Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 3-minute excerpt, Khensur Rinpoche draws a precise analytical distinction that underpins the first close placement of mindfulness: the difference between inner form and outer form. Using the example of a person before and after death, he explains that a living body carries both outer form — the physical nose, the physical eye — and inner form, meaning the operative sense faculties. At death the outer form persists, but the inner form disappears along with the capacity to feel and sense. This tight definitional point gives meditators a clear framework for understanding exactly what “form” encompasses when they direct attention toward the body. Suited to practitioners already following the series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 CP of M 1997 06 07.mp3
UUID: c70c1cd8-8519-46ff-91b6-f9abe10763ca
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Close Placements of Mindfulness (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1997-06-07
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~148
So we can say in general that a person who is alive has both inner form and outer form. That which is both, inner and outer form. But once the person has died, then there remains the outer and that which is both, the form which is both, but there’s no longer the inner form, the sense faculty because there’s no feeling. So that way we can distinguish between inner form and that which is both form. So the same can be applied with regard to the nose.
I mean, before we die, we have both the nose and we have the nose sense faculty. But once we die, the nose still remains but we no longer have a nose sense faculty. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.