Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 24-minute session, Geshe Pema Tsering works through seven classical analogies — dream, illusion, mirage, reflection, city of gandharvas — each demonstrating a different reason why contaminated dependent arisings are not truly existent. The organizing concept is “contaminated dependent arising”: any phenomenon experienced by a being who still carries afflictive emotions in the mindstream, which means, as he observes plainly, every ordinary thing we encounter. He explains how deep imprints of true existence control perception and how directly seeing emptiness begins to shift that — phenomena still appear, but more like a dream. The hungry-ghost analogy, beings convinced they perceive cities that simply are not there, makes the final point especially concrete. Suited to practitioners already working with Madhyamaka philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 ST7 2003 07 31.mp3
UUID: 7965684e-3d09-4bde-98e7-b3ca6907c4d8
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Seventy Topics (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-07-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 23.7 minutes
Words: ~780
So then then he goes through and describes these three. He goes through and lists those and explains them. The ones that were in the the — this would be, it’s not seen as, or it’s not perceived as, or it’s not understood as being truly — truly existent. This is what? Undertaken, or to understand as well.
Is that, I mean, it says that in the text. No. It’s difficult to understand. I just would realize is that the application or the practice that is the so okay. First of all, what we’re talking about okay.
Yeah. What we’re talking about here is the knower of basis. Knower of basis is a an action. Yeah? Or it involves an action, which is undertaken for the benefit of others others that would that are being trained.
So the first one was something that we the the Buddha himself can do it themselves. It was a practice of doing it themselves, Okay. So so that’s the first that’s what we’re taking as our subject. Yeah. They’re not really distant.
These contaminated dependent arising, they come about because of the latency of. What’s happening here is we have the imprint of things truly existing in our mind stream. So because we have the imprint, a very strong imprint of things truly existing in our mind stream, the way that things appear to us is as if they truly do. So because we have the imprint of that and they’re very strong, then they control the way that we see them. Once we see emptiness directly, then things will be different.
Because we may have the imprint towards things really existing, But we’ve seen how they really exist at more time. So we still have these differences. But that in combination with that, we would see it as being like a dream. Now the reason that dream is given as an example for this kind of arising — or a way to think deeper — is that in a dream, Now contaminated dependent arising is any phenomenon that appears or is understood by someone who has afflictive emotions, someone who has them in their mental stream. So not the imprint of, which is in our mind, it’s the affliction itself.
So or afflictive emotions themselves. So that means that anything that we experience is a contaminated, arising phenomenon. Right? So I’m contaminated, dependent arising. Geshe la is a contaminated, dependent arising.
Joe is a contaminated, dependent arising. The collection of both causes and conditions. And that in this way, they’re like an illusion. That is to say that all they are is a is a collection of causes and conditions. And when we say illusion, then the first thing we have example is television.
There’s also the example given that things are conjured up by the use of mantra to make appearances that aren’t really existent. You can eventually — okay. Just going through the rest of them. Because the appearance of things is contrary to the way that they contrary to true existence, then they are, like, some some mirage. So the and if you Okay.
So number five is that the contaminated dependent arisings are not truly existent because they are appearances which do not go beyond the aspect of that which gives rise to latency in the mind — like a reflection. So this is similar to the first one in there. And because the beings still have these latencies in their mindstream that don’t that that that grasp at things as being truly existent, then they those things appear to them as being truly existent. Therefore because they’re relying on the latency in order to see to see it as truly existent, not by actually seeing the way that things are. And the example of this is like a reflection.
But in the sixth one, because they appear like a truly established face. So that is like a city of gandharvas or a mirage. Okay. So for hungry ghosts, what appears to be a pleasant place — that’s like a city of gandharvas — what that means is that the actual thing that is being labeled as appearing to exist, that doesn’t mean that the basis is truly existent. And the example that’s given in that case is hungry ghosts.
Hungry ghosts claim that they see cities that aren’t really there. They perceive these apparent cities, but there’s actually nothing there. So that’s that’s what it’s like, like a And the last one, because they are appearances due to non — okay. So the last one is because their appearance is due to non-autonomous agency. So another reason that they don’t