Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 50-minute session, Kyabje Rinpoche addresses a foundational problem: how to safely teach emptiness, Buddhism’s most profound and dangerous doctrine. He establishes the emotional-ethical ground first—the awakening heart, a commitment to practice for all beings—because without this anchor, a student may develop a catastrophic misunderstanding: that nothing exists, so ethics don’t matter. The core teaching unfolds through the dream analogy: a dream horse appears but isn’t a horse; similarly, all phenomena appear to exist independently and inherently, yet don’t exist that way. They are imputed by mind and language, not self-existent. Rinpoche walks through this methodically, showing how objects appear to our senses as objective and non-imputed when in fact all are conceptually designated. For practitioners with some Buddhist background ready to engage emptiness teaching.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1990-05-15 – 12A – KR.mp3
UUID: 6265a745-9b47-4b1a-b430-f15b5d5dd019
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Sun Radiance – Thought Transformation
Date: 1990-05-15
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,658
So since the teaching, the Dharma is of the great vehicle, our motivation for listening to it should be of the awakening heart. And what is the awakening heart? What do we mean by that motivation? That just like myself in wanting to be happy and not wanting to suffer, likewise, all sentient beings are exactly the same in wanting and not wanting to suffer. But moreover, there are numerous sentient beings, and They have benefited previously, they are benefiting us presently, and they will benefit us again in the future.
And at this fortunate opportunity whereby we can practice the Dharma, we should make use of it in order to benefit those who have benefited us in the past and present and again in the future. That’s by eliminating all our various thoughts and bringing to consummation all our excellent qualities. And if we train well in this manner we can bring about the happiness to others that they are seeking. We can help to eliminate the suffering which they do not want and to establish them in the Buddhahood. And in order to bring that about we’re going to practice the training of the mind especially presently by coming to an understanding of emptiness that we understand it in terms motivated by an awakening heart, kind hearted attitude and we should meditate for the next five minutes to develop such a kind hearted attitude as a motivation for listening to the present teaching.
So there are the two minds of the conventional awakening heart and the ultimate awakening mind. We’ve completed the explanation of the conventional heart and now we are going to begin the explanation of the ultimate awakening mind. So what do we mean by ultimate? The sense in which we use the word ultimate here is the meaning of emptiness. And what do we mean by the awakening mind?
This refers specifically to the mind of a great superior who is directly realizing emptiness. The mind a great vehicle superior who is directly realizing emptiness. So the mind which directly realizes the ultimate that is emptiness is what we mean by ultimate awakening mind. So in discussing the ultimate awakening mind it’s necessary that we provide an explanation of emptiness because it is through the realization of emptiness and by habituating the mind to this realization that we develop higher and higher the awakening mind itself. We must begin with an explanation of emptiness.
Emptiness is an extremely important subject and we have to understand it. But in coming to its understanding we necessarily have to listen to the teachings and explanations. There are two ways in which we can go about listening to the teaching. One way there is a great deal of profit, great deal of benefit if we listen to it properly and come to a quick understanding. If on the other hand we listen to it improperly then we will not only not come to a quick understanding, we are going to come to a faulty understanding.
We will have a distorted understanding which in fact could bring us harm. So it’s necessary that one come to the correct understanding in which case there is great profit on the other hand if we misunderstand then there is a great loss. As an indication of the difficulty of coming to a proper understanding of emptiness, that the Buddha himself upon having direct realization, meditating on emptiness spoke after this direct realization about emptiness and saying that the understanding of emptiness was the nectar of Dharma. But he said it is extremely profound and difficult to fathom and therefore he temporarily did not teach it. An analogy with respect to coming to proper understanding of Dharma is the fact that a peacock is able to eat poison and not only does it not harm the peacock, it actually serves to beautify the peacock whereas any other types of beings who ate that same poison would be harmed.
How are we to come to an initial understanding of emptiness? What is the way that we’re going to operate? Going to use two analogies of the process we’re going to make use of initially to come to an understanding. One, to make use of these analogies, when we see smoke on the mountain though we may not see the fire, the smoke serves as a sign or a mark by which we can infer the existence of fire upon the mountain. Though we do not see the fire, we can infer its existence by means of the mark or the sign or the reason smoke.
Likewise, if we would look up in the sky and we see waterfowl circling for some time, We can infer from their presence that there is a large body of water beneath them though we do not see the body of water itself. We’re discussing the signs which denote a proper student who may receive the teachings on emptiness. What are the signs? This is in the case of existence of smoke is a sign of existence of fire. In the case of the waterfowl is a sign of the existence of a lake.
Likewise there are certain signs which denote the proper student who can be taught emptiness and these signs are that when upon hearing the word emptiness the student’s eyes begin to well up with tears and tears begin to flow. That the hairs on his or her body begin to stand on end and their mind is filled with great joy. So this is the sign of a proper student who can receive the explanation of emptiness. These are physical signs by which we can infer that they have the proper mental attitude. Even when we talk to someone and if we were to talk by means of our talking they experience great joy then there may be a physical sign of their joy, they may actually cry with joy.
Or on the other hand or on the other hand very sad, again they might cry with sadness. These tears denote simply that there is some effect is occurring within the mind. There is a physical sign by which one can infer that the mind is being affected. Hopes that upon hearing this word that your mind was filled with great joy and you began to cry and your hair stood on end. Due to the having previously listened to teachings on emptiness, such a student has had latency imprinted within their mind.
Upon hearing the word emptiness due to the force of their great faith in emptiness that these latencies are activated and by means of this activated all of these physical signs fall with force and if such a student is taught emptiness they will quickly develop the wisdom realizing emptiness. Even though one may develop an understanding of emptiness, that emptiness in this life, that emptiness that understanding can degenerate in the future life, that one may in fact not take a human rebirth in the future and during that period there is a degeneration of the understanding of emptiness. So it’s necessary not only to have an understanding of emptiness but we must also gain the various positive potentials necessary in order to ensure that we can go on in our practice building upon the foundation of the understanding of emptiness. We have to ensure that we achieve the human life for example and this is done through the proper observance of ethics. But not only that, we may have a human life but we do not have the conditions necessary to, we have conflicting conditions so we have to develop the conducive conditions to carry on our practice.
For example by means of the practice of generosity, by means of the practice of compassion. Likewise, it is very beneficial to have a beautiful, a handsome body in order to, that people are more likely to listen to your teachings and this is also done through the proper observation of patience. So if we gather all of these positive potentials by means of these various practice in addition to the understanding of emptiness then we can quickly in that very life achieve liberation and omniscience. So such a a student is a proper is proper would be very proper to teach the the doctrine of emptiness to such a type of student and it would be extremely, beneficial. But there are those who are is not proper to teach and there would be faults which would occur if such a person were to be taught emptiness.
For example one would think, not having any understanding of emptiness, one would think, oh this is ridiculous. It’s not worth anything. Such a type of way of thinking with connection to emptiness would be extremely negative. Not only that, there are those who would develop distorted conception of emptiness in which they thought, well by emptiness nothing exists whatsoever and therefore it doesn’t matter what I do. There is no good karma, there is no bad karma, I can do anything I like and there is this great danger in connection with the distorted conception of emptiness.
This is like trying to grasp a poisonous snake. If we if we know how to go about it, then we can easily catch the snake. If we don’t, then we can easily be killed. Beginning with the actual explanation according to the the text that In the root text there is a line which states, teach the secret to one who has obtained stability. Teach the secret to one who has obtained stability.
This refers to the two types of minds which we refer to, the awakening heart and the awakening mind. The conventional awakening heart means that once one has attained stability, one practiced well in the awakening heart and has gained firmness or stability with respect to that then the secret should be taught to such a person. The secret here refers to emptiness. To such a one in which has stability in the awakening heart when the awakening mind is taught, when emptiness is taught, then things will go well for that person. To such a one who has developed stability with respect to his practice in the awakening heart, to teach that person the awakening mind, that is the teachings on emptiness, there can be no harm whatsoever.
That is only beneficial. But there is another type a few of these who initially do not come to an understanding or proficiency in the awakening heart but initially train in the awakening mind, that is an understanding of emptiness. For such a one, he or she must be of high intelligence so they must have a great deal of wisdom for such a one then it’s beneficial to teach that type of student first the awakening mind, the emptiness if they have great positive potential and intelligence. On the other hand if they aren’t of great intelligence and they are taught the doctrine of emptiness first then there are the various dangers that was previously mentioned. The explanation of the conventional awakening heart and taking that as our basis.
The understanding that we have already gained, we can go ahead with the explanation of the ultimate awakening mind. Again referring to the the root text, the first line which is going to be explained is consider all phenomena are like a dream. This is the actual beginning of the teaching of emptiness and have to make effort in trying to understand what is being meant here. We all know what a dream is, the various types of dreams. We sleep a lot and so we’re all familiar with the various types of dreams.
When you hear this where it says all phenomena are like a dream, All phenomena are like a dream. There will arise some kind of doubt or uncertainty or qualm in your mind. During the course of a dream various appearances arise that through the dream consciousness there appears a horse, an elephant. But in fact it would be a mistake to think that this is a horse or an elephant. This would not be factual.
It’s not a horse or an elephant. So there should arise some kind of doubt at this point what we’re talking about here when we say that all phenomena are like a dream. In a dream all of these things appear but they don’t exist. They really appear and horses and elephants appear but they don’t exist. Does that mean that the things that appear to us don’t exist?
So one may think incorrectly that this isn’t the case of objects appearing in a dream but in fact not existing, then all things that appear to us don’t exist and there’s this danger. So this isn’t the case of the phenomena which appear in a dream, various horses and elephants that don’t exist but this is an analogy and we have to begin to understand what the meaning of this analogy is. If we extend that into the meaning of this analogy and we say there are all these various appearances of horses, people, red, white. Don’t these exist? Horses, people, red, white.
Don’t these exist? What is being gotten at here as far as the meaning is that they do not exist as they appear. The house, etcetera, they have an appearance but they do not exist like they appear. You have some kind of does some kind of doubt arise in your mind at this point? So in a dream a horse appears.
In a dream a horse appears. It’s only an appearance. Only an appearance. Is there a horse or is there not a horse? In a dream, a horse appears.
Is there a horse or is there not a horse? In in during the dream in which we there appears a dream horse. Is that dream horse a horse? Is the dream horse a horse? Though it appears like a horse is not a actual horse.
What indicates of a dream, what appears to the dream consciousness? A horse appears to the dream consciousness but it is not a horse, it is a dream horse, a dream horse is not a horse. Likewise if we take the meaning of that analogy and apply it to specific cases, all of the various appearances which arise for the various consciousnesses such as eye consciousness, ear consciousness, ear consciousness, nose, tongue, body consciousness. There appear various objects. What appears?
The appearance of all of these various objects, the object appears to be truly existent, to be naturally existent, but the object only appears that way, it does not exist that way. That truly existent object does not exist in fact. When we look at the flower with the eye consciousness, how does the flower appear? It appears to us to be not imputed, to be not designated. It exists from its own side objectively but in fact it does not exist that way.
It is imputed in dependence upon terms. It appears, but it appears to be not imputed but in fact it is imputed just like the horse, a dream horse appears to be a horse but in fact is not a horse. We’re not saying that the flower does not exist, we’re saying that it does not exist the way it appears. Just like the flower, people, houses, colors, white, red, Buddha, this room, they are all imputed by term designated, labeled. They appear to be not imputed.
They appear to exist from their own side, to exist objectively but in fact that’s not the way they exist. All phenomena are imputed by means of terms and concepts. Therefore they do not exist as they appear just like the objects appearing in a dream do not exist as they appear. What do we mean by object when we’re talking about?