Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 41-minute session, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with a verse by Gendun Drup — the first Dalai Lama — praying to Tārā for a bodhicitta that flows like a river, unbroken to the sea. He uses that image to press home why practice must be continuous: stop and restart, and the momentum is lost. The session then moves into a close examination of the twelve links of dependent origination, focusing on the third link — a consciousness coloured by connecting karma born of ignorance — and the fourth, name and form, which he traces from the fetus in the womb through the named stages of a full human life. He also outlines the four modes of birth, noting which pass through the twelve links and which do not.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 SAN 2004 03 23.mp3
UUID: 72c3c65c-85e1-4b5e-b684-3fbdc404a82b
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB Samsāra and Nirvāṇa (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-03-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 41.3 minutes
Words: ~2,527
Did you guys hear the last thing? Okay. You and me, everyone. So I guess I’ve got a loud voice. Doesn’t matter if it’s on or not.
Yeah. Yeah. Because this was a prayer to Tārā in this prayer, Gendun Drup, the first Dalai Lama was requesting Tārā to grant this blessing that he would be able to develop bodhicitta that having developed bodhicitta he would engage in the actions of princes (bodhisattvas) which is to say the actions of bodhicitta. And that these actions of bodhicitta would carry him along like a river. Now the reason that the metaphor of the river is used is because a river doesn’t have a break in it.
In order for a river to be called a to be called a river, it has a continuous flow that ends up in the ocean. So he’s requesting that his mind stream be continually intertwined with bodhicitta that he never be separated from bodhicitta and so in the same way that he made this request to Tārā then we should whoever we’re praying to whoever we have faith in, then we should make this request that our mind stream is never separated from bodhicitta. Whether we’re walking, whether we’re sleeping, whether we’re eating, whatever we’re doing, we should try and develop a bodhicitta that never leaves us. Okay. So the the thing that we’re trying to achieve through trying to through developing bodhicitta is to have our mind continually focusing on achieving enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Now what we need to do in order to develop that state of mind is a lot of hard work, similar to what Gendun Drup did. We have to pray in this way. We need to continually work at it in this way. So in the same way that a river flows to the sea without a break, even if it does get break, if it does have a break it doesn’t end up getting to the sea, then we need to continue doing things. We need to continue studying.
We need to continue trying to understand what we’ve studied. We need to continue putting what we’ve studied into practice and we need to continue trying to develop bodhicitta without a break. If we have a break, then we don’t really get anywhere. It’s like if we decide that we’re going to do something for a day or a couple of days or even a couple of months, while we’re doing it, may be beneficial to us. If after that time we decide to stop it and then eventually maybe come back to it for another couple of months, then it’s not going to be of any real benefit to us.
It’s not going to be substantially beneficial to us. We need to keep at something and be like a river slowly going towards the sea, that there’s no break in the river. And so the problem with the way that we approach it then is that sometimes we stop. Sometimes we stop because we’re tired. Sometimes we stop because we don’t have any time.
Was trying to remember the other other reason. Sometimes we stop because we don’t have enough time. And so if we completely stop practising in any way altogether, then it acts as like a break in what we’re trying to achieve. We lose the momentum of what we are trying to achieve. So if we really want to get somewhere, then we have to keep working at it.
We have to work it out without having a break, without having a rest or without getting caught up in other things. We have to keep working at something in order to develop the momentum. In this way, we become like a river that builds up momentum as it moves towards the sea. So this means that we need to keep working at it. We we tend to work at other things, though.
We don’t keep working at Dharma because we don’t understand things probably. We think that certain things are going to make us happy, and so we strive after those, but they’re actually the cause for suffering. And we don’t understand the other things that are actually going to make us happy, so we don’t strive after them, and they are the cause for true happiness. So misunderstanding what will make us happy and misunderstanding what will bring suffering we then continually strive to create causes for saṃsāra. And not only us but all other sentient beings are in exactly the same situation.
They don’t want to experience suffering they want to experience happiness but not understanding the causes of happiness they continually strive to create the causes for saṃsāra and for suffering. So given that this is the case then we should try and develop this mind or try and develop the way of thinking that is focused on attaining Buddhahood in order for us to be a benefit to all sentient beings. So we should try and develop that way of looking at things. And that way of looking at things is called or the mind thinking in this way is called a bodhicitta. So that’s what we need to develop, and that’s the motivation we need to develop.
And that’s what we should meditate on for a few minutes now. Okay. Right. Now the third link is supposed to be easy. Geshe said, ah, the third link.
That’s easy. Anyway, the third link is said to be consciousness. Right? But it’s not consciousness as we would normally think of as consciousness because normal consciousness is eye consciousness, ear consciousness and so forth, right? But this is the consciousness of dependent origination, which isn’t the same as the normal consciousness, okay, as in terms of mind and mental factors and so forth.
It’s a specific type of consciousness. Now it is the consciousness that has come about because ignorance has caused us to create connecting karma and this connecting karma was a mental factor. Now a mental factor is something that deals with the specifics of an understanding of something. So the main mind or the main focus that accompanied this connecting karma that was focused on the specifics is said to be the consciousness. So the way that this works is for example, if I had food in this cup before I had tea in it and and it still stunk of the food when I was drinking the tea then that would be the same as the way that the karma or the negative actions or the negative and positive actions that we performed in the past that were based on ignorance is the way that they pervade our consciousness.
So it’s consciousness that has the stains of this connecting karma which comes from ignorance. So it’s not any consciousness. It’s the consciousness that affected by this connecting karma. Now, the way that this works then is for example, that this connecting karma needs a form or a place to exist in. So this the connecting karma’s place to exist or the place that it gets carried along with is the consciousness, the dependent origination consciousness, not ordinary consciousness.
And so it’s the same thing as if we plant seeds in our mind stream by performing certain actions, then those seeds need a place to come for their results to come about. And a place where their results come about is in the consciousness that is pervaded by these connecting karmic mental factors that they come along with the main mind, right? So the consciousnesses that are pervaded by or affected by ignorance and connecting karma is the consciousness that is part of is the third link of the twelve links of dependent origination.. I said, he said, so did that make sense? I said, well, it kinda made sense to me.
Whether it made sense to them or not, I can’t say. And he said, well, we just worry about us for now. He said if we can say it properly, then they can work it out. Okay. Of course.
So usually when we talk about consciousnesses, we talk about the six different types of consciousnesses. Right, so we talk about eye consciousness and nose consciousness, ear consciousness and so forth. In this instance however we’re only talking about mental consciousnesses which are concepts and so forth which are stained if you like by connecting karma by having a mental factor like a mind that comes along with them looking at specifics that is this connecting karma. Dear. Yes.
I hadn’t learned the word for, how would you say it, for loyalty in Hindi yet. It hadn’t come up in the first semester of classes. Anyway, yeah. So anyway, so what we’re talking about here is we’re talking about a progression of one thing to another. And so that means that every group of these twelve things is its own kind of side, or it has its own, yeah, this word like loyalty in between.
It forms its own group, right? And has links in between it. So this means that there’s many different instances of connecting karma that we have in a lifetime. There’s many different instances of throwing karma that we create in any existence, let alone in all of our existences. And every single one of those has twelve links of dependent origination connected to it.
Okay. So for every connecting action that anything that’s connecting come any action that we do that comes about because of ignorance, therefore brings about consciousness, therefore brings about name and form, therefore brings about sources of perception and so forth, right? It all acts as a cause in all these different instances. So as we’re working our way through them then we’re up to number four, which is name and form. And in name and form is therefore anything that ignorance created connecting karma, which created consciousness, which then brings about conception.
Yeah. Which brings about the coming into being of what are called aggregates of a name aggregate and a form aggregate. So form aggregate being a physical body and a name aggregate being a sense of self, a sense of I. So any that anything, any instance of that that comes about because of consciousness, because of connecting karma, because of ignorance is then said to be the name and form that’s included within twelve links of dependent origination. So this fourth link of dependent origination is the basically the foetus before it has developed sources of perception which is the six senses.
So if you have a foetus that hasn’t developed any of the senses then this is said to be the form of this fourth link name and form and the name this is referring to here is any of the consciousness that form experiences is said to be named so it has any of the ideas that it has are said to be the name of this fourth link now because there is no sense perceptions that means that there is no feeling that comes about there’s no experiences of happiness or suffering but there is a consciousness So there is a thinking. So therefore, this is the name the twelve links of dependent origination. So this this experience is then said to be one that is actually suffering because it’s come about because of ignorance. Even though there is no feeling there, it’s still said to be in the nature of suffering because it comes about through ignorance and connecting karma or throwing karma and then the development of consciousness. Now if an Ārya being or an Arhant being or a Bodhisattva of some kind that has gotten rid of their twelve links of dependent origination decides to take rebirth in order to be of benefit to beings then they don’t go through this process because they don’t have ignorance they may take physical form and they may have form and consciousness without sense perceptions without, sorry, without sense organs in the womb but because there’s no ignorance to start off the chain then it’s not said to be the name and form of the twelve links of dependent origination.
Okay. There’s also said to be four different ways that beings can come into existence, four different births that they can have. There’s birth from a womb, birth from magical emanation, birth from heat, and another one. Oh, and eggs. From eggs.
Yes, okay. So this, I was like, there’s another one, I know it. Beings can also come into being through an egg. So this aspect of name and form and this process actually only comes about through three of these through heat, through eggs and through the womb. Through magical emanation, that type of rebirth, then you don’t go through this process because you’re born with all your senses completely intact.
Okay, so, oh man. During the process of growing inside the mother’s womb, it’s said that up until a certain point, which is depending on which way you figure it out between three to four and a half months after conception, then the being inside the womb isn’t said to be a fully, fully a human, right? It isn’t said to be a fully human. It is said to be something that is attached to being human. And then after all the senses have come into existence, then it is a a full human existence.
Okay? Took me a while to figure that out. From what he was saying. Okay. So it’s it’s a becoming human up until that point, and then after that point, it’s a fully full fully human.
Right. Now, when we’re talking about and indeed, Unbelievable. All right, okay. So for this fourth link, name and form, it doesn’t only just refer to the form and the consciousness that within a foetus before it develops the sense perceptions because at different stages through our life we also experience a form which has specific name. Alright?
Now to start off with, there is two different ones before you’re born. Okay? So you are called a becoming a human and a human, alright, before you’re born. Now there’s another two, and I don’t know how to translate them because we don’t have them in English. Right?
So there’s four different stages before you’re born, I think. Then once you’re born, you’re a baby. Yeah? Baby. And then there’s another stage which I think basically corresponds to toddler.
Then there’s another stage which basically corresponds to child. And then there’s one that’s basically for teenagers. Then when you hit So then when you hit forty, you called something which is what was it? The beginning has finished. It’s a literal translation.
Okay. Then when you get Oh, and once you’re sixty year old, right? That’s And then after that you die again, okay? So there’s different stages. At different stages there is a different name, right, that’s attached to a form.
So we have different name and form that is the fourth link of dependent origination for different stages of life as well.