Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche establishes a foundational distinction for understanding emptiness: the difference between negative and positive phenomena. He opens with bodhicitta meditation—reflecting on boundless kindness received from other beings—then grounds the discussion in Sautrāntika tenet philosophy. Negative phenomena are anything the mind understands by way of negation. He divides them into two types: affirming negatives (where negating one thing implies another) and non-affirming negatives (pure negation, nothing else implied). Emptiness is the classic non-affirming negative. Through the Indian caste system analogy and Heart Sūtra passages, he shows how realization of emptiness means the mind encounters the absence of intrinsic nature—not the object itself. He teaches Buddha’s paradox that not seeing the intrinsic nature is the supreme insight. For serious practitioners with foundational Buddhist knowledge.
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File: 1994-06-02 – 9A – KR.mp3
UUID: 32d05102-6c4a-44b2-bdcc-c4543f3eb474
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Tenets
Date: 1994-06-02
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,081
Firstly, let’s meditate on kind thought in line with the bodhicitta enlightenment mind. Myself is only one being, one person. Others are countless. Not only others are countless, there have been countless times other beings have been kind to me by being my parents, father and mother countless times and during those time during those countless times when they have been my parents they have been kind to me as my parents when I was just born and upbringing, generally speaking. In brief, in this way sentient beings all of them been extremely kind to me but at this stage because I’ve been reborn and reborn and memory being faded that I don’t recall their kindness and I don’t recall recall the the occasions there have been countless times, my parents.
So far in my case, because of considering myself dear and through that way by cherishing myself so much I have been trying to bring happiness for myself alone and to remove my problems and my sufferings and this has been done at the negligence of others welfare happiness and their sufferings being removed. Now at this stage when I have the awareness I need to I need to shift this whole attitude and approach instead of considering myself dear I from now onward will consider others valuable dear based on that I will, from now onward, attempt my best to remove others’ sufferings and to bring happiness for others. Of course, by considering others dear and based on that when I think of bringing happiness for others and to remove sufferings of others it is at this stage on the wishing aspirational state and it is mere kind thought, good thought but not implementable. The reason for it being just mere kind thought is because at this stage I don’t have the resourcefulness capability to actually bring happiness for others and remove other suffering. So when I look for a source through which that would be possible, I find it is only when I remove all my shortcomings of my mind and acquire all the excellent qualities, all the perfections of mind, the state of omniscience, the state of Buddhahood, then that is possible.
Understanding this way I must somehow work towards attaining that state of Buddhahood. And to attain that state here I will learn, do reflection, contemplation and meditation on the context topic of the four tenets and through that way I really as a as a achievement bring so much benefit to others. So this is how briefly we try to bring our state of mind to. Yeah. Buddha Śākyamūni, in one of his teachings, says in a verse, my teaching is of two types, advice and tenets.
To the childish, I teach advice. To the yogis, I teach tenets. Generally, in worldly convention, childish or infantile is a stage of existence where the infant, the child has not grown up fully so there is not much power and capability even physically speaking like that example or like that metaphor in the case in the case of ordinary beings who have not yet gained any realization of reality, they’re they’re like childish or infantile in the sense their mental capability has not fully grown yet. So whatever types of teachings which in order to bring growth of mental capability through that way explains what is to be practiced and what is to be discarded away becomes a classification of teaching called advice advice literally means guide or show, but interpretively as advice as instructions. On the other hand, there are types of people whose mental capability have fully fully grown, not only their mental capability has fully grown, they also have attained calm abiding and special insight, śamatha and vipassana, so they have also attained calm abiding and special insight.
These types of people are called as yogis, the integrated practitioner or the practitioner of the union. And for such qualified people, the teachings given are how based on the basis two truths, the path, method, and wisdom are to be practiced, through that how the two Buddha bodies, two Buddha kayas or two states of enlightenments are to be attained. And that whole format of teaching which explains about two truths that and the result came to be classified as tenets. Amongst Buddhist tenets there are four tenets starting from lower upward Vaibhāṣika, Sautrāntika, Mind Only, and Middle Way. We in our earlier Thursday evening teachings have finished the first lowest tenet the lowest tenet Vaibhāṣika.
Now we come to the second tenet from bottom upward the Sautrantikas or the sūtra followers. In the discussion of, Tenet, the topics we were following in last Thursday evening was about the two truths, which in the format of base, path, and result comes under base. So we already looked into what are the two truths in according to in accordance with this tenet called the Sautrāntika. Now within the base, there’s another way of looking at what the base or the phenomena are about. And the second way of looking is by classifying phenomena into two types, negative and positive.
Now regarding what is negative phenomena, it is roughly defined as that which is to be understood by the awareness understanding it by its negation. So this means in order for the mind which perceives or understands it, it first has to negate. And then through way of negation what is negated is understood. So that is negative. So in this way we have the description of what is a negative or negative phenomena and then description which by way of its definition explains what a negative phenomenon is and then going back to its definition it it it is defined as that which is to be understood by the mind understanding negating it or by its negation so briefly we can say that is a negative phenomena and then negative phenomena itself can be of two types affirming negative and non affirming negative all these avenues of looking at the negative phenomena and its division are extremely helpful and important topics in the course of study and practice.
So it would be good to try to get a good grasp of what the negative phenomena and what its divisions are like. Because if one does not have a good grasp of what is a negative phenomenon, what is a positive phenomenon, as well what are affirming negative or the non affirming negative, then it is not possible to have to come to understand emptiness, and there is no way. In this way in this way if we are able to have good grasp of these topics then it is possible that this greatly help us to come to understand what is meant by emptiness. It is possible through this understanding that one also will have an understanding of emptiness. Now how the understanding of emptiness would be increased and would be possible through understanding of those especially about negatives is because phenomena or we simply call negative it is of two types non affirming negative and affirming negative and then one example of non affirming negative is emptiness.
It’s emptiness. But if one first of all, if one does not have a good understanding about what is meant by non affirming negative, then it is not possible to to come to understand that emptiness is a non affirming negative and consequently it is then not possible to have an understanding of emptiness. So here it would be perhaps much easier to understand if let’s go by way of an example. Now in India, the past and still a little bit prevalent these days too is a system of social classification class structure called caste system and there in India the highest caste regarded is the priest priest or hermit’s caste. Below that are the royal caste, and then a whole host of other caste as warrior, merchants.
And then down on the bottom of the scale are the caste, such as the caste of the washerman, the butchers, and so forth. So in brief, especially in the past, there were so many caste classification in those countries. So that’s where the lowly part was that there were too many castes, making one feel uncomfortable in a society like that. So they didn’t use to intermingle that much. Now, at the top of the caste in there is the priest or hermit caste, which is a caste classified classified as people who wholeheartedly rest of their life dedicate to spiritual pursuits and who would live up as in hermitage upon the mountains and being there they would abstain from all kinds of sensual activities, especially in terms of diet, not eat meat, not eat eggs.
They would refrain from sexual activities. Therefore, they are like they were like very clean, both physically and mentally and mentally they would do meditation their spiritual practice and so forth so based on such personality and whole activity of such person they were classified as the highest caste. Now that’s that’s a priest or hermit caste. And if there is a statement saying the hermit does not drink beer or the Tibetan beer is called, such statement is called non affirming negative, doesn’t affirm anything. So the hermit does not drink beer.
Now in this statement the hermit does not drink beer. Hermit is the reference point who is to be analyzed as being made the being attributed either drinking beer or not. So the hermit is the subject of attribution, the one referred to. Does not drink beer, that statement is a negative statement negating something. What it negates is drinking beer.
So the very statement, the hermit does not drink beer negates the fact the hermit drinks beer. So it is a statement where what is to be understood is understood by by way of negating something. But here, what is distinct is the hermit drinking beer is negated. So just the mere negation of hermit drinking beer is the non affirming negative. So in a way it is like the mere empty, the mere lack of the hermit drinking beer.
So that lacking of drinking beer, that mere absence. So that mere mere negation, nothing implied afterward, is the non affirming negative. So upon the hermit, there is mere absence or mere empty, mere lack of drinking beer. So that is called non affirming negative that the that the hermit does not drink beer. So does not drink beer, just only negating drinking beer and there’s nothing else implied.
So that’s a non affirming negative. By way of interpretation, in popular translation hermit would literally be translated as priest. But here, hermit might be better word. Now in the Heart Sūtra, the essence of wisdom teaching by Buddha, there is mention that there’s no form, no feeling, no recognition, no karmic formations, no consciousness. Or if we look at it differently, then there’s no form, no sound, no sight, no smell, no taste, and no tangibility.
Similarly, the the lines say there’s no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body. Now, of course, this is what is literally being mentioned and taught in such teachings. But but it does not mean that there is no form to be to be functioning not to be functioning at all for example body is a one form body does exist and it does nominally function so it is not that those lines negating negating does not absolutely negate even nominally the existence and functioning of forms such as body and so forth but what the lines actually mean is there’s no inner. There’s no there’s no eye existing by its own characteristic. There’s no nose existing by its own characteristics.
There’s no ear existing by its own characteristic, no tongue, and no body, no consciousness existing by its own characteristics. So that is what is meant by those lines. Now let’s look at the eye. The eye when it is explained as not existing by its own characteristic and what it negates is it negates the eye existing by its own characteristic so that very that very absence or emptiness that lacking of existence by its own characteristic is the non-affirming negative, the emptiness upon the referent eye so and in the and going back in the case of a form the is the reference point and the attribute being analyzed is whether it exists by its own characteristic or it doesn’t exist by its own characteristic and when the statement or the teaching says that form does not exist by its own characteristic then that statement negates the form existing by its own characteristic. So that very negation, the mere negation of existing by its own characteristic upon the form becomes the emptiness upon the form.
Emptiness upon the form and expression meaning emptiness being referred on the basis form. So in this way, yeah, we can look at how to that way non affirming negative is mere negation mere mere negation and emptiness about about it. Now let’s look at way of another another example say on the basis reference or on the basis or on the reference table if we are to analyze whether there is an object called book present there or not then the table itself is the reference the basis and that is not what is being analyzed instead the fact whether there is a book or not on the table is what is being analyzed similarly on the table is there cup or not is there a flower not so is there a flower not is there a cup or not so in that way in those inquiry the table is the reference the basis upon which the fact whether those things are present or not are being analyzed. So that’s a example. Now similarly, when one does meditation on form, one has to inquire whether form is existing by its own characteristic or it doesn’t exist by its own characteristic.
So in that, the form is the basis, the reference. That that’s not being negated. What is being negated is whether upon the form, is there a property, a characteristic that it exists by its own characteristic or it doesn’t so one needs to analyze that and by analyzing analyzing and repeatedly analyzing if one finds that there is no that that the form does not exist by its own characteristic, then that very understanding negates the form existing by its own characteristic. So when when the when that is negated, when existing by its own characteristic is negated, then one is coming to the understanding of emptiness of form. That form does not exist by its own characteristic.
On the opposite side, if one by doing the analysis does not yet realize or come to understand that the form does not exist by its own characteristic, that means one has not been able to negate the existing by its own characteristic with form. So one has not been able to negate that is to be negated, or in another word, one has not been able to disprove what is to be actually disproved. And in that way, it is not possible in that state of misunderstanding to have an understanding of emptiness at all. In the previous one if one has been able to negate existing by its own characteristic upon the form by understanding understanding that the form does not exist by its own characteristic that when put in that very thing when put in the format of non affirming negative description means that on the form one has realized the mere absence of existing by its own characteristic so one has found the non affirming negative or realize the non affirming negative about form existing by its own characteristic. So that in brief would be a way to look at the non affirming negative on form.
Mind or awareness which realizes emptiness on form, that awareness or mind does not realize form. Meaning, or in other words, it does not perceive, it does not have anything to do with the form itself in the sense. Instead what it realizes it is it realizes the negation or emptiness of existing by its own characteristic upon the form. So that is what is realized by that awareness realizing emptiness of the form. Because of such reasonings, Buddha Śākyamūni very beautifully says, not seeing is the supreme insight or literally not seeing is the supreme seeing what that means going back to the previous example is when one analyzes whether the reference form, whether it exists by its own characteristics or not, if one realizes and finds that form does not exist by its own characteristic through that way, the form existing by its own characteristic is negated and in its place one finds the form does not exist by its own characteristic.
So in that way, one lost the sight of form existing by its own characteristics and one does not find or sees the form in that way, that very non seeing, that very absence of seeing the form existing by its own characteristic is the supreme insight, supreme seeing. In that way, in order to understand emptiness, firstly, it is important to understand non affirming negative. Also, in this way, non affirming negatives are described as that. And emptiness is an instance, for example, of non affirming negative. The uncompounded space which is the space itself, it is an uncompounded or unproduced thing.
So uncompounded space is an example of non affirming negative. Selflessness of person is also non affirming negative. These are all non affirming negatives. And then the other negative is the affirming negative. And affirming negative is which when the negation object is negated or when something is negated, there it when something is negated, something else is implied.
So it is where the statement negates something, but it, at the same same time implies something else this when compared with the previous non affirming negative we can compare the two in this way earlier with the non affirming negative when something is negated that’s it there’s nothing else implied apart from the negation meaning there’s nothing else implied in its negation in the statement so forth but here with the affirming negative when what is when something is negated that negation itself implies something alongside. So that’s how we find the two are quite different.