there are two levels of drops. I’m not going to go into this too technically, but just to get the idea. There are two coarse drops. There are two types of drops — coarse drops and subtle drops.
Coarse drops are found throughout the body, but predominantly the white drop is held, suspended within the crown channel wheel. Predominantly the red drop, the coarse red drop is suspended, held within the navel channel wheel. Okay? That’s where they’re being held. And this is going to play a part in the experience of the dying person eventually.
So we’ve talked about the subtle body, which is constituted, composed of channels, wind energies, and drops. Now, this subtle body supports correspondingly subtle consciousness, and we said that was composed of first the eighty indicative consciousnesses. These are simply types of wholesome and unwholesome consciousness such as conceptual awarenesses of ordinary experiences ranging from hatred to compassion. There’s a list in case you’re interested of these eighty types of conceptual consciousnesses. The other three types of conceptual consciousness which were listed — the white attainment, red increase, and black near attainment — are very specific conceptual consciousnesses which are induced by the movements of the subtle wind energies.
Most specifically in terms of the white drop, the red drop, and their coming together. And we’ll explain that when we go through the actual death process. So we’re kind of building up our inventory, getting some information about the structure of the body in order to understand how the death process occurs. So this is like background information. So we’ve talked about a gross body with a corresponding gross consciousness, a subtle body with a corresponding subtle consciousness.
But there’s still a more subtle level of body with a corresponding more subtle level of consciousness. This is the very subtle body, which is the very subtle life-bearing wind energy. And this most subtle level of body serves as the vehicle, as the basis for the corresponding most subtle level of consciousness. This consciousness is called the clear light. You’ve all heard of the clear light, I’m sure.
There’s a cafe in Manly, so there’s very good food, by the way. This most subtle level of consciousness is termed the clear light. Together, this most subtle level of consciousness and this most subtle level of wind energy — they reside within the center of the heart channel center, within the channel wheel at the level of the heart. They reside in what is called the indestructible drop. This unity of most subtle consciousness and most subtle wind energy is referred to as the eternal indestructible drop.
Why? Because it continues life after lifetime after lifetime through to Buddhahood and including Buddhahood. It represents the most subtle, most essential state of an individual being. I’ll read you something about it. So we’re talking about the most subtle level of consciousness in combination with the most subtle level of wind energy.
This we call a body. Yeah. This most subtle level of wind energy. Very hard to describe or understand and not to be misconstrued as a rigid fixed identity. This unity, so this combination of very subtle consciousness and very subtle wind energy, is beyond body-mind duality.
It consists of the finest, most sensitive, alive, and intelligent energy in the universe. It is a being’s deepest state of pure soul, where the being is intelligent light, alive, and singular, continuous yet changing, aware of its infinite interconnection with everything. It is beyond all instinctive patterns of lust, aggression, or delusion, beyond all duality, one with reality and one with the truth body of all Buddhas. It is what is referred to by Buddha nature. Each living being is really just this indestructible drop at the extremely subtle level.
This is the living soul of every being. It is what makes the boundless process of reincarnation possible. It is the gateway into liberation, always open, essentially free, though the being evolved around it may identify itself with intensely turbulent states of suffering. It is peaceful, translucent, trouble-free, and uncreated. Knowing it is what makes Buddhists smile.
It is what makes Buddhas and living beings the same. So we’ve talked about — we’re going to go back into that and what that is referring to. But we’ve talked about three levels of body, gross, subtle, and very subtle, and corresponding three levels of consciousness, gross, subtle, and very subtle. So by way of a rough analogy, gross consciousness is likened to a waking state, just like our everyday state. Subtle consciousness is likened to a dream consciousness.
Very subtle consciousness is likened to the consciousness present in deep sleep, in a dreamless deep sleep. So in ordinary waking life, only the gross body and gross consciousness along with the subtle consciousness are operative. So now we’re going to — so this is like some background, necessary background information, so that when we actually describe what occurs, the physiology and psychological experience of the dying individual, we can begin to understand why it’s occurring and how it occurs. Now, essentially, when Buddhism talks about death, what it is talking about is that there is a process — and I’m going to go through this in detail, in some detail — there is a withdrawing of wind energies throughout the body initially. A withdrawing of the interface between the gross elements of earth, water, fire, and wind energy with more subtle levels of energy, such that the body begins to lose its capacity — what? — to act as a support of consciousness. That is to say, these very gross sense consciousnesses begin to lose their ability to function. We no longer can see. We no longer can smell. The gross sense consciousnesses begin to become inoperative.
The wind energies are withdrawing. And where are they withdrawing? They’re beginning to withdraw into the central channel, into the subtle body. So the gross body and therefore gross consciousness become inoperative. But we’re not dead.
There begins a process of the subtle levels of life energy, the wind energy, beginning to absorb into this central indestructible drop at the heart. Therefore, the subtle levels of consciousness become inoperative. The eighty indicative consciousnesses and the three — the red, white, and black consciousnesses — become inoperative. But still the being has been reduced to the most subtle level of consciousness in combination with the most subtle level of wind energy. This is what is going to go on to take rebirth.
This is what is going to become re-associated with first a subtle level of body, and therefore generate subtle levels of consciousness, then a gross level of body and thereby generate gross levels of consciousness. It is us. This most subtle level of combination of subtle level of consciousness and subtle level of energy is us. Why? Because encoded upon it is our entire evolutionary history in terms of all our actions.
Our actions are physical, verbal, our thinking. That is to say, encoded upon this is our karma. That’s why it’s very — it’s uniquely us. And when it reassociates — when it compulsively reassociates with the more gross embodiment — these karmas begin to express themselves in patterns of thinking, in patterns of structuring the body, of the images. They begin to — as a template — they begin to show how we form ourselves, how we think about the world, how we relate with the world.
The various types of consciousness which are arising, our tendencies, our predispositions, capacities begin to find expression in terms of gross consciousness, in terms of our gross body. This is all encoded upon this most subtle level of consciousness in combination with this subtle level of energy. It is the deep — when this subtle level of consciousness, this most subtle level of wind energy, this unity, when it breaks its connection with the subtle level of body, the subtle level of consciousness, when that connection is finally broken, death occurs. That is the actual moment of death. Not when the gross body becomes lifeless, but when this most subtle unity breaks its final connection, when the karma which maintains this supporting life energy, which connects it to grosser levels of body, when it’s finally exhausted — you know, just like a molecular bond when it finally weakens and breaks — this represents death.
This consciousness will then go on to compulsively seek out re-embodiment, to reassociate with a new embodiment. It’s driven just like a leaf in a wind by the winds of karma. It will enter compulsively, without choice, into a union of a sperm and ovum and begin the process of evolution of a new body, new ways of thinking, new ways of relating, a new world due to the conditioning factors, the karma, which are implanted, imprinted upon this unity. Anyway, we’ll go through that, okay? That’s just kind of a rough outline.
I do find this interesting. I think it’s interesting because from a number of points of view — but I think it begins to point out that maybe rebirth needs to be taken a little more seriously. Maybe there’s actually — it’s not just a fanciful thought — there’s some rationale, some mechanism which is able to explain what Buddhism means by rebirth and how it takes place. And therefore it might, you know, have some effect on how we actually live if in fact death is not the end of it all. Something does in fact carry on and we’re responsible for what it is that carries on.
Yeah. It has an intimate connection with us. I’m going to explain this, but does anybody have a quick question? Don’t — if you’re too confused. Okay.
Anyway, we’ll continue that next week and go through the actual death process, the actual physiology behind transition, and the psychological experience of the dying person. So we’ll dedicate the creative potential, this positive energy, this karma that we’ve created. Give it some kind of direction. In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful Chenrezig, remain until the end of cyclic existence.
May I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm through these virtuous actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakened heart that has not arisen arise and grow. May that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more.