Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Starting with a hundred-dollar bill — none of its parts make it “a hundred”; that value is purely a label we apply — Geshe Pema Tsering uses this 28-minute session to introduce IB philosophy students to the Buddhist view of emptiness: nothing exists independently, only as a concept applied to a combination of causes and parts. A simple analogy sharpens the logic: if gold were hidden in a room, a thorough search would find it; failing to find any inherent essence in an object proves it isn’t there. Student questions extend the discussion into karma as dependent origination, Shakespeare’s “rose by any other name,” and a brief comparison of four Buddhist philosophical schools on whether physical form inherently exists.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 2004 05 24 P and M.mp3
UUID: aaece547-834e-4e57-9c45-cada4552f580
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: IB Philosophy and Meditation (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-05-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 28.4 minutes
Words: ~2,447
A dollar note right even the paper that we make the hundred dollar note with we have this idea that that is paper that these certain things when they come together are called paper those elements when they come together are called paper we also have this idea of the numbers for example if we have a one and we stick a zero after it we call that ten and if we have a one and we stick two zeros after it we call that a hundred but there’s nothing in the zero that makes it a hundred, and there’s nothing in the one that makes it a hundred. We have this idea that the combination of those three things comes a hundred. So it’s a label. It’s an idea that we have about those things. Okay.
So everything is like this. We have a label or an idea that we refer to everything by. So if we have a certain combination of elements coming together, a certain combination of substances coming together, then we come up with a name for that. So, combination of things we go, Okay, that’s that. There’s all these things that bring those things together.
There’s all different causes and reasons, or they’re the result of all these things that come together, and once we bring all those substances together, we call it something. And everything is like that. Everything that we encounter, everything that we experience is all a combination of things that we’ve labeled something. There is not an inherently existent thing, There’s a combination of different things that we’ve labeled something. So we have these ideas about things.
We put these labels on things. This is that. This is this this is that this is this and this is how they come into existence this is how we relate to them if we weren’t doing that it’s not as if the hundred dollar notes gonna stand up and say I’m a hundred dollar note alright today this is a label that we put on that it’s a label that we put on everything we experience There’s nothing in that to make it in in any object or any phenomena to make it what it is apart from our concept of it. So do you guys think that that’s the way that things exist, that we label them as something and that’s the way that they exist? Sure.
Okay. So there’s two different ways that you’re looking at them. If you go looking for an inherently existent thing, alright, that exists solidly, yeah, then you can’t find it, and that’s emptiness, the lack of that inherently existent thing. That’s one way of looking at it. That’s one level.
On another level, it does exist. It exists as a conceptual idea that we’ve come up with. Does exist as conceptually everything exists, but they don’t exist inherently. There’s these two different ways of looking at things. If we go looking for things in as it like in a truly existent individual thing, we can’t find it.
Yeah? So, that’s the one way. And, the other thing is we can find we can perceive things in terms of labels. So we go looking for things we can’t find if that’s emptiness, and that’s the lack of self in that object. Right?
The lack of, say, essence in that object. So this inherent existence of things, this solid existence existence of things where they exist from their own power and stuff, right? If that existed, we could find it. We could find the ness of things, right? But, if we go looking for this inherent existence, we can’t find it, so it doesn’t exist.
It doesn’t mean the thing doesn’t exist, but its inherent existence doesn’t exist. It’s the same thing. We take that for granted with everything. If something’s there, we can find it. For example, if we have money in our pocket, if it’s there, we can find it.
If we go looking for the money that’s in our pocket and we can’t find it, it means it’s not there. It means we don’t have any money. Whether we can find it or not determines whether it’s there or not. Whether it’s existing or not. So if we’re going looking for something and we can’t find it, we’re we’re looking for the money in our purse and we don’t find it, and we have to accept that we don’t have any money in our purse.
It’s the same thing as if we are looking for the inherent existence in objects, the solidness that makes them what they are is an inherent essence, we can’t find it, so we have to accept that that doesn’t exist. If we go looking for that and we can’t find it, then we realize emptiness, we realize that that lack of self isn’t there. But that doesn’t mean that things don’t appear to us as an object, as something that we’ve labeled, as a concept that we relate to things by. The trick is if we don’t analyze, if we don’t look at it that way, the way that things naturally appear to us at the moment because of our ignorance is as if things inherently existed, as if there was a ness in everything, there was a pen-ness in pen and so forth as opposed to a concept. And that’s what it’s like, he thinks.
It’s probably. Yes. Sorry. And this is for yeah. Okay.
So, for example, if you anything that exists you can find. Right? You may have to If you if you look or you may have to look for a long time, but you’ll find it. Alright? So for example, if there was gold in this house somewhere, right, and there was a little bit of gold, you may have to look everywhere and, like, look behind these and make it a very thorough investigation.
But if there was gold in this house, eventually, you’d find it. Alright? That doesn’t mean gold doesn’t exist in general, but the gold in the house. Alright? If if there is gold in the house, you can find it.
You may have to look a long time, but you can find it. If you can’t find it, there is no gold in the house. If you’re not able to find something, it doesn’t exist. Doesn’t mean gold in general doesn’t exist, but gold in the house doesn’t exist. Okay.
It would be determined by my ability to Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. If I don’t have the right training. You won’t be able to find it.
Okay. So he said, yeah, but we’re talking about Buddhists and they’re good they’re good lookers. He’s like, so you’re talking about someone who needs to be someone who can look well. You know, this is a Buddha. They’re supposed to have no limits to their understanding.
So if you have no limits to your understanding, that means you are a good looker. You’re a good searcher. Yeah. A good investigator. How’s that?
So if you’re a good searcher, a good Yeah. The idea is beginning to sink in Yeah. Understandable. So, if you So, yeah, for us, trying to get our heads around that concept is very difficult. But for beings who have like Buddhas who have no limits to their comprehension, because there’s no limits to their comprehension, they can comprehend that.
Yes? I was just a bit confused. Oh, so, yeah. It’s like, take a cushion for example. Uh-huh.
What about the five senses? You may be able to feel it and touch it, but you’re looking at it and you’re touching it, and you’re calling it a cushion. Right? If you didn’t call it a cushion, it wouldn’t a cushion. So the whole idea of cushion comes from you labeling it cushion.
So, yeah, the the whole the concept of cushion comes from your label. It doesn’t come from touching it or seeing it. Patterns. For example, this is just a pattern. Nose, eyes, ears.
Cool. No. I’m just trying to think of why to put that across. Okay. So but even the concept of pattern is a label.
Right? So for example, when scientists talk about how we have DNA and everything that brings everything about right but there’s different parts to DNA and every little part of DNA has a label that they call something and so patterns is made up of parts of things so a nose is only a nose because it has this pattern and only the different parts the pattern each little different part of the pattern you have to have a label of. Right? So it’s only the concept of it’s only an idea of pattern that is this pattern is a nose. So there’s still the idea of pattern that comes before the idea of nose.
So the nose is only made up of the different parts, but every little part is an idea as well. There’s more basic components than that, though. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. He said everything everything we try and, like, break down becomes disappears. Like, when we break it down, it becomes emptiness. Yeah? Even the concept of emptiness.
Emptiness is an idea we have for things. Even the ideas that we have about things aren’t inherently existent. They’re ideas. Even the explanation of emptiness is empty. Things that we look at, we go closer down there.
They’re empty of this inherentness that we look for. Even the idea that we are breaking down with is also empty. Yes? A rose by any other names or a rose? So labels are old?
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. That’s a rose. I’m not really But it has not necessarily be a rose. So whatever label that you put on it, then you’re still going to that shows that whatever label you put on something doesn’t give it inherent existence, so it doesn’t inherently exist as that. Apart from that also, the smell, the idea of the smell is something that you’re labeling.
Okay, this is smell. This rose smells like this. That smell is a nice smell. It’s a sweet smell. So, you have this idea of not only is the label but the idea of the smell is another label you’re putting on something and smell and it being sweet.
Mhmm. So this idea of energy is a concept that we have come up with In our bodies, have energy and that’s an idea. We say, Okay, that is energy. In actual fact, all objects have a certain energy to fulfill a task or they have a potential to do something. So that potential or that energy within them is what we call what we’ve labeled energy as well.
So it’s a concept. humans are said to have a lot of energy because they have a lot of things that they are able to do, so energy is the capacity to do something. humans are supposed to have a lot of this very powerful form of this energy. Animals don’t have the same capacity because they don’t have the same capacity for thought or whatever. It’s said that they have less energy.
Okay. So So concepts of karma that we have, whether something is a positive action or negative action, which as a result will be suffering or as a result will be happiness, all of those are ideas that we have about things. They’re all a label, But then, action in itself is positive or negative, or its results are positive or negative is all a label that we put onto things. And, in actual fact, karma itself, cause and effect, is what’s called a dependent origination. That’s not the concept of an effect is based on the idea of a cause.
You can’t have an effect without a cause, and you can’t have a cause without an effect. They depend for their for the idea of each other. They depend on each other. Okay, so it doesn’t disappear. It doesn’t cease to exist.
It changes because of the label. It changes because the idea was when one thing’s gone from being a cause to being an effect. So it’s changed in terms of its label. It hasn’t ceased to exist, but in constant, it’s changing because of the label. Alright?
Which one thing is in one instance is one thing and another instance is another. So it doesn’t mean that things cease to exist, but they change because of the labels. Okay. You two can fight to see who asked the last question. Okay.
Yes. You don’t have to fight. Name and form as in the Heart Sūtra. Yeah? Is that what you’re talking about?
Like, is name, name is form? No. No? Something completely different? You gotta give me some context.
Two separate things. Uh-huh. So and you thought that what one inherently exists and the other one doesn’t? Geshe-la said he doesn’t think so. Anything that is existent is said to be something that is merely labeled.
Anything that is existent is something that is conceptualised as being such it doesn’t inherently exist. Therefore, that means that name is an idea and form is a label neither of them are supposed to inherently exist. Usually, they talk about name and form in Buddhist ideas anyway, then they Okay. So, usually, when they talk about name and form, the form is referring to the physical aspect and it’s usually they talk about it in the twelve links of dependent origination. Form is referring to the physical aspect and the name is referring to the three different types of mind or consciousness that is feeling, discrimination, and consciousness.
Okay. So But in actual fact that there’s a you know, talking about the different levels of philosophical schools, yeah? So, the most precise and clear one but also complicated says that form doesn’t inherently exist, so does the next one down, which is the one that talks about the idea of things existing by their characteristics. Mind only school and Sautrāntika school, which is a sūtra school, and another one called the Vaibhāṣikas or Particularists, because everything’s broken down into particles, kind of like atomistic physics. They all say that form actually inherently exists.
So it may have been that from one of those school’s point of views. Exists or nonexistent or is inherently existent? Is it does it either exist? Or nonexist? Nonexist.
It exists, but it doesn’t inherently exist. I was like diving into the deep end. No. Is that okay? Is everyone okay?
Yeah. Yeah.