Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using a coil of rope as his central example, Lama Zopa Rinpoche works through how the mind creates labels in everyday perception — and why seeing this clearly is the doorway to realizing emptiness. In this 45-minute talk at Buddha House, he traces the exact sequence: first you perceive a base, a reason arises in the mind, and only then does the label “rope” appear — never the other way around. From this he shows that the labeled object is entirely distinct from the materials it designates, and that searching for the rope within those materials yields nothing. He argues that precisely seeing this gap between base and label makes genuine realization of emptiness possible — an open-hearted understanding rather than a merely intellectual one. Suited to practitioners already engaging with the philosophy of how phenomena exist.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 1996 10 07.mp3
UUID: 13597501-d63e-4c68-8049-dc8399696652
Teacher: Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1
Collection: y Developing Compassion (Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1)
Date: 1996-10-07
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.6 minutes
Words: ~469
That you know, by knowing that that point how the label happens. By knowing this point, then that the label is not there. The label is not in the base. The label is not there. The label is not in the base.
Before making up before making up the label. Now here, what is the reason makes you what is the reason that comes the second as a result of having seen that. Okay. Then it’s labeled rope. The rope, the labeled rope, which is totally labeled rope doesn’t come.
No way to come before before seeing the base. Didn’t happen. The label doesn’t come before base. Why? Because there’s no reason for your mind to label those.
There’s no So the reason for the mind to label rope, So so therefore, in our everyday life, before the thought labeled anything, there is reason. You you have to see this. You see the reason first. This is the base. The reason that is there’s a reason in your mind.
There’s there’s a reason in your mind. That’s different. You see? And that reason is the base. What is that?
That’s the base that that you are seeing, you are thinking. You know? So that so therefore, Just from here, just just, you know, just from here, the you see you see the this material. So therefore, that means the labeled rope is different from the material that many materials have put together. So to to differentiate this, to any so like this, like this in our daily life, you know, So like this.
So now so now here, the base base you see the base first, base to the label. What makes you to decide? Decide know, can make up the label come first, then the label will come after next. So and and and and we can see it. From this from this, you can see that you can see the base and the label could to to be able to realize emptiness So then from there, I think then you think you can realize then you can realize even have understanding, you know, open heart, you know, understanding.
Now this label now labeled rope. Now next thing, the labeled rope, where is it? Look for. Okay. Turn up the top.
You can’t find Now now the point is here. Now the very important very important point here. The extremely important point here. Yeah. When the the rope appears, the rope is merely labeled, but when it appears, that’s the person’s mind.
It does not appear merely labeled. It is here. This is not are, the way to understand, the way to realize what is the view. Not the not the way not the way. Intellectually, Yeah.
All this time. You So even this