Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 20-minute session, Lama Lhundup explores how a good heart and the direct experience of emptiness work together to overcome ignorance. The teaching unfolds through a sustained dialogue with students who press hard on the puzzle of ignorance: how can something with no beginning have an end? Why does the Buddha not know ignorance’s origin if he is omniscient? Lama Lhundup clarifies that ignorance is a mental factor that exists in the present moment but lacks an ultimate beginning—each moment of ignorance arises from a previous moment, stretching back infinitely. The antidote is not sentiment alone but understanding emptiness, which cuts the mental grasping at a permanently existing self. He reassures students that this apparent paradox—beginningless yet ceasable—is resolved by recognizing ignorance’s temporary, adventitious nature. The session closes with a plan to meditate on emptiness and dedicate merit. Suitable for practitioners already familiar with Buddhist philosophy and grappling with these core doctrinal questions.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 1987 02 25 HY.mp3
UUID: 70399868-ebdc-4d9b-ad45-042a5e8e9eff
Teacher: Lama Lhundup
Collection: Helping yourself helping others (Lama Lhundup)
Date: 1987-02-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 19.7 minutes
Words: ~1,172
So the definition of ignorance is a secondary mental factor which obscures suchness. Alright. That is in in line with what he was saying before. But Why do why do we have ignorant? Why are we ignorant?
Yes. Why? Mhmm. Why why do we have why does ignorance exist? It’s because we are are beings in cyclic existence, therefore we have where does it come from?
I was asking what is its purpose. That’s a strange question. Yeah. As perspective, what he is outlining for work to be done is that we try to understand emptiness. And by understanding emptiness, then we become free of the consciousness of the inherent self.
But nonetheless, it is within this perspective, it is something to be worked through or understood or be made free of. So consequently it’s there. It is something which is existing in its nonexistence perhaps. Ignorance. Ignorance.
And so I say what is its purpose? Is its purpose as like what is its purpose was the question. Can you give me an example of what you mean by what is its purpose? Like what is the purpose of this pencil? Yeah.
That was the question. That was the question. What is its purpose? Well, can you get another example? What do mean by purpose?
Well, it seems to serve a function. You’re talking about function. Right. That’s what I mean. Purpose is function.
Right. So where is the function of ignorance? Yes. Yeah. How we create it in the first place?
So there’s no beginning to ignorance. Our present ignorance is dependent upon a previous moment of ignorance, a similar type to itself, but it has no beginning. Lama, if ignorance has no beginning, how can it have an end? What? Lemonade.
We can eliminate. We can eliminate ignorance. So so lama, something that has always existed can cease to exist. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Because this ignorant is, you know, just temporary. Temporary. Temporary. Adventitious.
Temporary. Adventitious. Temporary. Temporary. There’s an antidote.
Is an antidote. An antidote to ignorance. Lama, I think it’s difficult for the Western mind, for my Western mind, this Western mind Me too! To comprehend how in the example of sickness, if we liken ignorance to a sickness, sickness is usually understood to have a cause, and that is why it can be cured. And so in this sense, how can something which does not seem to have had a cause be undone and made right and therefore cured?
How can the sickness which has no cause be cured? No. Of course.. Of course. Of course. Of course.
Yes. The ignorance within the present mind arose from the ignorance from, for example, yesterday, previous similar time. I don’t mean to be flippant, but is there such thing in Buddhist terminology as original ignorance? Ignorance. In other words, it’s because ignorance seems to be part and parcel of our consciousness, right, from whence has it come?
No beginning. No beginning. Nobody knows. Buddha doesn’t know. So no beginning.
But there’s an end. And, of course, Buddha Buddha doesn’t have. Just ignorant. So therefore, end. But similar, our minds beginning less, no end.
Our ignorant, no beginning, but they end. Any wrong construction has end. No beginning. Mhmm. Thank you.
That’s it. Okay. Okay. Lama, if the Buddha is said to have omniscience, how can the Buddha not perceive a beginning? If the Buddha can know all things, how can he not know that thing called how ignorance began?
Because no exist. Only exist to the knows. No exist how how to the knows. Because no exist. Does that mean it’s like a like a like a dream?
No. No. Not dream. Just no exist. Doesn’t exist.
If it doesn’t begin and it can end now, hang on a minute, I think I’ve lost myself here if it doesn’t begin, then it doesn’t exist. That’s why it can end. Is that right? What doesn’t begin? Do you want me to say that again?
Go ahead. Say it again. If it doesn’t begin What do you mean about here? Well, this state of Ignorance. Of ignorance.
If it doesn’t begin and it also doesn’t exist I didn’t say that. It didn’t. Alright. Thank you. Ignorant now exist and good, but still exist.
No beginning. Yeah. Beginning, less beginning, no exist. Ignorant beginning is no exist. Ignorant exist.
Beginning no exist. But it This is ridiculous. But it only exists as a it only exists because we haven’t put our minds to it not existing. I mean, in reality, it doesn’t exist. We only choose to grasp it.
Was that what you were saying in the talk, or did I miss I’ve missed it. In our minds, we’re grasping this ignorance. But really, if our minds were more open, it wouldn’t really exist. It would end. Is that right?
Ignorance is a mental consciousness, mental factor. Definitely it exists. It’s a consciousness, a mental factor. The inherently existent self does not exist, though think it does. We conceive of it existing, but it doesn’t exist.
Ignorance is a mental is a consciousness. Therefore, it exists. No question. Okay? I’ll come back in ten years’ time.
I’ll ask the same question again. I hope I understand a bit. Okay. Alright. Yeah.
Could you perhaps liken it to the illusion of this, rope existing as a snake? Well, the snake didn’t exist, but we imagine that it did. And that’s all I wanted to say. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Okay. Good. Yeah. Like that. Mhmm.
Right? Like that. Lama, what are the two qualifications of the object to be negated when it arises such as in moments of extreme fear or extreme hatred or whatever? What are the two qualities that you described? Could you explain them further?
One was that the object to mitigate it doesn’t actually seem to be connected with either body or mind, and the other I’ve forgotten. The this inherently existing self appears to not be be being created by conception of the mind, but appears to be existing completely from its own side. Independent of the mind, which is conceiving it, to be existing from its own side, So it seems to arise, even though the mind is aware of it’s happening despite the mind, sort of. A bit here. No, I’ll have to think about it, Lama.
I’ll have to Mhmm. Is the quality of a good heart the power to cleanse the ignorance? Does it override the mind? So really, a good heart cannot eliminate ignorance. It is that only a good heart cannot eliminate ignorance.
Just that by itself cannot eliminate ignorance. Yeah. But in combination, And the experience of it? Of the emptiness. So as we’ve explained, by creating a great deal of merit, the process of purification, you’re going to realize emptiness and gain the experience of emptiness.
Yes, sure. Plausible. Okay. Okay. Good.
Thank you. So we shortly will meditate on emptiness. Okay. Then after we dedicate, maybe Maybe.