Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A vivid image anchors this 45-minute talk by Khensur Rinpoche: the Buddha pinching sand from the Ganges, with the grains beneath his fingernail representing all human beings against the vast hell-realm majority below. Rinpoche opens by tracing how past lives, though no longer present, can be inferred — like fire from smoke — then turns to the rarity of the precious human rebirth and the conditions that generate it. He introduces the subtle body: three channels, five primary winds, and red and white drops. The talk’s centerpiece is the wind-mind relationship — a legless man with sight rides a blind man with legs, together moving freely — illustrating the extremely subtle continuum that takes rebirth, enters the fertilized ovum, and gradually unfolds into gross body and consciousness. The session closes with a dedication aspiring to meet again as disciples of Maitreya Buddha.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 IR 1997-06-09.mp3
UUID: bd66d78d-650d-444e-b481-a1f8efd89b43
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Insight Retreat (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1997-06-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.4 minutes
Words: ~1,258
The things of the past do not exist in the present. For example, at the time of the smoke, the fire does not exist. We can infer the existence of the fire at the time of the smoke, therefore we can know the existence of the fire, but it doesn’t exist at the present. Likewise, the past lives do not exist at the time of the present life.
But we can infer that there are also those who are born who can know them. So we can understand in the present life we can understand past lives, but those past lives are not existent in the present life. So we can understand that. Yeah. Okay.
Number two, human beings are actually extremely few in number comparatively. There are — the majority of beings are in the hell realm and then as we progress upwardly, they become fewer and fewer. If we look in a trunk of a tree, we can see how many insects live within the trunk of a tree, the root of a tree. And the Buddha said that the number of hell beings was like the sands along the Ganges, where he picked up a pinch of sand and the sand that was underneath his fingernail, he said this is the number of human beings, trying to give an idea of the numbers. When we talk about the rarity of a human rebirth, we’re talking about in terms of a human rebirth which is able to practice the Dharma and that involves a great number of, as you said, involving positive qualities such as we have to practice ethics, it’s necessary to practice generosity and the six perfections and making strong prayers to achieve such a rebirth.
But just to attain a human rebirth in general, if we can just observe even the slightest of ethics that can be sufficient to attain rebirth as a human being. When we talk about the rarity of a human life, it’s in the context of a practice of Dharma where we have eight leisures and ten fortunes. Moreover, there are celestial beings who are moving down in the realm, so they are moving down and filling the human realm, just as the human beings are moving down and are filling the lower realms. So, you can take rebirth in an upper realm from the lower realm. I mean, we’ve created a great number of skillful actions and tendencies within our mind, but due to the force of a powerful negative karma, a being can take rebirth in the lower realm as an animal, but once that negative karma is exhausted and they meet correct conditions, then a positive karma can take effect and they can be reborn as human.
We don’t — there’s not — we’re talking about what the Geshe studies, and that we in the West haven’t taken up the study of moral discipline, for example, the Vinaya. What we’ve spoken of previously was the study of moral discipline, there was a Tibetan Lama who taught in his teachings on the graduated path, the Lam Rim, said, To achieve a human life is extremely rare. And this Tibetan Lama was — so just to explain the subtle body, which is constituted of wind, channels, winds and drops. If we condense the number of channels, there are three main channels. There’s a central channel and a left and right channel, also called Roma and Kyangma.
So the three channels, if we were to expand them in detail, there are seventy-two thousand. In terms of the wind energy, there are five primary wind energies and five branch wind energies. In terms of drops, there are two varieties, there is red and white, and these reside in various places. Some people they reside at the throat or the heart or 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.
The most subtle wind energy and mind. So, first presenting an analogy of what we mean by demonstrating the relationship between wind energy and mind. The mind, in this analogy, 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 capacity of motility. The mind has the capacity to see or to know. So, it is as if the person with eyes gets on the back of the person with legs but no eyes, then 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 that 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 the basis, or that which is based and the base.
They are each other’s base, yoked to one another. And at death, this is what moves on to 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 combination and mind combination is that which takes rebirth, it can’t be permanent, can it? Because, how could it be permanent if it’s taking rebirth?
The subtle wind energy is present and then there develops the channels, and in dependence upon that, is a development of grosser wind energy. Then finally, the fetus evolves a physical gross body, the gross wind energies evolve. This evolving process applies also to 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.
There is the eye sensation, then in dependence from that, a gross eye consciousness. So, with regard to the I, there is a coarse I and a subtle I. The coarse I is, for example, a person. We are dependent upon our five aggregates, that is, the person who has a body, we are designated to that body and the other four aggregates. But there is the subtle I, which is that which rides on this combination of 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, know, we’ve — from your side, you’ve endured a lot of hardship over the course of this weekend. You’ve listened to the Dharma; from my side I’ve taught, and with our positive motivation, together we’ve created a great deal of creative potential, accumulation of skillful action, and we should dedicate that skillful action such that we come together again in the future in India when Maitreya Buddha manifests and to be amongst his disciples, and by listening and practicing his teachings, we, at that time, will attain liberation. When we do meet again attending these teachings, and we will have attained clairvoyance, we can all look back and say, Oh, I remember you. You were at the retreat in Nālānda, and we can reacquaint ourselves, become reacquainted with each other again.
And then concluding prayers, the first which is on page ten.