Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The spontaneous grief that returns each morning after losing someone beloved — that, Khensur Rinpoche says, is the model for uncontrived renunciation: a longing for liberation that simply pervades everything rather than needing to be constructed. That analogy anchors the first half of this 52-minute commentary, in which Rinpoche works through the four close placements of mindfulness (body, feelings, mind, phenomena), connects them to the Four Noble Truths via Ārya Maitreya, and explains why the practice involves both wisdom and mindfulness. He draws a careful distinction between walking meditation or breath awareness — beneficial for cultivating mindfulness and quieting thought — and the wisdom-holding single-pointedness that close placement of mindfulness technically requires. The second half is Q&A on rebirth: the bardo, fetal development from the moment consciousness enters a fertilized ovum, memory of past lives, and why only the complete removal of obscurations at Buddhahood allows a teacher to know a student’s full karmic history and teach accordingly.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 IR 1997-06-09.mp3
UUID: 7796318c-ae96-40e9-953b-5fe293835f1e
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Insight Retreat (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1997-06-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 52.5 minutes
Words: ~2,068
So then follows a quotation by Ārya Maitreya from Discrimination of the Middle Way and the Extremes, where he goes on to say, and this is in the text, Because of being the pernicious state, that is to say, this comes about through close placement. This understanding comes about through understanding, taking as the object of observation, close placement of mindfulness, the body. And this is, helps by means of this, we gain an understanding of craving, taking feelings as the object, bringing an understanding of true origins. Because of being the basis, taking mind, bringing about an understanding of true cessation. And because of being non-obscuration, taking phenomena as the object bringing an understanding of true paths, that by means of taking these four objects, we enter into the Four Noble Truths. Therefore, we are to meditate the close placement of mindfulness.
The difficult part is finished. Now comes the easy part. That’s true. So we said that each of these objects of close placement of mindfulness is to be meditated on in terms of their general and their specific characteristics. But what is the actual nature of close placement of mindfulness itself?
And then it goes on to explain it that its nature is that of wisdom. From Compendium of Knowledge by Asaṇga, where he says, What is the entity, and what he means by that, and what is the entity of close placement of mindfulness, or what is its nature? It has two parts. It has a wisdom part and a mindfulness part. Then another quotation from Treasury of Knowledge, what is the close placement of mindfulness is wisdom.
And then the next division of the text is that of division, and the division of close placements of mindfulness. There are four close placements of mindfulness, on bodies, feelings, mind, and phenomena. So, then the next division is that into boundaries. The close placement of mindfulness is of the mind, and in terms of the levels of the path, where is it to be found? If we were to explain it in terms of the universal vehicle, it is found on all five of the paths, beginning with the path of accumulation up through and including Buddhahood.
Then if it’s explained in terms of the individual vehicle, firstly the hearer vehicle is at the hearer’s level of path of accumulation up through to the hearer Foe Destroyer. In terms of solitary realizer, the solitary realizer’s path of accumulation up through and including the path of the solitary realizer Foe Destroyer. So this close placement of mindfulness is found throughout the path. It is not in the continuum of someone who has not attained a path, only in an individual’s mind-continuum who has attained a path.
What do we mean by actually generating a path? How do we actually begin to generate the very first path? This is developed when, having seen the faults of cyclic existence, the drawbacks of cyclic existence, the difficulties that we incur in our suffering state, and we develop a very powerful aspiration to be free of that suffering, when we see the excellent qualities of liberation, its benefits, its blissful state, and we develop a longing for liberation. This longing to be free of suffering and the longing for liberation arises in a very powerful manner in an uncontrived, that is in a spontaneous way, then we have achieved the first path. What do we mean by when we use this description that this longing is to be uncontrived?
The analogy is that if someone, for example a partner or close, extremely close friend, someone that you liked a great deal, if they were to die, you would feel a great sadness. And this sadness would pervade everything that you do. The moment you woke up in the morning, this sadness would return spontaneously. We wouldn’t have to think about it. It would just be there as it were.
It’s uncontrived. It’s not created in that way. This is what is meant by uncontrived, that when the longing for liberation is simply always there to pervade everything that we do. So then the etymology of the term close placement of mindfulness, as the text said, through mindfulness, an object of observation of wisdom is placed near, that is, it is not forgotten. Therefore, the practice is called close placement of mindfulness.
It can be seen from this etymology that the very close placement of mindfulness has both a wisdom part and a mindfulness part to it. Applying it to an example, we said that we take the body as an object of observation of the close placement of mindfulness, and in relationship to the body, we examine both its general and specific characteristics. For example, the specific characteristics would be the elements of the body and evolutes. Its general characteristics would be the impermanent, suffering, empty. This is very much what we mean by meditation.
Applying it to this present context, wisdom examines the body in terms of its general and specific characteristics, and then some understanding arises with regard to those characteristics and the body. We then proceed to single-pointedly place ourselves upon focusing upon that understanding and familiarize ourselves again and again and again, trying to cause this understanding to arise and focusing upon it. So this quality of familiarization or accustoming the mind is the process of meditation. So in this close placement of mindfulness, we generate wisdom and through mindfulness, we abide, we hold to that understanding and we abide in that state. So while you are doing the walking meditation, are you meditating close placement of mindfulness?
Are you abiding in single-point placement upon your understanding while you’re walking? The walking meditation would not fulfill the etymology of what is meant by close placement of mindfulness, but we are practicing mindfulness. We are mindful of the foot rising, the foot rising, foot falling. So we are practicing mindfulness, but not close placement of mindfulness as it’s described here. But it is beneficial to do the walking meditation because we are cultivating mindfulness and mindfulness — we don’t allow a great deal of distracting thoughts to arise in our mind.
And this is beneficial, but it also can lead to being able to place our mind single-pointedly upon an object. So it is helpful in the sense that it is cultivating mindfulness. And the same would hold true with regard to mindfulness of breath. Watching, being aware of the out-breath and the in-breath and holding the mind to that is the development of mindfulness and can lead to single-pointed placement of the mind, but moreover, helps to pacify the arising of a great deal of thoughts. So in this way, it is beneficial. The proliferation of thoughts, all these thoughts coming, really troubles our mind. Our minds are usually very busy and this causes a great deal of trouble.
So now the eighth division demonstrating that the close placement of mindfulness of the universal vehicle is superior. It presents a series of reasons why this practice in the context of the universal vehicle is superior to that of the individual vehicle. It’s a beautiful day out today. The sun is shining and we’re all very peaceful here. I think if I went any further, it’d just give you a headache. After all, today is a holiday.
So we should take a holiday. Intent of the text, what needs to be known. The remaining portion, superiority of the vehicle presentation or the method of cultivating close placement of mindfulness, maybe we can talk about that sometime in the future. So I think, as I mentioned yesterday, there were questions yesterday and I said I would take them today, or if you have some new questions, some doubts in your mind that need to be cleared up, I think that would be useful. So there are many individuals who have the wisdom to understand this, to have seen it for themselves, to have experienced it for themselves, just entering into the path to enlightenment and taking liberties.
Were we to explain it, as the Buddha taught it, that at the time of our death we do not become non-existent, that something does continue on. And that the mind, previous to the actual taking of rebirth in the next body, is in an intermediate state, a Bardo, but we are not able to stay in that state for a long period of time. It can last up to forty-nine days at most. Subsequent to that maximum period, we will necessarily have to take rebirth, but it’s not definite how long we will stay in the intermediate state. It could be, for example, seven days, or it could be multiples of seven up to forty-nine.
Then, while in the Bardo, the intermediate state being is searching for a place of rebirth, and it will eventually find that place, and that place will be a fertilized ovum that it has a karmic relationship with the parents who produced it. So there must be this coming together — and what is meant is that we would be equivalent to the settlement. But there must be no fault. There cannot be something wrong with either of these, the sperm or ovum.
They must literally have no defects. Initially, then the consciousness enters into this combination, and initially it’s described as a dab of yogurt. And then slowly begins, after a few weeks it begins to elongate, and then after more weeks it begins to develop arms and legs. It’s very much like a worm that begins to develop arms and legs. And then after that, you can, there are, you know, Buddhism explains in great detail in Western science, how developing, how the fetus develops, so you can understand it from that.
So the arms and legs develop and elongate, the head enlarges. We develop the organs, for example, the eyes, the eye faculties, we develop feelings, we develop into a mature fetus, and then at approximately nine months and fifteen days, the baby is born. Remember entering into the fertilized ovum. For example, the Buddha said that he remembered it, and that there are Foe Destroyers, that is, arhats, hearers and solitary realizer arhats who remember; it would be difficult for an ordinary person to remember. Changing information.
From what Doctor Chan said, then there can be some kind of information that is, in this case, having entered into a fertilized ovum and having this memory, having this information from life to life to life, it seems as if it’s a constant unchanging piece of information. What would you say was the information? An occluded number. But it’s always there, even though we’re not conscious of it.
So we have obscurations. We have the obstacles to our remembering past rebirth due to the latencies of ignorance. If we abandon those latencies of ignorance, then we will know all phenomena, including rebirth.
On the other hand, it’s simply a matter of us having forgotten. So on one hand, we have obscurations to knowing our past rebirth, and on the other hand, we have forgotten our past rebirth, and then there are those who have certain clairvoyances who can remember them. Oh. So those who have clairvoyances, they don’t remember their previous rebirths. They see their — see their due to the latencies of afflictive emotions within our mind, they act as obstruction and they obstruct us from knowing the nature of all phenomena both in terms of its modes and its variety.
Varieties of these are just all conventional phenomena whatsoever. Therefore, this is the reason that we have to attain Buddhahood in order to remove this latency, remove this obstruction. Why? Because if we remove this obstruction, then we will know all of the rebirths of a particular student, for example. We will know all of the rebirths, where they took rebirths, we will know their entire past history. We will know their disposition, their ability, and therefore we will be able to give them a teaching exactly suited to their present disposition.
Therefore, that’s the reason that we have to attain Buddhahood to be able to know this. When we attain Buddhahood and have removed this obstacle, this obstacle in our mind, then we know all phenomena in the universe, just as if they were in the BAM of our hand.