Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche uses a memorable image in this 38-minute session to explain the relationship between mind and wind energy: mind is like a person with eyes but no legs, wind energy like a person with legs but no eyes — together they ride through existence toward any object they wish. The session builds toward this point from two earlier topics: inferring past lives from present experience, and the rarity of human rebirth with its eight freedoms and ten fortunes. Rinpoche then explains the subtle body in detail — three channels, five primary winds, and the red and white drops — before tracing how the most subtle wind-mind combination takes rebirth, enters a fertilized ovum, and gradually generates gross body and consciousness. He closes by distinguishing the coarse “I,” designated to the five aggregates, from the subtle “I” assigned to that finest wind-mind core.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 11 CP of M 1997 06 09.mp3
UUID: b67db7ad-b049-4252-beb0-ea53a344ce5e
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Close Placements of Mindfulness (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1997-06-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 38.3 minutes
Words: ~1,012
Things of the past do not exist in the present. For example, the time of the smoke, a fire does not exist. The existence of the fire at the time of the smoke and therefore we can know the existence of the fire. So we cannot In the present life, we can understand past lives, but then past lives are not existent in the present life. So we can understand.
Comparatively. There are majority of beings are in the hell realm and then as we progress upwardly they become fewer and fewer. If we trying to get an idea of the numbers. But when we talk about rarity of the human universe, we talking about and that involves a great number of, as you said, involving positive qualities such as we have to practice ethics. human rebirth in general.
If we can observe even the slightest ethic that we can obtain rebirth as a human being. When we talk about the rarity of human life, it’s in the context of human Where we have eight measures and ten fortunes. Moreover, there are celestial beings who are moving down So you can take, we break in the upper realm from the lower realm. We’ve created a great number of skillful actions and the latencies that within our mind, but due to the force of powerful negative karma, because a being can take rebirth in a lower realm as an animal. But once that negative karma is exhausted and they meet the correct conditions, then a positive karma can take effect and they can be reborn in a higher realm.
We don’t, there’s not, we’re talking about what the Geshe study and that we, in the west, haven’t taken up the study of moral discipline. Saying it was rare meant that in life, So just to explain subtle body which is constituted of winds, channels, and drops, there are, if we condense the number of channels, there are three main channels. There is a central channel and a left and right channel. There are five primary winds and five branch winds. In terms of drops, are two varieties, is red and white and these reside in various places.
Some people they reside at the throat or the heart or at the secret area, but generally, most generally the white drop resides at the crown and the red drop resides at the navel level. To expand upon this would not be appropriate. So, first presenting an analogy, what we mean by demonstrating the relationship between wind energy and mind. The mind is likened to a person with eyes and no legs. And the wind energy is likened to a person with legs but no eyes.
Wind energy has the capacity of motility, the mind has the capacity to see or to know. So if the person with eyes gets on the back of the person with legs but no eyes, then they, riding on the back of this person, they can move to any object and know it. They can go wherever they wish together. So there is this mutually dependent relationship between the wind energy and mind. They are, so it is this combination of most subtle wind energy and mind which goes on to take Rebirth.
It is they are it’s like wherever one goes, the other necessarily goes. They are like a base and that which is based upon it. They are each other’s base, mutually to one another. And that at death this is what moves on to a future life.
This combination of extremely subtle wind energy and mind. And this is what enters into the Fertilized Ovum. So therefore, if this extremely subtle wind energy and mind combination is that which takes rebirth, It can’t be permanent, can it? Because it it how could it be permanent if it’s if it’s taking rebirth? So initially, there is only the extremely subtle wind energy present.
And then there develops the channels and in dependence upon that there is a development of gross wind energy. And then finally as the fetus evolves, a physical gross body, then the gross wind energy evolves. And evolving process applies to also the mind. Initially there is only the extremely subtle mind. But then as the extremely subtle body develops, a subtle mind will evolve.
And then as the fetus develops and a gross body is developed, then gross consciousnesses evolve. When there is the eye faculty, then in dependence upon that the eye consciousness can evolve. So with regard to the I, there is a coarse I and a subtle I. Coarse I is ourselves, for example, as a person. Designated in dependence upon our five aggregates — that is the person who has a body.
We are designated to that body and the other four aggregates. But the subtle I is that which is the extremely subtle wind and mind energy. That I which is being designated to that is an extremely subtle I. It is a being and it is the being which is designated to that combination. So, you know, we from your side, you’ve endured a lot of hardship over the course of this weekend.
You’ve listened to the dharma. And from my side, I’ve had I’ve talked and with and out of our positive motivation together we’ve created a great deal of merit, an accumulation of virtuous action. And we dedicate that virtuous action such that we come together again and this time in the future in India, when Maitreya Buddha manifests be amongst his disciples, listen by listening and practicing his teaching, we will attain realisation. When we do meet again, at that gathering, we will have the ten clairvoyances. We can all look back and say, oh, remember you. You were at that teachings that we attended in Nālānda and we can reacquaint ourselves, we can reacquainted with each other again.
No. The. And then the concluding prayers, the first of which is on page ten. And then verses eight to eight to nine, page five.