Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Lama Lhundup uses dependent arising as the gateway to understanding emptiness in this 1987 teaching on the root cause of suffering. He begins by establishing the compassion that motivates Buddhist practice—the wish to liberate all beings from suffering and bring them happiness—and connects this to the graduated path of three capacities. He then identifies ignorance of the self as the root of all afflictive emotions and turns to emptiness as the remedy. The core of the teaching walks through the two selflessnesses: first, the selflessness of persons, using rigorous logical analysis to show that the “I” is neither identical to nor separate from mind and body, and therefore does not exist as an independently concrete entity. He explains how meditation on this refutation dissolves the appearance of an inherently existing self, and then addresses the subtle pitfall of misunderstanding emptiness as mere non-existence. The teaching is pitched at practitioners studying Buddhist philosophy and is grounded in the Madhyamaka school, particularly the Prāsaṇgika interpretation passed down through Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti, and Tsongkhapa.
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File: lama-lhundup-emptiness-02-e
Teacher: Lama Lhundup
Collection: Emptiness (Lama Lhundup)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~2,616
Remembering the great kindness of our mothers, we develop a wish to repay their kindness. And how can we repay their kindness? Well, they want happiness. They don’t want to suffer. But we should not be satisfied with merely temporal types of repayment of their happiness like food and clothing, etcetera, that we should seek to bring them ultimate happiness.
I’m thinking of the great kindness of our mothers, but in fact remembering how kind they’ve been to us, but in fact now they’re tortured by suffering. And so thinking about the sufferings of our mothers, we develop the compassion which is to separate them from their suffering. The compassion which wishes to separate them from being tortured by suffering. So if we meditated well on the graduated path of the being of small capacity and middling capacity, that we’ve considered the sufferings of bad migrations, that we’ve considered the various types of suffering of cyclic existence in general. If we’ve actually gained some experience of those meditations, then transferring this understanding to the fact that all sentient beings are suffering the same way, we will easily develop compassion.
If we haven’t actually gained this experience, then we can’t really develop a sincere compassion for their sufferings. So, you know, in general, people have some degree of compassion. Everybody has some compassion. But the compassion that we’re trying That’s not enough. Is.
So we’re trying develop a compassion which extends to all types of people, all types of beings. No particular direction that we even extend this compassion to our enemies. So, what we want to do, what we want to develop, is the same type of compassion that we would experience if, for example, our child or a girlfriend or a boyfriend, when they were suffering, can’t bear to see them suffering. We have to release them from their suffering. We want to take that same type of compassion and extend it, develop for all sentient beings, equally, without any difference.
When this arises, then this is called great compassion. Upon seeing others tortured by suffering, we don’t develop this feeling of no longer being a dislike for their suffering, not being able to bear their suffering, then we cannot develop great compassion. Likewise, the sentient beings not only are they suffering, but they don’t have happiness. We look upon all sentient beings seeing there’s no difference in type, there’s no difference in categories of sentient beings. And seeing that they don’t have the happiness that they want, we develop a thought that I will bring them happiness.
So, you know, from the side of the sentient beings, we see that even though they want happiness, they are not creating the causes for happiness, and even though they don’t want to suffer, that they’re not abandoning the causes of suffering. Seeing this, you develop a special attitude or the great resolve that I will bring them to happiness, that I will separate them from suffering. But then we think, you know, we develop this resolve to take responsibility to bring them happiness and separate them from suffering. But do I have this power? Do I have this ability to actually bring this about?
And we see that at present we don’t have such an ability, but who does have the power to bring them this happiness separated from the suffering? And we realize it’s only a completely realized enlightened Buddha who has such a power. So then we develop determination that I must attain Buddhahood for the sake of benefiting all sentient beings, and this is the mind of enlightenment. So we’ve gone through the various the graduated path, the capacities of being, the beings of the three capacities, seeing the various motivations passing through. This is very rough, but it would be extremely beneficial if you could, at times, just go through this path of the three beings in a very abbreviated form.
At times, go through it in a very extended form that if you do this again and again, you would develop these capacities gradually. Would be very beneficial. So, why is it from beginning this time up to now we have not attained Buddhahood, we have not attained liberation, we’ve been experiencing only suffering? What is the cause of that? It is due to the afflictive emotions.
And the root of the afflictive emotion is the conception of a truly existing self. So, we have to destroy this ignorance conceiving of a truly existent self. We have to begin to understand that the way this conception is holding its object is a wrong consciousness that as it’s being apprehended, it doesn’t exist. That object, as it’s being apprehended, simply doesn’t exist that way. The mode of apprehension?
So we have to understand this mode of apprehension is wrong. So, we have to understand and realize emptiness. When we understand that the way it’s being apprehended does not exist, then this is the understanding of emptiness. So, you know, when we think emptiness, simply having not thinking anything is not emptiness. So within the Buddhist philosophy there are four four tenet systems which each have a way of explaining the emptiness, selflessness.
So, these four tenets, four systems of Buddhist philosophy, each explaining selflessness, they have a coarser as you go up from the bottom, it’s a very coarse explanation, a very coarse understanding. As you go up, becomes more and more subtle, more and more refined until you get the most subtle, the most refined explanation of emptiness or selflessness, which is the Middle Way school. So in explaining and settling the meaning of selflessness according to the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka, it is clearly presented by the Master Nāgārjuna. And after that it was explained by the master Candrakīrti. And within Tibet it was the master, Tsongkhapa, who clearly explained the meaning of selflessness in accordance with Candrakīrti and Nāgārjuna.
So in order to actually eliminate the root of the afflictive emotions, we have to have an unerring explanation of emptiness. So So the final or the ultimate proof which establishes emptiness is dependent arising. So, we begin to understand that all things, outer and inner things, arise dependent upon the aggregation of causes and conditions. They are established to the collecting together, or coming together, the aggregation of causes and conditions, that nothing exists independent of these causes and conditions. All things arise when I say things, I mean functional things arise dependent upon aggregation of causes and conditions.
in dependence upon causes and conditions, all things arise. Non products arise dependent upon their parts. So, you know, we want happiness, we don’t want to suffer, we want to attain liberation, Buddhahood. All these things arise dependent upon causes and conditions. Merely desiring these things, merely wanting them, is not sufficient.
We have to create the cause and condition for them to arise. Likewise, if, you know, even in this life, if we bring together all the causes and conditions completely for Buddhahood to arise, then Buddhahood will arise in this lifetime. If we don’t complete the causes, then no matter what we do, it’s not going to arise. Likewise, all the various realizations of the beings of the three capacities, they also arise in dependence on inner and outer conditions. If we gather together all the inner and outer conditions, then we are going to gain the realizations.
But if we don’t, then no matter how much we meditate, we’re not going to gain the realization. So, if we want to the to gain the realizations of the graduated path in this life, then in this life we have to gather all the necessary conducive conditions and causes to gain this realization. So in trying to gather the necessary conditions and causes to realize the graduated path, what is it we actually have to do? First we have to purify all our negative latencies, negative actions that we have. Then we have to create the conducive circumstances, that is, by collecting merit, positive energy.
Then we have to perform the preliminaries to the actual- perform the actual preliminaries to meditation, the preparation to meditation. And then we make requests to the Lama-deity. The Lama and the deity, the guru-deity who are inseparable in nature, we make requests to them. So, if we complete these preliminaries, these preparations, then we will quickly gain realizations. If one of them isn’t complete, they’re not going to come.
So we have to understand that the happiness of this life, the happiness of future lives depends upon causes and conditions. If we don’t complete the cause and the conditions, however much effort we make, we’re not going to realize the fruit of the effect. So, in order to create the necessary collection of causes and conditions to aggregate them, then we have to we must have we must understand what are negative and positive minds which create these. We have to be able to understand what is a positive type of mind, what is a negative type of mind. So, we have to understand whatever good or bad object appear is the action of the mind itself.
So, if we don’t understand that these various objects that appear to us good objects, bad objects, pleasing objects, displeasing objects if we don’t understand that their goodness and badness is being created by the mind, that we see these objects as being established from their own side objectively, then we’re going to develop attachment for them. We’re going to develop hatred. We’re going to develop jealousy, etcetera, in dependence upon this. So, in coming to an understanding of selflessness, there are two parts. There’s the selflessness of persons and the selflessness of phenomena.
So when we’re talking about trying to ascertain the selflessness of a person, when we say selflessness, we don’t mean there is no self of persons. We don’t mean no person, that the person doesn’t exist. We have to understand what is the object which doesn’t exist. So, in the selfless with a person So we have to understand what we mean when we say self in the term selflessness of the person. We have to recognize have to understand when we say have to understand self.
When we say selfless as a person, what do we mean when we say self? So in coming to and recognizing the settling the view, in recognizing the self, which is in the term of selflessness of a person, there are four parts this coming to this understanding. The first is the point there are four points. The first point is the point of recognizing the object to be refuted. The second is the point of pervasion.
The third is The point of being one, and fourth is the point of being many. So, with regard to the first point, the point of recognizing object of refutation, usually the object is not appearing to the mind. But on occasions, for example, if one person were to call you a thief, and then he says, You’re a thief? Or someone beats you? Or at times when we become very fearful?
At those times, the very powerful feeling of I, I arises in our mind. So, there arises within our heart this very strong sense of I, which this I is not dependent upon anything. It does not rely on anything. It feels to be an independent, very concrete I. So we have to recognize this type of I.
So, at those times when our body appears to our mind, when color, when our mind appears, does not appear. So we have to recognize the self which appears to be independently existing, a type of self which is not dependent upon the body, the mind, or the person. There’s no difference. We think of the body as the person as being no different than the body and mind. So So, once we recognize the object of negation, the object of refutation, then we have to make an analysis that this I, the way it appears, it must be either the same as the aggregate or different than the aggregate.
We must determine that it must either be the same as aggregates or different than aggregates. There’s no other place that it can exist. For example, if something exists, it must be either one or many, same or different. So this independently existing I, if it exists, then it must be the same as aggregates, or are they different than the aggregates? Now, if we decide it must be either one or many, We realize that the I must be one or many with the aggregates, and you think, Well, it’s not different than aggregates.
Then it must be one with the aggregates. It must be the same as the aggregates. So if we decide it’s the same, if it is the same, then just as we have five aggregates, there should be five persons or five I. Likewise, if the I is the same as aggregates, when the bodily aggregate is burnt at then there would be nothing that would go on to future life. So, like in this way, if the self, the I was the same as aggregates, there would be an endless number of refutations that we can make.
Therefore, we can come to a decision that the I or the self is not the same as the aggregates. So then we think, Well, then it must be different than aggregates. So, self must be different from the aggregates. What we mean when we say different, it must be truly different. They must be truly existently different.
So they must be completely unrelatedly different. No relation, just like a pot in a pillar. For example, if this was the case, then when we have a headache, then we cannot say that I have a headache. Likewise, there’s a thought that when the body is walking, then we can’t say that I am walking. Likewise, there’s the thought that because the body is arising, disintegrating momentarily, that the I would be arising, disintegrating momentarily.
So then there are these faults which accrue if the self was different than aggregates. Therefore, we can come to the conclusion that the self is neither the same nor the different than the aggregates. So then we understand that this concrete I which appears as if it didn’t rely on anything else simply doesn’t exist at all. If we have the merit and conducive conditions, then when this When we’re meditating, we’re able to refute the appearance of this naturally existent I. So, at this time during meditation, when we actually refute the existence of this naturally existing eye, at that time there ceases the appearance of the naturally existing I.
No conventional phenomena appears to us at all. So why? Because we’ve refuted what was appearing to us before has been refuted. This naturally existent I which was appearing, we have refuted that appearance. So, we understand that this I is being merely created by conception, even though it appears to be concretely existing.
So, the I which is created by conception at this time does not appear. We cannot see it. So this I which is not dependent upon being created by conception, that it that it in fact exists from its own side is object which is being refuted. So at such a time when we have refuted the existence of a naturally existing I, that has ceased the appearance of a naturally existing I, we may think that the I doesn’t exist at all.