Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using a fellow student named Pamela as a concrete example, Geshe Pema Tsering walks through all twelve links of dependent origination in this 45-minute Discovering Buddhism session. He opens by sorting types of ignorance into three categories — what functions as both the root of saṃsāra and the first link, what is only the first link, and what is neither — before tracing the six causes and six results that propel any ordinary being into rebirth. A candid aside explains how to phrase questions effectively for a monastery-trained Tibetan teacher. Q&A then covers whether realized practitioners are still subject to the twelve links (no — eliminating ignorance cuts the chain entirely), how dependent origination differs from inherent existence via a microphone-on-table analogy, and why self-cherishing, though rooted in grasping, is not itself the first link. Dense material, suited to practitioners already comfortable with karma and basic Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 SAN 2004 03 09.mp3
UUID: b83c083e-1290-406b-ad72-cd373aa1b42b
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB Samsāra and Nirvāṇa (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-03-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~3,304
Okay. So an example of something that is both is the grasping inherent existence in the continuum of ordinary beings. Because they are ordinary beings, they can’t get out of saṃsāra, because they couldn’t if they would, Therefore, it means that it is the root of saṃsāra. There is a continual perpetuation of saṃsāra because ordinary beings perceive things as being inherently existent. It’s also said to be the ignorance that is the first link of the twelve links of dependent origination because it is the motivation with which we create throwing karma.
Because of that definition and because it’s not seeing, perceiving things as being not inherently existent, then it’s said to be both. Something that is neither is, for example, the ignorance of not realizing the cause and effect. This is, by its nature, ignorance, but it’s not ignorance of the selflessness of persons, so therefore it’s not the first link of the twelve links and it’s not ignorance of the lack of inherent existence of self and object and therefore it’s not the root of saṃsāra but it is by its nature ignorance. It’s not either. Ignorance of cause and effect.
Geshe-la said, yeah, this is really complex, isn’t it? Are you understanding? And I’ve been trying to use small words for you guys. But he said, don’t worry, but it’s very, it’s a difficult thing to get your head around but it’s important to try and get your head around it or to try and start thinking about it because you can’t get out of saṃsāra until you’ve got it. So ignorance is difficult.
So when we actually have to say ignorance, we can say ignorance pretty easily. We just say ignorance. There we go, ignorance. But when we actually have to think about what ignorance is, then it’s difficult to get rid of our ignorance to what ignorance is. The other thing that we need to remember about this ignorance that is the first link of these twelve links of dependent origination is that it is, by its nature, neutral.
From From this ignorance, we can do positive things and we can do negative things and we can do neutral things. Because this is possible, then we say that ignorance is by its nature neutral. When we’re getting rid of things, when we’re abandoning different lack of our understandings, two are divided into those things that we abandon on the path of seeing and those things that we abandon on the path of meditation, which are two different stages of development on the way to becoming Buddha. This ignorance that we get rid of here is something that you abandon on the path of meditation, which is the last last meditation the last that you abandon before you become a Buddha. And I thought this was going to be an easy evening.
So this ignorance that we have is a neutral object but because on the basis of that neutral object we can do both positive and negative actions. Those positive and negative actions are still based in ignorance because they’re still performed with the inherent idea of things being inherently existent. Means that any experience that we have, any results that we have comes about because of that ignorance as the base and then because of other actions that we have performed. Now the reason that it’s said to be this ignorance is defined as being the motivation that causes us to create throwing karma is for example because it is the reason that we get reborn in saṃsāra. Grasping inherent existence is the reason we’re born in saṃsāra or reborn in saṃsāra.
If we take Pamela for example, Pamela has achieved this fabulous rebirth because there’s mainly six different reasons why she’s achieved this rebirth. The first one of these is ignorance. She achieved this rebirth through ignorance in that she developed the causes for being reborn in Samsāra and she developed this throwing karma through grasping an inherent existence which is this basic ignorance. Through the basis of inherent ignorance, she started to do positive actions and she created a lot of positive causes that meant that she was able to be reborn as a human who has time and trying to practice Buddhism and to focus on spiritual things and so forth. We have two causes there.
We have the virtuous actions that were done in past lives to create a human rebirth and the ignorance that created the rebirth itself. So then on top of that at the time of Pamela’s last death, the mind of death, the thought she died with must have had something in there that searched for rebirth as a human, that was attracted to the idea of being reborn as a human. This cause along with the basic ignorance that created the throwing karma and the positive deeds that were done, those three things came together to propel Pamela into the next lifetime. But then once she was getting propelled into the next lifetime then she had to have these other three things in order to actually take rebirth in the next lifetime. Those are said to be craving which is the attachment to the idea of being born and then in some way reaching out mentally to take on that existence.
It’s translated as grasping but it’s like reaching out. Suppose that’s what grasping is. Which is weird because the next one is grasping! But it’s translated as existence. In Tibetan it’s grasping.
It’s the same way. So you’re grasping out for getting out and then grasping, So it’s this idea of becoming that comes about through the craving and then the reaching out and then the coming into existence through the existence is their craving. So there’s this process of reaching out and then becoming. So there’s these six causes that created Pamela. And so, after this process is that there is conception or coming into existence, that is there.
Maybe the idea of grasping is that it s connection, so once you have connection with the next birth. Know, but contact is No, that s something about something different. Not contact but connection with the next rebirth. Thatis where the existence comes about, like its conception basically. Once there is this conception or this contact has come into being, then the next link that comes about is what’s called name and form and what this means is at the beginning when we are conceived we don’t have much idea of self.
There is no idea of this is me. A form begins to appear but there is no name attached to that idea. There is no sense of I there particularly here. So this name and form, the link of name and form then comes about because there is a realization of self being there and then there is a name that becomes attached to that. So from this name and form come about the sense organs, or sense perceptions and through the sense perceptions then we develop contact that is the sense perceptions perceive things.
So that’s what that contact means. Is a contact between perceiver and perceived. Now through this contact between perceiver and perceived, we then start to develop feeling of something being positive or something being negative, something being pleasant, something being unpleasant. So, after we have this sense of feeling, then we already went through the next three craving, grasping and existence because we did them previous to that, but after the feeling then the next thing that we go through is birth. Then in the second moment after birth we start aging and then through that aging process then we end up dead.
Right, I missed something, surprise. When we were talking about the three causes for Pamela to come into existence, okay, so the first one was this basic ignorance and then there was the karma, the positive karma that she created in order to become a human. Now that was actually the second link, what’s called connecting karma. And then the third one was the consciousness at the moment of death, the thoughts at the moment of death. So that was actually the third link which is consciousness.
Consciousness. Yeah, namshé, it’s consciousness. So therefore the first three and then the first three of these twelve links and then numbers one, two and three which is ignorance, connecting karma and consciousness and then craving, grasping and existence which are numbers eight, nine and ten are said to be the six causes for us to come into being. And the six results from us coming into being are then said to be name and form, sense perception, contact, feeling, birth and aging and death. Right.
Now, we were talking about the process that became Pamela, right? Now, this process that became guess I forgot to turn his mic on but anyway. Okay, now in this process that became Pamela, we talked about one thing leading to another leading to another leading to another. So for example this basic ignorance that creates the causes for throwing karma to be born into saṃsāra, that’s one thing. That leads us to create karma which leads us to consciousness, which leads us to form and so forth and go through this process in the development through the twelve links.
Now if we take the karma production away from the being then we’re left with a being that’s a separate thing to karma. But because beings have collected so much karma, if we think about it in one day then we do so many different things. We have so many different moments where we think different things, do different things, say different things. So we’re collecting enormous amounts of karma all the time which makes the whole process of karma and affect a very complicated thing. In this way then everything that we do is an action that’s caused by ignorance that creates karma that acts as a cause for consciousness and name and form and so forth.
Then we can say that the root cause of all of these, the root of all of the twelve links of dependent origination is this ignorance that doesn’t perceive the lack of self. We can also say that hang on, I’m really scared of saying the wrong thing, so I’m just gonna double check. Okay. So what this means is that it’s not like a one big process that happens it’s a process that happens with every single ignorant moment because with every single ignorant moment we establish we do an action that is throwing karma because it’s combined with this idea of things being inherently existent so every action that we do is throwing karma because it has this idea of inherent existence with it and so that means that by the time that we’ve got onto the actual action then the ignorance that caused that action has moved onto something else and so that every collection of karma has its own ignorance to start it off. It has its own ignorant motivation or its own ignorant intention to start it off.
So that means that these twelve links of Dependent Origination are happening all the time in a constant flow with every thought, with every action, with every intention to perform a thought or to intention to think something. Every movement towards thought. I thought Tuesday nights were easy. He said, But we were talking about twelve links And said, And that was an easy version of twelve links. He wants to know if people understood.
I actually have to apologize because I didn’t think it would be that complicated and it was some of us all coming new to me and I was like, What? So I don’t know how well I translated. I was supposed to say something about asking questions now and I’m getting my brain fried. Was briefly because Geshe-la and I were talking about this. And because this is Discovering Buddhism I thought I might give some tips on Geshe advice on which way to phrase questions so you get the best out of teachers.
I’ve noticed that there’s it’s not that I believe there’s such things as a stupid question, right, but I think that there’s questions that aren’t going to get the best out of the teacher because of certain kind of cultural things and certain different issues like that right? And it basically comes down to me trying to figure out how to translate it and I think most of the problems with that is translating so Geshe-la said for me to say some things okay? Now the best way I can think of to describe thinking about asking a question teacher is to almost pretend that you’re working with a very very complicated computer program that knows everything about Buddhism but if you don’t ask the right questions or a defined enough question your answers are going to come out weird. Okay? So if you’re going to ask and please don’t think this is I think all questions are good and I talked to Geshe and he said Any question anyone wants to ask please ask.
So it wasn’t that. It’s just that if you can try and think of the remember the fact that you’re talking to someone who spent their whole life studying Buddhism in a monastery in a different language from a different background, doesn’t know anything about psychology, doesn’t know anything to do with the New Age movement. So if you can try and frame your questions in order to get a response that they put a question across that can be answered, if that makes sense, or that can be translated please? Yeah. It really doesn’t it’s just Right.
Where does habit come at? Is that battle story come or one of the other parts? Okay, so there s two different ways we can look at habits with regards to this. There s the habit of having ignorance which means that we habitually create throwing karma connecting karma or throwing karma. That s the first way to look at the habits and also then at the time of death when we re dealing with links eight, nine and ten craving, grasping and coming into existence.
We have this habit of being reborn as a human or habit of being reborn as something so thoughts of that would come up in that process as well. You’re jumping up and down. Yes. I think Pamela got a question. Okay.
If this is if I mean, we’ve had a tough session. If this is not well posed, I get Okay? In the beginning of the teaching, Geshe-la was talking about autonomy in two ways. He was saying that because we have the mental factor of ignorance, we are not autonomous. Because an ārya has realized the nature of existence and does not have that mental factor, that they are autonomous.
And yet, they were still dependent arising, so they can’t be entirely autonomous. Uh-huh. Okay. On what do they depend? Uh-huh.
Okay. Okay. There isn’t the twelve links of dependent origination in the grounds of if you’re an ārya, there is no twelve links of dependent origination. Okay? Because there is no ignorance.
If thereis no ignorance, there is no throwing karma and if there is no throwing karma then there is no ignorance that can be the motivation for collecting throwing karma therefore there is no twelve links of dependent origination. Therefore, this dependent origination doesn’t happen for being who reach the path of seeing, right? But in the lower vehicles that is the hearer s vehicle and the solitary realizers vehicle, because they’ve realized emptiness directly, they’ve realized the selflessness of the person directly, then that means that they still have to experience rebirth because the karma hasn’t run out. They haven’t purified karma completely. They don’t create the causes to be reborn but their karma hasn’t run out.
So therefore we get what’s called a once returner and no more returner and so forth. Am I to take it then that? There’s one called a stream enterer, there’s one called a once returner, one called a no more returner, and they’re still born because of karma that hasn’t been exhausted yet. But even if an aryas mind is no longer dependent on the twelve links of dependent origination, it doesn’t suddenly become inherently existent, does it? Because that’s autonomy in another sense of being It can’t be that, can it?
No, it doesn’t become inherently existent because nothing is inherently existent. There is nothing that’s inherently existent. So there’s still dependent origination there, there’s just not the twelve links of dependent origination. And the thing that it’s dependent upon is what? So are two different ways of talking about dependent origination, right?
There are twelve links of dependent origination and then there is dependent origination as being the way that exist as opposed to truly existent things, right? And when the word for dependent origination is something it depends on. So a base that it depends So Geshe-la said if Right. Right. Okay, so if something inherently exists then it doesn’t need a base.
It doesn’t need anything to be established by but we usually establish things. Things get become established in dependence on a base. So Geshe-la said that for example the table is acting as a base for the microphone because the microphone is sitting on the base and if the microphone thingy was inherently existent, then it wouldn’t have to sit on the table. I don’t quite get that but anyway. I don’t don’t have the prank.
I can’t. So it’s like, you know, he did mean it. He did mean it. Wasn’t being metaphorical because he said that if this microphone thing was inherently existent and then it wouldn’t have certain characteristics that come in play because of causes and conditions. So it wouldn’t have any causes and conditions to make it fall.
Yeah, so it wouldn’t have any reasons to fall so therefore it wouldn’t need to sit on the table. Oh what a nice! This has been crazy. Anyway, you’re a good couple. Yeah.
And the self-cherishing? Okay. Geshe-la said the basis of all the neurosis, klesha or the neurotic minds, is the second noble truth, the truth of the origin of suffering, is ignorance, is the non-understanding of inherent real existence. He said there is a slight difference between grasping inherent existence and self-cherishing. self-cherishing is not only the idea of inherently existent self, but then thinking not only am inherently existent but I’m really important.
I really like myself. I really need to look after, and that’s something that I need to focus on is looking after me. Thereis a slight difference between these different types of minds but the basis of all the neurosis in the second noble truth, the truth of the origin of suffering, isn’t self-cherishing, it’s the ignorance that is seeing things as being inherently existent. From that comes self-cherishing and many other things, but the basis of it is the grasping inherent existence. And the ignorance that’s in the twelve links is grasping inherent existence or grasping itself it’s not self-cherishing.
Because he was connecting these two things he focused on the lack of self or the lack of inherent existence. self-cherishing, this attitude of self-cherishing, is something that comes about because of grasping an inherent existence, but from the perspective of the twelve links, because we’re defining the first of the twelve links as ignorance as being the motivation for creating, throwing karma, then this isn’t cherishing mind, it’s the grasping of inherent existence mind or the grasping of true self mind. This self-cherishing mind helps