Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 50-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche investigates the root cause of suffering, beginning with a verse by Candrakīrti on the middle way. He shows how all difficulties spring from one misconception: belief in an independently existing self, which generates the afflictive emotions—attachment, hatred, jealousy—that keep us cycling through saṃsāra. The teaching pivots on the rope-snake analogy: just as dusk and a striped rope trick the eye into seeing a snake that isn’t there, we project an independent self onto the five aggregates when none actually exists. Seeing the true nature of the self dissolves the misconception entirely. Rinpoche then introduces the Four Essentials, a logical framework for investigating selflessness: identifying the object of negation, establishing pervasion, and demonstrating that the self is neither identical with nor separate from the aggregates. For practitioners with foundational Buddhist background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-06-11 – 3B – Workshop – KR.mp3
UUID: 4ff52dfe-2fd3-40e3-821e-ad2ad2016c1c
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Meditation
Date: 1989-06-11
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,349
I’m sorry. Must attain fearless complete Buddhahood in order to establish all sentient beings equal to space and complete bliss and happiness. In order to do that, I’m going to listen to this profound teaching on the great vehicle developing such a motivation that is the awakening heart. With such a motivation, we’re going to listen to this teaching.
Yes. Rinpoche is quoting from a verse by Candrakīrti concerning engaging in the middle way. And explanation of this verse is that if we look at our present situation that we’re involved, we generate various afflictive emotions such as attachment, hatred, etcetera. And these act and by the influence of these afflictive emotions under the power of these, we are forced to take to keep circling within cyclic existence, experiencing states of birth, aging, disease, and death continually, and therefore the various types of suffering arise. If we make an examination, where does all of this arise from?
What is the root source of all these difficulties? The factor which which precipitates all of these difficulties, which brings about all all of our problems are the factors of afflictive emotions. And this is what prevents us from attaining happiness and liberation. So, you know, looking at our situation, we must examine, investigate what is the source of our problems. If we were simply to take an analogy, to simply be sitting in our home and it was raining outside and there was this drip coming from the ceiling, from the roof.
And we said, Oh, I wish that drip would go away. And we slowly got wet and damp and felt very uncomfortable. It was very dissatisfactory experience. Simply wishing it’s going to go away isn’t going to make it go away. We have to actually look to see where the source of the problem is.
We have to actually get up and examine the ceiling, examine the roof, and block up the leak. And therefore, this is the way we can go about alleviating their difficulties effectively. Likewise, with the various difficulties and dissatisfactions that we experience, we have to investigate what is the actual source and bring about the cessation of its causes. Likewise, in our investigation, we don’t want to simply become remain satisfied with the superficial level of investigation. We want to actually look at a very deep level.
The ultimate source of our difficulties, a very deep source of our difficulties. This is in the case of a tree. If there’s some type of tree that you want to get rid of, it’s not sufficient simply to keep cutting back the limbs and removing the leaves. That this would at best be a temporary measure. That ultimately cut it at the roots.
This is the only way that we’re ever going to get rid of it once and for all. So we have to begin to see what is the root source of all our various situation which we find ourselves in the dissatisfactory problems. The, you know, on one level the problems of aging, birth and death, disease, and at a more subtle level the problems of the afflictive emotions. What is the most subtle level of our investigation? What is the root cause?
We have, we generally, we naturally generate a sense of I, I, I. This thought of I. But the type of I which is the source of the difficulties is the I which is held to exist independently of the aggregates. The I exists in as being designated to the five aggregates. It’s labeled onto the five aggregates.
But we conceive of the eye to exist independently of the aggregates, that these eye exists naturally from its own side independently. This conception and we exist this existence that we hold on to this that exists the eye exists this way. This is called the view of the transitory. View of the transitory collection. So this awareness, you know, we we can return it.
We give it various different names. We call it ignorance, the conception of a self of persons, or the view of the transitory collection. They are synonymous. They all are pointing to the same type of awareness. This awareness is a distorted awareness, a perverted awareness, and it is to be eliminated.
In order to to to eliminate this distorted awareness, we have to begin to investigate the object to which it is holding on to. We have to begin to see that the object that it’s clinging to does not truly exist, that it doesn’t naturally exist, that we believe it, in fact, does exist that way — begin to pacify this belief, begin to eliminate this belief. If we don’t go about this process of investigating the object, and thereby eliminating this belief, then these concepts are not going to go away. So, you know, if we look at our situation and how the necessity to begin to investigate the object of this distorted awareness.
We’ll make use of an example. There is a situation that you’re walking along a path and it’s evening, it’s becoming dark. So the appearances of various things about you aren’t very clear. And there in the grass is a coiled striped rope. But due to these various conditions that you conceive of what is actually a rope, you project onto it as if it were a snake.
You conceive of you believe that that’s a snake over there. And due to this conceiving of a snake, you generate fear. So due to the various conditions, for example, it’s evening that the things about you aren’t very clear, and the presence of this striped rope, there arises the mistaken consciousness which conceives of what is actually a striped rope as a snake, and it holds that. It believes that this is in fact a snake, and due to that there arises a very forceful feeling of fear within your mind. But this is a mistaken consciousness.
This is the unsatisfactory, the suffering, this fear is generated all completely dependent upon a mistaken consciousness. You know, if you were to go away and come back when the sun next morning when the sun came up, you’d say, Oh, that was a rope. It really wasn’t a snake. That seeing how the object actually existed would completely eliminate that misconceived that misconception as to that there was a snake there. That it would eliminate the belief, the conception which was grasping at a snake, that thought would be completely eliminated, and therefore all the fear which arose from that misconception, that mistaken consciousness.
So, in that same way, that the the conception of the self of persons is taking views as its object, the person who is actually imputed, designated, labeled to the five aggregates. The person which is who is labeled, designated, imputed to the five aggregates, which are the basis of imputation, it views that person as existing independently of the five aggregates, as being unlabeled, as not being imputed. And this is and this is the way the conception of a self of person arises. An un this this in this case, this self is an unimputed, independently existing self. So, going back to this analogy of the snake in the rope, that there is no snake that exists whatsoever.
But due to various conditions that we project onto the rope a snake, and we think there’s a snake. What is actually a rope appears to be a snake. There’s no snake at all coming from the side of the object. It’s all coming from our own projection. Likewise, within the case of the conception of a naturally existing I, a truly existing, independently existing I.
And the basis of an I which is labeled to the five aggregates, we project an I which is unlabeled, which is independently existing, which is naturally existing, truly existing. This I is purely our own projection. It arose from a misconception of the nature of the I. And just as in the case of viewing what is actually a rope as a snake due to the obscurations of the conditions about you that it’s dark, things don’t appear completely clearly to you, but upon the rising of the sun, then what the actual nature of the thing becomes apparent and the mistaken distorted consciousness is completely eliminated. Likewise, with respect to the self that we misconceive of, that through the process of hearing, listening to teachings on emptiness, on selflessness, contemplating it upon it, the various obscurations which do not allow us to see the way things actually are begin to in the same way that the mist begins to be dissipated by the rising of the sun.
These obstructions begin to become less less and less until then we actually view the actual nature of the thing itself. And this is the development of the view of emptiness. The the yogi in dependence upon meditating on emptiness, investigating the nature of the eye, using establishes through reasoning, non-existence of an independently existing I. And then in this in this way, the conception which holds to an independently existing I begins to be pacified. And just as in the case in the that when the various obscurations with respect to the object which is actually a rope are eliminated by the rising of the sun, the dark conditions, the obscuring conditions are eliminated, the various obscurations we actually see the thing in a way it actually exists and therefore whereby the conception of it existing as a snake is eliminated.
Likewise, as we begin to see the actual nature of the self, when the various obscurations which prevent this understanding are eliminated and seeing the object as it actually is, then the distorted awareness misconceiving of its nature is eliminated. When this is eliminated, all the various afflictive emotions which depend upon this basic misconception such as attachment, hatred, jealousy, pride, etcetera are eliminated, and thereby all the various negative karma created out of through the force of these afflictive emotions cease, and thereby the continual process of cyclic birth, death, aging, disease, ongoing process of cyclic existence, ceases, and one attains a state of liberation from this ongoing cyclic processes, and this is the state of liberation. So in in the alleviation, in the reversing of this misconceived conception of the way things exist, we that is to bring about is necessary to bring about the realization of emptiness. In this process of bringing about realization of emptiness, we make use of what are called the Four Essentials.
The first essential: the object of negation. The second is the essential of the pervasion — ascertaining the pervasion.
The third is ascertaining freedom from being truly existently one. Ascertainment that the object of negation is free from being truly existently one. Free from being truly existently one. The fourth is that the object of negation is free from being truly existently many. So beginning with the first essential, the object of negation. What do we mean when we talk about emptiness? We’re talking about an absence or a non existent factor. There’s something that doesn’t exist when We talk about emptiness.
That doesn’t exist. In the case, you know, take some simple examples. When we say that, you know, is anybody in the car? No, there’s nobody in the car. There’s a factor which doesn’t exist in the car that is people.
There’s something which doesn’t exist in the car. Likewise, we have a glass and the glass is empty. There’s an absence in that. There’s no tea. There’s no water in the glass.
So there’s a factor which doesn’t exist. There’s an emptiness of the glass. There’s an emptiness of the existence of water or tea in that glass. There’s something which doesn’t exist. Emptiness is pointing to a factor which doesn’t exist.
Therefore, when we talk about the object of negation, we have to know what it is that doesn’t exist. An object of negation, object which is to be refuted. There’s something which doesn’t actually exist. We have to know what that object is that doesn’t exist. So in this first essential, identifying the object of negation, what we’re trying to identify, what we’re trying to recognize is an object which in fact things are empty of.
There’s a type of object which we’re trying to find that we think exists but in fact doesn’t exist. That things are empty of that actual object. What we have to know is that there is a non existence of this object. There is an emptiness, an absence of a particular object that we normally conceive to exist. We have to identify, recognize what that object is that we normally conceive to exist and understand that things it’s empty.
Things actually don’t exist like that. If we if we wanted to catch a thief, we would have to be able to identify that thief. We would have to know what he looked like. Likewise, if we want to understand that something doesn’t exist, we have to know what we’re looking for in order to understand it doesn’t exist. That’s something we would we would have to know what it looked like in order to ascertain that it doesn’t exist.
So within determining the object of negation, the object which is being refuted, there is a type of awareness which we call the view of the transitory and we want to know what this type of awareness is apprehending, it’s holding on to a particular type of object, this view of the transitory is holding on particular type of object. What is this nature? What is this? We’re trying to recognize what is that object that’s holding onto. The object which it is holding onto is an I, an I which does not rely upon the aggregate, which is independent of the aggregate.
This this eye is the object of negation, the object of negation. I So there’s a basis of labeling, a basis of projection, a basis of designation of the person. The person, the eye, relies upon the aggregate. It is projected, labeled, designated to the aggregates. The aggregates, for example, the aggregate of forms, aggregate of feelings, that is the various mental aggregates and the one physical aggregate.
Upon those basis, that basis of imputation, the person eye, is designated. This, so there are the, there are the, as if these two types of eye, the eye which is designated to the aggregate and the eye which exists independently of the aggregates. So, this first essential of these four essentials is that, that the is identifying the eye which does not rely upon the aggregate. That such a type of eye that such that the identifying that eye and understanding that the non existence of this eye is what we mean by emptiness. That the non existence of a type of eye which does not rely, which is independent of the aggregates, the non existent, that non existence is emptiness.
And we have to identify what that eye must look like. This is the first essential. Then the second essential, you know, we said that the non existence of this independently existing eye is what we mean by emptiness. Now, now, what would happen if this eye in fact exists? This independent existing eye, what faults would have would there accrue?
We’re going to look at that. The second essential is the pervasion. Now if in fact this eye does exist, it must either be the same as the aggregate or different than the aggregate. If something exists, it has to be either the same or different. There’s no other third possibility.
This covers all possibilities. If this eye exists, it must be either the same as the aggregate or different than the aggregate. It is pervaded by by being either the same or different than the aggregate. It’s necessarily either the same or different than aggregate. There’s no other possibility.
This is the second essential. So the second essential, the essential of pervasion. We just, you know, think of in terms of yourself. You have an I. You have an I.
You also have aggregates. You have essentially the mind and body. We call those the aggregates. We have an I, we have mind and body. Now we’re talking about a naturally existing I, an independently existing I.
Now if in fact this I exists, then there’s only two possibilities. Either this naturally existent I, this independently existing I is the same as your mind and body, same as mind and body, or it’s different than mind and body. No other possibility. It is the same or different. It has to be one of those two.
This is pervasion. Pervasion means it’s necessarily so. It follows. It entails. It must be either the same or different.
There’s no other third possibility. It’s pervaded. We’ve covered all possibility. We in meditating we have to find all these things within our own continuum, put these things on ourselves that we have within us the view of the transitory. Now when we hold to an independently existing eye, we have this consciousness, this awareness.
When we say I, I, I, what do we mean by that I? Is my arm my I? Is my head my I? Is my leg my I? Know, beginning to investigate in this way.
So in general, there is an I. I exist. And we’re talking about a naturally existent I, an independently existing I. Now if this I exist it must be either the same as my aggregates or must be the same or it must be different. It’s pervaded necessarily so, either the same or different.
There’s no third possibility. This is the second essential essential of pervasion ascertaining the pervasion. So in the second essential, we determine, we ascertain the pervasion that this object of negation is naturally existing eye, independently existing eye. If in fact it exists, it must be either the same or different than the aggregate. Now the third essential is ascertaining that the object of negation, the independently existing I, is free from being the same as the aggregate.
If it’s the same as the aggregate, this independently existing I, it must be inseparably one with the aggregate. It must be identical to the aggregate. It can be not the slightest difference between the eye, this eye, and the aggregate. There’s not even one part which is different in any way, exactly the same as the aggregate. If this naturally existing eye, if this independently existing I is identical in all ways with the aggregates Because there are five aggregates, there must be five eyes.
This is simply one way of breaking down the physical form and the mind. There are five aggregates. The form, aggregate of forms, the aggregate of feelings, the aggregate of discrimination, the aggregate of compositional factors, sometimes called mental constructs, and the aggregate of consciousnesses. These are the five aggregates. Now if the I, naturally existing I is one with these, it must be identically, no way different, then there must be five eyes.
And there aren’t five eyes. Also, just looking at the aggregate form, if the I were in all ways completely identical, no way different, not the single slightest factor which is different. The same as the aggregate of form, and because we can divide the aggregate of form up into five parts. For example, the two legs, the two arms, and the head, it must be five eyes. Because there are five five parts of the form and the I must be exactly like all of this part.
Then you got more and more. How many hairs do you have? That many eyes we’d have to have. So there’d be many faults in this in this procedure.