Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with a verse from the King of Meditative Stabilization Sutras — “the seal is the nature of all phenomena” — this 81-minute session marks Khensur Rinpoche’s formal pivot from mantra to sūtra-based Mahāmudrā, since not all attendees hold a highest yoga tantra empowerment. He traces the lineage from Śākyamūni Buddha through Tsongkhapa, then draws a vivid contrast: both sūtra and mantra practitioners meditate on the same emptiness, but the mantra wisdom is subtler and bliss-infused — “a jet plane versus a horse.” He explains why the mind, rather than body or any external object, is the proper focus for emptiness meditation, then lays out the prerequisites for calm abiding: ethics grounded in abandoning the ten non-virtues, restraining the five sense faculties, moderating food, and limiting sleep. A brief Q&A closes with a nuanced point about which philosophical schools are compatible with Mahāmudrā practice. Suited to practitioners following this structured study series from the beginning.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 MM 1996 12 10.mp3
UUID: 096e3e81-b1a0-4237-b8d0-83008865ed2c
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Mahāmudrā 1996-97 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1996-12-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 81.1 minutes
Words: ~4,269
So, quoting a verse by Śākyamūni Buddha from the King of Meditative Stabilization Sutras where it says, The seal is the nature of all phenomena. The seal is the nature of all phenomena. So with respect to the teachings on the great seal, there are those systems which are taught in accordance with Sūtra and those in accordance with mantra. And in our previous teaching, the teaching in accordance with mantra was very roughly explained. So in accordance with the tradition of mantra, it is in order to receive an extensive teaching on the great seal of Mahāmudrā, it is necessary to have received the complete empowerment that is to say, an empowerment into the highest yoga tantra.
And there are those present who have not received that. Therefore it is extremely difficult to present an extremely detailed teaching on Mahāmudrā according to the mantra tradition. So it is said that if having not received the empowerment one listens to the teaching, there is harm to oneself. And there is also a harm to those who explain the great seal according to the mantra system to those who have not received the complete empowerment. Therefore, since there would be a great fault in an extensive explanation, it would be difficult to give it.
And therefore, I’m going to refrain from giving that extensive explanation. So consequently, I’m going to today, I’m going to begin the explanation of the great seal or Mahāmudrā according to the Sūtra tradition. But for those who have a real interest in hearing an explanation in terms of the mantra system, then we can set aside some future time for those who have received complete empowerment. And at that time I can give the teaching according to the mantra system. So we’re going to commence with the teachings on the great seal according to the sūtra system.
Mainly what we’ll be discussing is emptiness. It’s important that you develop a sense of faith and also a gladness, a liking for the teachings on emptiness. These are the most important, but also the secret aspects of Buddhism. And therefore, if you can generate a sense of joy with receiving these teachings, and of faith in the power of the teachings on emptiness, then there will be benefit for yourself as the listener and there will be no fault in terms of myself in explaining emptiness. So according to the system of the great seal as explained in Sūtra, it originated with the teachings by Śākyamūni Buddha himself and passed down through Mañjuśrī, down through a series of masters to Je Rinpoche, that is to say, Tsongkhapa.
So the teaching that we’ll be receiving is in accordance with those teachings of Tsongkhapa. So these teachings on emptiness, these teachings on the great seal are extremely important, extremely precious. And why is that? If we realize emptiness, then we realize the non inherent existence of all phenomena. And realizing that, we’re able to get rid of all undesired suffering, we’re able to remove all the various afflictive emotions from the mind, we’re able to liberate ourselves from cyclic existence.
We will attain, as was mentioned, the two attainments those of liberation and finally omniscience. We will bring to consummation all possible acts and qualities. So we can eliminate through these realizations all the various faults of the mind. Within the universal vehicle, the Mahāyāna, it’s necessary that our practice be a conjoining of method and wisdom. Method is mainly that of the awakened heart.
And the great seal represents the wisdom, the wisdom which realizes emptiness that we are to practice these together. And together we can eliminate all the various faults of the mind, bring to consummation all the effects and qualities. Without the wisdom realizing emptiness, none of this can be accomplished. So the sūtra explanation of the great seal was set out extensively by Śākyamūni Buddha. His teachings on emptiness are explicitly taught in the extensive Perfection of Wisdom consisting of one hundred thousand verses, in the middling text consisting of twenty thousand verses, and the abbreviated text consisting of eight thousand verses.
It is in these three texts that he extensively and explicitly set up the teachings on emptiness. So it is in dependence upon the great seal that both the hearers attain their enlightenment. That is a hearer’s liberation. And also that the universal vehicle practitioner achieves the ultimate goal of Buddhahood. So it is this very path, the path leading to the wisdom, realizing emptiness, which is the means by which we attain liberation and wisdom.
There is no higher path than this path. There is no other path than this path. Without meditating this path and generating the wisdom realizing emptiness, Nāgārjuna said there is no way to attain liberation or omniscience. It is the view as set forth by Nāgārjuna is within Buddhism seen as unerring, unmistaken. It is identified as if the Buddha taught these teachings himself.
So as was mentioned previously, the mantra tradition,, Again, within the sūtra tradition of the great seal, there are a variety of presentations, but these only differ in terms of their names. In many, in fact, they are all the same. So there are a variety of names, but coming down to the same meaning. And by way of analogy, we can talk about different areas of Australia. We can talk about that of Adelaide or Sydney or Melbourne.
But in fact, these are all talking about Australia, different names for areas of Australia. Likewise, in terms of these teachings in accordance with the Sūtra tradition of the great seal, They have various words or names which are used to describe the teaching. But in fact, the meaning comes down to the same, just as in the case where in English we call this a flower. In Tibetan language, it’s called a metok. Metok and flower are the same synonyms.
Likewise, though various terminologies may be used different names in fact, they’re all synonyms coming down to the same meaning the meaning of emptiness. So one way of explaining the term great seal is that the great seal is the illuminator of suffering, of that which is undesired. It is able to pacify our suffering. By meditating on the great seal, we eliminate suffering. According to the practice, there’s a practice called chod, chod, which means cutting.
And here, in accordance with the tradition of chod, a bell and a drum are used extensively. But even though this is what is occurring externally, internally, the practitioner is meditating on the great seal. And they’re trying to cut the object of our grasping, that is to say true existence. Therefore, they’re in fact meditating on emptiness. Another name which is used, but actually in fact means the same, is that of great completion, Dzogchen.
It in fact is another name meaning Great Seal. So according to Tsongkhapa, who composed a text on the view of the Middle Way, his notes on the view of the Middle Way, this text is the name given to the great seal, the notes on the view of the Middle Way. So all of the individual lamas of India, the great masters of both India and also of Tibet, they gave different names to their various teachings. But if we were to understand the meanings of these teachings well, if we were to listen to them by means of listening to them, reflecting upon them, and meditating upon them, they would serve the same purpose, the realization of emptiness. So if we were to examine with reasoning all of these various teachings, though they have different names, they have the same meaning.
They include the purpose they all include the purpose of coming down to realization of emptiness. There are a variety of ways of classifying phenomena. We can classify them into products and non products, skillful, unskillful, and unspecified into thing and non thing, and various types of objects such as forms and consciousness. But how do we categorize these? We are seeking to understand that all of these various phenomena are empty of inherent existence.
In the Sūtra School, there are four tenets or philosophical systems that we follow. There is the Great Exposition school, the Sūtra school, the Mind Only school, and finally the Middle Way school. And within the Middle Way school there is a further division into two: the Autonomy Middle Way School and the Consequentialist Middle Way School. So we are seeking to realize emptiness in terms of the Consequentialist Middle Way School, whereby they assert that all phenomena whatsoever are empty of inherent existence. This word is empty is what is meant by seal.
The emptiness as presented within the Sūtra School and presented in the Mantra School are exactly the same. There’s no difference whatsoever in their subtlety. They present the exact same emptiness. But if we were to go on and question, well, is there not then any difference between the great seal according to sūtra and according to mantra? We couldn’t say that they are the same.
So there is no difference in terms of what we meant by seal. There’s no difference in emptiness between the two. But there is a difference when we explain the meaning of the word great in the name great seal. Because great is that which is able to eliminate all our various faults and bring fulfillment all our excellent qualities. And that which does that is the wisdom directly realizing emptiness.
And within that, there is a difference. So this is how we differentiate the great seal according to sūtra and mantra. It is differentiated in terms of the wisdom realizing emptiness. The wisdom conscious of sūtra is coarse, whereas the wisdom conscious of mantra is extremely subtle. It also is in the entity of great bliss.
So though the objects of these realizations are the same emptiness, there’s no difference in that. The feeling accompanying that consciousness and its subtlety is greatly different. So the wisdom realizing the emptiness according to Sūtra is seen as a rough or coarse consciousness, and it is experiencing a feeling of equanimity. It’s not experiencing bliss. So there is a difference between the wisdom of realizing emptiness according to Sūtra and Tantra in terms of the degree of subtlety and the feeling quality of that consciousness.
According to Sūtra, the wisdom is experiencing a feeling of equanimity and is a coarse consciousness. According to mantra, it is an extremely subtle consciousness and is experiencing great bliss. It is this combination of extreme subtlety and blissfulness of this consciousness which empowers this consciousness to remove all of the faults of the mind extremely quickly. It is able to exhaust the faults of the mind extremely quickly. The wisdom according to Sūtra is in a state of equanimity and it is coarse.
It is unable to remove the subtle faults of the mind. Therefore, there’s a vast difference between these two. So if we make a comparison between these two practitioners of the great seal, one according to Sūtra, the other according to mantra, and they’re traveling to the place of Buddhahood. The mantra practitioner is like someone who’s flying in a jet plane, whereas the sūtra practitioner is like riding a horse. They’re kind of nosy along.
So it is the quality of the consciousness realizing emptiness. That is to say this wisdom consciousness, makes the secret mantra vehicle the quick vehicle. But in meditating the mantra tradition, it’s necessary that we, as a preliminary, meditate the great seal according to Sūtra’s tradition. So, Jé Tsongkhapa set up the stages for cultivating the realization of the great seal as a means for us to practice successfully. That the meditation of the great seal according to mantra is extremely high and it’s probably not within our present reach.
That we should always be meditating in accordance with what fits our present understandings. So therefore, if we work in this way, we’re always meditating at our present level, will gradually this is very important. And because we will in that way gradually increase our understanding in a quartered manner, we will gradually be able to succeed to higher and higher stages. So this was as explained previously when we said that if one proceeds beyond one’s present capacity and abilities, not only does you do not receive the realizations of the lower levels of the path, not only do you not achieve the realizations of the higher levels of path, but only do also don’t achieve the realizations of the lower as well. So in general, we can meditate emptiness we can meditate on the object of emptiness of any phenomena.
You know, it doesn’t have just we can take the aggregates, the body, we can take the place, the pot, the vase. Any object can be meditated on in terms of its emptiness. Here we don’t have to meditate emptiness in terms of the mind. But here in these present teachings on the great seal, we initially meditate emptiness in terms of the mind. You know, we have both the body and mind.
Well, why can’t we meditate emptiness in terms of the body? Why is it necessary to meditate on emptiness in terms of the mind? All of it we achieve in terms of whether we experience suffering or whether we experience happiness, whether it occurs in terms of the mind, whether we achieve cyclic existence or whether we achieve liberation is experienced in terms of the mind. So it’s very necessary that we be able to identify what the mind is. And it is in that because of that because of the central focus of the mind in all of what we achieve, that we use the emptiness of the mind.
So it’s necessary that we identify our mind because we’re going to be meditating emptiness in terms of the mind. But where is the mind? What is its nature? The mind is dynamic. It’s always changing.
It’s always becoming something else other than it was previously. Sometimes it’s skillful, sometimes it’s unskillful, sometimes it’s neutral. It’s not stable. It’s always changing. So we have to, in order to meditate upon the mind, have to take hold of the mind and not allow ourselves to be distracted.
That if we can take hold of the mind and meditate emptiness in terms of that mind, then this becomes a powerful meditation like no other. So in meditating on the mind, very important that our mindfulness or our recollection be able to hold the mind, and not allowing ourselves to be distracted through other objects, whereby the object of our meditation, the mind, will be lost. So it’s extremely important that we keep our mindfulness we use our mindfulness to hold the object, the mind. That we don’t allow the mind to stray outside. That we generally our mind doesn’t want to stay upon an object.
Here we have to hold it with our mindfulness, keep holding the mind which we are going to understand in terms of its emptiness. So the Buddha taught a variety of dharmas, with these were all came down to means by which to tame our minds, to rid ourselves of negative states and to promote healthy states, to purify our mind, to create a stable mind. The Dharma that Buddha taught were all various methods to achieve this. So if we can stabilize our mind, if we can take control of our mind, then we can ensure that we will no longer commit negative actions through our body and speech. It is that if it’s a just as in the case, by way of analogy, if we were to turn the electricity off, then immediately the fan would stop turning because it’s empowered by the electricity.
Likewise, our various actions of body and speech are empowered by the mind. Through controlling the mind, we control our body and speech. So the means by which we can begin this process of taking control of our mind is by developing calm abiding, Shamatha. Calm abiding, distractions to external objects are pacified, that is to say, calmed, and the mind will abide upon any object that we choose. It could be a meditative object or any object.
By simply placing the mind upon an object, the mind abides. So there is achievement of calm abiding. The cultivation of calm abiding is extremely important. So there are two means by which there are two ways in which we can now proceed. We can one of these the first of these is developing meditation on the basis of the view developing meditation on the basis of the view.
Here, meditation means calm abiding. And the second is developing the view on the basis of meditation developing the view on the basis of meditation. So we are going to proceed in the development of the view on the basis of meditation. So it is on the basis of our meditation, that is to say calm abiding, that we will go on to realize the view. We will go on to achieve special insight, Vipassana, which is the great seal.
So according to the teachings of the superior, or Ayah Maitreya, we are to proceed by eliminating five faults and developing excellent qualities. Likewise, Śāntideva says that first we are to achieve calm abiding and dependence upon that, achieve special insight, thereby eliminate all the various afflictive emotions. This is in accordance with teachings of this. Tsongkhapa accords his teachings with this. So in the development of calm abiding, the necessary cause is that of observing ethics.
In terms of ethics, we can, as basis of our ethics, practice the abandonment of the ten unskillful actions of the ten non virtues, beginning first with the abandonment of three physical non virtues, unskillful actions that of, first, abandonment of killing and this would include any living being, even down to an insect and secondly, the abandonment of stealing, whether even down to a small amount of money and thirdly, the abandonment of sexual impropriety. And then in terms of speech, the abandonment of firstly lying, then abandonment of divisive speech, thirdly, the abandonment of abusive language, and thirdly, or fortunately, abandonment of idle gossip. And then the abandonment of three unskillful actions of mind, beginning with the abandonment of covetousness that is, having a strong desire for others’ possessions then the abandonment of awful intention or ill will and then thirdly, the abandonment of wrong views for example, strongly holding to the nonexistence that past and future lives do not exist. So the abandonment of these ten unskillful actions are the root of all excellent qualities. It’s an extremely important part of our practice.
So Nāgārjuna likens ethics to the earth and to the ground. It is from the ground all things depend upon the ground itself. They rely upon its existence for their existence. That from the ground in planting seeds crops will grow. That in order to travel around back and forth, we rely upon the earth or the ground.
Likewise for the place that we live, that’s necessary that it depends for its existence on the earth itself. So all that we make use of, all that we value is dependent upon the ground. And this is analogous to ethics, that all the excellent qualities that we’re trying to develop, all the happiness that we hope to achieve and the source of happiness are all dependent upon ethics like the ground. So it’s extremely important that all of the way that we can prevent ourselves from taking rebirth in unfortunate existences in the future, the way that we can develop all of the excellent qualities of both the lesser and the greater vehicles are all based in ethics. So how are we to proceed in the development of calm abiding?
We need to gather all the supportive conditions, and we do that by first binding the five sense powers. So this is probably very difficult. We always need to be looking at something. We always have to be eyeing something. It doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad, we still want to look at it.
In the case that when we do look and when we see something beautiful, we develop attachment. When we see something ugly, we develop repulsion. When we see something which is neutral, we develop through ignorance and indifference. So if we were to able to walk with our eyes downcast, and when we sat, we sat with our eyes downcast such that we weren’t constantly looking about ourselves at all the variety of things, that this would help to cease the rising of attachment and aversion in our mind, that it would lessen all the rising of afflictive emotions, it would lessen all the various faults, our minds would be able to abide more and more in peace. It would be difficult in Australia.
So it’s extremely beneficial if we can begin to, as was said, bind the doors of the five faculties the five sense powers. The sense powers the eye sense power, ear sense power, nose sense power, tongue sense power, and the bodily sense powers. We can lessen all our various afflictive emotions. It’s like closing the door to our house, for example. If we close the door, then no one can come in or out.
And if we stop looking about as we normally do, then we can observe ethics extremely well, and this would be very beneficial. Also, we should lessen our intake of food for the sake of our meditation. We can meditate, our meditation will go better. We’ll be able to meditate longer and clearer if our stomach is not full. If our stomach is full, then we’ll probably fall asleep.
So it’s good to allow to only fill the stomach twothree of the way full. Allow now onethree to remain empty. It’s also said that we should lessen our attachment to sleep. If we were to practice as the yogis do, then we would divide the night into three parts. We would meditate for the first part, sleep for the second, and meditate in the third.
So we’re going to stop there. If you have any questions? Heard correctly, Reme Boucher was saying that there was no difference between the presentation of emptiness in Consequentialist Middle Way School and Secret Mantra. Correct? Okay.
Does that mean there are no tantric practitioners in the Autonomy Middle Way School or Mind Only School or any other method? There is? So there would be no practitioner of Tantra who held the view according to the great exposition or the Sūtra school, that is to say, a tenet of the lesser vehicle, but there could be a tantric practitioner who held the view of the Mind Only school. So if we just talk about the practice of tantra or mantra, and if we just talk about that and specifically the great seal practice within the tradition of mantra, then there are, for example, Nyingma practitioners of mantra who hold the view of mind only school. But if we talk about practitioners of the great seal according to mind tradition, then there are only those who hold the view of the Consequentialist Middle Way school.
But that is not the case in Sūtra. In Sūtra there are practitioners of Sūtra Great Seal who hold other than consequent Mettaway school. So in terms of the body faculty, we should lessen in the way that we generally — most of us have a variety of clothing, and they’re all of different qualities and all the different fabrics. We become attached to smoothness of this particular fabric or the feel of this particular fabric. We develop a version for other types of fabrics and qualities of materials.
So developing more contentment with fewer variety and not necessarily be concerned with the type of material, whether it’s smooth or not, So we should lessen the variety of clothing and the concern with the varieties of the materials that it’s made from in order to lessen attachments for certain textures and aversion toward other textures. So in terms of the faculty of hearing, we really like to hear sweet sounds. People like to get together and they talk back and forth with great intensity. They thought, Oh, this was wonderful, this was fantastic, oh, this was terrible, that was a tragedy. And they go on and on like this, and they get caught up in all of what they’re saying and the various words.
So, it is probably not possible to simply stay in isolation. But even in those occasions when you’re with others, it’s not necessary that you listen so intently, that you can, as if, turn off the conversation and just concern yourself with your own mind and with your own thoughts. And then the sound, though it enters in the ear, it is what is called appearing but not ascertaining. It’s taken into the ear that what it was, we don’t really know. Likewise, by just simply not listening intently, tuning out of the conversation, this will help to lessen getting caught up and having attachment and aversion.
But what’s the person you’re listening to who thinks you’re being rude? So it’s okay to listen, don’t develop attachment to what’s being said. Mainly we’re concerned with preventing attachment, blocking attachment. So here is the long life prayer for His Holiness on page ten.