Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The question of what survives death anchors this 21-minute Q&A session from Geshe Pema Tsering’s Ornament for Clear Realisations commentary. He opens by clarifying that Buddhist “feeling” covers only three states — suffering, happiness, and a neutral mode he describes as dreamless sleep — not the broader English sense. He then walks through what happens at death: sense consciousnesses and gross mental states cease, leaving a very subtle mind that carries karmic imprints into the next life. The session closes on a harder puzzle — whether Buddha nature is one or many — and Geshe concludes that because all Buddhas share identical omniscience, they can be neither cleanly separated nor collapsed into one, like trying to isolate a river’s water once it reaches the ocean.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 OCR 2005 04 07.mp3
UUID: f9edea32-d7fd-4ce1-904f-0ccc178344ff
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Ornament for Clear Realisations (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-04-07
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 20.7 minutes
Words: ~1,640
Consultation. And if you have questions, you can ask. Ask. You may ask them. Oh.
Really? So I guess I say when you have consciousness, then you have the feeling of Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. So as as as while you have mental consciousness, and in this case, that which is going from life to life being. Hang on a second..
I just spotted a problem. Because he said, it it would he said if you have and he said that it is the merely labeled mind. So you can’t say that. You’re teaching from the point of view of Svatāntrika. And I was all excited.
Svatāntrika. I was all excited. I picked it. Anyway, I guess I just went, yeah, whatever. But anyway, so from the point of view of Svatāntrika, then you would say, in this tradition, then you would say, is Then you would say that that when you have mental consciousness, which is the subtlest thing that they say that goes from life from body from life to life, while that is present, wherever that is present, there is a feeling of equanimity.
Wherever so the the power of equanimity or the feeling of equanimity is always present wherever there is consciousness. Neutral neutrality. Yeah. It’s not an equanimity as in I’ve experienced equanimous towards all beings or that kind of thing. It could I can’t have to say it.
But the the the neutral feeling. Yeah. It’s the same word that is for yeah. Neither good nor bad. No.
No. No. No. It’s like not much. So sometimes you experience suffering, sometimes you experience happiness, and sometimes there’s neither.
So it’s the neither. Neither happiness nor suffering. Does that mean Neutrality. It feels like you It doesn’t feel like anything. Okay.
It feels like being asleep. Like being asleep and not dreaming. Alright? So you’re not experiencing suffering, you’re not experiencing happiness. Is that something like you feel exist in I think I’ve isolated the problem.
The word that’s translated into English as feeling has a much more limited, capacity than the word feeling in English. Alright? But it’s the closest we’ve got. Alright? So basically, this thing that we’re labeling or they were calling feeling in the in Buddhist philosophical context is either suffering, happiness, or neither.
So if I feel hungry, I feel mad, none of those. None of those. Good, bad, neutral. That’s it. Is it So there’s no it’s just like being asleep, Geshe-la said.
So there’s no happiness. There’s no suffering. It’s just like being asleep. About three different feelings. Yeah?
Either suffering, happiness, or neutrality, which is neither. That’s it. So it’s not kinda like anything else. That’s it. Very basic.
Because this is our body is not ourselves. Uh-huh. And so it means consciousness is the only one. Okay. So guess I said that That our body is flesh.
Alright? And that flesh dies. Alright? Now what happens at the time of death is that our consciousness separates out from the body. Right?
So then what happens then is most all of our feelings of suffering and happiness cease to exist because they are intimately connected with the body. So if we experience, if we experience pain or anything or discomfort, it’s because of the body. Right? And if we experience happiness or pleasure, it’s usually because of the body. Yeah?
So once we’ve the consciousness is separated from the body, then all of those kinds of gross minds cease to exist. Right? And then also all of our perception is based on our perceptions are based on the body, being able to see, being able to hear, and so on. And they can also lead to experiences of suffering or suffering or happiness. Yeah?
But when our body, our consciousness is disconnected from the body, then those consciousnesses, the mental the eye consciousness, yeah, and the hearing consciousness and all of them cease to exist as well. Alright? Because they’re based on the body. So all that you’re left with is a very, very subtle mind, yeah, which is not based on the body. Right?
And that is what is propelled into a next lifetime. So most most of the the body dies, most of the mind dies, the gross levels of the mind die, and what you’re left with is a very subtle level of mind that proceeds onto a next life. Because most of our gross levels of mind are based on our body. This subtle mind is projected based on those imprints of positive and negative actions. So, that’s what it’s connected to.
It’s connected to the residue or the potential positive and negative actions that we’ve done in the past. I’m just interpolating here instead of interpreting. Okay. Okay. Okay.
So, in terms of that being an individual entity then, that continuing continuation of consciousness, even at this very subtle level, there is no connection with other beings or a god or anything like that from the Buddha’s perspective. It’s just a subtle continuation of consciousness. Now, the only thing that you could possibly say that it has a connection to is the Buddha jewel because at some stage in the future that subtle continuum will become the Buddha jewel. And, there is there is a the definition of the Buddha nature which enables that that mind to continue on and reach Buddhahood is that, it is that which continues on to be able to reach Buddhahood. Right?
So, somewhere somewhere within that subtle collection of minds is it this very subtle mind that goes from one life to another is the Buddha nature. Not all subtle minds are the Buddha nature, yeah? But the fact that there is a continuation of consciousness is what’s called the causal causal Buddha nature. So that you have the causal Buddha nature and then you also have the, ultimate Buddha nature which is the emptiness of that very subtle mind that continues on to Buddhahood. Alright?
So so that’s the only thing that you could say it would be connected to. Is is the Buddha, the Buddha jewel because it has the capacity to become the Buddha jewel. That’s it. So, each sentient being has Buddha nature. So, there’s as many Buddha natures as there are is. Hang on..
I’ve gotta say this again more carefully. There is as many instances of Buddha nature Instances. Instances of Buddha nature as there are sentient beings. There is many as many examples of Buddha nature as there are sentient beings. But, there’s only one Buddha nature if that it’s all exactly the same.
Right? So, if two beings are going to reach Buddhahood, then each of those beings needs to have Buddha nature. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be two Buddhas. Otherwise, both of them wouldn’t be able to attain Buddhahood. Okay.
Is everyone else Are you okay now, you said? I mean, I’m talking about everybody, you know, achieve one mean, connected to one Buddha nature. I I was imagining, you know. Okay. He said, well, he doesn’t see if there’s a problem with saying that because all Buddha natures are exactly the same.
Right? So you can’t distinguish one even though there is an individual instance of it, you can’t say that’s one Buddha nature and that’s another Buddha nature because they’re by their nature they’re exactly the same. Alright? And he said that when people become Buddhas, they’re exactly They have exactly the same capacity. Alright?
So, you can’t distinguish out one Buddha from another. So he thought he he thinks that you can say what you just said because you can’t say you can’t differentiate between one Buddha nature and another, but each individual person At the same time, each individual person has the Buddha nature or the capacity to become a Buddha. Because that’s only our ideas. But it’s just an idea as well. Because it’s meant it’s a label.
Yeah. Okay. So, He thinks it’s strange. Okay. So Geshe said from one perspective, you could say that they’ve all become, one, but you can’t say that in another perspective, you can’t say they’ve all become one.
So it depends on which way you want to look at it because they’re not inherently existent. Right? So he said that, from one perspective, you could say, you know, the one Buddha knows the minds of all other Buddhas and all other Buddha’s minds know each other’s minds. So to distinguish between them from our point of view would be almost would be impossible. It would be like trying to pull out one bit of a river from a from an ocean and say this is the bit of the this is the bit of the ocean that came from, from that river and this is the bit that come from the other.
We can’t distinguish in water which comes from where. So for us to distinguish between Buddhas, yeah, is impossible, right, because they all have the same capacities and they all have this omniscience. So to say that their minds disappear into one is illogical. Right? But to say that we can distinguish them as separate, is also, is also illogical because they they are each all knowing and, each have the same capacities.
Yeah? So so therefore, it depends on which way you’re looking at it, whether you’re saying that they are this one or many or the same or or, different. Yeah. It’s merely labeled. Mhmm.
Mhmm. So the the labels way we’re going to label as one thing or another is our mind. Okay? Is everybody else okay? Yeah?
Geshe thinks it’s very strange. And no, he’s not talking about Hiro’s laugh. He’s talking about Buddha thing. Okay. He he really wants Hiro, are you okay?
Geshe-la wants to know. Yeah. Oh, yeah.