Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using a verse describing seven blazing suns that will consume even Mount Meru and the oceans, Geshe Pema Tsering drives home the body’s fragility in this 114-minute session — then immediately counters the assumption that destruction means annihilation: consciousness travels across lives, and the realms of rebirth do not disappear with a burning planet. He moves to renunciation, reading saṃsāra through the image of a banana tree that yields no core however many layers you peel, then distinguishes coarse from subtle impermanence and unpacks selflessness through a live investigation with a student. A car and an ice cream cone illustrate how the three poisons of attachment, anger, and ignorance saturate ordinary life. A Q&A closes with questions on acting in saṃsāra without attachment and a logical argument for past and future lives.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 2009 08 23 Geshe Pema Tsering – Letter to a friend 23-08-09.mp3
UUID: bb74f44b-a4fb-4738-87d9-575b73399aa6
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: z Letter to Friend – mulitple years (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2009-08-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 114.2 minutes
Words: ~8,176
So then Geshe is instructing us to give rise to to a good to a proper motivation. And Geshe quotes one of the classic verses from the Seven Point Mind Training, which says, at the beginning and and at the end, there are two actions that must be performed. So at at the beginning of every action, of every activity, we must we must then we ought to familiarize ourselves to habituate ourselves with producing giving rise to the right motivation, to a good motivation. Because then giving right to a good motivation, then our actions become properly spiritual, authentically spiritual by by force of that motivation. And so that being the case, then we give rise to the best of motivations, then we we develop intent, the wish, then that through our actions, whatever activity we are engaging in, whatever that may be, that we we develop the wish that we free all sentient beings from every suffering and endow every being with every happiness there is.
And in order to accomplish that, may I attain enlightenment myself. So in order to accomplish enlightenment, then I’m going to engage in such and such activity. And we with with this in mind, and we start with the preliminary prayers, we start with the with the Heart Sūtra. Those surrounding it with their entirety along with the world of gods, humans, asuras, Gandharvas were overjoyed in the highly praised as spoken by the Bhagavan. Alright.
Then we do the dispelling of hindrances. I and all surrounding sentient beings. Go for refuge to the Buddha. Go for refuge to the Dharma. Go for refuge to the Sangha.
We prostrate to the great mother Prajñāpāramitā, surrounded by all your children, by the assemblies of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the ten directions. By depending on my prostrations to all of you, may these words of truth be actualized. In the past, the king Indrabodhi dispelled the demons by reflecting on the profound meaning of the wisdom gone beyond and reciting the profound words in daily recitation. In that same way, I also reflect on the profound meaning of the and recite the profound words in daily recitation. May all diseases, possessions, bad conditions, all the negative directions that which happens due to past karma and immediate conditions, may all this be dispelled, may become nonexistent, may be pacified.
From attachment for friends and hatred for enemies. So I’ll just give you a brief input. We were recollecting, the causes. We were going through the the causes that, give rise to mindfulness and alertness, which which is then the main cause that gives rise to mindfulness and alertness, excuse me, is recollecting impermanence and death. And this topic had three parts to it.
First, we were told that, our lifespan, our lives are impermanent and, that bodies our bodies have no essence, and there is it’s totally unreasonable to be attached to them. And the second topic is then saying that, even though, that which is, you know, the ground and the earth and that which is that which is solid and stable, those things which are solid and stable like mountains, even though they are solid and stable, they they also are certain to perish. And if that is the case, there is no need to talk about, the body perishing. And then there’s a third topic later on, which is then developing a revulsion towards cyclic existence or emerging from cyclic existence. So with regards to the second topic, which says again that even though that which is solid and stable, even even the solid and stable things, they are also certain to perish.
And if that is the case, there’s no need to talk about the body perishing. So we read the next verse of of the letter to a friend. Read. The ground, Mount Meru, and the oceans too, they will be consumed by seven blazing suns. Of things with form, no ashes will be left.
No need to speak of puny frail men or frail humans. So Geshe-la is just going through the verse and what what we’re being told then is that the human body is very fragile. You know, it’s made of of flesh, blood, and bones. It’s very very fragile. If we are told in Buddhist cosmology that at the end of of an eon, at the end of this eon, then seven suns will blaze consecutively and burning everything that is formed, burning burning everything down, destroying everything.
So so, you know, compared to the great oceans and great mountains, our body is extremely frail. And if even even these great oceans and mountains are going to end up being completely destroyed and consumed by these blazes and and by these seven suns, then how much more so the body? English license. So again, you know, this the whole earth is going to be consumed. The whole planet earth is going to be consumed by such fires.
And and, therefore, then all sentient beings that are abiding here, they will also be consumed by those fires. They’ll also be destroyed. And then Geshe-la was explaining now the way we think about it is that, okay, if if they are all destroyed, if if we are destroyed, if our bodies are destroyed, then then we are totally we we we go totally out of existence. We cease to exist. That’s how we usually think.
If I’m if I’m dying if my body is dying, then then I’m dying. There is there is nothing left after that. But that is not the case. You know? The all these beings are eventually going to die at the end of this year.
And and yet all of them are going to have to take another rebirth somewhere else. We think we think we we cease to exist when this body cease to exist or when the the eon comes to an end and everything is destroyed, that everything ceases to exist, but that’s not the case. Consciousness, very subtle consciousness that we have, that we are not aware of right now, continues from life after life, and it will take rebirth again. Geshe-la was saying again, know, the earth the earth might might be destroyed, and and we might think there is no other place for us for us to be born, but there are many other places left, you know, there’s still the hell realms, the hungry ghost realms, you know, the the godly realms. And and there are still other places like planet Earth around where people, where beings can be born.
So again, you know, the the the the places of of for taking rebirth will not cease to exist. Sentient beings are not gonna cease to exist. Buddhas are not gonna cease to exist. Therefore, since we are going to continue taking rebirth, we have to we have to work out on on on the quality of those rebirths right now. And I forgot to mention something before Geshe-la was was saying, is that we sentient beings are not gonna cease to exist.
Sentient beings cease to be sentient beings only after they attain enlightenment. They they are not sentient beings anymore. They are enlightened beings. And yet, is there’s one continuum there. That continuum doesn’t cease.
That continues, never interrupted. It doesn’t go into doesn’t go out of existence. So sentient beings do not go out of existence. They can all of us are bound to enlightenment. And eventually, when we attain enlightenment, then we cease to be classified as sentient beings, and we are classified as as Buddhas.
We ourselves, we are not gonna last anywhere close to another hundred years. So in a hundred years from now, all of us here will be dead. In a hundred years from from now, all everybody in this life is going to be dead. Everybody that’s alive now in that life is going to be dead. And Geshe-la is saying, so therefore, we we all ought to make preparations for this for this holiday, for this vacation that we are getting.
Geshe-la was saying that Geshe-la likes this analogy, and he’s saying if you are going out on on a on a holiday trip, on a trip, on a vacation, you prepare yourself. You make preparations. Make the proper preparations so that you can enjoy the whole trip. If you don’t make the preparations, if you don’t prepare at all and you have to go, then you will meet with trouble. You’ll meet with problems and difficulties.
And then, Geshe-la just briefly going through the the commentary, which is basically saying, very clearly what’s what’s in in the verse already and what has Geshe-la has told us. So if even those, very, solid things, like the ground of the earth, ground of the mandala, the ground of the earth and very stable things like Mount Meru, king of mountains, those very great things such as the exterior and the interior of the great oceans. If even all of those things are going to be completely burned down during seven consecutive days where seven suns will rise consecutively. They will all be burned down by the lights of these seven suns. And everything that has formed, all their, all everything that has formed, all all those big things and stable things and powerful things that have formed, they will all be burned down completely to ashes.
There’s and there’s there’s nothing that can be done about it. So if even those things are going to be completely destroyed and eradicated, then there is no there is no need to talk about this human body, which is so extremely fragile. It is it is certain that it will be destroyed, that it will perish. Okay.
And then Geshe-la is we we read finally a quote from the four hundred verses, which reads which reads something like this. We human beings are beings with consciousness. At the very from the very moment of our conception, day by day, we uninterruptedly we uninterruptedly go towards in the direction of the Lord of death. So we we again, so from the Geshe-la was saying, so from the very from the very moment of our conception, every moment after that, every little moment after that is the moment that we are approaching the lord of death. That we that we from the moment of our conception, we already start dying, so to speak.
Geshe-la was saying so, you know, if if the Lord of Death was in in the CBD, in Adelaide, then, you know, this analogy is just telling us that as soon as as we are conceived in the womb of our mothers, we we it is as if we were walking in the in that direction, the direction of the Lord of Death without stop. Just one step after the other continuously. So every step, every moment of our lives, every step we will take in that direction is a step closer to the Lord of death. We usually we don’t we don’t think about those things. But if we were to really lend our thoughts to it, we would see how that is actually the case, how how true these sayings are, how we are really from the moment we were born, Geshe-la was saying, how did we how did we look then?
How how were we then? And then compared to to now, how are we now? And, you know, in every moment, we are changing and we are approaching then every single moment we are approaching our own death. So we finished that topic and we move on to the third topic on impermanence and death that leads to mindfulness and alertness. Again, is then developing, emerging one’s mind from cyclic existence or, you know, as we we should translate this expression, having one’s mind turned away from cyclic existence have developed a revulsion for cyclic existence.
Some of the people translate it that like that. So this next verse reads something like this. It’s all impermanent, devoid of self. So if you’re not to stay there, refugeless and helpless, drag your mind away, oh king, from plantain-like saṃsāra, which has no core. And Geshe-la was saying, Geshe-la is is explaining this expression.
So khorwa, which is then from saṃsāra and nge jung, which is the mind emerging or mind emerging, literally speaking. That’s that’s how we would translate it, mind emerging. And this emergence of the mind from Samsāra or or having one’s mind emerge from Samsāra. It means means that happens by seeing the faults of saṃsāra, all the shortcomings of cyclic existence, and then developing a dislike for cyclic existence by perceiving cyclic existence as poison, as if it was poison, and then acting acting as if it was poison with that understanding. And so Geshe-la was saying, if we don’t see the faults of cyclic existence, we only see the benefits, then we will not have a dislike for it.
And Geshe-la went into the, the first line of the verse. So therefore, therefore all because of all those things that have been already said, everything, and everything here is making reference to all of cyclic existence, everything that is including cyclic existence, all all of our aggregates, all all of the five aggregates of form, feelings, and compositional factors and so on. So all of it is impermanent. All of it lacks self, has no self. And Geshe-la is explaining.
So again, so everything is impermanent with regards to that. Geshe-la explains again how we don’t really perceive phenomena or things to be that way. We don’t really bear this understanding in our minds. We think of we hold on to things as permanent, actually. But things are impermanent.
And if we look at our own bodies, if we look at our own selves, see how we we have changed so dramatically from childhood all the way up until now. And we can see the change of the seasons and the change in our bodies through the years and today and tomorrow and this year and the next year. So on. Can if we look, when we look when we look seriously into it, we can see this this coarser type of impermanence of change. And and yet we fail to see the subtle form of of change, the momentary change, the the change that is happening moment to moment.
So the the subtle form of of impermanence is to be understood by means of reasoning. Saying very briefly, in a nutshell, this coarser or this greater changes that we can perceive, you know, of our body’s aging, so on, they are only made possible because they are momentary, continuous momentary continuous and uninterrupted momentary change. So, again, by means of proper reasonings, we can establish that with certainty that that the there is a momentary impermanence, which is a a moment to moment change. And this and that’s and that’s the and that is the one thing that makes it possible for it to to for there to be a course change, this visible change that we perceive. And Geshe-la is explaining.
So again, so when if when we set our minds to it and if we set it, you know, honestly, then we will be able to understand impermanence, you know, both with the coarse impermanence and the subtle impermanence. But we we don’t usually do that. We actually sort of in an unconsciously or unawares of we we hold on to the notion of permanence. We think of things around us and ourselves as being permanent. And Geshe-la was saying if if things were permanent, if we were permanent, then we wouldn’t change.
Then a newborn baby would remain a newborn baby regardless of how many years have gone by. And if we were permanent, we wouldn’t change. You know, as old or as young as we may be, we will remain the same. That’s the meaning of permanence. And that’s not quite the case.
Geshe-la briefly mentioned something that I forgot to mention again. If if things were permanent, they wouldn’t change. Geshe-la was giving example of something which is permanent like space, empty space. It doesn’t change. It’s permanent.
So things are things are impermanent, and they are impermanent. Again, if if they were permanent, they wouldn’t change at all. But they are impermanent, and they are impermanent because they are the product of the aggregation of very many causes and conditions. Conditions. They they they they have no independent existence whatsoever.
They they cannot govern themselves or their existence in any way. They are solely the product of causes and conditions other than themselves. Everything is like that. And because because they are the product of the aggregation of causes and conditions other than themselves, they have no control over themselves. A phenomena does not have control any control of themselves, and therefore, a change.
That’s that’s one of the reasons that we establish that we give for phenomena being impermanent. So, again, all of this has been pertaining to impermanence, the first line of the verse, and this word refers to impermanence. And the second expression that Geshe-la is approaching now is the notion of no self or lack of self. Self. So again, all things lack a self in that all things lack any existence from their own side.
But Geshe-la was explaining. But the way we actually see phenomena, the way we actually perceive phenomena is as if they had existence from their own side, as if they had independent existence from their own side. So we think of I, or we think of ourselves as existing in dependence upon our own side. And we think of others as existing in dependence upon from their own side. So we think of oneself and we think of as of others as having independent existence, as having existence from their own side.
We also think of of the happiness that we experience or or the sufferings that we experience as as having independent existence from their own side. And and and but the the the fact of the matter is that if you, again, if you investigate it seriously and intently enough, you will you will come to understand that the all those things, the self, the other, the the happiness, the suffering, and the things associated with them, none of it has any existence from their own side. So Geshe-la has explained that everything that is that exists everything that there is, everything that is an existence phenomenon has this characteristic to it, has a lack of self. If things had a self from their own side, then again, there would be there again, there would be something that that wouldn’t change, that would be permanent, that would exist independently of all the cause and conditions, therefore, would not be affected by those cause and conditions, therefore, wouldn’t be it would therefore, it wouldn’t change. If there is something, if there is a self that exists in such a way, then it must be something logically speaking, it must be something that doesn’t change, that is permanent.
And as we have already seen, there is no such thing as permanent existent phenomena. Let me clarify myself. There there are some things that exist that are permanent. But there is as we have seen, there are no selves which can be permanent. As we have said, we ourselves, we are changing all the time.
We are the result of the agglomeration of many causes and conditions. We don’t have any existence independent of causes and conditions We have no control over or power over ourselves. Therefore, again, the self in the same line of thought of impermanence, the self also is impermanent. The self also changes. The self also is a product of cause and conditions.
And then in brief, just once briefly again for the rest of the verse. Again, which is gonna say, so if if if you’re if you are not to stay in in cyclic existence without a refuge, without protection from suffering and so on, and helpless, then, again, turn your mind away, o king, from saṃsāra, which is like a plantain tree which has no core. The more you peel seeking for a core, you don’t find anything. You there’s only peeling. Peel layer after layer of peel.
And, Geshe, I just wanted to make sure that you you all know what plantain is, what plantain tree is, which is a banana tree. Again, if you if you take the core of of the banana tree and not the core. How do you call that? The stem. The stem.
The stem. The trunk. Thank you. That’s what I wanted. If you take the trunk of the banana tree and you start peeling it, searching for a core, and, you know, you go ahead and you do that yourself and you find out that there is nothing there.
There is no core. There’s only layers and and layers of peel. And on top of that, Geshe-la was saying, you the banana tree, the plantain tree only bears fruit once. Unlike other plants and other trees which will bear fruit many times during their lifespan. The banana bears only gives bananas once, then it has to be cut down and and the other shoots have to be let be allowed to grow in this place.
In in in the same way that the banana tree does not have any core, does not have any essence, so to speak, every phenomenon of cyclic existence also lacks a core like that, lacks an essence in the same way. And Geshe-la was just noting how we are so attached, how much we like cyclic existence and the things of cyclic existence. And we are in light of what we are learning, we ought to not allow ourselves to be so attached and to like it so much. You know, all these cars and houses and money and whatnot, we ought to realize that they are, again, senseless. They lack a core like that, and we should be placing importance on on freedom, on attaining freedom from cyclic existence instead.
And Geshe-la is, again, noting that we have to turn our minds away from cyclic existence. We have to come to to to place more importance in freedom. And but we we don’t think that way. We have to exercise that. We have to train our minds in that way.
When we are kids, from from the moment we were born, when when we are kids and growing up all along, all that we have is attachment and aversion. So if there is a pleasant experience, we are attached. If we have an unpleasant experience, we are averse to it. Geshe-la is explaining it is like having a delicious food and you can think of whatever you find delicious, but with poison in it. And we are ignorant of the fact that there is poison in it.
We know that it So Geshe-la wasn’t saying so. It’s like when we are kids, are very much like that. We’re just enjoying the pleasures, completely unaware of the poison there is of the the inherent faults of of samsaric phenomena. In Geshe-la was saying if, Currently, we are only aware of of the qualities, the seeming good qualities that this phenomena have. In the case of the analogy of the tasty food, we are very aware of the the very delicious taste of the food.
We are very aware of of the good looks of of the phenomena that we are enjoying and the pleasant sounds and and the smells and the taste and so on. But we are not aware of of the poison that is in the core that is that is in in built in it. Everything, every phenomenon in cyclic existence is poison or is like poison. There’s there’s a few verses throughout the teachings that that state something like that, that we should perceive and we should relate to every phenomenon as if it was poison itself. And the poison is the poison of attachment, the poison of anger, the poison of ignorance.
Those are the three poisons, the three fundamental flaws and shortcomings of saṃsāra. And Geshe-la was giving an example, for example, with with regards to a car, and assuming that, you know, all of you here have have a car or at least a vehicle that you are clearly attached to. So so you all you all have a car, and and you you think about it. You’re liking for your car. You’re excessive liking and the excessive importance that you give to your car.
That is attachment. And and and when something good happens to your car, when your car is praised, or when you get a new car or something like that, then you are you are very attached to it. And if something bad happens to your car, if it has a scratch or a crash or something says something bad about it, then you are averse to it. You react with aversion, with anger. And and on top of all that, we hold on to the car as being something, you know, that has permanent existence, that exists from its own side, that has a core, that has essence, and yet it doesn’t have it doesn’t have any independent existence from its own side.
Again, like the planting tree. So and that is ignorance that we do not see how it actually exists. So in in this way, we can see how the phenomenon of samsaric phenomena are mixed up with poisons, these three poisons. And and usually, we do not think about these poisons in that light. We don’t think about attachment as as what it is as attachment, as an affliction.
We don’t think about anger. We don’t think about ignorance. And what we do instead, you know, we’re holding on to our object of attachment to the car or whatever it may be. Holding on with attachment, holding it is very important and and and and all that. We just give in to attachment.
And motivated by that attachment, we engage in actions and all sorts of actions. And we and then how to say? We engage in deeds, in negative deeds, harmful deeds. And in this way, we create all sorts of negative karma, and we just, how to say, proliferate or or give continuation to the whole cycle of of existence in this manner. Is then just saying, quoting again a very famous verse, a very known verse that says that even though we wish to be free from suffering, we live our lives accumulating its causes.
And even though we we desire, we wish for happiness, by force of our obscurations, we we we sort of see which see its causes as as if they were our enemy. So again, even though we wish we wish for happiness by force of those three poisons of attachment, anger, and ignorance. We see the actual cause of happiness as the enemy, as our enemies, and we treat them that way, and we we repudiate them. And Geshe-la was just going through the the commentary then to that verse just to conclude. So in this way, not only our bodies are impermanent, everything that has taken birth, every embodied thing that has appropriated a body within cyclic existence by force of actions, contaminated actions and afflictions, by force of karma and afflictions.
All those things every phenomenon of cyclists is momentary, and therefore, they lack they they are therefore, they are impermanent, and they lack a self. They are they are no self self or selfless. In this way, in this way, we have within cyclic existence, there is no So if we if we about this one. Because of those reasons, if if we are not to remain within cyclic existence without a refuge that protects us from suffering, if we are to remain without with with cyclic existence without a lord that benefits us. And and if we are to and because we are bound, because there is no way that we can we have no opportunity to remain abiding in one body within the same body we are bound we must take various rebirths high and low, we must do that.
That inevitable. So all this, because of all those reasons and all and all those things, all the abodes that are in cyclic existence and all the things that exist within those abodes, all the possessions and enjoyments that we can have, they are all things like this. All phenomenon altogether, they lack essence, just like a plantain tree lacks a core. And all of these phenomena cannot be trusted, cannot be relied upon, to give us any lasting happiness. So if you don’t want to remain in cyclic existence, in this situation, in this in such a place as this, then you must turn your mind away from it, and you must So you must you must turn your mind away from cycle.
Must emerge from cyclic existence. So, again, Geshe-la just pointing out to a few expressions and saying again, so in within cyclic existence, all the abodes there are, all the bodies there are, all the enjoyments there are, all the material things and objects there are, all of it, all of them are like like a plantain tree in that all of all of them lack a core. All of them have no essence. And again, Geshe-la points out to the next expression which talks about all of these phenomena not being they are not to be trusted. They’re not to be relied upon.
And, again, not to be relied upon to to give us any real happiness. So if you take a a car, for example, we think, you know, the car, is the source of happiness. And if you think about it, it isn’t. The car cannot give us any happiness, at all from its own side. And it might it might actually be the cause of great harm instead of, happiness.
And the same with a house and the same with everything else there is. samsaric phenomena are unreliable. They’re not to be relied upon as as sources of real happiness. They can they can do some they can cause some pleasure sometimes, but they can also in the same way cause great harm sometimes. So they’re not reliable.
All that they certainly are is the source of the three poisons of attachment, anger, and ignorance. And so so so again, it is in dependence on those things that the three poisons arise. And Geshe-la was then just pointing out to another expression in the text, which is saying, oh, king. It is because this is a letter that was written to the king. And yet, even though instructions and these teachings have have been taught, have been given to the king at the time, it applies equally to all of us right now.
All of us, we have been born in cyclic existence, and we have these bodies that are the product of actions in in in the the afflictions, and and everything, all the enjoyments and the abodes that we have and all that, they are all equally lacking in any essence like a plantain tree again. All of it is impermanence. All of it lacks self. All of it is not to be relied upon. And so we also ought to turn our minds away and our hearts away from from cyclic existence and emerge from cyclic existence And so and so really what we have been told to do is to turning our minds away or emerging from cyclic existence, having this disillusionment with cyclic existence.
If we if we really develop that, then then we will will be following then the example of the great masters of the past or the great yogis of the past, and so forth. In India, there is a lineage of at least eighty-four great saints or great siddhas. They have attained, you know, very high realizations by by force of the great disillusionment that they have developed with saṃsāra, with saṃsāra, and they went on to practice and attain and attain freedom and attain enlightenment. So if we if we want freedom, then we have to see the faults and the shortcomings of cyclic existence. If we don’t fully understand the faults and the shortcomings of cyclic existence, then the doors to liberation, the doors to freedom will remain closed.
And then we’re given another quote from from the four hundred verses. And Geshe-la was was reading explaining the first two lines of that verse, which says that if if you are not disillusioned with it, with with Samsāra, if you’re not disillusioned with Samsāra, then a veneration or a respect for peace will not arise. How can you have any veneration, any concern, any respect for peace, for liberation? How can you have any interest in liberation if you are not disillusioned with saṃsāra? Okay.
And like our own homes, so so it is with existence. Geshe-la was citing a tiny little verse. And so in the same way that Geshe-la was saying, same way that we are greatly attached to our own homes, then we are also greatly attached to existence, to cyclic existence. And from this, it is very difficult to emerge, to turn away from this. So Geshe-la was saying, we are we are so attached to cyclic existence in the same way that we are attached to our homes.
And it’s very hard then to see the faults and the shortcomings of it and to seek to understand and to see the faults and the shortcomings of it and and turn away from it and emerge from it and be disillusioned with it. And so in the same way that it’s hard to do that with our own homes, it’s hard to do that with saṃsāra. And our homes are used as an as an example of something that we are greatly attached to. In English, let’s just note in a nutshell what we’re being told is that cyclic existence is poisoned. It has poison or it is poisoned.
It is the basis upon which the three poisons of attachment and anger and ignorance proliferate. cyclic existence, the source, the cause of cyclic existence are the three poisons themselves. They are attachment, anger, and ignorance itself. And they what they produce, what cyclic existence produces is more attachment, anger, and ignorance. And and this is the one thing that that we are being asked to understand so that we can then turn turn away from it.
Yes. That way, Yes. So now if you have any questions. Yeah. While it’s still there, I I love eating it.
So I but I’d like to be the solution to Samsāra. Are you with me? I guess. I guess guess I do. So so you like ice cream.
You like it very much, and that’s liking very much ice cream. That is attachment. That is the poison. Right? Now can you still eat the ice cream?
Yeah. You can still eat the ice cream. Now if you want to do it the dharma way, then you eat it with the right without attachment. You eat it with the right motivation. You say this is going to nurture my body.
It’s gonna maintain my health. It’s gonna give me energy so that I can go and engage in Dharma practice. And then you go on and you eat the ice cream or whatever it is that you want to eat. And on the other hand, if you go on and just to to to eat the ice cream and you think, oh, this is delicious. I love it.
You know, I can’t live without ice cream. You know, I’m I’m I’m miserable without ice cream and all that. And that’s attachment. And we don’t want to do that, do we? And Geshe-la was saying Dharma practice, spiritual practice is about changing your mind.
It’s not about the actions that you are actually doing. It’s about changing your mind. So attachment is in the mind. You you can eat your ice cream with attachment or without attachment. So there are some foods.
Again, if if some if a food is a if an edible thing has poison to it, we can extract the poison and still eat the food. So there are some some food, some plants, and this is where I come from. There are some plants that if you don’t cook, you get poisoned. So so in the same way with with in with cyclic existence, a phenomenon of cyclic existence, there is poison in it. Poison is mixed into it, we have to extract the poison, and we do that with minds by training our minds.
The poison is here and if we can separate that then we can just utilize it in a constructive way and and furthermore, Geshe-la was saying that we need to utilize. We are born in saṃsāra and we need to utilize the things of saṃsāra we need to eat we need to work we need to earn a living and all that we need to exercise doing that whilst extracting the poison at the same time. Yeah. Alright. Yes.
Yes. It is. So first thing that Geshe just said right now is that this is something which is not easy to understand. It and it is not without a huge lot of study that you start being able to understand it. What what’s your name?
Philippa. So so, again, you have to study a lot. But in a nutshell, what it is that we are trying to do. So when when when we call your name Philippa and you say, yes, do you have that that notion arise? Yes.
That thing, that impression. And and if I say, Philippa, you are a very great person. You are lovely. And you say and you are very happy and pleased with that. Right?
And on the other hand, somebody comes and says, oh, Philippa, you are one very nasty woman. And you get very upset with that. When somebody when in those moments, somebody’s calling you or somebody says something good or something bad about you and and you have this strong sense of self, Filipa. When you have those those moments, then you stop and and think, where is Philippa? It’s in the head.
Where in the body is Philippa? And and you look into it and and go on looking for as long as you can, as deeply as you can. And, eventually, the the end conclusion of that of that thorough investigation is that you will not find Philippa. When when we do engage in this investigation investigation of ourselves, in your case, Philippa, then you see Philippa is not outside my body. Philippa doesn’t exist outside the body.
Philippa doesn’t exist in anywhere inside the body. So where is Philippa? All there all there is all there is is the name Philippa. There’s nothing I haven’t found anything else but the name Philippa. And even and even the name, that word itself, it comes it is labeled upon you by others or even even by your own production of sound itself.
The name and Philippa herself does not exist from her own side. There’s just a name that is imputed onto this. So aside from the name Philippa, the word Philippa, there is nothing else that can be found there. And that’s what we refer to as no self.
I can’t do away with that. Again, and the same principle applies to you should take the name away. Yeah. You said that there is this this one thing there. Right?
Which is Combination. A combination of things that so you look for that too and see if you find that. The combination, the parts of the combination, you look go go on and do and do that and see what you find. And the conclusion is, again, you will not find anything but the names that you are giving to it. Whatever name you call it, a combination, you look for it, and all you have is and a combination of the words.
It’s like it’s like here and there. Again, here and there, again, in the same way do not have any existence from their own side. Here does not have any existence from its own side, and there also does not have any existence from its own side. As soon as you arrive there, there becomes here, and here becomes there. When you come here when you come here, your your this is the there becomes here, and and the hearer becomes there again.
So they they have no exist from their own side. If they had exist from their own side, those changes wouldn’t happen. There’s only the label, which is relative. There’s only our labeling it. So in the same way that with here and there, there’s nothing but the label or the name, the words here and there.
In the same way it goes with Philippa or whatever, the combination of that you’re talking about. It’s the same thing. So this is what we refer to as no self or or selflessness. And, again, it is not without thinking about it and investigating it for investigating it for a very long time that we’ll be able to understand it. Wendy, do you wanted to ask a question?
Yeah. I a question about rebirth. Yes. And think about that consciousness and where it comes from, or does it have causes and conditions itself, to help me get past Geshe-la is saying so, yes, there is a subtle consciousness, but Geshe is explaining that, for example, you you you you said that, you know, consciousness is a product of the brain. And yet, you know, many people, they when they are they are even though they are dead, their brains are perfectly intact.
And yet and yet there is no consciousness. The brain functions and the body functions because of the consciousness that is that is sort of inhabiting it. So Geshe-la is using that as to prove, for example, there there are many cases of people who are dead, who died, and their brains are perfectly intact. And and yet there is no consciousness. And that is the proof. It is the other way around.
It’s not the brain that causes consciousness or produces consciousness, but the brain serves consciousness. And guess so again, this is this is again, so so then we say then, we who who do accept past and future lives, we say that there there is consciousness that travels from one life to the next. Now there are those who do not accept past and future lives. Now think about the reasons you say there are no past and future lives and seriously, look down into those reasons and and you will see that those reasons are not they do not hold. Logically, they don’t hold.
They are not correct. So, again, Geshe-la, I’m just saying, so we we might say that there is no future lives because the mind, the consciousness is a product of the brain. When the brain dies, the consciousness dies. But again, as we’ve seen, it’s the other way around. Even though the brain is perfectly intact, and yet there is no consciousness there.
And the point is that the consciousness has left the brain or the body, and it’s not the other way around. So the brain functions because of consciousness. The body functions because of consciousness and not the other way around. On top of that, we might say that there is there isn’t past and future lives because I don’t see it, so it must not exist. Or I don’t like it.
If you are really honest with ourselves, I don’t like this idea. It makes me feel very uncomfortable. It gives me too much responsibility. I don’t want all that. So, again, you know, the just because we cannot see it, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
There are many things that exist that we haven’t seen. And just because we don’t see them doesn’t make them non-existent. So again, that is that’s one of those reasons that that people give, you know, and yet it doesn’t hold ground. So Geshe-la, starting again, very briefly in a nutshell. Okay?
Explaining what was the reason why there there are past So explaining that the the the the mind, the consciousness that we have right now comes from a continuum from previous lifetimes. There are past and previous lives because there is this life and because there is this life there is the next and because there was a previous life, there is this one. And if we trace the continuum of our consciousness from this moment until the moment of our conception, there is a continuum of consciousness. Alright? And before the conception, there must have been a continuum of consciousness also.
Consciousness itself is also a product of causes and conditions. Yes. Now the causes of consciousness must be consciousness. There’s the continuum must be of something which is of the same type, as we say, or the same lineage, something alike to itself. You cannot plant plant a grain of rice and hope to to, reap barley.
And the other way around, you cannot plant a grain of barley and hope to reap, rice. You plant rice, you get rice. You plant barley, you get barley. You plant consciousness, you get consciousness. And the consciousness of conception must have come from a previous moment of consciousness that came before conception, that came from a previous state of existence of consciousness and you can go on and from moment of consciousness after moment of consciousness, all the way to begin less time.
And that’s the reason. This is one of the major reasons that we use to establish this consciousness and and therefore, past lives and therefore, future lives? So, again, if if if if you accept cause and effect, you know, causes, conditions, and the effects, then then you and we do understand that consciousness is the result of causes and conditions, then you must accept again this continuation of causes and effects that goes all the way back to the past all the way back to previous lives and in the same way that will go all the way forward to future lives and then there’s a lot of technicalities here that come in the whole study of causes, effects and conditions. So Geshe-la then also said briefly that something that is not consciousness cannot give rise to consciousness. So the cause of consciousness have to be alike to itself.
They have to be of the same type. They have to be consciousness. And then understanding all these studies, these material causes and effects and so on, then we’ll be able and that if you accept causes and effect, then you apply that to consciousness and can within you know, very logically, very consistently, you can trace that all the way back from the moments previous to conception and and then therefore to previous lives and therefore to future lives. So for example, right now, we we we do accept our present consciousness. This present moment of consciousness, we accept that.
Right? It’s obvious to us, we can see it So if there is this one moment of consciousness right here, have to accept the causes of this one moment of consciousness, the continuum that preceded this one moment of consciousness and therefore we have to accept the results of this one moment of consciousness, the future future of this one moment of consciousness, the continuation of it. And then and and then if you go on, you trace, extend all the way back to the past, all the way to the future. So again, those those reasons that talk about the non-existence of past and future lives, they they are not correct reasons. They’re not valid reasons.
You wanted to ask a question? So, yes, emptiness and and no self or selflessness are basically the same thing. That was easy. Is that alright? Shall we go for lunch?
Yeah. In this one. This one. Yeah. Yeah.
Come, Lambert, will you do the dedication, please?