Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche opens this 49-minute retreat talk at Buddha House with Jé Tsongkhapa’s verse on the three principal aspects of the path — renunciation, bodhicitta, and correct view of emptiness — before turning to the session’s main subject: the four close establishments of mindfulness. A vivid image anchors the prerequisite: a flower placed on a table stays exactly where it is set, just as a mind with calm abiding stays on its chosen object without straying. A key doctrinal point follows: lesser and greater vehicle practice differ in motivation alone; the same emptiness becomes a greater vehicle practice when held with bodhicitta. Rinpoche then begins systematic commentary on the four establishments, detailing the first observed object — forms or bodies — divided into outer forms, inner forms, and sense faculties that are both. Suited to practitioners with some grounding in Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 IR 1990-10-06.mp3
UUID: 11f80c95-da68-4307-a6de-fe2e85eaeff0
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Insight Retreat (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1990-10-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.7 minutes
Words: ~2,335
So quoting from a verse by Jé Tsongkhapa, which he exhorts us to develop the proper motivation for listening to the Dharma. And going on to explain, oh, what is the proper motivation? And that for it addresses those whoever wish whoever seeking to practice the Dharma? And he goes on to say that those whosoever wish to practice the Dharma must develop a non attachment to the happinesses of cyclic existence, that is to say conditioned existence. And this, we must be, we must see the various faults of cyclic existence, existence, see the excellence of liberation.
That is to say, we must develop renunciation, this determination to be free, in which we strive to be free from cyclic existence and attain liberation. And he goes on to say that don’t don’t allow yourself to to waste this human life with its with all its leisures and fortunes, and that it has great meaning, and and don’t allow it to become empty with in which there is no benefit whatsoever. Then what are we to do to make our human life meaningful? That simply developing renunciation, that is the wish for only ourselves to be free from cyclic existence, is not sufficient. That it it is necessary to develop the attitude which holds others more dear than ourselves.
The the aspiration to to free sentient beings from suffering and to lead them to complete happiness. That is to say, we should seek to develop a kind heart, the awakening heart. If we generate an awakening heart, then our life of leisure and fortune has become meaningful. So it’s necessary that we develop our practice of renunciation and the awakening heart. But still, this is not sufficient.
Even though we may possess those, it’s necessary that we eliminate all our various faults and to bring to consummation all our excellent qualities. In order to do this, we must cultivate the correct view, that is the understanding of emptiness. That the, it is the correct view which is the path which pleases the that is to say, it is the the way of practice which pleases the Buddhas. And these are the three principal aspects of the path developing the determination to be free, the awakening heart, and the correct view of emptiness. And continuing in this verse that we should seek to develop, we should seek to to develop this attitude as a motivation for listening to the to the teaching.
That is to say, that I am listening in order to put into practice what is being explained, and we should not allow our mind to stray outside, but to keep it centered. And listening in this way in order to practice, and now I will I will now explain the practice. So today, we’re going I am going to explain the mode the method meditating on the four close establishments of mindfulness. So the practice of the four close establishments is mainly set forth by Vasubandhu, and I’m quoting a verse from Vasubandhu in which he talks about the order of practice. First, that it is necessary to achieve calm abiding.
Having achieved that, one should go on to the four close establishments. That if we can develop calm abiding well, this is the order of meditation. First, necessary to have a good calm abiding and in dependence upon that one can develop receive great benefit from the meditation of four close establishments of mindfulness. So we have previously explained the way of practice of calm abiding. That meditating on calm abiding is always very beneficial.
Now the temporal advantage of it is that by development of calm abiding, our mind will not be distracted outside, that we will cease outward distractions, and we will be able to abide on an inner object. We will be able to center and remain focused, remain on an inner object. And this has, in our, gives our meditation a great capacity, a great power. Therefore, the, the, the, aim of calm abiding is to to cease distraction to external objects and to remain fixed on an internal object, to remain single pointedly placed upon whatever object we wish. For example, if I were to set this flower on the table, wherever I place it, it remains there.
It doesn’t move around. It sits right there wherever I set it. And this is quality of mind which we attain through calm abiding. Whatever object we place our mind up on, it remains there wherever we place it. We don’t don’t have calm abiding, then our meditation is like a flag flapping in the breeze or a piece of paper blown blown around, that we are extremely continually mind is continually distracted in an excited state.
There’s no stability to the mind, and our meditation has no power. Therefore, it’s extremely excellent to cultivate calm abiding. No matter what we’re meditating on, if we have calm abiding, then our mind will remain upon the object of observation, and this is extremely beneficial. So in general, the the the four close establishments are set forth in the great texts of the discourses of the Buddha. And it is the the it is mainly practiced by the practitioners of the lesser vehicle.
The the bodhisattva still meditates meditates upon the the four close establishments, close establishments. And why is that? Because in order to bring about the welfare of all sentient beings, the bodhisattva meditates on it in order to gain its realization whereby to teach it to others. And therefore, it is meditated on by both the lesser vehicle and the greater vehicle. The the quality of of a practice being that of the lesser vehicle or greater vehicle is not in the nature of the practice itself, but is determined by our motivation for that practice.
Those who are motivated in order to attain liberation for themselves, then their practices are lesser vehicle practice. Those on the other hand who are practicing in order to achieve Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings, then that practice is a practice of the greater vehicle. The distinction between lesser and greater vehicle is not made in terms of the entity of the practice itself, in that one is better than the other, one is more efficient or less efficient, but in terms of motivation. By way of example, that there is no distinguishment between a the quality of emptiness. There’s no higher and lower emptinesses.
That the emptiness is all the same, whether whether it’s being meditated on by a practitioner of the lesser vehicle, for example, a hearer or a practitioner of the great vehicle. But the practitioner of the lesser vehicle, the hearer, his or her motivation is to seek liberation from cyclic existence for them for oneself. Therefore, their meditation on on emptiness, that is a practice of the lesser vehicle. On the other hand, the great vehicle practitioner is taking that same emptiness and meditating on it, but with the motivation eliminate the suffering of all sentient beings and to lead them to happiness. And therefore, though it’s the same emptiness, it is a practice of the greater vehicle.
So that this distinction is not of emptiness, is not made in terms of the quality of emptiness itself, but in terms of the motivation for emptiness, one leads to a practice of the lesser vehicle, the other to a greater vehicle, and the same holds true for the for the meditation on the four close establishments of mindfulness. So beginning the actual explanation of the the way of practicing the four closed establishments of mindfulness and begins with a a division into eight parts. And there I and remember, Jay, I just read what is now just is translated before you, the the first paragraph, which it says there are eight parts to the decisive final analysis of the close establishments of mindfulness, the observed object, the manner manner of meditation, the necessity for meditation, nature, the divisions, the boundaries, etymological explanation, and the establishment of the practice of the close placement of mindfulness, and the great vehicle as being superior. Jim, do you have one for ten seconds? So beginning with the observed object.
The four close establishments of mindfulness. The establishment of mindfulness is is a consciousness. Among among between the two, mind and mental factors, it is a mental factor. It is one of the five object determining mental factors. That it it is primarily constituted of wisdom and mindfulness.
Wisdom and mindfulness. It it is the the in the both the lesser vehicle and the great vehicle, the close concept, close establishments of mindfulness are transformed, transform their entity into a path, and paths are consciousness. So this practice transforms the mindfulness and wisdom into a path. So we have to begin by recognizing what is the object upon which we’re going to meditate on? What is the object that the close contemplation of mindfulness is observing?
What is the observed object? When we observe, for example, we look at the flower, we we, what is looking is the eye consciousness, but the eye consciousness has an object that which is it is observing. That is the flower. The same is true when the eye consciousness looks at a book, the observed object is the book. It looks at the hand.
The observed object is the hand. So this meditation is observing an object. What is that observed object? We should try to identify it. For example, when we’re meditating on emptiness, the the object that we’re observing is emptiness.
The the meditator, the agent which is meditating, is the consciousness, and that which it it is meditating on, that which is it is observing, the observed object is emptiness. So there are four observed objects of mindfulness. That is the bodies, the feelings, the minds, and phenomena. What do we mean by bodies? Bodies are necessarily form.
Example, our body is form. Amongst the three doors of body, speech, and mind, the body is form. The speech is that which expresses sound. The mind is So by body here, we mean all forms. So what do we mean by forms?
Forms is constituted of the elements and the evolutes. The element the elements being earth, water, fire, and wind energy, those factors which evolve out of these elements, that is to say, those which are aggregate, an aggregate of elements. And these would be the visual forms, odors, flavors, and objects of touch, or we could say tangibles. So that which is is an aggregation of these are referred to as forms. So all these various things about us which are an aggregation of these four elements.
For example, the flower is an aggregation of the four elements. All we can refer to these all as bodies. With respect to bodies, there are three different types of bodies. There are outer bodies, inner bodies, and outer and inner bodies. Beginning with outer forms.
Outer forms are those forms which are not contained within the continuum of a being. Those forms which are outside the continuum of the being. For example, those objects we see with our eyes. We see visual forms, colors, white, red, etcetera. We we hear sounds, pleasant sounds, unpleasant sounds.
We we if we would eat some kind of food, like fruit, it would have flavor. It could be a sweet, delicious flavor, flavors. Objects of touch, tangibles, they could be smooth, rough. So all of the various objects of the eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, and body consciousness are outer forms. Then there is the the inner form or inner body, and this is that those forms which are contained within the continuum of the being.
And this would be, for example, the visual form within the being, that a person has a beautiful shape. When we look at her, we see a beautiful form. That form is contained within the continuum of the being, that they have sounds within them. They have flavors, and they have, tangibles, that is the objects of touch. They may be smooth, they may be rough.
So those objects, those forms which are within the continuum of the being. So the that which is both are the sense basis. And there is the sense faculty such which which is like a room. The sense faculty, like the, like the, like the eye sense faculty, which is the fleshy part of the eye, in which there resides a clear form, which is the eye sense base. It has the quality of of, like, a reef being able to reflect like a mirror.
And contained within the eye is this clear, subtle matter or form, which is the eye sense base. So the the eye sense base is contained within the eye sense faculty. So the reason that the eye sense the sense spaces are called both outer and inner forms is because they just as first, the the sense base has is dependent is dependent its existence is dependent upon external form, outer form. For example, just that is to say, it exists in relationship to an outer form, as this finger is long compared to this finger. My ring finger is long compared to my, relative to my short finger.
Its longness exists in relationship to the shortness of the other, of the small finger, the little finger. The eye sense base is external because its existence is dependent upon its object. But it’s also internal because if it were to be removed, it is intimately connected with consciousness. If it is harmed in any way, the the there is an experience of pain. Therefore, it is it is both connected with outer outer forms and inner forms, and therefore it is said to be both outer and inner form.
Briefly state what our bodies, they could be condensed into simply to say all forms are bodies.