Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A monk so determined to break food attachment that he mixed excrement into his tsampa before eating — that story anchors Khensur Rinpoche’s 113-minute commentary as he moves from the mindfulness of body to the mindfulness of feeling within Śāntideva’s ninth chapter. He classifies feeling into three and then five types, with careful attention to regret as a mental suffering that can be virtuous or non-virtuous depending on its object. The core argument then proves feeling lacks inherent existence through four analyses: by nature, by cause (including a detailed refutation of atomistic contact theories from lower philosophical schools), by result, and by the experiencer. Rinpoche closes by connecting the analysis to liberation: pleasant feeling generates craving, unpleasant generates anger, and neutral generates ignorance — the three bondages described by Vasubandhu. Suited to practitioners already working through Middle Way philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 Ch9 Wisdom 1994 08 16.mp3
UUID: 7676a4de-2f0a-4dbd-96b8-5960b562ff06
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Śāntideva Ch9 Wisdom (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1994-08-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 113.2 minutes
Words: ~6,344
Let’s start by doing a brief meditation on precious mind of enlightenment in order to set up a good motive. Every being out there has been kind to me. There have been countless times, been my mother, parents and so forth. As well, from their side, they do want happiness, they do not want suffering. Therefore here I will start generating compassion towards them by thinking that they all be free of suffering and causes of suffering.
I will as well meditate on, I will as well generate loving kindness towards them by thinking that all attain happiness and causes of happiness. I myself alone will take the responsibility to actually remove the sufferings of all beings and to bring happiness to all beings. To be able to do that will train in removing the impure thoughts of the mind and to attain excellent qualities of the mind. Through such a method of training, in order to help others, I must attain the state of enlightenment. In order to attain enlightenment or here engage in the learning, contemplation and meditation on the great vehicle path of teachings, particularly here the current topic of study, the wisdom aspect of the part, which is the analysis and trying to understand about emptiness, the reality of things.
Śāntideva explains, If suffering as a feeling is inherently existing, then why can’t it hinder someone who has attained a state of very joyous? So that’s in our present context of the ninth chapter. So far we have been looking at the selflessness of phenomena amongst the two selflessnesses. And within the selflessness of phenomena we have been looking at how form or body and so forth do not inherently exist. And that part was explained by going through the meditation of four mindfulnesses.
The mindfulness of the body becomes the meditation on the body being inherently not existing. And now we go to the second mindfulness, mindfulness of feeling. The mindfulness of the body is an excellent quality of mind which has the thought renunciation memory complete with it, firstly by looking at how the body does not have inherent existence, therefore it is not worthy to be attached to. Through that way it produces renunciation. And the very awareness, which is the memory of renunciation, is retained in the state of mind.
And whatever virtuous or excellent quality state of mind like that becomes the mindfulness of the body. With regards to the mindfulness of the body, it is mainly the meditation on the awareness that the body is emptiness in nature lacking inherent existence. Now next is the mindfulness of feeling, of sensations. Regarding that, firstly we look at how many types of feelings there can be. Well, all feelings can be categorized into three groups: pleasant feeling, unpleasant feeling, and neutral feeling.
And these three types of feelings, which includes all feelings, are something we can, in our daily experiences, can relate to that that is true, that feelings can be any of those three. And pleasant feeling by nature is something which brings joyfulness to the person’s mind. Unpleasant feeling brings lack of joyfulness, so forth, to the mind. Neutral, which is neither pleasant nor unpleasant feeling, doesn’t produce either of the two: joy or sadness. Now to start with, that’s how it is that with feelings, basically there are those three types.
By definition, feeling is defined as a mind which experiences. That is the definition of feeling — a state of mind which either experiences pleasant feeling, pleasant experience, or unpleasant experience, or neutral nature of the two. Principally there are those three types of feelings, and yet those three can further be expanded into five types of feelings. How are the five types of feelings when those three are expanded? Well, the five are there because pleasant feelings can be subdivided into two types of pleasant feelings.
Likewise, unpleasant feelings can be subdivided into two types of unpleasant feelings. So there are four, when added with neutral feelings, which cannot be subdivided because that is it. So together there are those five. The two types of unpleasant feelings are the unpleasant feeling on the body and unpleasant feeling on the mind. The unpleasant feeling on the mind can literally be more precisely described as the ‘undelightful feeling of the mind’.
This is clarified on the basis because, strictly speaking, pleasant and unpleasant feelings are described as feeling of happiness and unpleasant as feeling of suffering. So on that point, unpleasant feeling can be two types: the feeling of suffering on the body and feeling of undelightfulness in the mind. The unpleasant feeling of the body can be so many types because we can quite easily relate it to be so by observing how many sufferings, pains and so forth we experience on our body. Now the question is, from where do all these multitude of unpleasant feelings on the body come from? Well, cause and the reason for that is all unpleasant feeling.
The feeling of suffering here, speaking of the body, definitely comes from past non virtuous actions, past negative karma. This is true even if we look in the classical citation from reputable teacher such as Vasubandhu, then there are lines saying the sufferings of the body are produced by the non virtuous actions of the past. So it is quite certain, there is no doubt, that all these unpleasant feelings on the body are produced by one’s non virtuous actions in the past. To further give an idea how many unpleasant feelings on the body we experience, well, we can say there are so many such as we can easily relate that we do physically become sick, we do have a headache, we do have a stomach upset, and so forth. So all these are instances that there are unpleasant feelings on the body experienced by beings.
If we stop or completely give up non virtuous actions, then that is the way to stop experiencing unpleasant feelings on the body. Unpleasant feeling of the mind is the suffering with the mind. As regards what is or as regards the question what brings about unpleasant feeling of the mind, there are quite varying explanations. But still, let’s look at one instance how that can be so. Say, unpleasant feeling of the mind can be generated with the virtuous direction of mind, such as if someone happens to kill and murder a person, then having murdered a person, if one somehow comes to senses and regrets, and feeling a regretfulness, thinking, Oh, it’s been so tragic.
What a blunder. I have killed, murdered someone. Through such a way, if there is immense regret in the person’s mind, state of the mind in regret, no doubt, is an unpleasant feeling of the mind. Such an unpleasant feeling of the mind in the form of regret on something one has done wrong is a virtuous thing. It is not only virtuous, it is very strongly recommended to be necessary when doing purification practice for one’s past non virtuous or negative actions.
How that is so is we can recall that during purification there is a great deal of emphasis to have all four opponent powers for purification complete. And in the four opponent powers there is no doubt the requirement on one hand to depend on enlightened beings as a source of purification, such as going for refuge to them, making offerings to them, and so forth. But one of the main opponent power required to mention or explain there is the opponent power of feeling of remorse for what one has done and non virtuous actions one has done. Through such power of remorse, of feeling sorrowfulness for the non virtuous actions, one has done that the negativity or the bad karma can be purified to that force. So there we can clearly see it is not only mentioned to be virtuous but recommended to be required in the process of purification.
In brief, such regret over something one has done wrong, or non virtuous actions one has done becomes a virtuous state of mind. Jetsün Milarepa, the great yogi of Tibet, sings a verse where the two lines says, If one does purification of the negativity, as long as there is regret, it will be purified. There again we can see that regret or remorsefulness is advised as a necessary force for purification of past non virtuous actions. When one has done a non virtuous action, say, yesterday, and today if one has remorse or greater than that, thinking, oh, it’s been so bad, I’ve done such yesterday, then by such regret there does arise a feeling of unpleasantness, feeling of lack of delightfulness within one’s mind. So obviously it is true there is a suffering in the mind.
Yet such suffering of the mind in the form of such a great or non virtuous action is a virtuous state of mind. But regret can be non virtuous state of mind if the topic of regret is something virtuous one has done. That’s not where the latter part was. So how that can be, let’s look at an example. If someone feels so high and meets a beggar down on the street, and on that high state of mind, one feels giving everything to the person and one does give the ten dollars or fifteen dollars one had in one’s pocket to the person.
But after five or ten minutes later, when one finds one doesn’t have any money, then it’s possible one might regret having given the money to the pauper. So in such case, regret is a non virtuous state of mind. That is a regret over something one has done virtuous. And if one does that, then that regret becomes a non virtuous action, non virtuous state of mind. Therefore, in such example or a situation, one needs to think beforehand to make sure one doesn’t end up regretting.
When one does regret, say in the present case, over a virtuous thing one has done, then like previous case, in this present case too, there is a feeling of unpleasantness, a feeling of suffering in one’s mind. Therefore, in brief, can then classify that the unpleasant feeling in the mind produced by regret can either be virtuous or non virtuous, depending on the topic of this object over which one is regretting over. And this classification is true because one of the main source teachers of this classification, Vasubandhu, Vasubandhu says regret can be either virtuous or non virtuous. It can’t be anything apart from the two. But then it is obvious that people might have a doubt thinking, say, if someone just carelessly happens to draw a chalk line on the ground, then instantly one feels regretful for having drawn the chalk line on the ground.
So it would be us what becomes that sort of regret, or we say the virtuous and non virtuous. Well, to say according to that classification, it is not a true regret. That’s where the laughter was. That’s not a true regret because it’s not covered by the previous classification, simply by that. So it’s not a true regret.
If it’s a true regret, a genuine regret, it has to be either virtuous or non virtuous. So those are the unpleasant feeling tops and then with the pleasant feeling we can Now that’s the unpleasant feeling, how it can be of two types, virtuous and non virtuous. And now with regards to pleasant feeling, we can say one type of pleasant feeling is the pleasant feeling on an ordinary person’s body and mind. These two are grouped into one. The second type of pleasant feeling is what is called mental bliss, pleasant feeling of mental bliss.
This pleasant feeling of mental bliss is something we in the desire realm are ordinary beings of this part of the universe. The desire realm do not have. It is only in the continuum of those higher, those beings who are on the higher realms, such as the form and formless realms, such as beings who have attained what is called the meditative concentration state of mind. So only in those cases there is this mental bliss, pleasant feeling. Now, inquiry, so far, in last Tuesday evening, we have looked at how the body is not inherently existing.
Now similarly here tonight, we need to look at, and this is what is being proven in the present part, How feeling as well, like the body, how feeling as well is not inherently existing. And this is what being looked at. This is what is as well covered under the meditation of the mindfulness of feeling. Therefore now we look at how as for feeling like body is not inherently existing. Here at this point, the author of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, Śāntideva, looks firstly at how feeling, such as unpleasant feeling, is not truly existing.
The way how it is proven or presented is, let’s say, if feeling, such as feeling unpleasant feeling, is truly or inherently existing, then it would mean that unpleasant feeling exists without depending on anything not on cause, conditions, name, label, sound, denomination doesn’t depend on any of them. Instead, it would be existing alone, self sufficiently, in dependence upon its own. If it is to be so, then that would mean such feeling of unpleasantness is a permanent phenomenon. If it is a permanent phenomenon, then that would imply it would always remain in that nature of being unpleasant feeling, never subject to change at all. It should remain as unpleasant feeling all the time.
But that is not so because our own experience contradicts with that. Because in our own experience we occasionally have pleasant feeling, we occasionally have it replaced by unpleasant feeling, and occasionally again pleasant feeling, and so forth. Therefore, in our own experience we find that pleasant and unpleasant feelings are impermanent phenomena, subject to change and perishing and so forth. The reason why that is so and that’s how we experience the reason why that is so is because feelings, whether it is unpleasant feeling or pleasant feeling, depends on causes and conditions for their arising or production, and they remain there as long as causes and conditions are there. The moment the causes and conditions lose their potencies, then the feelings as well cease to exist.
That is how it happens. Now, if we say the feeling such as here, unpleasant feeling, is permanent phenomenon, then that would mean it is always never subject to change, which in turn would mean if we experience unpleasant feeling, it will always be with us. We always will end up experiencing all the time that same unpleasant feeling. Yes? In the Mahāyāna path, one makes the entry into the path, are ten bodhisattva grounds, or the ten bodhisattva levels, ten bodhisattva grounds.
Amongst the ten, the first ground is called the very joyous ground. The reason why that first bodhisattva ground is called very joyous is because when a bodhisattva attains that state of realization on that ground, there is immeasurable joy experienced by the bodhisattva and that immeasurable joy is experienced because of the bodhisattva having the foresight through attaining that ground, through attaining that spiritual level, had the foresight to see that she or he is going to attain enlightenment soon and therefore going to be of enormous benefit to countless beings. So having seen that, there is immeasurable joy within the bodhisattva’s continuum. Now that is what actually happens to a bodhisattva who attains that state. Whereas now if we say unpleasant feeling is inherently existing and is permanent by nature, never subject to change, then that would contradict such fact, such as it would mean that there is no such thing as bodhisattva on that ground becoming very joyous and so forth.
So there would be such fallacies. Similarly, we can look at the pleasant feeling, say if it is inherently existing, therefore if it is permanent, then it would mean the present feeling is subject to no change at all. This in turn would mean whoever is experiencing the present feeling always will experience that pleasant feeling without any change at all. That in turn would then contradict directly with how ordinary beings such as in the desire realm who commit non virtuous actions, or simply say a person with great mental impurities committing non virtuous actions, it would mean that they would not experience unpleasant feelings or feelings of suffering from their actions. So there would be similar contradictions.
Similarly, if pleasant feeling is inherently existing, then there would be fallacies such as it would then mean even if we eat delicious food when we are hungry and have nice drinks when we are thirsty, that there will be no new pleasant feeling. There will be no new feeling of happiness because of the same reasoning that the previous pleasant feeling would always have been there, while there would be no room for new pleasant feelings to arise. By the same token, there would be again similar fallacies such as when one’s child dies, or in the case of parents who have their beloved child and children pass away, or when one’s relatives and friends pass away, it would mean that there would be no feeling of grief, suffering, unpleasantness at all, because the previous pleasant feeling supposedly being inherently existing, permanent, unchanging would always have been there. Through such a way of looking at the possible fallacies in accepting a feeling either unpleasant or feeling inherently existing, we then establish that there is no inherently existing feeling. And this is what here in the teaching is very inspiringly advised, that due to such reasons the feelings cannot be inherently existing phenomenon.
In this way, as a practitioner, when one analyzes the nature of feeling, whether it is inherently existing phenomena or is it non inherently existing phenomena, when a practitioner analyzes, and if the practitioner comes to understand that feeling is not inherently existing phenomena, then such understanding counters the wrong view in the mind of the practitioner, thinking feeling as truly existing phenomena. As such, such an understanding that feelings do not inherently exist helps to negate or helps to eliminate the grasping that feeling exists truly or inherently. Now, in one’s meditative concentration training, when such an understanding about non inherent existence of feeling is continuously trained on and trained on, then through such a way, if there arises a time when the practitioner realizes when the practitioner attains the meditative concentration, realizing the non inherent existence of feeling. Or in other words, meaning when the practitioner has attained the mastery of the mind, able to remain undistracted and focused on the topic that feeling is not inherently existing, then such a meditative concentration or such mastery of mind would make the practitioner’s body be sustained by that very force of meditation without relying on gross or eatables and foods and so forth.
And also, through such meditative contemplation, the practitioner will have the capability of mind to attain many other realizations and experiences. So these are then all that are explained as even some even a kind of secondary outcome of making the inquiry in the first place. On the meditative concentration, realizing feeling as not inherently existing is also food sustaining the body. How that is so is generally food does not necessarily have to be a gross substance food, because food, by definition, is something which sustains and expands the body can be of various types. The commonly regarded food is what is called the food of element, the gross substance food.
And such food of element is food which is composed of three components the taste, smell, and tangibility that touch about the substance. When these three are complete, that becomes a gross substance food that is called elemental food. And when one eats such food, that helps to sustain the body and expand the body. That is elemental food. Similarly, there can be sustaining and expanding of the body through other ways.
One is through meditative concentration. The term meditative concentration is no different than calm abiding. It can be seen. The mastery of the mind, free of distraction and attachment, and with all power to remain with strength, clarity on any given virtuous topic or spiritual development. So that is meditative concentration, no different than calm abiding.
When one attains meditative concentration, then that as well helps sustain the body and expand it, that such a person’s body would feel light and yet strong, and yet not requiring any gross element of food to sustain it. So that’s how it is. This then becomes, by analyzing the nature of feeling, one establishes it is not inherently existing. So similarly, we look at the second way how is not inherently existing by analysing its cause. Third, how feeling is not inherently existing by analysing its result.
Fourth, how feeling is not inherently existing by analysing the person or the being who experiences that feeling. So in a way, they’re all those four ways together to prove how feeling is not inherently existing. The one we just finished was by analyzing through the nature of feeling and proving through that way how it is, how feeling is not inherently existing. We then have the other three through cause, through reason, and through the person experiencing it. And the laughter in the latter part was that that itself seemed to have so many lists.
With regards to analysing the cause of the feeling and through that way proving feeling is not inherently existing, let’s look at, say, how feeling let’s look at one particular instance, say, with eye consciousness, the consciousness seeing forms that is called eye consciousness. Now, that eye consciousness is dependent on the working of what is in the eye. There is a component called eye organ, eye sense, very pure sense factor which is the eye sense or eye organ. Now when the consciousness and the eye sense get together, then that produces an eye consciousness perceiving form. And whatever form it is seen, that produces together a feeling, either pleasant or unpleasant feeling, through that way.
So that’s how to start with how, in that case, a feeling starts. Now with regards to the eye sense producing feeling of its own, how that happens is let’s say when eye sense or the eye organ, eye sense come in contact with its, come in contact with the form out there, or in another word an object out there, then there is a contact between the eye sense and the form or the object out there. And the coming together in contact by the two, there arises whatever the feeling is, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. So there is a production of feeling by way of the eye sense and the external object coming in contact. Here, firstly, to establish that feeling is not inherently existing, by analyzing the causes of feeling not inherently existing, we first need to establish whether that contact in the first place is an inherently existing phenomena or not.
Now as regard with that, according to lower tenets, they assert that the contact between the eye sense and the object is inherently existing, is truly a happening phenomena. And therefore, the step number one is firstly to counter those assertions by the lower tenets. And therefore, it perhaps would mean a bit of a complex area to look into. And that’s where the laughter was. Looks like you might need to listen with full attention.
Now the question is put to the lower tenets. If there is a contact between the eye sense and the object out there, then does the contact happen in the way how does the contact happen? Does it happen by so many of the tiny particles of the eye sense directly touching so many of the tiny particles of the object being looked at by the eye sense. Isn’t that so many tiny particles from both sides touch one another and that’s how the contact happens or what? So that’s the question put to them.
If they do come in contact, is it in the manner of there being a gap or without gap? That so many the theory is that eye sense itself is built up of so many minute units of particles, so many tiny particles. Likewise, the object being perceived is made up of so many particles. So the question put is, do so many tiny particles from the two come in contact directly touching one another or there is a gap? If you say that there is a gap, then that would mean that gap would be occupied by light or darkness.
And if there is light and darkness, then that would mean it is not a contact, there is no contact. So it would be absurd to say that they have come in contact to one another, because there is obstruction, there is a gap and obstruction by light and darkness, so it is not a contact. If you say there is no gap and the particles from the two sides are touching without gap to one another, then the question is put forth to you, meaning the lower tenets. Do the particles from both sides touch completely to one another or there are some portions of the particles not touching to the particle of the other side? If you say that some part of the particles from both sides touch one another and not all parts of the particle, that would contradict to your assertion of partless particles.
How that is so is because the lower tenets are, say, the fundamental making unit or block of mass is the atom, a partless particle. So it’s the atomic mechanistic theory saying there is a partless particle. So it will be contradicting for you to say there is a partless particle, whereas if you on one hand assert that particles from two sides touch fractionally but not all parts, then that obviously implies that there are some parts with that tiniest particle. So that is ruled out. If you say that the particles from two sides touch one another completely, the particle from this side touching completely, coming in contact and touching completely the particle on the other side, then that would mean the two particles have become one, merged into one, because there is total contact.
If the two have merged into one, then there is the fallacy that there cannot be any accumulation of tiny particles becoming bigger and bigger and making a gross mass because the particles would just merge into one another. Also these are the two fallacies put forth to the lower tenets. Likewise, there are so many other avenues of analyzing how feeling is not inherently existing by way how there is no inherent existence of the causes supposedly producing the resultant feeling. There are so many other ways of analyzing that factor. But one of the main essential parts of that inquiry is included in the present one, which is by pointing out possible fallacies and contradictions if there is a contact that such and such would happen.
Through that way, by proving that the actual cause, the procedure or production of the feeling is without inherent existence, therefore feeling is not inherent existence. Like that way, again, there can be a whole range of applying similar reasoning with the rest of the six senses: the ear sense with sound, the nose sense with smell, tongue sense with taste, a body sense with touch, mental sense with mental phenomena or perceptions. And then the way of analyzing to a result that the result of feeling is not inherently existing, by that way feeling is not inherently existing. In that part the analysis concerns that there is no inherently existing being who experiences that feeling, because feeling by way of its nature, by way of its cause is not inherently existing. So there cannot be a being or person who does experience feeling.
In that way, there is no inherently existing feeling. Through such a way, when one realizes that feeling is not inherently existing, then that helps to eliminate in one’s mind the distorted view, grasping at feeling as inherently existing. Now we look at the fourth part, which is analyzing the experience when we experience the feeling, how that is not inherently existing and by that way how feeling is not inherently existing. Now with regards to feeling, let’s say when I sense perceives form, there arises feeling. Similarly, when the physical sense comes in contact with the surface or tangible things, then there is a feeling produced.
Now here it is first looked at how feeling and awareness of the mind experiencing the feeling are something which arises simultaneously. The reason for that is if the mind which experiences the feeling precedes the feeling, then there will be no entity which would experience that feeling. Similarly, if the feeling remains after the mind, then again there will be no entity which experiences the feeling. And as well it is quite understandable that feeling cannot by itself experience it. So by this way of looking it can establish that the feeling and awareness of the mind experiencing the feeling arises at the same time.
The very moment the feeling arises, the mind experiencing the feeling also arises. Also in the present case then there is the mind which experiences the feeling and the feeling being experienced. When this is referred to the person who experiences the feeling, then it can be said that it is the entity of the person as in the aspect of mind experiencing the feeling. But then here we are looking at whether the person experiencing the feeling is that entity inherently existing or not. As regards that, that part has already been established earlier during the selflessness of phenomena, earlier during the selflessness of the person, that how a person or being is not inherently existing.
So that previous establishing of selflessness, a person itself would cover here that the person experiencing the feeling is not inherently existing. As regards the feeling itself that is already covered as not inherently existing, that already was established by those earlier analyses. So as a conclusion, it is quite comfortable during this fourth part of analysis to say that both the person or the being experiencing the feeling and the feeling itself are not inherently existing. For us as practitioners it is of enormous benefit to establish and then meditate on the lack of inherent existence of feeling, lack of true existence of feeling. How that is so is because if we do not have the awareness that feeling is not truly or inherently existing, then as long as there is no awareness of that, then there will be the craving for feeling.
Craving by nature is attachment, so there will be attachment to feeling. And if there is attachment, then the attachment would inevitably cause the person to engage into non virtuous actions, which in turn would bring the suffering so there will be continuous existence in the cycle of suffering, rebirth, and so forth. And in that way there will be no liberation as long as there is no such awareness realizing the lack of inherent existence of feeling. The great teacher, Vasubandhu, says Out of feeling there arises that three types of bondage, three types of being bound in the cycle, three types of bondage.
The meaning of that is, Out of pleasant feeling one will have craving attachment for more wanting of such source or pleasant feeling. How that is so is if we eat delicious food then there is a pleasant feeling, but that would in turn bring craving, attachment, wanting again and again such food to eat. Similarly, same present feeling and the resultant craving can happen with lots of other of similar categories such as good clothing, nice place to stay and so forth. And that’s how it happens. Now, if there is a craving, then that in turn would bring the person to engage into karma, non virtuous actions, and that would bring suffering, that would bring the continued existence in the cycle of suffering.
So that is how through pleasant feeling there is the bondage in suffering. The way how through a pleasant feeling there arises craving to have again the same next term is something we can relate. And this happens, say, if we eat nice food today, then there is a pleasant feeling, and we would think, oh, it was so good. May I have again tomorrow? And if does happen to have tomorrow, then again tomorrow one will think, oh, it was so good.
May I have it next day? So I will go on the day after tomorrow and so forth. So tonight, I will tell you a story. This is about a monk who was one of, to translate, third person Rinpoche’s classmate. He happened to study only the first six years of geshe training, and he left his monastic study midway while studying the Middle Way philosophy, which is about sixth, seventh year.
And he left his studies to do lifetime intensive retreat, similar to Milarepa, the great yogi, and so forth. And this monk, to do a lifetime retreat, went towards the mountain, retreat solitude, to firstly receive instruction from already a monk doing a retreat up in the mountain, a very famous geshe called Teu Choben, lead chanter of the whole monastery, so it was a geshe up there. So this monk went to first receive instruction from that geshe. So the monk received instructions from the Geshe retreater, and later on the monk was able to start meditation in terms of retreat on his own thereafter. Now what happened is firstly, as a retreater, they received their supply from their faithful benefactors down from the town or the village.
And the particular benefactor of the geshe, the teacher retreater, was very careful of supplying the best and the finest prepared tsampa, the main food, the roasted barley. So the benefactor would grind the tsampa very fine and make sure it is very well presented and offered. So then they would go up the mountain and leave for a week to last, and then go back again and offer more and so forth. And then when such a nice sample of the food was being offered, obviously the monks felt it was very good and so forth. But he was also aware that due to such fine food being supplied, there is attachment increasing towards the food.
So the monk told the benefactor not to bring such fine quality tsampa, make it less nicer and bring a worse quality next time. But the benefactor out of faith would continue bringing fine quality tsampa, and the monk continued to have the attachment. So the monk was very concerned how to stop attachment towards the tsampa. So one day, from benefactor’s side, there was nothing being done. So he devised his own method, where one day, before the lunch, he had his bowl, filled half full with his own excrement.
Anyway, it isn’t called anything polite — it’s called shit. So he had it filled half, and then put half the amount of tsampa and then started to eat. But the teacher, later on, whenever meeting other monk students in the monastery, would tell all the students, Oh, this monk has eaten shit, this monk has eaten shit. So the teacher kept telling to all others.
But when he was telling about this, the teacher was smiling, which indicated that the teacher must have felt extremely happy about how that monk disciple went that far to stop attachment towards the food. When that monk would do the practice on Guru Puja, if he starts in the evening, it would go until morning. He kept doing meditation and the Puja wasn’t finished even the next morning. As attachment is produced by coming in contact with the object of attachment, therefore to have as little attachment at all. And that level, that is a different thing.
But initially, to not come in contact would be the principal method. When there is coming in contact with unpleasant object, then there is an unpleasant feeling. For example, if we happen to bump into someone we dislike, then we would feel, I don’t want even to see. That’s how it would happen. It happens in the same degree to when one sees someone one likes, that one feels awe or wished to see continuously.
Also, that’s to a similar degree happens to someone one doesn’t like. And at that point there is unpleasant feeling. Out of unpleasant feeling coming in contact with unpleasant sight or being or object, there arises anger, hatred, and so forth. So there is definitely anger arising. If one comes in contact with an object which is neither object or attachment nor of anger, or in other words, which is neither delightful nor disliking to one’s, then there arises a neutral feeling.
Out of neutral feeling there arises close-mindedness or ignorance. So each of these feelings generate those three fundamental impure thoughts. Pleasant feeling generates attachment, unpleasant feeling generates anger not different from hatred, and neutral feeling generates ignorance. And that is how then it is very true. In the earlier citation from the teacher, Vasubandhu, we have that from the three feelings there comes about, or from the feelings comes about the three bondage.
That’s how it is then explained. So thank you. We’ll stop here. And as it is already a bit over time, tonight we shall have more questions and having more questions it might as well suit some people to get home earlier if they have a long way to go.