Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. After opening with Maitreya’s definition of bodhicitta as motivational framing, Geshe Pema Tsering works through links eight to twelve of dependent origination in this 45-minute session. He explains craving (link 8) in three forms — for pleasure, to avoid suffering, and for continued existence — using a seed-and-water analogy to show how it acts as a condition rather than the primary cause of rebirth. Grasping (link 9) is then unpacked through four objects: pleasure, wrong views, practices such as asceticism mistaken for liberation, and belief in a truly existent self. He distinguishes existence (link 10) as karma rather than an affliction, and clarifies that Buddhist “birth” means conception — with a direct remark on the moral status of a conceived being. The session closes by mapping all twelve links into their two causal structures: throwing karma and establishing karma.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 12L 2004 03 30.mp3
UUID: f56203ba-ae9b-4d18-b71b-ad9d8e09e8e9
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB Twelve Links (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-03-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~3,337
Sorry. Okay, so in the clear ornament of realization, although, Abhisamayālamkāra, Maitreya, right? Really? Maitreya says, What is bodhicitta? bodhicitta is the mind wishing to establish all beings as Buddhas and the wish to become Buddhas ourselves in order to achieve that.
So he says that means that we need to, this Maitreya is explaining, this means we need to look at others benefit instead of our own and that our own benefit or things that benefit us are only done in order to actually benefit others and not for our own sake. So in Tibetan there is two different ways to say bodhicitta. There’s a word that means the mind of enlightenment and another way to say it is to say the manifestly generated mind or the mind that is developed or the mind to be developed. So these are two different ways that we can look at bodhicitta. What we need to do to be able to develop this, to develop the mind of enlightenment, to develop this mind we need to generate, what we need to do is to get rid of looking at ourselves, looking towards our own benefit, and start looking towards what will benefit others.
This is very difficult for us to do. We are very, very strongly habituated into looking towards ourselves and looking towards what we want, and not looking towards what others want. When we first wake up in the morning, the first thought we usually have is about ourselves, how we can benefit ourselves, what we want, what we need first thing in the morning. And the reason for this is, the reason that we so easily focused on what we need, what serves our purpose, what it is that we need to do, what it is that we need to get. The reason we focus so easily on this is because we’ve been so strongly habituated towards it.
We’ve been thinking in this way since beginningless time or since forever. So it means that we don’t need to put in much effort to have thoughts like this, but we need to put in a lot of effort to turn the way we think around and start focusing on others instead of focusing on ourselves. So this means that even when we do virtuous actions or even when we do a positive action that’s going to have happiness as its result, the main reason that we’re performing that positive action is in order for ourselves to benefit. We have this idea that if we do a positive action we will experience happiness and so in the performance of that positive action there’s still a lot of grasping or grasping it, self grasping or looking towards our own benefit not looking towards others. And this is fine to a certain degree because we’re still doing positive actions, we’re still creating the causes for happiness and we’re not creating the causes for suffering.
But in terms of how beneficial our positive actions are, in terms of the results of our positive action, then there’s many different strengths to these positive actions. We can do something with a positive action with a motivation and that will have a middling result. We can do a positive action with a fairly weak motivation that is to benefit ourselves and that will have a fairly weak result. But the strongest motivation that we can develop which then creates the strongest action and therefore the strongest results is to do something in order to achieve enlightenment to benefit all sentient beings, lead all sentient beings to enlightenment. If we do something focusing on all other beings instead of just focusing on ourself, then that action and therefore that action’s results become incredibly strong and in this way incredibly positive.
If we’re just focusing on our own benefit or how something can benefit ourselves, then we can see that the results of that way of thinking or that motivation will be limited because the scope is limited. What we’re focusing on is limited. We’re only thinking about one person and so we’re only seeking to benefit one person. We’re thinking if I do this then I will become happy in some way. I will experience the results of that in some way.
We can see in this way that in terms of the benefit or the results of that it’s very limited because if the focus is only on one person then there’s only one person that can benefit from that. But if we turn the way we think around and we think I’m doing this in order to benefit all sentient beings or I’m doing this to benefit all beings, then that actually includes ourselves as well because we are beings, we are sentient beings. But we’re not just thinking about ourselves, we’re thinking about countless sentient beings so the power of that action or the power of that thing that we perform is also said to be countless because the motivation is countless and therefore the results will be countless. So this means that we should do whatever it is that we’re going to do with this motivation whether it’s meditating, whether it’s reading text, whether it’s prostrating, whether it’s trying to understand what we have learned, whether it’s contemplating it, whether it’s making offerings, it’s practicing generosity, all of these things, any action that we perform we should do with the idea that this is to benefit, this is in order for us to become Buddhas, in order to lead all sentient beings to Buddhahood.
So this means that we should try and focus ourselves before listening to teachings and think that we are doing this in order to attain Buddhahood, in order to lead all sentient beings to Buddhahood, not just for ourselves. And so we should think by listening to these teachings this will bring me understanding. If I am able to practice in accordance with that then that will bring about great benefits and eventually lead me to becoming a fully enlightened Buddha. I am doing this in order to bring that about so I can be of benefit to all sentient beings. So then we should think that any positive actions that I may have performed now and any positive actions that any other being may have performed either in the past, in the present or will perform in the future.
So we have this idea of an enormous collection of positive actions and then we think by rejoicing in that may this be a cause for me to attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. So we meditate on that for a few minutes. And last week we were talking about feelings and how they come about through sensory stimulation or contact. And these were links six and seven of these twelve links. Now we’re up to a link number eight, which is usually translated as far as I’m aware as craving.
So this craving is defined in Tibetan as being a synonym of desire or grasping or attachment or strong attachment. So this craving attachment desire are all said to be one and the same thing. Now because of this that means that there is three different types to this craving. There’s three different ways we can crave in terms of this eighth link of dependent origination. The first way that we can crave is to crave for something pleasurable, to crave for something that gives us happiness.
The second one is that we can have craving which is craving to not be joined with suffering, right? So it’s a craving which is the fear of suffering. So working with kind of strange negatives in English but a craving not to experience suffering, right? And it’s the second type of craving. And the third type of craving is the craving that grasps at or the craving that yearns for the aggregates.
So that is the craving that wishes to exist. So the five aggregates of form and feeling and consciousness and connecting karma or connecting actions and formations, and consciousness. The craving that grasps for those things is said to be the third type of craving that we can have. Okay, so this craving acts as a condition for bringing about rebirth in saṃsāra or the experience of saṃsāra. So how it comes about is from having the tendency or the habit of craving things in previous lives then karmic repercussions of that are that we create the conditions for experiencing craving in future lives and it’s the craving that can act as a cause for us to be reborn in saṃsāra or to experience saṃsāra.
Craving for example at the time of death for objects that we may perceive or even for a body or for an existence, any of these things, any of this craving that we may have that is craving not to die and things like that, those things can act as a condition. The condition that comes into ripening after we develop feeling in the twelve links of dependent origination. So it’s said that this craving is a bit like the water that is absolutely necessary for a flower to grow but isn’t the main cause for a flower to grow. So the main cause for a flower to grow would be the seed because it’s with the seed that the flower can come into being. But if you don’t have water, flower still can’t come into existence.
So this craving is like the water that acts as a strong condition for bringing about existence or samsaric existence. So this craving, what we’re talking about with this craving is actually the imprints or the tendencies that we have to behave in a certain way or think in a certain way that rest in our mind stream. So in this way that they’re a condition, are of the background or the tendencies or the secondary thing that can bring about the next link which is grasping, right? So this grasping is by its nature an afflictive emotion or klesha. Now, it comes about because of the tendencies, the craving tendencies that we have in our mind stream.
So if the craving then is the water that causes a flower to grow, then this grasping is like the first little shoots of the flower that come about, right? So because of the water, the shoots can come about. And because of that tendencies to have had this craving mind in the past, it means that when we’re put into a position of having feelings for negative and positive, that this grasping, this neurotic mind that’s strongly attached to things flares up or comes about. So it’s said to be like again, it’s said to be like the little shoots that come out of a seed once it has all the conditions like water and the seed for the plant to come into being. Okay.
I was like, okay, you’re going have to stop there because I’m not going to remember everything. Alright, this grasping comes about as a neurotic thought pattern or an afflictive emotion that comes about because of these craving tendencies that we have in our mind stream and it can manifest in different ways. There are many things that we can grasp at that can cause us to then go on experiencing existence, birth, old age and death. The first thing that we would grasp at would be happiness or pleasure. We grasp at the idea of experiencing a pleasant situation or an experience of happiness or the lack of suffering in some way.
Another thing that we may grasp at is what’s called views, easy views or wrong views that are easy to want to be true, right or easy to want to experience that is for example that there’s no such thing as cause and effect that negative actions don’t have negative consequences that things that we can’t see aren’t true alright so for example the Three Jewels and so forth aren’t true just because we can’t see them directly or there is no experiences of negative states apart from the ones that we can see so therefore they must not exist and we can’t be reborn in them those kind of views. They’re said to be in general five different types of wrong views. There’s views of what’s called the transitory collection which is viewing our body as being a solid entity that is in fact us and if we just look after it we’ll be fine. There’s viewing things we can’t see as being non-existent. And from amongst these there’s one that’s called which is the third way of grasping that’s called incorrect ethics.
Now incorrect ethics is thinking that by doing certain things that are actually negative that we will experience liberation. So that means for example offering sacrifices as a way to achieve liberation, performing ascetic practices as a way to achieve liberation or performing self mutilation as a way to achieve liberation. So there were traditions where people would set themselves on fire or chop off their fingers or do all these sorts of things in order to get rid of karma they thought was stored in their body and therefore achieve liberation. This is said to be another thing that we can grasp at as a that actually causes us to experience suffering. Okay.
The fourth thing that we can grasp at is a sense of a truly existent self. Sense of things being truly existent. There’s also grasping at a pride that is said to be pride beyond pride or extreme pride. Okay. So the tenth link out of the twelve links is then said to be existence.
Now this word that is translated usually as existence actually also has the meaning of possibility as well. So that may be helpful. So it means coming into existence or possibility. Now this tenth link isn’t a negative emotion or a klesha or a neurotic thought pattern — it’s actually said to be karma, and what it is in terms of karma or cause and effect is the meeting of the cause in a previous life that created the effect of a new life. When the cause and the effect come together then we have this sense of existence or possibility of existence, which is the tenth link and it’s not a negative emotion, it’s karma.
Okay, so then after we have existence come into being, existence then we go on to experience birth and therefore because of birth, old age and death. So this means that out of these twelve links of dependent origination the first three are what’s said to be the cause of throwing karma, how throwing karma comes into effect, yeah, how it creates something that needs a result. Right, so that is ignorance, connecting karma and consciousness. Then the next four being name and form, sources of perception, contact and feeling are all the results of that throwing karma. Are all the results of that creating the cause for existing in saṃsāra.
Now the next three which is craving, grasping and coming into existence — that is the connection of the two different types of karma from previous and this life — are said to be the causes of establishing karma. Right, that is creating that comes along with throwing karma but creates the cause for establishing existence. And birth, old age, and death, which are links number eleven and twelve, are said to be the result of this establishing karma. So this means that within these twelve links, we have two different sections. We have throwing karma, its cause and result, right?
And we have establishing karma, its cause and result. So what throwing karma is, is the ignorance, the connecting karma or the activities that we engage in based on ignorance and the consciousness that is connected with that ignorance those things create a result which is this idea of name and form that we have the aggregates, the sense perceptions, the idea of contact with the senses and then because of that feelings. So they’re the result of our ignorance connecting karma and consciousness. The establishing cause is like the conditions which cause this ignorance to manifest in terms of birth and old age. So that means we have this basic ignorance that creates this situation then we have craving, grasping and this connection or this habit of existence or this karma for existence and they act as a cause for us to experience birth, old age and death.
So on the one hand we have this main cause of ignorance creating a situation where we have the ability to develop craving and then that craving creates the cause for us to experience the result of birth, old age and death and therefore those kinds of sufferings. Okay, now this tenth link of dependent origination, which is translated as existence, This comes from a Tibetan word which is srid pa, and that’s the translation, comes with and this word in Tibetan can also mean saṃsāra, so it’s another way of saying saṃsāra. This tenth link is another way of saying saṃsāra. In this instance then we have to say that there are four different types of experiences saṃsāra that we can have or four different types of existence that are said to be the different ways of experiencing saṃsāra and they are first of all we can have the saṃsāra or the existence of the bardo which is the stage in between lives and then the next one we have is the existence which is the taking of the five aggregates or the appropriation of the five aggregates. This comes about through the process we were explaining earlier of the twelve links.
Through that process, because it is a constant state of change, that instantly turns into the idea of conception and then birth and as soon as we have birth we have ageing. The second one is the appropriation of the aggregates, the third one is the existence of birth or that is being born and then we have the existence of aging comes straight after that. So just trying to get the order happening. All right, because the next twelve link, the next link is said to be birth. But birth is actually said to come about before existence, sorry — not before existence but before name and form. So it’s said to come about before name and form and before the sources of perception come about in terms of the development of a foetus.
Birth is said to happen at the moment of conception and at this stage although the being isn’t considered to be a fully formed human it is still said to be a human so it’s said to be becoming human but that’s what it’s called but that doesn’t mean that it’s not human. This means that any harm that comes to that being on purpose is said to be the same negativity as killing a human because this being is considered human from conception even though it’s said to have this other name of being called becoming human because it hasn’t got all the characteristics of being a human because it hasn’t developed all the senses, the sense organs and so forth. So this birth doesn’t actually happen when you are what we would call born. It’s actually, it means it’s a way of saying conception. Okay, so this birth or this conception is said to come about at the same time as name and form come about.
So name and form is the appropriation of the five aggregates when consciousness enters at conception But the reason that it is number eleven in the twelve links of dependent origination is because it’s caused by existence and existence is caused by grasping and so on. But it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re in chronological order.