Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Why did the Buddha seem to contradict himself about whether phenomena truly exist? In this 30-minute commentary, Geshe Pema Tsering works through a pointed dispute between the Sautrāntika and Mādhyamika philosophical schools over Śāntideva’s text. The Sautrantikas charge that Madhyamikas defy scripture by denying true existence; Geshe Pema presents the counter-argument — that the Buddha used skillful means, meeting students at their level before leading them toward emptiness. He outlines five objections the Madhyamikas must dismantle, including whether collecting merit is pointless if nothing truly exists and whether there is any reason to escape saṃsāra if all is illusory. A Q&A covers Tibetan technical terms and whether a Buddha would exist even without the world. Throughout, Geshe-la reassures students that studying dense philosophy now plants imprints that will ripen in future lives. Best suited to students already engaging Mādhyamika philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 Guide 2002 10 24.mp3
UUID: a054f1d1-a324-4add-9cdb-c95199d30511
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Way of Life (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-10-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 30.0 minutes
Words: ~2,010
Mādhyamika philosophers is that this argument doesn’t really work because worldly beings say a lot of different stuff that we know isn’t true. Our bodies are clean and attractive, and that we don’t have suffering, and that things exist from their own nature. So, if we believe everything that worldly beings say, 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 to be real, things that we disagree with, like the fact that their bodies are clean and attractive, and that we’re permanent, our cells are permanent, and that we should be concentrating on this life, and things like that. We’d have to take those to be truths, as well as taking the fact that objects exist to be truth. Do do you guys understand?
So 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 Guide to the Bodhisattvas Way of Life, which is verse seven. And it’s very briefly that he might instruct the worldly Buddhist spoke of things, but these in truth lack even momentary existence. So, okay, this argument is coming from the point of view of this Sautrāntika school, and the Sautrāntika schools say that impermanent phenomena are truly established. So that’s the opposite to what the Madhyamikas say.
So the Sautrāntika school says in some of the Buddhist scriptures impermanent phenomena are truly established. Hang on. How do I explain this? It says in some of the Buddha I’m trying to figure out how to put Geshe-la’s words in English. Tricky.
They say that impermanent phenomena are truly established. So they say that if the Madhyamikas are saying that phenomena aren’t truly established, then they are contradicting Buddha’s words because Buddha said that phenomena are truly established. Okay, so because the Buddha said in a couple of his sermons that impermanent phenomena truly exist, then Sautrāntika school is saying that by saying they don’t exist, then the Mādhyamika school is contradicting the Buddha’s words. Then the Mādhyamika’s retort to this is that Buddha only said that that functioning things truly existed, because he was dealing with people who not only believed in that, but they also believed in our 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, they’re truly existent, but they’re 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’re looking at it from that point of view, or in their Thusness aspect, they’re not truly existent, so 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 where there’s argument, Sautrāntika has put forward 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. 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 that getting rid of the argument that there is no point, 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’s 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. Okay. So, the first one we’re going to do is eliminating debate on the non establishment of convention. And it depends it’s it’s based on the next five lines in the in the 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 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, and what they are saying is, see, in their school they say that if something is conventional truth, it isn’t a functioning thing. They say that for something to be a functioning thing, it be an ultimate truth. Their functioning things are ultimate truth. So, they’re saying that because the Mādhyamika people are saying that these things convention and therefore not truly established, they’re saying by that they’re also saying that they aren’t functioning things.
And if they’re not functioning things, then they’re saying that they must be permanent. In Sautrāntika School, they divide things into functioning things which are impermanent, and non functioning things which are permanent, right? So, in 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. Alright? So, they’re saying, okay, if you guys are saying it’s not, it’s a conventional reality, therefore it’s not an ultimate reality, therefore it must be a permanent, and if it’s a 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 I’m just getting a tiny idea of what he’s talking about, and that’s really good. Is it is it clear? Is it understandable? Yeah. He said, It’s really 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 to debate about it for ages, and then you get an understanding of what’s going on. And it’s very difficult. 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 said, 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 the Buddha Śākyamūni said a few things to people in the past, they automatically had realizations.
When Maitreya Buddha 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 the same it worked the same way with the people that were studying at the time of the sixth 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 had 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 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. Lots of times, we waste an hour here or an hour there, doing absolutely nothing and don’t think too much about wasting our time in different ways.
So, if we can just, like, 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. Okay.
Yeah. Can I just double check those Yeah? Functioning phenomena Yeah. Ultimate phenomena and permanent phenomena. Yeah.
Impermanent. So, it’s impermanence functioning things, they’re used to call, and the ultimate reality, ultimate truth. So in Tibetan, Geshe-la was saying maybe they differentiate, one is Tagpa which is permanent and Mitagpa which is impermanent. So we have to be careful that we make sure the Im is there basically. You have to make sure the Mi is there and then the Mitagpa.
It’s like M, make sure, because there’s a big difference and it’s a little letter. So you have to look hard for the Mi’s or the Im’s, you said? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Do you have to wear that?
No? He said that it it wouldn’t matter if the world was perfect or not, the 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 the 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 matter that Buddha always is.
Really? The concept of Buddha, like Buddha itself, Buddha itself in inverted commas, is permanent, but a Buddha isn’t. Yes. He said he thinks it is because he thinks if people looked really if the Sautrāntika people looked really carefully at their doctrine and became very highly realized that they would instantly become a Mādhyamika and then realize emptiness. But there’s actually the Sautrāntika school, it’s 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 doctrine, and they have lots of debates with people from the Mādhyamika school and then they will get a doubt about their doctrine.
And then, from this doubt, then they will become 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. Right? So after they get this doubt about true things truly existing, they I guess they said then it might be like a lady we were talking to today, who said she should start meditating on emptiness, 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 the lady who said They’ll become nothing.
So, go from being something then to becoming nothing, and then after that 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. So he taught them that because he was worried about them going, Oh, if I hear the other stuff, the Mādhyamika school, I think I’m nothing. So he taught them Sautrāntika school to help them stop thinking they were nothing. Oh yeah.
Is there any more?