Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 32-minute session, Geshe Pema Tsering works through a knotty debate from Śāntideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: does the Mādhyamika school contradict the Buddha by denying that phenomena are truly established? He explains Buddha’s impermanence teachings as skillful means — a first step toward emptiness for people still clinging to a permanent self, not a contradiction. He then outlines five Sautrāntika objections Mādhyamika must answer, among them the charge that if nothing is truly established, there is no difference between virtue and non-virtue, and no reason to escape saṃsāra. A closing story about a woman afraid Buddhism will make her “nothing” crystallises why Buddha first taught the Sautrāntika view as a protective stepping stone. Geshe-la reassures students: even partial understanding plants imprints that ripen across future lives.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 76 BD 2002 10 17.mp3
UUID: 78727c93-06a8-4bf5-bc5c-7a2db71ab130
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Deeds (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-10-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 32.1 minutes
Words: ~2,035
So then the answer that comes back from the Mādhyamika philosopher is that this argument doesn’t really work because worldly beings say a lot of different stuff that we know isn’t true. For example, worldly beings say that our bodies are clean and attractive, and that we don’t have suffering and and that that things exist from their own nature. So if we if we believe everything that worldly beings say, but just because they say it in the same way that we should believe it when they say something exists because I see it, then we would have to take as true we would have to take as true things that we disagree with, like the fact that their bodies are clean and attractive and that we’re permanent, ourselves are permanent and that we should be concentrating on this life and things like that. We’d have to take those to be truth as well as taking the fact that the that objects exist to be truth. Do do you guys understand?
The next section that we’re coming to is trying to find the true meaning of the text, and this depends on the next three lines. The first section depends on the next three lines of Bodhicaryāvatāra, which is verse seven. And it’s very briefly that to instruct the worldly, Buddha spoke of things, but these in truth lack even momentariness. And so so okay. This argument is coming from the point of view of the Sautrāntika school, and the Sautrāntika schools say that impermanent phenomena are truly established.
So that’s opposite to what the Madhyamikas say. So the Sautrāntika school is saying that in some of the Buddhist scriptures, impermanent phenomena are described as truly established. They say that if the Madhyamikas are saying that phenomena aren’t truly established, then they are contradicting the Buddha’s words, because the Buddha said that phenomena are truly established. So because the Buddha said in a couple of his sermons that impermanent phenomena truly exist, the Sautrāntika school is saying that by saying they don’t exist, the Mādhyamika school is contradicting the Buddha’s words.
Then the Mādhyamika’s retort to this is that Buddha only said that functioning things truly existed because he was dealing with people who not only believed in that, but believed in permanent self and things like this. So his way to slowly bring them into an idea of emptiness was first to state that these things that we see truly existent, but they are impermanent. So that was the first thing that he taught them because of where they were. So he was using skillful means to explain emptiness to them by first starting where they were and taking them one step further. But in actuality, if we look at it from the ultimate point of view of emptiness, then these things are not truly existent.
And if we are looking at it from that point of view, or in their thatness aspect,, they are not truly existent,. Therefore, the Mādhyamika can say that they aren’t contradicting the Buddha’s speech. He was only speaking from one point of view and it wasn’t the final point of view. Okay, so the next part is going through the next section of the text. What we actually have to go through is a series of getting rid of various arguments.
Sautrāntika has put forward arguments that what the Madhyamikas are saying is contradictory to other scriptures or other things that they’ve said. So it’s in stages abandoning or getting rid of these arguments. The first one to get rid of is the argument that conventional truth is not truly established, getting rid of that argument. The second one is getting rid of the argument that there is no point or that collecting merit isn’t good. The third one is getting rid of the argument that nothing can go from one life to another if it’s not truly existent.
The fourth one is getting rid of the argument that if everything is illusion like, then there is no difference between doing good and doing bad. And the fifth one is getting rid of the argument that if everything is illusion, then there is no point trying to get out of saṃsāra. The first one we’re going to do is eliminating debate on the non establishment of convention. It’s based on the next five lines in this chapter, which starts with the last line of verse seven and is all of verse eight. Okay.
So the next argument is coming so this is this is they first of all, present the argument and then they present the rebuttals of the argument. So this argument comes from the point of view of the Sautrāntika school. In their school, they say that if something is a truth, it isn’t a functioning thing. They say that, for something to be a functioning thing, it must be an ultimate truth. They see things as the ultimate truth.
They are saying that because the Mādhyamika people are saying that these things are conventional and therefore not truly established, they are also saying that they aren’t functioning things. If they are not functioning things, then they are saying that they must be permanent. The Sautrāntika school divide things into functioning things which are impermanent, and non-functioning things which are permanent. That way, the Mādhyamika people are actually the same as worldly beings who, when they see something existing from the morning until the evening, say that that is permanent. So they’re saying, okay, if you guys are saying it’s not a conventional reality, therefore it’s not an ultimate reality, therefore it must be permanent.
And if it’s permanent, then you’re no better than the ordinary people who say, ‘Okay, that existed all day, it’s permanent.’ He said, this is really difficult. So if you’re getting a tiny idea of what he’s talking about, that’s really good. Is it is it clear? Is it understandable? Yeah.
I mean, Yeah. Yeah. He said if you get just a little bit, that’s good. He said it’s really, like, thick. They’re trying to figure out what’s in here.
It’s a really dense topic. You actually have to learn really well what is in the philosophy of the Sautrāntika school, and you have to learn really well what’s in the philosophy of the Mādhyamika school. And then you have to debate about it, like, for for ages, and then you get an understanding of what’s going on. And it’s very difficult. Yeah.
So that makes it more difficult. Yeah. But Geshe-la says if you study it now, then when you come to debate it in the future, even if it’s in different lives, then you’ll have really good imprints. He says the main purpose of what we should be doing now is trying to implant really good imprints on our mind. So in the same way as when Buddha Śākyamūni said a few things to people in the past, they automatically had realizations.
When Maitreya comes and he just says a couple of things to us, then we can instantly get it, and then the realizations can come about. So the main purpose of what we should be trying to do in these lifetimes is to plant good imprints. He said it’s it’s same it worked the same way with the people that were studying in the time of the previous Buddha, that they were doing heaps of study and putting good imprints on their mind. So when Buddha Śākyamūni came around, he only had to say one word to one person, or one phrase to another person, or even say one mantra to one person, and they instantly understood everything because of his presence and the imprints that they have from previous lives. When the two things came together, they instantly understood everything.
So we shouldn’t think that there’s no point in studying these things. We should think that this is probably one of the most beneficial things that we can do. It’s just not going to perhaps be as of as much benefit now as it will be in the future. So even if we, in some way, think that we may be wasting a bit of our time, then we shouldn’t probably think like that because in the future this will be of great benefit to us. And lots of times we waste an hour here or an hour there doing absolutely nothing and we don’t think too much about wasting our time in different ways.
So if we can just waste our time on this for a while, then it can be of great benefit to us in the future. So we can stop there and if people have questions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. Can I just double check if I can speak to your Yeah? Functioning phenomena. Yeah.
Ultimate phenomena in terms of. Sorry. Can you say that again? Functional functioning phenomena. Yeah.
Ultimate truth. Impermanent phenomena. The the last one, no. Impermanent. Yeah.
Impermanent. So it’s it’s impermanent functioning things, they’re used to call. Yeah. And the ultimate reality, ultimate truth. So in Tibetan, Geshe-la was saying maybe they differentiate.
One is permanent and impermanent. So we have to be careful that we make sure the is there, basically. But, you know, it just yeah. Because I have to make sure the is there and then the. But so it’s like make sure because that’s there’s a big difference, and it’s a little letter.
So you have to look hard for the med or the min, you said. Oh, yeah. He said that it it wouldn’t matter if the world was perfect or not, that Buddha would have to exist because there is no such thing as a place with no Buddha. Because it’s it’s it’s inherent in the it’s inherent in existence, concept of Buddha. Even if the world didn’t exist, there’d still be a Buddha.
So if the world exists or doesn’t exist, it doesn’t change the fact that Buddhahood always is. Really. The concept of Buddha, like Buddha itself, Buddha itself in inverted commas, is permanent, but a Buddha isn’t. Yes. He thinks it is, because he thinks if the Sautrāntika people looked really carefully at their doctrine and became very highly realized, they would instantly become a Mādhyamika and then realize emptiness.
But actually, the Sautrāntika school — it is a difficult question to ask because they don’t actually believe in emptiness. They have this idea of thusness. So he says that there is a difference between thusness and emptiness. So if they can understand thusness, then it’s not that hard for them to understand emptiness. But they cease to be Sautrāntika at that stage.
So he said that if they look really carefully at their at their doctrine and they have lots of debate with people from the Mādhyamika school, then they will get a doubt about their doctrine. Then from this doubt, they will cease to be a Sautrantikan and become something from the higher schools, and therefore they can realize emptiness. So they actually believe that things truly exist. So after they get this doubt about things truly existing, Geshe-la said that it might be like a lady we were talking to today, who said she should start meditating on Buddhism because then she will become nothing. So he said, First of all, they go from being this truly exists, and then they go to being like a lady, then they will become nothing.
So they go from being something then to becoming nothing, And then then after that, then they come back to the middle. So because they have this danger of going, ‘Then I will become nothing’, this is why the Buddha taught these people the Sautrāntika school. Right? He taught them that because he was worried about them going, oh, if I hear the other stuff — the Mādhyamika school — then I’ll think I’m nothing. So he taught them the Sautrāntika school to help them stop thinking they were nothing.
Oh, yeah. Is there any more? Oh, this that’s okay then? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
I got one.