Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 67-minute session, Ilia S. Durovic explores the philosophical distinction between life and consciousness through the lens of classical Buddhist schools, particularly Cittamātra and Madhyamaka. The teaching begins by examining how different Buddhist philosophical traditions define and categorize lineage, then pivots to a detailed Socratic inquiry with the assembled group: What is life? Is life the same as consciousness? Using examples ranging from deep sleep and the Tibetan practice of tukdam to plants, bacteria, and bardo beings, Durovic and his students test whether sentient beings and living beings share three or four modes of logical possibility. The discussion reveals tensions between modern scientific observation of plant responsiveness and traditional Buddhist definitions of consciousness, pressing participants to defend their classification of various life forms and to locate precisely where consciousness, sensation, discrimination, and intentional thought emerge. A teaching rooted in rigorous debate and systematic analysis of categories, suited to serious practitioners with some grounding in Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 20 Lineage – KR.mp3
UUID: cd980d35-c0d7-4239-955d-42d13537fc0a
Teacher: Ilia S. Durovic
Collection: Rinpoche's Story
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,107
So in Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika, only the term lineage or Gotra is used. The term naturally abiding lineage is not used. Then in Cittamātra and in Madhyamaka one finds the terms naturally abiding lineage and in Madhyamaka the term Buddha lineage. Then as was explained last time, in Cittamātra within the twofold subdivision of phenomena into permanent and impermanent phenomena, naturally abiding lineage is an impermanent phenomenon because it is a composite phenomenon. As you remember, Cittamātra teaches that the naturally abiding lineage has three characteristics or features.
This is given on your page of definitions of lineage. The first of these is it is a transmission of sentient beings beginningless continuum from one life to the other. The second is the attainment of thusness. And the third, the seed of the uncontaminated mind upon the sixth inner locus, the mental locus. This is the naturally abiding lineage.
So therefore, according to Cittamātra, the naturally abiding lineage has three characteristics, a characteristic of continuum of nature and of base. The characteristic of continuum is it is a transmission of sentient beings beginning this continuum from one life to the other. The characteristic of nature is the attainment of thusness, which refers you to the fact that the naturally abiding lineage is one which does not call for effort or striving, and the attainment of base is the base on which it occurs which is the mental locus. So in Cittamātra, when lineage is taught to be the seed of the uncontaminated mind, one must understand that this refers to ārya lineage in general since Cittamātra teaches the existence of three final vehicles. A final vehicle of heroes, a final vehicle of solitary realizers, and a final vehicle of bodhisattvas.
So if we in brief define lineage in Cittamātra as the seed for the potency of attainment of an ārya path in the continuum of a sentient being, then we can see that different sentient beings have different ways of thinking, different outlooks. So as you remember last time, we analyzed what is meant by sentient being. A sentient being is a being endowed with sentience or consciousness. Now in the Buddhist context, this extends not just to human beings, but to all beings such as dogs, cats, and so forth. Then if we say of a dog that the dog has lineage, then this means that in the continuum of the dog, there is a seed which can give rise to an ārya lineage.
This is a little bit odd, isn’t it? So this is for sentient beings. In other words, beings endowed with a mind. Now as a preliminary, we must be able to distinguish in our own case what the distinction is between sentience and life or consciousness and life within our continuum. So if we take now Geshe-la’s case, Geshe-la’s mind at present is that which is engaged in explaining these topics to us and our minds are that component of ourselves which is wondering what is Geshe-la gonna teach of new today, What exactly is he explaining?
Now what we have to try to endeavor to understand the present is the meaning of life. First the term life and then its meaning. Then in your opinion, is consciousness within our continuum and life within our continuum, are they one or different? Geshe thinks they are probably different, but in your opinion, what are they? Consciousness and life.
I think like the example you gave last week, I could be in a coma, and there would be, no consciousness present but my body would still be alive. So what is life? How do you identify our life, life within our continuum? What is life for you? It’s quite similar to what Andy said last week about some life is that which maintains its own order or its own structure or its own entity at the expense of the environment in which it abides or the system in which So life is something which exists within our own continuum.
Our life exists within our own continuum. I noted the connection between the Abhidharma saying about life is that which depends on heat and life is that which in the scientific explanation it’s life depends on energy and energy and heat seeming to be exchangeable in this sense. So if we take the case of deep sleep, in deep sleep, it is clear that consciousness has completely ceased. Yet, one is alive. No one would claim that someone who is in deep sleep is not alive.
They’re alive because they’re breathing, right? So life is impermanent, that is self evident. Then in this detailed analysis of the topic, the way to proceed is to start by seeing whether life and consciousness are one and the same or not. Then life is not consciousness because of the various reasons are used to demonstrate that it is not. So is life consciousness or not?
Okay, why? Why? If I ask you in Tibetan, it’s a severe benefit. Why? What’s the reason for which it is not conscious?
Geshe-la, the difficult thing is when the consciousness leaves the body, science now can keep a body, keep a heart going but the Tibetan masters consciousnesses apparently don’t leave the body for days and weeks so are they dead when their parts are not working and their bodies are just still? That’s my struggle, not being able to decide when the consciousness leaves the body and therefore they’re separate. So Geshe-la’s question is, life you say is not consciousness. What are the reasons it used for that? Why?
We could see the lives in non-sentient beings. Yeah, following on from here, it’s possible to give examples of life without sentience. I find it less easy to give an example of, sorry, yeah, life without sentience, without consciousness. It’s harder to give an example of consciousness without life. So again, why is life not consciousness?
You have to basically present the reasons for this. Is it because life can exist without consciousness? One reason is that matter and energy perform a different function to consciousness. Namely consciousness collapses the state factor and That’s untranslatable, I’m sorry. So you are saying, all of you are saying that life is matter.
So life is not matter or form, it is not consciousness, then what is it? It’s neutral. Neutral. What is it? It’s an effective phenomenon, right?
So what is it? Life is a self preserving system. It will do anything it can to keep existing and that’s what life does. Everything in it is designed to make the self persist, to make the system persist. And in that respect, it responds to things that are attractive, things that are aversive and ignores things that are neutral.
Also, every living thing on this planet, every living thing on this planet is known to communicate with other things. As for the example of consciousness persisting while the body is departing while the body is still alive, I don’t think that that is a good example because when Tukdam is finished and the consciousness has gone, the body begins immediately to decompose. It does not remain sweet smelling. It does not remain looking like it’s alive. Regardless of whether its brain is working, regardless of whether its heart is working, as soon as the consciousness leaves, that body is starts to degenerate.
Okay. Everyone agrees that life is not consciousness. So scientists explain the meaning of life. There are numerous explanations in Buddhist treatises. Cittamātra, for instance, asserts that life is that under the power of which the Alaya Vijñāna dwells in a body and And in Sautrāntika, it is that seed which is similar in type to the karma enabling consciousness to dwell in the body.
Then you have received teachings on the channels, winds and drops. Then in that context, Geshe-la would like you to reflect on the fact that the extremely subtle life grasping wind gives rise to the coarse life grasping wind and this in turn gives rise to the 10 winds which you know of. So the extremely subtle life grasping wind is the base of life. Life in turn is the base of consciousness. So this is a relationship they have with each other.
So this is as far as distinction between human consciousness and human life is concerned. Now in a more general sense, what is the distinction between a living being and a sentient being or a being endowed with life and a being endowed with consciousness? A sentient being has awareness, whereas just a living thing doesn’t? So what example can you give? A plant and a human being.
You think plants are alive. Others? So the difference between living being and a conscious being is that a conscious being responds to stimulus of pleasant, painful and neutral and living beings do not visibly respond to that. So for instance, a plant, if you hit it, you can’t see that it responds to being hit. But if you hit an animal, you can see that it responds to the experience of pain.
Even though we cannot see those things with our own eyes does not mean that they are not happening. And plants respond to positive or attractive stimuli. They move away even with their roots and by changing their internal structure to deal with things that are unpleasant, and they don’t respond to most of anything. And most of their activity, their movement takes place underground, so we actually can’t see it. But plants will respond to sound, plants have memory, and plants do give off certain energy when they are cut or when they are damaged.
I agree with Pamela that science has shown that plants have what can pretty much be characterised as five sense consciousnesses. They have light receptors, sound receptors, touch receptors, they taste and smell. And in terms of physicists describing the effects of life, the thing that comes to mind is that life is characterised by a lack of entropy so it brings things together and whereas entropy naturally is the process of things falling apart and it seems that it’s difficult to tell whether something is alive or conscious just by observing it Because there are so many similarities between things that are light, are light, like plants, and things that have consciousness, are like humans. I wouldn’t think a central being is that has five aggregates, then the living being is just like plants or bacteria or virus. They don’t have this.
Similar to what which of the five aggregates do the bacteria have? I think it’s the thinking. So you’re saying they don’t have consciousness, that’s what you’re saying. For you are bacteria sentient beings or not. The only living beings.
So you seem all to be saying that plants and trees and bacteria are not sentient beings. They don’t have consciousness, but somehow they seem to have the aggregate of sensation. And some say they have memory, right? Then they sentient beings therefore. So for you, a chicken is a sentient being or not?
Yes. Some cheese. Why? What’s the difference with a plant? A plant.
You’re losing the roots of the debate here because you’re saying that plants and so forth have the aggregate of sensation because they experience what is pleasant and unpleasant. Then you’re saying that they move therefore by inference they have the aggregate of compositional factors. But you’re still not saying they’re sentient beings. When these texts were written, it was believed that Mount Meru was the center of the world and that we lived in Jambudvipa. We now know that the earth moves around the sun and it is one of nine planets moving around the sun.
What science has shown us about the way the world works has changed a lot. And a lot of what is said in this room is Vaibhāṣika, it’s common sense. It is not the way the world is. See, once from your signs, you assert that plants and so forth have pleasant and unpleasant sensations, then there’s no reason they should not have discrimination. And then if you say they have discriminations, how can they not have thinking?
For instance, this flower, does it have life or not? Why? Certainly. Yes. Cut you say, is it?
It’s cut. Good. Good idea, thank you. Very easy to understand. Okay.
I would say that the animal, you know, like that is moving and that they can think and suffering. You know, like when you see in the television that when the cow is being moved to slaughter and they know they will pull back straight away. So you see the suffering, they know they are going to suffer. This is, we classify this as central being, but the plants, how can we see that? It’s only when we put under microscope, but with naked eye, we cannot see.
If I could add to what Susan just said, researchers have actually classically conditioned plants to expect a given stimulus. So they can actually be foreboding in a sense. They can know when a stimulus is going to occur. For instance, I believe the researcher exposed the plant to a fan or an air conditioner and then after some period fed the plant. And so whenever the plant was exposed to a fan or a technician in the future, its root structure changed and it was expecting to be fed.
The opposite case she did another experiment where she suddenly dropped the plant and it was then expecting a certain stimulus after that. It seems that probably the four elements correspond to the four forces in physics of I think fluidity, motility, energy and is it matter? The other, the last one? Anyway, so when Geshe-la said that you know because plants move we’re asserting that they have compositional factors. I would say that the presence of the air element, the motility, if does correspond to motility does not necessarily mean it has compositional factors because plants are made of the four elements and so therefore they have those properties and they move and do the things that the four elements do.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have aggregates. That’s why I think. So And bacterias. Ants. Are sentient beings or not?
Ants. Ants. Ants are sentient beings or not sentient beings? Yes, sentient. Susan said that bacteria were not sentient beings, but you’re saying ants are sentient beings.
Can you clarify for me please? Which one? What’s the reason for its bacteria not sentient beings? Because if you’re just going to say it’s because they’re very small that they’re not sentient beings, there’s not a very good reason. Right?
So what is the reason for which for you bacteria are not sentient beings? Why are bacteria is not sentient? Can you answer, please? I think they might be. I’m not sure.
Okay. I’m not sure, but I think it’s no consciousness. Why? What what is the base of consciousness? The base of mind.
So how many logical possibilities are there between sentient beings and living beings? We studied the modes last year. How many modes between sentient beings and living beings? You should explain the modes. Do you remember?
Yes. Okay. How many modes? And give them. You say four and other one?
Four. Four. It’s very helpful if you think about it by yourselves. How many logical possibilities are there? The maximum is four as you remember. There can be three or two.
Four. You say four. Okay. What are the four? So neither would be, for instance, a rock.
Only A Bardo being. No? Okay. Only consciousness could be, for instance, a Bardo being. Without that is not life?
Could be Yeah. Okay. So you’re saying that a Bardo being is a sentient being but not living being? Exactly. And then a human being would be both or an animal?
And I would give I’ll give the example of bacteria as just life. Okay and the same? Agree? Sorry? I’m not sure I agree with the sentient being being present and not being a living being, which is the Bardo being, which was the answer given.
I don’t know if I agree with that but I don’t have an example though. And three. No. I think that there are four moons, but I disagree that the Bardo being wouldn’t be a living being. I think it does have drops and channels.
If there are such things that are sentient beings that are not living beings then I think that I can only rely on scripture to support that. For instance in the Lamrim there was some beings that were reborn as pillars and a mortar and a pestle and I think that might be an example of a conscious being that doesn’t rely on life grasping wind. Then Geshe asked me, I give four modes. The one difference is the mode for a being which is not a living being, I would give a god of the formless realm, which is a sentient being, but it’s very strange to say it’s a living being. Okay.
So this food for thought was this one. So let us now generate the requisite motivation and recite the prayers. Page one. So for discussion, Geshe-la would like you to analyze whether living beings and conscious beings have four or three moons of logical possibilities. Then the example of the logical possibility or the mode of being a living being and not conscious which you have given always includes beings which have feelings or sensations and as a result we can infer they have discrimination and compositional factors.
There’s no good reason to say that they are not conscious, is there? So discuss that. Then Geshe was asking me, what about snakes? Do snakes have the six collections of consciousness? I said, well, I didn’t check but as far as I know, yes.
Snakes have the visual sense organ, auditory sense organ, and very developed smell sense organ and taste. Right? And tactile. They have hearing, right? Do the ants have the six collections of consciousness?
They don’t have hearing, right? So Geshe-la covered a lot of material. This is the topic for discussion tonight, the relationship between sentient beings and living beings. Specifically, do they have three or four modes of logical possibilities and the difficult example of the logical possibilities is a living being which is not a sentient being. Why are the examples you have given adequate or inadequate?
Okay. Please have to discussion.