Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A Buddha quote on the Wheel of Life diagram hanging at the back of the room — destroy it as an elephant destroys a grass hut — anchors Geshe Pema Tsering’s 45-minute close reading of links five through eight: sense bases, contact, feeling, and craving. He makes one key distinction: craving arises not from feeling itself but from ignorance-imprints laid down in previous lifetimes, triggered fresh by present conditions. A Q&A follows on how ignorance perpetuates itself without beginning yet can end through direct perception of emptiness (illustrated with a dark-glasses analogy), and on the Buddhist definition of an instant — a bullet passing through a hundred sheets, each penetration a separate moment. The session closes by naming the grasping sense of I as saṃsāra’s single root — the one thing practice must dissolve.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 SAN 2004 03 23.mp3
UUID: e2d44b06-f8fc-4d9f-a740-14b0cf36385c
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB Samsāra and Nirvāṇa (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-03-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~2,686
Okay, so the next one, after we’ve had a name and form and the continuing process of becoming, we have what’s called the sources of perception. Now sources of perception are said to be the six sense bases. So therefore we’re talking about the ability to perceive sight, to perceive objects, hear things, smell things, taste things, think things and experience physical feelings But this physical ability doesn’t necessarily manifest as a physical experience So the ability to experience physical things is there but the actual physical experience isn’t there yet because that’s the next link, right? As soon as there is the next link, then we go into all different sorts of things. But so the ability comes about, but it isn’t actually put into effect yet.
So then on the basis of these sources of perception, these sensors, then the next one comes about, which is contact. But it’s interesting because it’s the same word as the experience of physical contact, physical senses. So the same word that’s used for touch is used for contact, this sixth dependent link. So that means that the ability to perceive these things is in place. As soon as an experience is had by these senses, we move on to the next link, is contact or touch or experience.
But, this isn’t to say that any sense of experience or any sense of, attaching happiness or suffering to that contact has come about yet because that would be moving on to the next link. Okay. Now, these sources of perception is actually not just the consciousness that’s able to perceive things, but it’s the interaction between an object and the consciousness. So the ability to perceive things. When contact happens when number six the six link contact or sensory contact happens what means is the senses are stimulated.
Because the senses are stimulated, this brings about an experience of either happiness or suffering. Yeah. And so once the senses are stimulated by an object, so that is if we see something, for example, that makes us happy, yeah, then we start to experience feeling. So this means that we have six different types of contact because we have six different senses. And we have six different types of feeling because we have six different types of contact.
Okay. So and then when it comes to these feelings, it means that the experience of feeling is divided into these six different types dependent on the consciousness. Okay. So there’s these six different types of consciousness here. And within each of these six different types of consciousness, there can be an experience of happiness, suffering, or equanimity.
Yeah? So we can have see something that makes us happy, sad, or doesn’t affect us either way. We can think something that makes us happy or sad, doesn’t affect us either way, and so on through all of the senses. Oh, yeah. That is one.
Okay, so the next one that we have in this twelve links is what’s called craving. So the other translations for this are to desire or hanker after. Now this obviously comes from this experience of happiness, sadness or happiness, suffering or equanimity that we had in the feeling. But the actual cause for this craving is not necessarily the feeling, right? It comes about after the feeling, therefore it is dependent in terms of dependent origination on the feeling, but the cause for this craving isn’t that feeling.
The cause for the craving is an ignorant mind in a previous life developing imprints that would cause it to experience craving, all right? So at the time of death, if our mind is attached to things, to saṃsāra in any way through ignorance, through grasping at existence, then the result of that cause manifests at this instance in craving. So the habits or the imprints that have been established in previous lives that would lead us towards craving happiness and having aversion to suffering come into being now, right? Through the causes we established in previous lives and the combination of the conditions of the feeling. Got it?
Okay. So this means that this craving is not from the same side as the ignorance that’s It comes about from ignorance, but it’s not from the same set or the same side or the same. But it’s not the same. That was what it was in Hindi. So same side or same.
I like that. I was like, what are you talking about? Anyway, it’s not from the same side as the ignorance connecting, common consciousness, name, form, source of perception and so forth, right? They act as a condition for this. But not a cause, got it?
Okay. So what’s happening then is, right, because of the ignorance and the craving that was established in a different set of the twelve links of dependent origination, yeah, in a different series of that, then there is a habit or an imprint towards craving that is triggered off by the conditions of this set of twelve links of dependent origination. Because we said earlier that every instance of throwing karma is throwing karma, or every instance of grasping at existence, which is ignorance, creates a whole another set of twelve links. Okay? Okay.
So within this craving, there’s said to be three different types of craving. There is a craving for happiness. There is craving for not experiencing suffering, and there is craving for the aggregates, so craving for a body or form. So we can stop there. Yeah.
He said, is it because you’re tired? And I said, no. I think it’s because they’ll be confused. Don’t just blame you. Oh, yeah.
Does anyone have questions? Okay. So ignorance comes from not knowing. Alright? So ignorance comes from misperceiving things the way that things are.
So once we have this idea of a truly existent self, then we have ignorance. And ignorance has existed in our mind stream since forever. As as there’s been existence there has been split in this idea of ours that we exist. The individual I exist is this ignorance. And so it comes from a previous moment of the same type of consciousness.
So a previous moment of ignorance. So it becomes about because of a previous moment of ignorance. So ignorance becomes about because of a previously ignorant state. Ignorance begats ignorance. It’s a cause of It says a continuum of a similar type, but that don’t Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna help much.
So a previous moment of ignorance creates ignorance and that is created by a previous moment of ignorance, right? So always in our mind stream we’ve had ignorance. We’ve perceived ourselves to be inherently existent therefore we’ve always had ignorance. But we also have the ability to get rid of that ignorance because ignorance is a misperception. It’s a mistake.
Yeah. So once we understand that it’s a mistake and once we’re able to reverse that mistake, then we’re able to cease the stop the ignorance and get out of saṃsāra. So because it’s established by a previous moment of consciousness, right, and mind is created by a previous moment of mind. This means that there is no beginning to mind. All right?
And that means that there is no beginning to ignorance. All right? But there is an end. We have the ability to end ignorance by developing wisdom and therefore achieving liberation. And you thought it was a simple question.
Thank you. Yes. Yes, we said that. Yes. Yeah.
That’s probably a better way of doing it. Not becoming a being. Not becoming a being. Becoming a human. That’s different.
Yeah. It’s a sentient being, and it has consciousness. Yeah? It does doesn’t have all of the all of the attributes attributes of a human. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. So each of the different types of rebirth has a name and form, but it doesn’t always come in separate from the others right so they each have name and form as a characteristic but it’s not the same name and form but then each individual being would have a different name and a different form as well, right? So there’s different name and form for each different human, for example. Then there’s also a different name and form for each of the different realms, right?
But in certain types of birth like a magical emanation birth, then name and form and the sources of perception and so forth come together, right? What’s that magical emanation birth comes about in the hell realms and the god realms? So if you have a magical emanation birth, which would be fun, then you get name, form, sources of perception, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, and existence, birth or coming in one at one time. They all come, but they all come at one time. Did I say too quick?
Is it confusing? Your face is like. Yeah. But you come in an instant. Yeah.
Yeah. Sixty four. Oh, like on television. They go big on television. You don’t wanna be born in hell.
It’s like, no. Yes. Until you die. Anyway. I just want to expand on what one way to say about sixty four.
A second? Okay. So the definition of an instant, all right, is a sixty fourth of the smallest action. All right? And so a sixty fourth of the action that takes the shortest time to perform.
So they usually use the example of the click of a finger. So with you click your finger, there’s been sixty four instance or sixty four moments. Okay? Okay. He said, but in actual fact, clicking your fingers isn’t the smallest action.
Isn’t the isn’t the action that takes the shortest amount of time. Right? Because if you had a hundred pieces of paper and you shot a gun through the hundred pieces of paper, then the bullet would pass through each piece of paper in an individual action. And so that means that a sixty fourth of the smallest action is a sixty fourth of a bullet passing through a sheet of paper, for example. So in other words, he said it’s very subtle in terms of how you can break up time.
And No. Not just mind. Any action, any performance, any phenomena. Any phenomena. He’s guess, let’s say, so in actual fact, clicking your finger isn’t just sixty four moments.
It’s a lot of moments. And so what it means then is that things the definition of phenomena is things that change momentarily, which means that they change in every moment. It’s in a very it’s changing in a very kind of subtle way in terms of it’s changing in every moment. Yes. That’s all right.
Okay. Okay. There is ignorance in our continuum at all times. Right? So there’s ignorance in our in in our thoughts.
Yeah? But ignorance doesn’t necessarily give rise to the twelve links of dependent origination. You need to have connecting karma in order to you need to have throwing karma. Yeah? So you need to be acting in a way that’s based on ignorance in order to bring about the twelve links of dependent origination.
Is there ever any Okay. So it’s always in our continuum, but that doesn’t mean that every mind that we have or every thought that we have or every experience that we have is ignorance. Alright? So for example if we’re concentrating on an object single pointedly for twenty seconds then for those twenty seconds then we aren’t experiencing ignorance. It doesn’t mean that the ignorance has disappeared.
It means that our mind isn’t at that time. Right? Yeah, it’s just not manifest. And it’s the same as when we go to sleep. Ignorance isn’t manifest, but it still can come back because we haven’t gotten rid of it.
In order to get rid of ignorance, Geshe-la said, if you’re anything like him, it’s very difficult. Because you have to perceive the true nature of reality directly, yeah, or develop an understanding of that and then put in a lot of work and a lot of meditation in order to strengthen that understanding until that understanding becomes the way that you look at things, right? That you start to see things the way they actually are. He said it’s a similar thing. It’s like we’re wearing dark glasses at the moment and everything we see is dark.
And until we realize that we have to take the glasses off and then get used to not having glasses on, then we’re not going to perceive things in the right way. So we need to develop an understanding and then meditate on it until it becomes the way that we perceive things. And that’s how you develop an insight into reality and experience emptiness directly and become an arhat or an ārya. Gone, Yeah. Someone’s got a hand up apparently.
Hard? Uh-huh. Okay. Understanding the twelve links of dependent origination gives you the ability to stop performing negative actions, right? So the way that you put into practice is that you understand that all of your craving, all of your need for happiness and your aversion to suffering all of that all comes from the ignorance that perceives self to be inherently existent.
So anytime you experience desire, anytime you experience aversion you can understand that that’s where it’s coming from and you’re in this wheel of twelve links that keeps you in saṃsāra. Through understanding the twelve links and through meditating on the twelve links then you’re able to stop the continual cycle of the twelve links through stopping craving, through stopping grasping and so forth. So but we also need to know what it is that we need to know, and we need to get rid of what we need to understand what it is that we need to get rid of. And so by looking at the twelve links and looking at how ignorance creates something, which creates craving, which creates suffering, which creates ignorance and so forth, then we’re able to see how this ignorance is the root cause of the experience of saṃsāra. So we’re able to see that if we want to get rid of saṃsāra, then we have to get rid of this ignorance.
So through looking at this, through understanding this, then we’re able to perceive in our everyday life how we are in saṃsāra, how we’ve ended up in saṃsāra and what it is that we keep doing to perpetuate saṃsāra. So through developing an understanding of this, we’re able to stop ourselves doing the things that create saṃsāra and get out of it. So this the basis of the twelve links is ignorance isn’t something that’s that isn’t something that’s a whole bunch of different stuff. Right? It’s one thing.
It’s our grasping at self. Right? It’s our grasping an inherent existence of self right so every time we think I need this I do that I have this every time we have this sense of I then that’s this ignorance right and that ignorance is what causes us to experience all these different experiences of suffering It’s that ignorance that we need to get rid of in order to get out of saṃsāra. Yeah. It is a.
Mhmm. It’s on that side. Yeah. Elephant destroying grass hut. Did you guys hear that?
All right. Okay, so there’s this picture that’s actually up on the back wall there, think, yeah. And it’s the wheel of life it’s called or death or something. Anyway, it’s got a picture of the Lord of Death who’s called Yama and in his mouth is said to be something that symbolises saṃsāra, right? And this picture is said to be based on a quote from the Buddha which was that what?
Make it. Make effort to destroy it. Eliminate the Lord of Eliminate the As elephant destroys a grass hut. Okay. Okay.
Grass hut. There’s not a lot of them in Tibet. Where’d you get the quote from? Essentially, it’s from