Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khyentse Rinpoche opens this 41-minute public talk with an invitation to debate and collaborative discovery, rejecting the idea that Buddhism is merely a philosophy or religion. He argues that ultimate truth—the reality beyond all human conception—cannot be taught directly, only pointed toward through the Buddha’s eighty-four thousand teachings. He explores this through concrete examples: how names and labels obscure reality; how majority opinion shapes what we call “fact” (using the perception of a person’s appearance); and how the striped rope mistaken for a snake in a dark room illustrates saṃsāra as illusion born from ignorance, while nirvana is the recognition of that illusion’s absence. Khyentse then introduces the problem of conflicting views—water versus home—and demonstrates how Buddhist philosophy resolves it through emptiness: the ultimate truth lies neither in one perception nor the other, but in recognizing the emptiness underlying all conceptual frameworks. He concludes that absolute and relative truth are inseparable, and true wisdom comes from understanding reality while respecting the validity of others’ perspectives without criticism. The talk is directed at thoughtful listeners willing to question their assumptions.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 PT.mp3
UUID: 025963bf-c6e7-4989-abf1-91082d2dbbc5
Teacher: Khyentse Rinpoche
Collection: Public Talk (Khyentse Rinpoche)
Date: 1986 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 40.9 minutes
Words: ~4,574
As we are going to discuss about philosophy, I might need to ask questions. Okay. So first, I should say good evening, and then we start from a good point. I have been told that most of you have received many teachings from different Buddhist scholars about love and compassion, about bodhicitta, and also about training of the mind. There are some special requests and ideas about discussing a topic of Buddhist philosophy of emptiness and bodhicitta, or great compassion.
Tonight, we will sort of have a discussion. When we talk about Buddhist view, we need to have discussion rather than I, just one person talking. If we have more discussion, sort of debating or argument, then we will know better. You can also put your own idea on that particular philosophy. When I talk about philosophy, if there is any debate or any challenge, it is very welcome.
Please feel free to ask questions or to debate with me. Now, For many people, Buddhism is a philosophy, and most of the Buddhist students, they think that Buddhism is not a religion and Buddhism is a philosophy, but in certain aspect, Buddhism doesn’t necessarily have to be a philosophy, because if the definition of philosophy is love of wisdom, then Buddhism is not a philosophy. Name Buddhism is very little important when we talk about the ultimate teaching of the Buddha. The name Buddhism is very, very little important. We use this name as to identify something.
Generally speaking, the sentient beings, human beings, are very attached to the name. We love name, and we create more and more names. So there is a teaching that is taught by Buddha. It is said that Buddha has taught more than eighty four thousand teachings, and all these eighty four thousand teachings are to lead you directly or indirectly into the ultimate view, which is beyond all the human conception and corruption. And that is the ultimate teaching of the Buddha.
So ultimate teaching of the Buddha is the fact or the reality or the truth of everything. So truth or reality is not is the reality or the truth cannot be taught by somebody, cannot be composed by somebody, because a reality I don’t know what is the definition of reality in English very much, but reality reality, according to my own definition, a reality is an essence or nature, something that is not produced, something that is not artificial. Once it is produced or composed by human conception, then it is not the fact. It is not a reality, because a conception only produces name. Everything is a name.
There is nothing that is not a name. For instance, there is a thing that which you call nameless thing. Even the nameless is a name, because definition of name is to identify something, and nameless identifies nameless. So all that which things got to do with the conception or human concept is a name, is a label. Whether you call it name or whether you call it imagination, it is just the same.
Reality is beyond name. A name is a creation of human concept. Name is not a reality, because name is changeable. One person can give an object a different name, and another person can give a different name. Not only the name.
For example, you can take a human being such as him, and then you all can perceive him as very good looking and a good person, but I can perceive him as an ugly looking and bad person. So even the perception of the human beings are different. Anyway, ugly, beauty, good, bad, and all these different different perceptions are name or a label which is created by our dualistic conception. And reality is beyond that. For example, you perceive him as a good person, good looking.
I perceive him as a bad person, bad looking. Now, which one is the fact? Most of the time we are ruled by majority. If we have a debate tonight whether he is good looking or bad looking, you are going to win because you have more majority, and I’m only one person here. Exactly the same.
Still for you the fact of this person is good looking and good person, but for me the fact of this person is bad and bad looking. Usually you just despise my view, Oh, he’s just deceptive. He just doesn’t know what is good looking and what is good. He doesn’t know. He’s just stupid.
We don’t, because it is accepted by majority of people. It is accepted by society. We forget the fact of him. The fact of him is beyond the good and bad. That is the reality, and that is what Buddha tries Buddha sort of not tried.
I I don’t think Buddha tried, but Buddha expressed into many, many different form of teachings in order to express that reality. Buddha can tell some people, go to the temple, bring some candle and bring some incense, and do the prostration and pray to the Buddha, and then you will get enlightenment. For some people, Buddha can tell, shave your hair, wear some maroon color or yellow color robe, and be monk or nun. Renounce the world. Buddha can tell some people, no need to become monk or nun, but you can practice in your home.
Being a lay person, you can do that in this meditation. All these different ideas and different methods are indirectly or directly to bring human beings or sentient beings into the field of reality. That’s why reality is not a religion, and it is not a philosophy. Another thing, philosophy, it seems that in the West, a philosophy is a good sort of a saying or sort of a creation of some philosopher, and then you read it. The philosophers write and make it in the book, and then you read it and then you keep this philosophy in the bookshelf, and that’s all.
Or maybe you study philosophy and you become sort of a doctor of philosophy or whatever. Buddhism is more practical than You can call If you like to, if you really want to give a name, you can call this Buddhism. And if you want to give more, you can say Buddhism is a philosophy, but it is more practical philosophy, a philosophy that which you have to put into the practice. In the west, for example, in Tibet or Not all the Tibetans, but most of the Tibetan Buddhists, they do practice Buddhism because they have renunciation mind from this existence. They are fed up with all the suffering, and they want to get enlightenment.
They put Buddhism into the practice, but in this modern time, not only westerners but even the easterners, they study Buddhism for their hobby or for their study in order to graduate from the university or something like that. That kind of study of Buddhism can never lead us into some deep area because that is just a very intellectual study. The value of Dharma or Buddhism can be only realized by putting into the practice. Now, some say that Buddhism is not a religion because it seems that religions are sort of a believer religions, most of the religions, they believe into a God who produces everything, who is sort of almighty sponsor of all these phenomena. But in Buddhism, Buddhism, we believe there is a God, but we don’t believe that God is the creator of everything.
In fact, most of the higher vehicles of Buddhism, they believe that all these phenomena are created by one’s own mind. Somebody. It is never produced by God. That’s why you cannot say Buddhism is a religion. But as Buddhists believe, there is also this thing you have to check.
Buddhists believe that everything is created by mind, especially Mahāyāna Buddhists. So you can say that first can say that God created everything, you know, because first you created the God and then God created you. Like that. Maybe that’s easier way so that you can accept, you know. The practice of Buddhism is to make your mind open, broad minded, and develop one’s value of life.
This is just sort of an introducing of this philosophy which we are going to talk tonight. Are we communicating or am I making confused here? Okay. Any questions or any debate is very welcome here. Often you will find Buddhism is called as Dharma, Dharma, Buddha Dharma.
Dharma is a Sanskrit language, and this The word Dharma has many, many different meaning. Dharma can have about ten different types of meaning, but generally speaking, Dharma refers to two meaning, to hold or to protect. When interpret dharma as to hold, then this time Dharma refers to all the phenomena. The table, chair, flower, glass, everything, everything is Dharma. When you interpret Dharma as to protect, then that Dharma refers to the path, the practice of Dharma, the scripture or realization experience which is taught by Buddha, so we call it holy Dharma or Dharma, the practice Dharma.
As I said earlier, Buddha has given us more than eighty four thousand teachings, and it all has one aim, and the aim is to bring all the human beings or sentient beings to the state of nirvana. Now, before we go to the main discussion, I think we should talk about nirvana. I’m sure that you must have heard about this nirvana. Generally speaking, nirvana is a state of permanent happiness. Samsāra is a continuation of suffering, karma, which is the cause of the suffering, and defilements.
Samsāra, literally these days, they translate into cyclic existence, something sort of going round, cyclic existence. The karma, which is the cause of suffering, and then suffering and then intention, or the motivation, of the karma. Now, these three rounds and these three perpetuate themselves. This way we abide in the saṃsāra. nirvana is a state where you finish or where you accomplish to purify all the bad karma or all the dualistic mind, and when you reach to the state where there is non dualistic wisdom, so this is what we call nirvana.
This is the difference between nirvana and saṃsāra. If you say whether these two things, saṃsāra and nirvana, are they different or are they same? Now, this is a very big question. Samsāra is illusion. It is imagination.
Yet there is Even though When I say illusion, it seems that illusion is something that mostly people despise, but illusion works. Mirage works. For example, saṃsāra is an illusion. Samsāra is just an imagination, but yet that illusion or that imagination can produce fear, anxiety, aversion, and brutality. If you walk into dark room where there is a striped rope, and then if you see, first what do you think?
Is there a snake looking a striped rope? Then you perceive that there’s a snake. You don’t realize. You have ignorance of stripe rope, so you have the fear or illusion or imagination of a snake, although later on you find that there is no snake at all on that stripe rope, during that first moment, that imagination or that perception of snake have of startled you, and that perception of snake has troubled you or scared you. Samsāra is like that.
Samsāra is not knowing of striped rope. Samsāra is when you have the delusion. Samsāra is like when you don’t know the striped rope and when you think that there is a snake. You understand? Why you think there is a snake?
Why you are in saṃsāra? Because you have ignorance. Ignorance of not knowing the saṃsāra. For example, if a dead person walks into the dark room and then he has that fear of a snake. Why he has that?
Because he has ignorance. Ignorance of what? Ignorance of stripe rope. He doesn’t know there is a stripe rope. He thinks that he thought there is a stripe rope.
So that is like a saṃsāra. It is caused by ignorance, and when there is an ignorance, then there is all this aversion, brutality and everything. It is all caused by ignorance. nirvana is the absence of the snake. A person walking saw the snake, thought, Oh, there’s a snake, and then, Wait a minute, maybe there’s no snake.
You switch on the light, and then you see, Ah, there’s a striped rope only. There’s no snake. That is the absence of snake, right? That absence of snake makes you feel relaxed. No fear, no more fear, no more ignorance of stripe rope.
That is nirvana. When you know the suffering, when you know the saṃsāra, which is like a snake, then you will find nirvana, which is the absence of saṃsāra. Do you have any question about that? This is like saṃsāra nirvana. Generally speaking, it is quite easy.
Samsāra is a production of realistic mind, or saṃsāra is a production of desire, anger, and ignorance. nirvana is realization of the nonexistence of saṃsāra itself and the causes of saṃsāra — desire, anger, and ignorance. This is saṃsāra nirvana. We all wish to gain that nirvana, whether you call it nirvana or not, whether you are religious or not, whether you are Buddhist or not, whether you are practitioner of this kind of reality or not, people constantly, inwardly ask the question of what is behind this? What is so called living?
What is behind this here? What is the reality of everything? But very few have tried to question this, tried to find an answer for this. Most of the people are ignorant. They don’t try to ask what is the reality.
They are satisfied with their own environment. For example, a child or a fourteen year old boy asks a teacher or a parent, What is the reality of the house? What is the reality of this universe? Then the parent answers something, A reality of this universe is an earth, planet, something like that, and then teacher also says something about science. Then most of the time we are satisfied with their shallow words.
In other words, we are living We are living with their shallow words. We are satisfied with their description. What we do, we always And then we go on and ask questions, please tell me what is the reality of this? And then again somebody tell you, and then you believe that, and you are satisfied with that, and you act that way.
For example, actually there’s no reason that shoes have to be worn by foot, not by head. Just because it is worn by all the people, you have to fit into that society. If you don’t do, if you wear the shoes on the top of your head and if you wear hat on your foot, then people will say, You are barbarian. You are outcast. Now you have to fit into that society so that you have this fear of being fired from this society, so you have to get into that society.
Second thing, you have this ego. You want to be better than everybody. Not only fitting with that society, but you also want to be better than them. So then what do you do? You try to make more different things.
You elaborate more. For example, last year’s fashion is not this year’s fashion. All the time people try to produce something new. And then, not only that, they are not satisfied by what they have produced by themselves. Then they want to show this to the others.
They want to hook other people’s mind also. And then we have all this difficulty of publicity, advertising, advertisement. This is good. Then, as I have told you, people are ignorant. We live with the shallow words of others.
We always seek a reality which is promised by others. You see, there’s also one quotation in Buddhism. The primary cause of disorder is seeking a reality promised by others. We always try to learn something that is produced by other. Anyway, to be precise, all sentient beings try to imitate each other.
You do what you are taught to do. You copy. We are always copying from somebody. In other words, we are all second hand people. We are not original.
We never try to go back to one’s own reality, but we are always second hand people. We all like a baby. Mother gives something. When you are a baby, mother gives you something put into your mouth, and then sort of whether you like it or not, you have to swallow it, you know. You don’t really have to go for so much reason.
We do give some reasons, but still reason is not enough. We don’t really search the reality. That’s why finding the reality is very important in order to find the peace and harmony within the society and within the nation, because if one can’t find the reality, all these different ideology and different views can produce lots of disharmony. For example, the view, you see, everybody has a view. The view is not a matter of a philosopher.
It’s not a matter of philosophy or a religion. Everybody has a view. For example, most of us here tonight, we have the same view. We share the same view that this is a flower. We don’t call it a view, but actually it is a view.
This is a flower, and we have some logic to prove that this is a flower. You understand? You can call it a group phenomena. We all have the same phenomena, flower. This is what we call group phenomena.
But individually, we also have our own personal phenomena. Maybe some of you think this flower is bad, I think this is good, some think this is white, some think this is yellow, some think this comes from Australia, some think this comes from New Zealand, like that. This is our personal phenomenon. When you don’t realize the reality, the real fact of this flower, then we start to fight. Then we say, No, you are wrong.
This is not from Australia. This is from New Zealand. This is not white, this is black. We don’t understand the fact of the flower, then we start to quarrel. To understand the reality is very important because when you understand the reality, then you will know the value of same view.
There’s one story. It’s a little bit far-fetched to tell, but maybe it might help you. Once in India, there was a great predictor, a fortune teller sort of, and he predicted a country that there will be a big rainfall in this place after seven days. After this rainfall, if anybody drinks water in this country, then everybody will get mad, become crazy. India at that time is full of superstitious, and they have strong belief to this kind of thing.
Everybody really thought This fortune teller was quite famous, and everybody thought now, This must be true. This must be really true. Everybody was very worried but couldn’t do anything. There’s nothing that they can do. The king of that country was so worried, he thought, Now, it is terribly terrible to become myself crazy because other nations will despise my country, saying that this country has a crazy king and like that kind of thing.
Now, of all, I must protect myself because I’m the king and I should not be crazy. Before seven days, since he is powerful, he tried to collect a lot of water before seven days, before the rainfall come. Managed, of course — he’s the king. He managed quite a lot to collect. Then after seven days, as predictor told, there was a big rainfall, but the fact of becoming crazy or not is still not known.
There was a big rainfall, and then because people believed so much on his view, the predictor’s view, those who ever drank a drop of water from that country all became crazy. Everybody became crazy because they believed so strongly. They shared the same view, you see. Believing and superstitions is that strong. Intention is that strong.
Everybody became crazy. Everybody becomes crazy except one, the king. King is not crazy now, but now the real problem starts. Now, public citizens, they talk all, they’re all crazy, and when they look up to the king, they disagree because what the people act, the king doesn’t act. Now, public says that the king is crazy because what we are doing, you are not doing, you see?
You are not doing exactly the same as ours. Then King thought. King was very depressed. He was very worried. King was very depressed.
Then he finally got one solution. He went out of the palace and he drank water from outside, and he became crazy. Then he shared the same view with the other citizens, and then the country became very peaceful. View is that strong. Sharing the same view is very, very important.
Whether it is in the religion or whether it is in the family or whether it is in the monastery or whether it is in society, sharing the same view is very important. But most of the time, the sentient beings are deluded by lots of anger, ignorance, and desire. It is quite difficult for us to share the same view. Then there is one method. If one can’t share the method of others, then one should enjoy one’s own view, but not criticize others’ view, and that is a practice of reality.
I might have to bring this Madhyamaka philosophy’s example. For this glass of water, human beings perceive this water as water, right? Fish. If you put a fish inside, what will they think? Water?
Or some other perception. So fish, maybe they think this is a home where they can swim and sleep, but the thing is that fish have never came to us and argue with us, saying that this is not water, this is home. We also didn’t go to them. If you want to be very frank and if you want to be just, then one should talk about majority. Then if you talk about majority, human beings are surely going to lose because there are more fish than the human beings.
We will have to say that this is a home. We are drinking home. Maybe according to this, I might talk a little bit of omniscience because it is related with that. Suppose there’s an argument, a big argument between fish and human beings, then who is going to make judgment now? What is there?
Who is going to make that kind of judgment? Only one person, or only one Buddha. He can judge. Not because he is powerful, not because he is educated, not because he has supernatural power or whatever, because he knows the reality of the water or reality of the home. So, fish and a human being had an argument and then went to Buddha and asked Buddha, These fish, they are saying that this is home, but we human beings, we are telling that this is water.
Now, what is it? At that time, you have to split this judge Buddha into two: Buddha in his view, Buddha in his view, and Buddha in our view of Buddha’s view. You understand? Buddha in his view, there’s no water, there’s no home. Home, water, whatever you call it, it is just the conception of different, different perceivers.
The reality is emptiness. You must have heard this Buddhist philosophy of emptiness. I’m sure you must have heard this emptiness, emptiness so many times. Now, is emptiness. The reality, fact is emptiness.
It is neither home. It is nor water. It is nothingness. That is his view. The second part of the I have split Buddha into two parts, right?
The second part of the Buddha, which is our view of Buddha’s view. If a human being were to go and ask Buddha, What is this? Then he would say, This is water. Then if a fish go and ask him, What is this? He would say, This is home.
He agrees to everybody. That is his quality. Do you have any question about this? This is what we call omniscience also, knowing the reality, knowing the fact. Do you have any question?
One answer cannot really answer all the different questions. It depends on the time very much. Time is very important. Choosing the time is the most important. You see, most of the misunderstanding also comes from the time.
For example, I say, Would you like to have a glass of water? That sentence is really It doesn’t make you angry or anything, but if I choose the wrong time, it can. For example, I should say this one hour before, but I forgot and I said this one hour later, and you might think that he should have said earlier. Now I have ordered sort of like this. Time is very important.
Time, place, and perception. This is very good. Absolute truth and relative truth. First I’ll give you an example. We all have this absolute truth and relative truth.
Tonight, as an ordinary First we forget about Buddhism or whatever philosophy. First we talk as a human being. As a human being, ordinary or whatever, tonight the ultimate is that we are talking, right? Most of you are listening and I’m talking here. And ultimate of this flower is flower, right?
This is the ultimate. You agree? A relative of this has to compare with a deceptive perceiver. For example, there’s a drug addicted person here, and he perceives that this flower is a cat or a snake. Then you say, No, this is not cat.
This is not snake. This is flower. You are deluded. You are drug addicted. I’m not drug addicted.
I have a very clean perceiver. My mind is not deluded, so what I see is the ultimate truth. What you see is relative truth, right? Relative or what you say is relative, invalid. But in fact, when you talk about that drug addicted person, for him, the snake or the cat is ultimate truth of himself, and whether the perception of flower is relative to him.
You understand? It depends with the perceiver. This is just an example. Going back to the water. Water is a relative truth.
Home is a relative truth. All the perceptions are a relative truth. The ultimate truth is beyond water, beyond home, beyond exploration. Ultimate truth, it is beyond exploration, but if you really want me to express this, for thirty years we have tried to translate this into English, but we couldn’t find a better word. That is emptiness.
We call it emptiness. The fact or the ultimate truth of water is emptiness. But now, there’s one problem. You might be thinking that relative truth and ultimate truth is something separate, but that is not true. You can never find ultimate truth without relative truth.
It is thanks to the relative truth that you have ultimate truth. Where will you find an ultimate if there is no relative? Where will you find a truth if there is no untruth? You see? It’s like that.
Did I answer your question? Any argument? Any debate?