Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with the banana tree image — peel back every layer seeking a core and find only soft pulp — Khensur Rinpoche launches Chapter Two of Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland in this 91-minute commentary. He applies that same stripping analysis to persons, searching through the six elements (earth, water, fire, wind, consciousness, space) for an inherently existent self and finding none, then extending the conclusion to all phenomena. He unpacks the epithet Mahamuni — Great Subduer — showing how a Buddha, unlike an arhat, eliminates not only afflictive emotions but all obscurations to knowledge through the twin cultivation of emptiness and compassion. A nutritionist analogy warns against the nihilist misreading of emptiness; a three-part magician’s illusion then maps the stages from ordinary grasping to direct realization. Rinpoche closes with a phonetic and symbolic breakdown of the Śākyamūni mantra Tayatha Om Muni Muni Mahamuni Svāhā, and a brief exchange on acquired versus innate conceptions of true existence.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 PG 1991 04 09.mp3
UUID: b086be90-6f27-4a2c-92a2-41e33a2f25dc
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Precious Garland 1990-1991 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1991-04-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 91.0 minutes
Words: ~4,796
Any motivation cultivating the awakening heart? We all have a human life which possesses tremendous capacities, possesses great intelligence, and that by means of this capacity and this intelligence that we can achieve our desired happinesses and that we can bring a cessation to undesired sufferings. To realize the great potential of our human life requires many essential supportive conditions, but we need to gain an understanding of what our various thoughts are and what we can achieve. Therefore we need the various teachings and we need to be assisted in implementing the various teachings. So it’s the gathering together of many conducive conditions whereby we can realize the great capacity that we have while we have a human life.
So now we have all the very supportive conditions necessary to realize the capacity of our human life. And so it’s very necessary that we make use of these supportive conditions while they remain. Seeking to transform our minds, seeking to implement the various practices in our lives whereby we can find the happiness that we seek and put an end to suffering which we do not desire. While we have this golden opportunity avail ourselves of it and give rise to bringing fulfillment to our wishes. So how can we realize the potential of our human life and that is through our practices and the way that we are to carry on our practices is by first developing healthy attitudes of mind and out of this will flow healthy attitudes of conduct and from this healthy results will arise.
And of all the various healthy attitudes that we can make use of, there is none higher than the awakening heart. What do we mean by the awakening heart? It is that attitude of mind which thinks that I must eliminate the suffering of myself and all sentient beings and lead them all to complete happiness. And in order to achieve that end, I myself must eliminate all my various faults and bring the consummation to all my qualities. That is to say, must transform my mind.
For the next three minutes, seek to cultivate the motivation for listening to this present teaching on the profound great vehicle and its explanation of emptiness. That I, for the sake of this end of transforming my mind, that in order to bring myself and all others to a state of happiness bereft of any suffering, I am going to listen to this present teaching. I cultivate that for the next three minutes. We’ve completed the first chapter of Precious Garland and tonight we’re going to begin the second chapter. Can you hear me in the back?
It begins with the following verse. This is there is nothing when a banana tree with all its parts is torn apart, it is the same when a person is divided into six constituents. Presenting with an analogy then with the meaning of that analogy or the object of that analogy. First we’re presenting the analogy and the analogy is presented in terms of a banana tree. One strips apart a banana tree and trying to find the core of the tree, one continually peels off more and more layers of the trunk seeking the core and then one finds there’s no core there.
There’s no essence to the tree. One peels away layers after layers of skin and so one comes to a soft pulp in the middle which is of no essence. Of investigating the tree in terms of seeking to find what is its essence, specifically the layers the skin, layers of bark, not bark, the skin of the trunk and still one finds nothing which is of essence until it comes through a soft pulp and this has no substantial ability to it. One never finds the core essence to that tree, something substantial. Likewise, returning to the meaning of that analogy in terms of the object.
The object is the analysis of an inherently existent person. Here we are stripping away, we are making an examination of the parts of the person in terms of the six elements as we mentioned previously. There is earth, water, fire, air, consciousness and space. So by examining, investigating these six elements, looking for the person which is the essence of these six elements which is the person and separating out all of these various parts. We do not find a naturally existent person just as we do not find an essential core to the tree likewise when we search through these six elements we do not find a naturally existent person at its core.
When we seek to find the I of our individual self, we begin to investigate all the various parts. We look at the hand. Is this the hand? Is this the I? Is this is this hand the I?
Is the head the I? Is the leg the I? Is the stomach the I? The intestines, the lungs, each of those is not the is not the I. We never find the I in on this investigation.
We can also investigate of the body in terms of the six elements or the constituents of the body in terms of earth, water, fire, wind, mind and space. Analyze each of the elements of the body and is the earth beyond? Is the water, fire, air? Examine each of these and we find that none of these elements are the naturally existing. And we go on to examine our feelings.
Sometimes sometimes we have pleasurable feelings, sometimes unpleasurable feelings, other times neutral feelings, examining those but none of these are the and going on to examine the mind itself. I and when we examine all these various parts, we find that there is no core to them by which we can identify a naturally existent self. However much we proceed to search we never find a naturally existent person. Proceeding with an analysis, searching amongst the aggregates where there is a naturally existent self we are unable to find it. We find the non existence of such a type of self.
This non existence of such a type of self is the selflessness of the person. Likewise, just as the aggregates do not possess a a naturally existent self, we can extend this analysis to all phenomena whatsoever. However much we search the various phenomena we will come to the same conclusion. For example, we search amongst the various parts of the table, the flower, whatsoever phenomena. When we search amongst the parts we never find the naturally existent object.
Therefore all phenomena are selfless in the same manner as persons. Nāgārjuna in writing this text was setting up the meaning of selflessness in order to aid the king for whom this text was written. He analyzed in presenting the analysis in terms of the king himself, his various elements that constituted him and he went on to say that all others are exactly like yourself. Nāgārjuna said that all phenomena whatsoever do not naturally exist, that all phenomena whatsoever are selfless. And I have been explaining what has been presented in order to aid you in your understanding of selflessness.
Just as ordinary beings such as ourselves have a body, speech and mind, likewise the Buddha also has a body, speech and mind. But in the Tibetan they use honorific terms for the we don’t have this. We use the same words but a Buddha also has a body, speech and mind. A Buddha has these same properties of having a body, speech and mind but because they are of such a greater quality, they use a different terminology, but still essentially the Buddha like ourselves has a body, speech and mind. A Buddha is one who has completely abandoned from the very root.
That is to say the action plus along with the seeds of these actions, the unskillful actions, physical, verbal and mental unskillful actions. A Buddha is one who has completely abandoned firstly all physical unskillful actions. The term which is usually applied, an epithet of a Buddha which is applied in this context is usually translated as subduer and in Sanskrit muni, muni Tibetan, dupa, in English subduer. And that is since having abandoned completely all unskillful physical actions, he has subdued all of the unskillful actions and therefore the term subduer. Additionally, having abandoned all physical unskillful actions, therefore he is termed the subduer of unskillful verbal actions.
Additionally, having abandoned all the various faults of the mind, the various obscurations and unskillful actions created out of the mind, therefore having ceased these, completely eliminated them from his mind. Therefore, he is termed the subduer of the mind, therefore this epithet of the subduer. We say the mantra which has muni, muni, maha, muni in it. Muni is the Sanskrit term which in Tibetan is Tupa and it’s usually translated as Subduer. So, there is the Subduer, Muni, Muni, and then Maha means great, The great subduer.
So the subduer, the subduer, great subduer. There are those lesser vehicle foe destroyers, arhats, who have abandoned all of the afflictive emotions such as the hearer foe destroyers. They have freed themselves from cyclic existence and they are termed muni or subduers. Why? Because they have subdued the afflictive emotions, the physical afflictive emotions, the unskillful actions of the body, speech and the mind through having abandoned all the various unskillful actions, the afflictive emotions.
But they are not great subduers, that only a Buddha is a great subduer. That Buddha has abandoned all obstructions to knowledge. That is to say that a Buddha is one who eliminates all obscurations from themselves. So a Buddha is termed a great muni, a Mahamuni, and what has a Buddha subdued? Firstly, having subdued the physical unskillful actions, verbal unskillful actions, mental unskillful actions.
This through having abandoned the afflictive emotions. Additionally, abandoned all the obscurations to knowledge and this is done through having abandoned completely the conception of grasping a true existence along with their So the Buddha is referred to as the great subduer, the Mahamuni. Why? Because he has subdued all faults whatsoever. To subdue means to eliminate, eliminate all faults.
By what means has the Buddha eliminated all her various faults? By the cultivation of the realization of emptiness. All the faults are eliminated by means of eliminating the ignorance conceiving of true existence. The Buddha achieved this through a union of emptiness and compassion thereby becoming the great subduer. Likewise, in following our course of practice, it should be an integration of the cultivation of compassion and realization of emptiness.
It is by this means that we ourselves can eliminate our very faults and become Buddha. So we the Tibetan recite this mantra quite often, but we should try to recite it correctly in accordance with the Sanskrit grammar as the great one great Sanskrit grammar, Kunkhyen Tendzin Gyatso set forth. It should be pronounced muni, muni, maha and then this third one, it’s not muni, it’s muni ai, muni he said that this should be pronounced as has been pronounced as we’ve talked about. So we refer, and this is the main mantra of the Buddha. He is continually being referred to as subduer and by subdue we mean having eliminated all the various faults and various types of faults.
Just like when having overcome, having subdued, just like when two people fight, one person wins, the other person loses. One subdues the other and the Buddha through the cultivation of emptiness and compassion abandoned all faults whatsoever, eliminated the faults, all faults therefore he is referred to as the great subduer. Emptiness is the foundation for the elimination of all faults whatsoever. That is the wisdom realizing emptiness. All of the Buddhas have relied upon the wisdom understanding emptiness.
All of the previous Buddhas by cultivating the wisdom realizing emptiness and coupling this with compassion eliminated all of the various faults and attained Buddhahood. Those Buddhas who are presently achieving Buddhahood rely again on wisdom realizing emptiness, coupling this with compassion and are achieving their presently achieving Buddhahood. And all the Buddhas of the future, whosoever, will again cultivate the wisdom realizing emptiness, conjoin this with the awakening heart and compassion and thereby eliminate all their various faults and they too will achieve Buddhahood. Whosoever it might be that we ourselves by gaining this wisdom of realizing emptiness, if we couple it with the awakening heart and compassion that we ourselves will become Buddhas. Therefore we can begin to understand how extremely important understanding emptiness is.
So this is the great highway that we travel. Is the big road that we move down in seeking to arrive at our destination of Buddhahood. That is the road emptiness, the realization of emptiness coupled with, conjoined with sympathetic caring or compassion and love. This is a wonderful, really excellent road. It is a vast way that all of the Buddhas of the previous times have traveled, that those achieving Buddhahood at present are traveling, and that all the Buddhas of the future will again travel.
Therefore, it is a stable road. It is an extremely fruitful path to travel, and finally eliminating all our various faults and bringing to consummation all our excellent qualities. To travel this great highway, we must know the way, and not only we know the way, but we must have the personal power as a means to travel its course. And so, if we do this, if we travel this road, then we can achieve a state of great bliss whereby we can bring about the welfare of both self and others. Those who have no wisdom, those who have no inspiration to travel the road, and those who do not know it well will never arrive at this end.
Not only is it necessary that we have wisdom, that we have personal power, but additionally we must know the way to travel the road. If we know the way, then we will achieve great benefits. If we don’t know the way, it’s just going be a lot of hassles. So, we need both personal power and wisdom in order to travel the road well. And we will come to an understanding of how to travel the road well because out of the force of our wisdom, of the force of our personal power that we will be able to consider well the means of achieving our end and we will be able to know how to function in order to arrive at our destination unmistakenly.
On the other hand, if we’re without these two factors that are personal power and wisdom, then we’re not we’re going to it’s quite possible we’re going to make a mistake in how to travel the path. So, it’s not said that we have both of these factors of personal power and wisdom. If we simply have wisdom without personal power, that is the same merit, then it would be extremely rare that we would have the opportunity even to hear about emptiness. So, there’s no possibility to understand it. Additionally, if we were to have personal power without wisdom, though we might have the we might hear the teachings on emptiness, we hear it, but it makes no sense to us.
We don’t understand it because we don’t have the wisdom. So, it’s necessary to both have personal power and wisdom combined. If we do not possess wisdom, then when we hear such statements as all phenomena do not naturally exist, they do not inherently exist, they do not truly exist, then we think nothing exists. Now this is terrible. Thinking in this way is a great deprecation of the view of emptiness.
It’s the reverse of what it is seeking to aid us in understanding and through this deprecation, thinking well this is terrible, nothing exists, then we’ll I don’t want anything to do with this and we will not have a liking for Dharma or spiritual practice and out of this we will create many negative actions having as a result rebirth in a bad migration. Out of out of this great deprecation, we we create many negative actions and as a result experience suffering. It is for this reason that the Buddha, being skilled in methods, taught the Autonomy Middle Way school that in fact all phenomena naturally exist. He taught that the Mind Only school, the Great Exposition school and the Sūtra school, that all phenomena naturally exist. That if you would have taught them that phenomena do not naturally exist, then they would have deprecated the view and thought nothing exists and therefore they would have deprecated the dharma and the dharma would have been not only of no benefit to them, but it would actually have harmed them.
So out of his skillfulness, he actually taught that, in fact, he taught to these lower schools that phenomena naturally exist. The Buddhist teaching of emptiness where setting forth that phenomena do not naturally exist is the essence of the Buddhist teaching and it’s regarded as a very secret teaching. So, we have been listening to teachings on emptiness and we’ve been taught that phenomena do not naturally exist, but in hearing this type of teaching, is the danger that we would deprecate the Dharma, understanding that things don’t exist because they do not naturally exist. But I think it’s been taught such that none of you will fall to this position of deprecating, that you understand things exist but they do not naturally exist. So, it’s like having prepared a good lunch, a very delicious food.
But it’s not only delicious, but it’s nutritious. It’s like health food. It’s to make us strong and healthy. It’s going to prevent illness. It’s going to help us have a long life.
So, this wonderful lunch has been prepared for us. Now, a nutritionist comes along and this person knows exactly how to eat all the various foods which have been prepared. They’re experts in ways of eating, what types are beneficial and in what ways. And so, being an expert, then they can eat, they can partake of this food in such a way that it’s going to bring them great health, it’s going to give them a strong body without any sickness and live a long life. On the other hand, someone else has no knowledge of nutrition, and they sit down at this good lunch with all these nutritious, nutritious, delicious foods set before them, and they just simply eat what appears to them without thinking about any balancing of their foods nutritional wise and they, for example, they don’t eat any vegetables at all and they eat this way all the time and finally it makes them sick.
And they have a deficiency and out of this they could actually die. Not only was all these delicious nutritional food of no benefit, but it became a condition for them for their death. It’s important though, you know, we have this complete health food meal set before us, it’s important to know how the right way to partake of it in order to get all its nutrition, in order to help us develop a healthy body, a long life, to become strong. And likewise, using that analogy in terms of emptiness, emptiness is like this really delicious meal, nutritious meal set before us, but we have to have wisdom and personal power in order that we partake of it correctly in the right manner, that we have to be able to reflect upon how to eat it well. If we don’t, then we could suffer from deprecation of the dharma, of phenomena and simply have a resultant suffering from it.
So it’s necessary that though emptiness is the ultimate health food, that we have the wisdom and personal power to partake of it in the right manners and thereby we can use it to abandon all our afflictive emotions, achieve the level of arhathood and come to the end of our path. To this end, becomes extremely important that we understand that all phenomena are dependent arisings, that all phenomena are illusions. This is extremely beneficial to understand this. If we understand that all phenomena are illusions, are dependent arisings, then we will not deprecate emptiness. When we speak of all phenomena being illusions, we mean due to the influence of the latency of the ignorance conceiving of true existence, that phenomena appear to be truly existent, but in fact they do not exist that way.
When something appears one way and exists another, we say it is an illusion. For example, a magician takes a piece of wood and he recites mantras he blows on the wood and he throws the wood down And due to the force of those mantras, what is a piece of wood appears to the audience to be a horse and an elephant. So, due to the potency of the mantra that it is able to affect the eye consciousness of the audience due to which what is in fact a piece of wood appears to be a horse and an elephant. So, who may not understand that what is appearing is simply appearing due to the force of mantra, that is to say the general audience. Due to the effect of the mantra on their eye consciousness, there appears a horse and an elephant and but more than that, they hold that this appearance of a horse and elephant is really a horse and elephant.
This really is a horse. This really is an elephant. They take the appearance to be real. So, the same holds true for us, just as in this analogy of the audience, that when we look at the table, when ordinary beings like ourselves, those who have not realized emptiness, when we look at the table, the table appears to be not imputed by terms. It appears to be existing from its own side by the power of its uncommon mode of abidance.
It appears to exist from its own side, not to be imputed by conception, to exist under the power of its own its own uncommon reality, mode of abidance. That’s the way it appears to us. Just like the audience. It’s similar. But to the magician, that is the person who has actually made use of the mantra.
For the magician’s eye consciousness, to the magician’s eye consciousness there does appear a horse and an elephant, but this magician knows that this is not really a horse and an elephant. He knows it only appears to be a horse and elephant, that he has created this illusion by the force of mantra. So, though a horse and elephant appears to his eye consciousness, he does not hold it to be real, horse and elephant. For one who has realized that phenomena do not naturally exist, for this person when they look at the table, the table appears to be naturally existent. That’s the way it appears, but she knows that the table in fact does not naturally exist because she has realized the non natural existence of phenomena.
So, though the table appears to naturally exist for her, she does not grasp at the table to be naturally existent. Though it appears one way, she does not grasp it to exist as the way it appears, just as the magician. The magic show started at one o’clock, and somebody came very late. They came at two o’clock. So, their eye consciousness was not affected by the mantra which was made use of.
And so, they walk into the theater and all they see is a stick up on the stage. They don’t see an elephant nor do they see a horse, only the stick. So, this latecomer to the audience is analogous to one who is directly realizing emptiness. For that person, true existence does not even appear. So, if you reflect upon what we just talked about, then you won’t deprecate emptiness and it will benefit your coming to an understanding of emptiness.
So, we made use of this three part analogy. There are three types of individuals who are within this analogy. There is the audience, that is to say those who have no understanding of emptiness. For those, horse and elephant appeared and they grasp to that appearance as real. Then this is the ordinary person who has not understood emptiness.
Then there was a magician who the horse and the elephant appeared, but he did not grasp the horse and the elephant appearance as real. This is someone who has an understanding of emptiness, but not a direct realization of emptiness. The emptiness appears but is not held as real. Things appear to truly exist, but is not held as really truly existing. And then there is the latecomer, one who is directly realizing emptiness.
For this individual, now the horse and elephant appears and likewise for this individual, true existence does not even appear. So, we’ll stop there and if you have any questions. So, it’s like the Tayatha it would be good to say Tayatha Om. The Tayatha is like introducing the mantra. This is the main mantra of the Buddha.
Goes thus, it goes thus. Tayatha means it goes this way, it is this way, is thus, introducing the mantra. So, Aum is the doorway into the mantra or it’s like the head of the mantra. So, if we were to we were to see the letter, what is phoneticized as om, we usually spell it. Sometimes it’s spelled a u m, generally o m, but it contains three characters in the Tibetan.
It’s a combination of three characters, an ah and then a vowel sign, oh, and then a little circle over the oh which is a ma, so making om, and this represents the body, speech, mind of the Buddha, these three characters. So, there are these three characters which are combined together. There is the O, the vowel sign O, which is the seed syllable of the body of the Buddha. The Ah, which is the seed syllable of the speech of the Buddha. And then there is, above there’s a little circle, a zero.
And zero represents emptiness, nothing. Like if you there’s nothing there. So, this represents the mind of the Buddha, the seed syllable of the mind of the Buddha. So, to continue, Tayatha Om, Muni Muni, as we mentioned, Svāhā Svāhā, Mahamuni, the great Svāhā, Yeh. This is probably a respectful suffix, just to show respect.
In Tibetan they use the word la to show respect, so here it’s probably ye. And then Svāhā. Svāhā means may it be, may I receive the blessings of these three seed syllables. May these seeds be implanted within my mind. May they develop within myself.
It’s like, it come about within me. So is the conception of true existence innate or is acquired? So there is both the acquired and innate conception of true existence. So, there are two levels to the conception of true existence. There is the acquired level and the innate level.
For example, in terms of the acquired conception, one of the tenet systems is called the Mind Only school and they say that everything truly exists. Why? Because they’re able to perform functions, they’re functional things, therefore they must truly exist. This is the reason they give. For example, when they say the table truly exists, they say why does it truly exist?
Because it is a product of causes and conditions. So, based upon the reason that it is a product of causes and conditions, then the table must truly exist and they have a very strong conviction in the correctness of this reason and therefore this reason, due to the force of their conviction in this reason, it’s able to influence their mind and it conditions their mind. They acquire a conception of true existence out of the force of reasoning. Innate reasoning is a conception of true existence which is instinctive. It does not rely upon reasoning.
It simply, they are both conceptions of true existence, but acquired arises in dependence upon a process of reasoning. Innate does not rely on any process of reasoning. It is completely instinctive. So, they have their own individual methods for cultivating emptiness in accordance with their assertions, but it is not in accordance with the assertions of the Consequentialist Middle Way school. But each of them has their own individual way of cultivating emptiness in accordance with their assertions of their particular school, but it’s not in accordance with the Autonomy Middle Way school.