Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The John Howard prime minister example anchors a lively Q&A exchange in which Geshe Pema Tsering unpacks the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka view that things exist as “merely labeled” — nothing whatsoever from their own side. In this 18-minute session, he takes the cup on the table as his central object: why do we have valid cognition of a cup but not of its emptiness, and what does it mean to say a cup exists if there is no basis independent of labeling it? He introduces the four philosophical schools as a building one must climb floor by floor — Vaibhāṣika at the bottom, Madhyamaka at the top — and explains why mere labeling still requires both terminological suitability and a consciousness doing the labeling. Suited to students already familiar with basic Buddhist philosophy of mind.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 HS 2003 02 14.mp3
UUID: e463fb63-7238-46a9-87bd-9df23200605d
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Heart Sūtra (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-02-14
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 18.7 minutes
Words: ~888
Oh. Not being mistaken about the object. Okay. So we can so for example, we have a a valid cognition about the cup, but we don’t have a valid cognition about the emptiness of the cup. Ika, why it’s it’s difficult is when you first think about it, it it seems alright.
Then you keep thinking about it, it gets more confusing. So that that makes, like, emptiness really, really difficult to try and understand. Uh-huh. Mhmm. That was from the hang on.
Okay. The imprint thing is like Cittamātra. Yeah. Yeah. So let’s, like, not get them mixed up.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So be he said, like, we’re looking at the cup now.
We’re getting an imprint of a cup. So a number of times we’ve seen cups in there beginningless life here, then that means that you get the strong imprint of cup and the fact that it’s it’s separate from the consciousness thing. So I just asked a question, But I was just to clarify something. My question was, so when you’re studying the four different schools, the lower school like the Vaibhāṣika, the Sautrāntika, yeah, school, their point of view, the way that they present things is a lot closer to is that a lot closer to the way we actually see it now? Right?
And then does it get finer and finer? He said, yes. So that might make where if you’re studying, it takes you along in those by the way of those four schools, takes you to a finer and understanding. So the presentation that the Vaibhāṣika school presents is that this is a table, you know, and then the further you get, the the finer the description of emptiness comes along. Yeah.
He said it’s the same thing as, like, where if you wanna get to the top of a building, you don’t start at the top, you start at the bottom. And so in order to get to the top, you have to understand that you have to go sorry. In order to get to the bottom top, you have to start at the bottom. Sure. Okay.
So I said, do we all agree that this is a cup if it doesn’t exist from its own side? And he said, because it performs the same function. So, like, you he may call it a mug or cup, and then we may say something else, but it still performs the function of being able to have tea drunk from it. I said, yeah. No.
There’s nothing that doesn’t that isn’t merely labeled. So they oh, they’re all merely labeled. In the base. What base? What is this base?
There is no base. I’m sorry. I I did the opposite to you guys. I haven’t studied Madhyamaka very much yet. I’ve only ever studied lower schools.
I said, so, you know, if we if it’s only merely labeled, why doesn’t someone come in and say that’s a wall? You know? And he said, because they’d be making a mistake. Because everyone calls this a cup, it comes a cup. They don’t call it a wall.
So it’s not a wall. This this doesn’t exist from Okay. So John Howard. Right? Okay.
So John Howard is the prime minister of Australia because everyone says he is. But Geshe-la says if someone’s granny, right, says that their son or their grandson can be the prime minister of Australia because they have all the qualities and all the abilities. No matter how many times they say, my grandson is the prime minister of Australia, they don’t become the prime minister of Australia. They have to fulfill all the requirements of being the prime minister of Australia, right, in order to become the prime minister of Australia. So how does someone become labeled the prime minister of Australia is by if all the Australian people agree that that’s the label that they are going to give him.
So not only does it have to be, merely labeled, it has to also be terminology terminologically suitable. So anyone can think of describe it. K? And and then so everyone has to agree on it. Yeah?
In in order for something to become labeled. Yeah. So with those two things in accordance here, then you have something that exists as being merely labeled. From inside. Absolutely nothing.
There’s no appearance. Alright? That appearance comes there there sorry. There it only comes about because because of, for example, whether it’s a cup or a prime minister, that there’s a terminologically suitable to call them that, and that there’s whether it’s an eye consciousness or a mind consciousness labeling them that. So whether eye consciousness sees mug or whether we say mug, that that is in accordance with what is term terminologically suitable to be called mug or labeled mug, then that’s what you have as a valid cognition in Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka philosophy.
No. Your your your consciousness labels it. Your eye consciousness labels it. Yep. K?
No. Because every time you use the word, you said appearance, I said, these are the appearance. He’s like, there’s nothing. He said, it’s up to you guys. I said, do you wanna stop here?
And he said, it’s up to you guys. So Thank you, Geshe-la. Thank you very much. Yeah.