Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Nāgārjuna’s mirror analogy — a reflection that looks like a face but is not one — opens this 97-minute Precious Garland commentary by Khensur Rinpoche. He uses it to distinguish coarse from subtle deception: that phenomena appear truly existent but are not. A whiskey-cup analogy then separates grasping at true existence from its lingering latencies — the gap between liberation and Buddhahood. Rinpoche explains why emptiness meditation should begin with the “I” (the “ringleader” of cyclic existence) and walks through the six conditions needed to realize emptiness via dependent arising, using a scientist named Tashi to make the syllogism concrete. A Q&A covers term equivalences, the challenge of identifying the subtle object of negation, supporting practices such as Mañjuśrī prayers, and Tsongkhapa’s story of rubbing his arm raw on mandala offerings. For practitioners already engaged with Madhyamaka philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 PG 1991 02 26.mp3
UUID: 2b042230-bf44-421e-b488-b856673e46c2
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Precious Garland 1990-1991 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1991-02-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 97.0 minutes
Words: ~4,509
Quoting from the text, Precious Garland, which it says, Just as it is said that an image of one’s face, or that is just a reflection, that the reflection of one’s face is seen depending upon a mirror, but does not in fact exist as a face. This is an explanation of emptiness in terms of an analogy. Nāgārjuna is explaining emptiness in terms of mirror because we’ve had a lot of experience looking in mirrors. When we look into a mirror and clearly see ourselves, we clearly see the appearance of a face in the mirror. When we look in the mirror, we clearly see the appearance of a face.
So, at that time, what we are seeing is a reflection in the mirror, a reflection of a face. The face is with ourselves. What is appearing in the mirror is simply a similarity of our face. It is a reflection of our face in the mirror. So, in order that a reflection arise, it’s necessary that we have both a mirror and the actual face.
That the arising of a reflection relies upon the mirror and the face. If the mirror is not there, or the face is not there, then there’s not a reflection of a face. So when reflection of a face appears in the mirror, it appears to have all of the features of a face the eye, ear, etc, nose. This reflection is extremely similar to our own face. As if it’s indistinguishable from the appearance of our own face.
And in fact, to the eye consciousness, it appears to be an actual face. Though what appears to be a face, in fact, is not a face. It is a reflection of a face. So the reflection does not exist as it appears. That reflection a face or not a face?
So it’s just like a photograph of our face. It appears exactly like our face, but it’s not our face. So when we speak of the we can speak of it as a falsity. There are two levels of falsities. There’s the rough level of falsity and subtle.
Here we’re speaking about a rough of falsity. And what we mean by that is, the reflection of a face appears to be a face, but in fact does not exist that way. Something that appears one way and exists another is referred to as a falsity. Even in the world when somebody says, Well, I’m going to do this, then I’m going to do that, then I’m going to do that, and they don’t do any of that. And we say, Oh, they are deceptors.
Maybe that’s even better word than false. We would say they’re deceivers. They don’t do as they say they’re going to do. So just as we say that the person in fact, the person does not do as they say and therefore we refer to them as deceptive, that the face does not exist the way it appears. Therefore, we say it is deceptive.
So this way of existing is referred to as deceptive, deceptive or more specifically, coarse deceptive, rough deceptive. This means that the reason it’s said to be coarse or rough is that it is easily understood even by those who have little learning, have not listened to teachings and have not reflected upon them, who have little studying, who studied little. It doesn’t take an expert to come to an understanding that this is a deception. Therefore, it is called coarse deception or rough, and it is this that we speak of as subtle deception. And this is difficult to realize.
This requires a study into the subject in order If one does not study the subject, one is unable to understand the nature of this type of deception. Therefore, it is referred to as subtle deception. What do we mean by subtle deceptions? All the things such as glass, flower, table, book, these are all subtle deceptions. Falsities, please.
If you realize the subtle deception, you realize emptiness. So at the level we’re speaking of now, coarse deception, we’re using the analogy to help us to understand that just as in the case of someone who says one thing and doesn’t do what they say, we say that they’re deceptive. And we use the analogy of, Though a face appears in the mirror, it actually is not a face. We term that a deception to help us give us an understanding of what we mean by deception in rough terms. So in coming to an understanding of deception, children become very afraid.
Is that? We said that the table, the flower, the book are deceptive. We, all of us, are deceptive. How does that affect your mind? Does that make you unhappy or happy?
I’m not false. I’m not deceptive. I’m honest. I’m true. I’m a good person.
I’m not a liar. I’m not false. There’s danger when somebody wouldn’t like being called that. So, what do we mean by deceptive here, or false, is that something does not exist the way it appears. It is not established the way it appears.
This is what we mean by deceptive. We don’t mean that someone’s a liar. So, once one hears that explanation, once it’s that’s okay to call me deceptive. So, we’re trying to use this coarse understanding of what a deceptor is in order to come to an understanding of subtle deception. So, just as in the case of looking in a mirror, there appears to be a face.
That is to say, a reflection of a face appears to be a face, but in fact, is not. It doesn’t exist the way it appears. Likewise, extending this, the flower appears to our eye consciousness to truly exist, but in fact does not truly exist. Though it appears one way, it exists another. Therefore, it’s said to be deceptive.
It appears to whatever we look at appears to us to truly exist, but in fact does not truly exist. Therefore, all of these things are deceptive. So, whatever we look at with our eye appears to truly exist. Whatever appears to our eye consciousness appears to truly exist. When we look at ourself, we appear to truly exist.
When others look at ourselves, we appear to their eye consciousness to truly exist. But in fact, we don’t exist the way we appear, and therefore we are deceptive. So, you know, whoever we look at, whoever would look, if we’re taking the example of a flower, when we look at the flower, the flower appears to us to be truly existent. That is to say, it appears not to be imputed by, it appears to be not merely imputed by conception, but to exist objectively from its own side. It appears to merely be, it appears not to be merely imputed by conceptions, by terms, but to, in fact, to exist objectively from its own side.
That’s the way it appears. But in fact, it doesn’t exist that way, but it appears to exist that way. Therefore, we say, this is what we mean when we say it appears to truly exist. Whatever appears to our eye consciousness appears to truly exist, but it does not exist the way it appears. Therefore, all of these are deceptive.
So what does it mean to realize this deceptive quality? It means that we realize that things are not truly existent and realizing this, we realize emptiness. So, thinking in this way, that whatever appears to our eye consciousness appears to truly exist, but in fact does not truly exist, some doubt should arise in our mind, and in dependence upon what types of, what faults, what is going wrong which causes things to appear this way. So, the fault due to which these appearances, these various objects are deceptive, arises in dependence upon the ignorance grasping for true existence. The ignorance which is the conception of true existence, ignorance grasping for true existence.
And that the appearance of true existence arises in dependence upon our latencies or dispositions of ignorance grasping for true existence which influence, which under the influence affect the eye consciousness, causing objects to appear to exist truly. So, what do we mean by disposition? Use an analogy We have a cup full of whiskey, and even after drinking the whiskey, there remains a smell which clings to the cup. So, this smell or this is the predisposition or the latencies. The whiskey itself is the conception of true existence, ignorance which grasps at true existence.
The liquor is the ignorance which grasps at true existence and the stain or the odor remaining is this predisposition of latencies. So how we can eliminate grasping for true existence, it is through the meditation on emptiness. By developing the wisdom, realizing emptiness, can eliminate the ignorance grasping for true existence and thereby achieve liberation. You’re making use of our analogy again. We said that the liquor in the cup, the whiskey in the cup, the ignorance grasping at true existence.
If we eliminate that liquor, then we have eliminated grasping at true existence, and we have achieved liberation. But we said, even having eliminated that liquor, there remains some kind of smell, an odor, a stain in the cup. So, if we were to wash the cup, completely remove the odor, then this would be removing the latencies or the predispositions to the grasping of true existence. And by that means, which is the means being the realization of emptiness, wisdom realizing emptiness, we achieve Buddhahood. So, once this cup has this particular odor of whiskey in it, you know, if we exclude the person, you know, maybe if we set aside the drinker just for a moment, someone who’s not drinking whiskey.
But whatever we would put into that cup would be adulterated with that smell. It would take on that odor and it would be adulterated. So the predisposition of the grasping for true existence is a great fault. And it’s necessary that it be an object of our abandonment. So, in the course of our meditation, we have to seek to both abandon the grasping of true existence, but additionally, the predispositions or the latencies for grasping to true existence.
The in meditating on emptiness? We can, in fact, meditate. We can take any object and meditate emptiness in terms of it. We can take the flower or the table. We can use these as objects for our meditation on emptiness.
But it’s best initially, at first, to take, to meditate on emptiness in terms of the I, and what self I. So why is it that we take initially in our meditation the I? We meditate observing the I, the Self, in meditating emptiness. You know, in fact, can, as was mentioned, we can meditate on the emptiness of any object. But it is the grasping of the true existence of I, the self, which is mainly the propeller of our continual rounds of cyclic existence.
It is this which mainly forces us to undergo cyclic existence again and again, the grasping of the true existence of the I or the self. Therefore, we begin with this. So, it’s just like if there’s some people giving us some trouble and we get rid of the ringleader, the main person, then the others are no problem. And likewise, with respect to grasping of true existence by getting rid of the ringleader, grasping of true existence of ah, the others are no problem. So how do we proceed in our meditation?
We proceed by means of an analysis. We take as the basis of the emptiness one’s own I, the I, the Self, this I. And we say that the I is not truly existent. And what reason do we give for establishing that the I is not truly existent? Because it is a dependent arising.
Therefore, if something is a dependent arising, it cannot be truly existent. And we use our analogy as a method for coming to an understanding of what we mean by true existence. We use the analogy, which has already been explained, that of the reflection of the face in the mirror. So it’s difficult to realize this if we’ve had no exposure to the training of our minds in this particular area. And coming to understand it, we have to bring together various conducive conditions.
For example, if one wants to prepare some food, one has to bring together all their various ingredients properly. And likewise, in order that we are able to realize emptiness, in dependence upon the reason of dependent arising, we have to bring together, aggregate various conducive conditions to help us gain this realization. So the conducive conditions, the supportive conditions for coming to an understanding is, firstly, are three. There are three which need to be complete. The first of these is that we are taking the I, the self, as the basis of examination.
So we have to understand what we mean by I, this basis of our examination. That’s the first. The second is, we have to know what we mean by when we say it’s not truly existent. We have to understand what it is to not be truly existent. That’s the second supportive condition.
And the third is, you know, we are making use of the reason dependent arising. So, have to know what dependent arising is. That’s the three. So, these three supportive conditions must come together in order for us to gain the realization. And we have to understand the analogy of the reflection of the face in the mirror.
Supportive conditions. We need the one, the first is understanding the basis of analysis, the I. The second is understanding what we mean by not true existent. The third is understanding what we mean by dependent arising. And the fourth is understanding the analogy of reflection of the face in the mirror.
Additionally, we have to understand the relationship between I and dependent arising. The I and the dependent arising. Subject I and the reason dependent arising, that relationship. We also have to additionally understand the relationship between dependent arising and non true existence, the reason and the predicate. So, if we understand all of these, then we have aggregated all the supportive conditions within our mind which empowers us to gain realization of emptiness.
Yeah, maybe, I think this is probably pretty difficult for you, so I think, you know, in order for you to gain some understanding, I’m going to use, it might be better to use an analogy. So we’re going to use a parallel analogy. Firstly, with respect to the analogy of I, we’re going to use the person Tashi. Tashi is a Tibetan name for person. Tashi.
So Tashi rather than I, is analogous to I. The second point being analogous to not true existent, we’re going to say that expert is an expert. Analogous to the reason of dependent arising, we’re going use the parallel analogy, has been established the world’s greatest master. He has been established the world’s greatest master. So, when we hear, Oh, Tashi, who’s Tashi?
I don’t know Tashi. What does it mean? What kind of expert is he? How did he get to be to the world’s best master? So we have all these various doubts about all these subjects.
So we have these various doubts, we don’t know how they all come together, all of these facts. So, you know, we don’t know Tashi from we don’t know Tashi. But the next day, somebody says, Hey, there’s Tashi. Oh, Tashi’s fat, he’s got a beard, he’s very handsome. And we meet Tashi, Ah, now I know who Tashi is.
So, present, hear that Tashi is an expert, but we have no idea about what he is an expert. We also hear that he’s been established the world’s best. He’s number one, but we don’t know. So, we hear he was voted the leading scientist in the world. And so, we understand that why he’s an expert in science.
So we understand that we know who Tashi is. We know that he’s an expert in science and the fact he’s been voted the leading world scientist. And so we can we now we now can begin to find, we now come up with a relationship where Tashi is the world’s leading scientist. We can establish that relationship just as we establish a relationship that the I is dependent arising. So, we can apply the reason to the subject.
We know that we can apply that Tashi is the world’s leading scientist, if he is the world’s leading scientist, he must be an expert in science. So we established that Tashi is the world’s leading scientist. And so we understand what the relationship is between the reason and the subject, the reason of being the world’s leading scientist applies to Tashi. He is the world’s leading scientist. But we also can come to understand that, amongst all the various sciences in the world, he was voted the top, the leading scientist in the world.
He must be an expert at science. So, we understand what is the relationship between when we hear that he was an expert, we now know he must be an expert at science since he’s the leading scientist in the world. So, there’s definite that he must be the expert in science. We can come to that firm conclusion, that conviction. So we can understand he must be an expert in science because he has been established as the leading scientist in the world and therefore he must be an expert in science.
And we can use various other examples of people who were know of various other examples of people who were leading scientists who in fact were also experts in science. So, this must also be the case in this instance. So, in dependence upon these supportive conditions, we will immediately realize that Tashi is an expert in science. So through the application of various reasons, we come to an understanding that Tashi is a scientific expert. We didn’t know that before that Tashi was a scientist expert.
We came because we found out that he was voted the leading scientist last year and we knew that he was an expert. And through combining these reasoning, we come to the conclusion that Tashi is a scientific expert. So, likewise, we can apply that analogy to the actual case. We need to know what the I is. That’s our subject.
We need to understand what the I is. Then we need to know what non true existence means. Then we need to know what dependent arising means. Then we have to understand what is the relationship between dependent arising and the subject I. And then we have to understand the relationship that if something is a dependent arising, that it’s necessarily non true existent.
And then having understood that, those various relationships, then we applied the analogy of the reflection of a face in the mirror, that things can appear one way and not exist that way. And if we bring this all together using these various reasonings, then we can quickly understand emptiness. As we’ve mentioned previously, that if we’re going to prepare an excellent meal, it’s necessary that we bring together all the various conducive conditions, that we make various preparations. That is to say, we know all the various ingredients laid out. Then combining these we can come up with a delicious meal.
Likewise, in terms of gaining realization of emptiness, the emptiness is realized within one’s own mind. The various use of conditions have to be brought together within one’s own mind. So, initially we to ascertain what is the I. The I is going to be our basis upon which we’re going to reflect, contemplate. If we don’t understand what the I is, then we have no basis upon which to understand any further, gain any further understanding.
This is the basis upon which we’re going to consider everything. So we have to, it’s very important that we understand the I. Then we have to understand what the relationship between the I and the reason dependent arising is. In the middle, there’s the true existence. The reason is dependent arising.
So we have to understand what is the relationship between I and dependent arising. So we can probably understand this quite readily because the I is produced from causes. The I is produced from causes, arises from causes. So we can understand coarse dependent arising in terms of the flower. The flower arises in dependence upon the aggregation of such elements as the seed, the water, the soil.
So, when these come together, it relies upon these various elements coming together, a flower arises. This is a coarse presentation of dependent arising. Likewise, with respect to our individual I, self, that they arise in dependence upon the five aggregates. The aggregate of forms, feelings, perceptions, mental constructs, and consciousnesses. Without these five aggregates coming together, there could be no I.
So the I comes into existence in dependence upon these five aggregates. And also in dependence upon one’s own name. So, all of these various things come into existence in relying upon other. That nothing exists which does not rely upon other. That nothing exists independent of other, that things come into existence in dependence upon other.
So, if something is reliant upon other, it must be not truly existent. If something were truly existent, it would not rely upon anything else. It would not rely upon other. So the very fact that things rely upon something other than themselves refutes that they rely upon nothing other than themselves. Refutes that they exist truly.
Therefore, we say that dependent arising refutes true existence, that because things are dependent arising, they are not truly existent. So, if something is dependent arising, it must be not truly existent. It’s necessarily so. Just as in the case if this person is the leading scientist in the world, then it’s necessarily so that he is a scientific expert. If we collect together all of these very supportive conditions and considering them, then we can come to an understanding that the I is not truly existent.
And then we understand, we realize emptiness. I think you’re just about ready to realize emptiness. So if we went any further, you all might realize emptiness and then you would just sit in meditative equipoise on emptiness and you’d just remain there. There’s some kind of problem with that for most of you. So once previously in Tibet, the monks had gathered together and one particular monk was meditating.
And the assembly had finished and all the rest of the monks had left. So then the sweeper, who was cleaning up afterwards, came by and told him that the assembly had finished and that he didn’t realize that this person was in meditation. So, if you have some questions, we’ll take some time today. Yes? You mean dependently existing?
Oh, independently, okay. Rang bzhin grub pa, rang bzhin grub pa, They have the same meaning. So you can substitute such terms as non truly existent, independently existent, non inherently existent, non naturally existent, non object existent, not existing from its own side. They all have the same meaning. What is it hard to understand?
That syllogism? The I is not truly existing? So the reasoning isn’t all that difficult, but what is difficult, we have to refute the object of negation. Emptiness is a non affirming negation. It’s extremely subtle.
And this is what And we have to identify what is the object to be negated in terms of emptiness. And this has to be refuted. And this is difficult. We have to refute the object of negation. Emptiness is a non affirming negation and the object being negated is extremely subtle.
We have to know the object of which things are empty of is extremely difficult to negate, to identify. So the difficulty is not the reason. What is difficult is the object which is to be refuted appearing to the mind, being able to identify what it is that we’re trying to refute, what things are empty of. Once we get this to appear in the mind, when we understand that, then we can apply the reasoning and refute it. But the object of refutation is the most difficult point.
So there are two types of objects of negation. There’s the objects of negation which are paths, and objects of negation which are There are objects which are negated by the path and objects which are negated by reasoning. In terms of what we have been discussing thus far are the objects which are negated by reasoning. But as you mentioned, an afflictive emotion such as anger is an object which is negated by the path. And by path here, it means that one generates a path within one’s own mind.
For example, love or tolerance. These are the various antidotes negate the afflictive emotion such as anger. So, this is not what we meant. This is an object of negation, but it’s the object which is negated by the path and not by reasoning. They truly exist in in addition to simply applying the various methods of reasoning, that is to say, making use of our wisdom, we also have to have various other supportive methods such as development of positive potential.
Seeing our Lama, spiritual master, inseparable from our Yidam, our meditational deity, and making requests to this inseparable combination for their blessings to help us understand emptiness, requests to Mañjuśrī, purifications of obstacles. We can read various books, various studies. All of these coming together will help us will support factor of reasoning and come into a realization of emptiness. It’s necessary to first gain an inferential understanding of emptiness before we can gain a direct understanding of emptiness. Inference, using reasoning.
So the wisdom, realizing emptiness is like a plant. In order for a plant to grow, it needs a variety of different conditions, such as water, soil, sunlight, etc. So it needs to bring all these conditions for it to grow. So in the case of Tsongkhapa, when he first gained realization of emptiness, He took recourse to a retreat, there he did offer mandalas and prostrations. And he actually didn’t have a proper mandala base.
He used a big flat stone, and he used, you know, in the process of cleaning, offering a mandala, you must clean the base. And he actually, you know, he used to rub his arm raw, offering a mandala. And he gathered together through this, you know, a vast amount of positive potential. And he read various books, for example, a book by Buddhapālita, and he made requests to Mañjuśrī. He made use of all these various methods as conducive conditions for his realization of emptiness.