Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. “Slaves to self” — Geshe Pema Tsering’s phrase for our ordinary condition — anchors this 36-minute commentary from the Essence of Refined Gold series. He maps two philosophical pitfalls: eternalism (taking the self to exist exactly as it appears) and nihilism (concluding nothing exists at all). Between them, the self exists conventionally as a label, but not as a solid inherent entity. Seeing through that solidity — selflessness — causes attachment, hatred, and arrogance to dissolve for want of a target, severing the root of karma and suffering. A rich Q&A then distinguishes nirvana with and without remainder, contrasts Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna accounts of liberation, and examines whether arhats directly perceive emptiness in deep concentration. Suited to practitioners with some grounding in Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 20 2004 05 11 RG.mp3
UUID: 344c64ea-b6e3-4a52-964a-5952f6f2b708
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Essence of Refined Gold (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-05-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 36.1 minutes
Words: ~2,488
Understanding this situation, understanding the way that this is, is very difficult. There are two different extremes that we can easily fall into. One is the extreme of existence or the extreme of eternalism, which is that, yes, it is there the way that I perceive it. The extreme we can fall into is when we analyze the situation and see that there is no inherent self we were looking for, or that inherent thing we were looking for isn’t there, we can fall into an extreme of what’s called nihilism and decide nothing exists at all. And so it’s something that’s very difficult to get a finger on or to analyze, to come to the idea of.
First of all, we have to get rid of the idea of an inherently existent self, of a solidly existent self. We have to get rid of that idea that there’s a solid entity that is us. And this idea is something that is really ingrained in our being. We have this idea that there is something in us, there’s a solid thing that we can make happy, that can cause us happiness, that we can work really hard. If we work really hard for, it can develop into a source of happiness for us, that it can be base for our experiences and that it can be the base for our experience of a lack of suffering and our experience of happiness.
We we spend all our time trying to make this thing happy, working really hard to make this thing happy. Even in our dreams, we spend all our time trying to make this thing happy, this self that we’ve come up with. We’re seeing it going, this self wants to be happy, This self doesn’t want to experience suffering. Let’s do everything that we can in order to bring this about. I And it doesn’t work because the premise that we’re working on is ignorance.
Now, at the same time, we don’t want to fall into the extreme of nihilism. We don’t want to go, ‘Okay, well, I found out that this stuff doesn’t exist. That means nothing exists because there is something that exists. But it exists in terms of terminology, in terminological ways, right? It exists in terms of ideas.
Yeah? There is an idea of self. There is an idea or a label that we place on self. There is an idea idea of us, and then idea exists. Right?
It does it doesn’t, exist in a solid way, but it exists in a, in in the way that ideas do. Okay. So at the moment, what we are is slaves to our concept of self. Everything that the self wants, the self needs, we spend all that time trying to make the self happy, trying to do everything for the self in order to prop it up to make it feel good. So, we become like slaves to this idea of self, the ingrained idea that we have in our mind that we exist in an inherent, solid way.
If we are able to perceive the lack of the self, if we go looking for it and can’t find it, Through a lot of analysis and meditation, are able to perceive doesn’t exist. We are able to perceive selflessness. Then it’s like we achieve independence from the tyranny of self. And with this independence from this tyranny of self, with this realization of selflessness, then we we achieve happiness because there’s nothing that can make us there is nothing to make us miserable. The other thing that happens when we are able to perceive selflessness, when we’re able to perceive the lack of a self, is that we don’t experience any of the emotions or destructive ways of thinking that we normally experience.
If there’s no self, if there’s no solid thing there, then there’s no thing to get attached to. There’s no attacher, and there’s no thing to be attached to. There is no aversion. There’s no hatred. There is no arrogance.
There’s nothing to be arrogant about, literally. All of these emotions just dissolve. They have no point of reference. Because they have no point of reference, then they have no force. Therefore, with no negative emotions, we do no actions.
We don’t create any negative karma, and with no negative karma, we don’t experience the results of negative karma, which is suffering. That’s the achievement of liberation. So that seeing the fault of saṃsāra, how saṃsāra is faulty, and achieving liberation through understanding completely understanding the faults of Samsāra. I should say it as seeing how Samsāra is faulty as opposed to seeing the faults of Samsāra, seeing like, the fault of Samsāra, what what’s wrong with it, and therefore, being in pursuit of liberation. So we did exactly three lines of the text today.
I was like, woah, woah, I didn’t get through anything from the text. Where did we get up to? Geshe was like, there. There’s a lot to be explained in those three lines. If anyone has any questions, please ask them.
The thing is that any time you talk about selflessness, there should be questions. Yeah. Sure. Between nirvana, liberation, and Buddhahood. See, you need to read those things I’ve been editing.
Yes, yes, yes. Have you got a spare four days? Okay. Now right. From the perspective of the of, say what should we say?
Early Buddhism? I’m gonna adapt this this I’ve been translating stuff instead of being pejorative. Okay. Now, from the perspective of early Buddhism, they talk about what’s called two different types of nirvana or liberation. That is the nirvana with remainder and the nirvana without remainder.
From this philosophical point of view, what someone who achieves nirvana perceives directly is the selflessness of the person. Not emptiness, but the selflessness of the person. There’s a difference. selflessness of the person being self we grasp at, that’s seen through. Having seen the selflessness of the person, this being has no reason to create negative karma and no reason to experience suffering, because they realize there is no one to experience suffering.
This is what’s called arhatship realization. So this arhat then Okay. And I guess I was just saying that this is the the presentation of this is from the perspective of one school as opposed to another. Anyway so from the arhat then has seen the selflessness of the person is therefore no longer going to experience any suffering because there’s nothing to experience suffering, and it was also not going to create any more negative karma that they have to experience results of.
This is what’s called nirvana with remainder because they’re still in the body that they took on as a result of positive and negative actions from their past. So their physical being and their emotions, so their perceptions and their feelings as in feeling good and bad and so on. The five aggregates are the result of the negative and positive actions they did in the past and they’re still it’s still an element of saṃsāra their body is an instance of suffering so and that’s what’s called nirvana with remainder when they die they sever the last link that they have to their karma in their body is disintegrated and they achieve what’s called nirvana without remainder. Okay? So this is from the perspective of early Buddhism.
Now in Mahāyāna tradition, in the altruistic vehicle tradition, the thing that is perceived directly is not selflessness, it’s emptiness. So when you perceive emptiness directly, that means that you not only understand the selflessness of the person, but you understand the lack of inherent existence of all phenomena — that includes the body. Okay So if the body is seen not to exist inherently, if it is seen to be empty of inherent existence, then there’s nothing in the body that can cause suffering either. Okay? So if the body is part of all phenomena and is empty, then there’s no suffering there as well from that perspective relatively there is suffering, but from the ultimate point of view there is no suffering. So that means that on the Mahāyāna path, beings who have perceived emptiness directly achieve nirvana without remainder.
There is no leftover bit of their karma that they have to experience as suffering. All right? You with me so far? Okay. So, someone who has achieved what’s called the path of seeing in the Mahāyāna.
They perceived emptiness. Perceived the way things are directly, and that is that they’re not inherently existent. Okay. Someone from that point then develops that understanding. This is their first direct perception of it.
From that point onwards, they develop that understanding until it completely pervades their perception. So, not only are they able to perceive in meditative concentration the way that things exist, they develop themselves so that everything that they perceive, right, they perceive its actual emptiness of inherent existence and the conventional object that it is at the same time. So they are able to see conventional and ultimate truth in the same instance. Once someone is able to perceive conventional and ultimate truth in the same instance, they become a Buddha. Yeah?
Because they’re able to see the whole of reality in one moment and hence, they’re omniscient. They understand that it’s not like a one thing at a time kind of understanding in terms of omniscience. They perceive the way things are ultimately and relatively in one instant. Okay. Buddha.
Right? Now, from the Mahāyāna perspective then, the achievement where you’re able to perceive the nature of reality directly is called liberation as well. So you have liberation in Mahāyāna is when you achieve the realization of emptiness directly. In Hīnayāna, in earlier Buddhism, it talks about it from the point of view of seeing the lack of self, seeing the emptiness of self, which means that you have no more cause to experience suffering. Getting rid of the sense of self which causes suffering and the sense of thinking that things are inherently existent which causes suffering — these are what’s called destructive emotions, negative ways of thinking.
Okay. Now, so that’s from the perspective of what’s called the autonomous or Svatāntrika. In fact, Svatāntrika, of ancient Indian philosophy that was categorized by the Tibetans, right? That’s their idea. Now, the people called the Consequentialists developed this idea a bit, because they then say that people practicing the earlier forms of Buddhism or the people practicing the Hīnayāna paths, arhats of that path, when they’re in meditative concentration, they say they actually perceive emptiness.
They don’t perceive just selflessness, they perceive emptiness. So that means at that stage they have nirvana without remainder. They have achieved nirvana without remainder. When they come out of meditative concentration and they are just experiencing everyday life as it is, their perception of emptiness isn’t such, because of their habituation they are not able to carry that perception through. So when they come out of meditative concentration, they start to perceive things as being inherently existent.
Then they have nirvana with the remainder. So once they are out of meditative concentration. So that’s the point from the Prāsaṇgika point of view. So. I’m very impressed that people follow this.
Okay. So nirvana means Yeah. nirvana means beyond the experience of suffering. So beyond the experience of suffering that comes about through ignorance and karmic activity.
Yeah. So beyond that experience. So nirvana can actually refer to Hīnayāna nirvana, Mahāyāna nirvana. You can even have naturally abiding nirvana because it just means this idea of liberation. And you can do that when you’re still alive.
He wants to know you personally or just people in general? Yeah. Yeah. Talk to yeah. Yeah.
And this tastes like Tibetan tea. It’s like Tibetan tea, but sweet. Okay. Now, that emptiness, anyone else wanna ask any questions from, I don’t know, the mind only point of view? Yes.
Yeah. Because I did it. Not the other day. He said it could be, but it’s a very specific way of looking at it. He said that not only eating meat, but having a desire to eat food comes about because of imprints that we have had from the past.
We’ve been conditioning our mind since beginningless time in this way of what would make that being happy. So, any desire that comes up from that comes about through conditioning. Yeah, right. Okay. Okay.
So, okay, first of all, I’m gonna turn Geshe-la’s answer around the other way. Mind only is a philosophical school that presents the idea that emptiness is mind. Everything that we experience comes about through the imprints on the mind, and the true nature of reality is mind. That’s what mind only is. It’s called the Cittamātra version of reality.
To the other part of the question, what happens as we become a Buddha is that our mind goes from being a deluded thing and deluded state, right? And it progresses through the same continuum into becoming more refined and more refined and more refined until it becomes by its nature what’s called the Dharmakāya, or the wisdom truth body. It becomes by its nature perfect wisdom. That’s what the mind of a Buddha is perfect wisdom. There are also other aspects to people’s being.
There is a physical aspect and there is a verbal aspect. Physical of a being comes about because of thought processes, because of mental activity. It’s a result of mental activity. The physical aspect of a Buddha is the result of mental activity of perfect wisdom, and their speech aspect is the result of the mental activity of perfect wisdom. They have a physical and a speech aspect as well as a mental aspect, and they all come from the base of perfect wisdom, so they’re all working for others and so forth.
The positive actions that people accumulate on their way to Buddhahood then manifest in terms of anything that they can help beings, in terms of the way anything that can help beings. Whatever is needed, they exist. So because they their nature is this perfected wisdom. Right? The wisdom truth body.
That means that they are completely motivated by benefiting others. And so, whatever is going to benefit others, that’s what they exist as. Yeah? So if that is mind, they exist as mind, and then they exist as mind. If it’s speech, they exist as speech.
And if they exist as and it’s physical, they exist physically. He said, yeah, when you’ve achieved that, you’re okay. So, on page five. So as well as the prayer for awakening the heart, then we’ll probably do the emptiness one as well considering we just talked about