Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 4 hour 43 minute Heart Sūtra commentary, Tenzin Chogkyi provides a detailed exploration of emptiness and dependent arising, the two central insights of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. Starting with breath settling and motivation, she uses a cup as the primary teaching example to unfold how things exist: dependent on causes and conditions, composed of interdependent parts, and ultimately labeled by mind without any inherent existence from their own side. She extends this analysis to the person, the five aggregates, and explores how understanding emptiness as a quality of all phenomena—not as a void—reveals the self as merely a conceptual imputation on ever-changing body and mind. Throughout, she emphasizes meditation practice as essential to internalize these insights, illustrating with personal examples how understanding conceptual imputation reduces ego-grasping and disturbing emotions. The teaching moves toward the Heart Sūtra’s famous phrase “form is emptiness; emptiness is form,” laying groundwork for examining how emptiness allows all dependent arising to function. Aimed at practitioners new to or deepening their engagement with Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2012 09 08 Heart Sūtra.mp3
UUID: 60848ecd-3e87-40d7-8a6a-80749f9cc865
Teacher: Tenzin Chogkyi
Collection: Heart Sūtra (Tenzin Chogkyi)
Date: 2012-09-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~7,853
Welcome to the teachings on the Heart Sūtra. We’ll begin as we usually do by just sitting for a few minutes to settle our minds just watching our breaths, the sensation of breathing either at the nostrils or deeper in the body, the chest rising and falling, the diaphragm expanding and contracting and then after settling our minds, we’ll set our motivation. So first just sitting, focusing on the breath using it as an anchor for your attention. And now let’s take a minute to set our motivation for our teachings today. So the Heart Sūtra is an explanation of the ultimate nature of reality, emptiness, the fundamental nature of how things exist that Lord Buddha taught.
So understanding this ultimate nature of reality is completely essential as well as meditation instructions. So by learning these instructions, we’ll be able to put them into practice, meditate on that ultimate nature of reality and thereby gain full enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings. So reflecting on this, just take a minute Psychic. Uh-oh. At a certain point, she’s like, she told me not to eat that much.
Alright. So let’s take a minute just to settle our minds and renew our motivation. So again, sitting in our posture with our back straight, focusing on the breath just for a minute to get ourselves settled here in this room, in our bodies, this moment. And let’s just renew our motivation and think that since this is a Mahāyāna Sūtra, it’s teaching the subject of emptiness, but from the perspective of the realization of emptiness that is generated in the mind of a person on the Mahāyāna path, so with the motivation of Bodhicitta wishing for full enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings. So let’s take a minute and try to generate that Bodhicitta motivation for our sessions this afternoon.
And then let’s recite our Sūtra again and we’ve just gotten started but pay attention now as we’re reciting and see, oh, we need another booklet. Here you go. Any questions about the three levels of dependent arising to just clarify? So we’ve got causes and conditions, that’s pretty straightforward. Causes is the stuff, the conditions is the process, That’s one way of looking at it.
We’ve got the parts, the component parts. And then it’s this third level that explains what we were talking about in the previous flip chart. Because things lack inherent existence, because they are a conceptual imputation and designation, they arise in dependence. So that’s that subtlest level. The two sides of the coin are because things exist in dependence on conceptual imputation and designation, there’s not any inherent existence at all.
Some of the synonyms for inherent existence, intrinsic existence, existence from its own side by its own nature, you know, there’s a whole list of synonyms, but it means there’s nothing about the cup from its own side that makes it a cup. It’s not a cup from its own side at all. Not one iota of cupness there from its own side. It’s not even suggesting to us that it’s a cup, which is the other middle way school, the Middle Way Autonomy school is saying, yeah, it’s not a cup until I label it cup but it’s hinting cupness at me. It’s like fifty percent is my mental labeling but from the cup side it’s going, come on, don’t I look like a cup?
Don’t you want to call me a cup? Don’t I look kind of cuppy to you? But even that, there’s no existence from its own side as a cup at all. So how come we call it a cup and everybody agrees and what makes it a cup? Okay.
Consensus. And that’s one criteria. We have decided cylindrical object of a certain size. Right? And with a bottom and an open top.
Now if it were a lot bigger, it would be a rubbish bin and it wouldn’t be a cup. So our generic image has to be a certain size. Then there are the really small ones that when you’re my size, you know, it’s like a thimble full of tea or something. It’s kind of pathetic, those little fancy ones. If it were really, really small, it would be a thimble that you’d use for sewing.
Right? So it needs to be so but we’ve all decided. Right? And that’s where it gets cultural. Like, the gods must be crazy thing or the Inuits drinking seal bladder, whatever it is.
You know there’s a certain amount of consensus involved as well. What else makes it a cup? Function. Right. So we’ve decided that by consensus based on the function.
So we’ve said cylindrical object with the function of holding liquid that I can drink. Let’s all decide to call that a cup. Okay so we got function, consensus and then another criteria is continuity. Because even though this cup strictly speaking is changing moment by moment by moment this isn’t the same cup that was on the table when I walked in here after lunch or even when I walked in here four minutes ago to start this session. It’s changing moment by moment by moment.
Right? Even though it seems solid but still as we know it’s like atoms, molecules, subatomic particles whizzing around. It’s actually just probability clouds of electrons or whatever the physicists have decided these days. Right? So it’s in constant motion, constantly changing, actually degenerating before our very eyes even though it looks so solid but there’s enough of a continuity that I can say, oh Judy, could you please pour water into my cup?
Right? There’s a is a continuity, right, of the object until I smash it and break it and then there’s no more continuity but while it still kind of has integrity. So those are three criteria that make it the valid what we talk about in philosophy the valid basis of the imputation. We talk about something being valid because of those criteria. Now it’s not a valid basis of the imputation mobile phone.
Now I always use this example because until last year, I think I was one of the few of the seven billion human beings on the planet that did not have a mobile phone until I was stuck in the Melbourne Airport. I was flying to Sydney, which only takes, like, fifty one and a half minutes or something, and my flight is canceled. Not even postponed, just canceled. So there I am. The person who’s meant to pick me up in Sydney is, like, already on the way to pick me up.
My flight’s canceled. What do I do? There’s no place to make a phone call because, of course, every other human being has a mobile phone. So that’s when I finally broke down. So if I’d been in the Melbourne airport desperately searching for a way to make a phone call and I’d seen this object and go, great.
Okay. Things are dependent arising based on conceptual imputation. I really need a mobile phone right now, so I’ll just decide. This is a phone. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. Impute phone. No.
It doesn’t have that function. Okay? It won’t work as a mobile phone. Right? So that’s why this is a cup and not a mobile phone because it doesn’t have the function of being a device that I can talk to somebody in Sydney when I’m in Melbourne.
So those are the criteria but even given all of that it’s still not a cup from its own side at all. Right? So the criteria for something being the valid basis of that imputation doesn’t make it a cup from its own side. And that’s hard and that takes a lot of meditation to get that. Right?
Because for us, existence and inherent existence have been so inextricably intertwined since beginningless time that peeling away and saying something can still validly exist conventionally, but not one iota from its own side. That’s the hard part. And you’re not gonna get it from one afternoon. Believe me. You know?
And that’s when you need to meditate on it. Right? Over and over and over again. One trick that I recommend doing and I found this really helpful for me is take an object that you see all the time. You know, your cup, your computer, your pen and break down how the object is a dependent arising with these three levels.
Like, time you see it I mean, you don’t have to sit cross legged and go like that. Every time you see the cup, just take a minute and go, okay. It’s dependent on causes and conditions. Therefore, it doesn’t exist from its own side. Independent of causes and conditions.
Check. Okay. It depends on parts, doesn’t exist from its own side, independently of the parts. Got it. Conceptual imputation, go through the thing.
Okay. I’ve got the mental image of cup, the raw sense data presents itself, I lay my trip on this poor innocent cylinder and then I think it’s a cup from its own side coming at me. Right? So go through that process and like I say, can just be sitting at your desk. The people at work will think you’re sinking profound thoughts as you meditate on dependent arising and then see how dependent arising because things are dependent arising, the flip side is not inherently existent at all.
Okay? Not inherently existent, not independently existent. So it’s two ways of looking at the same quality, which gets to another important thing about emptiness. You can’t speak about emptiness apart from the phenomena that the emptiness is qualifying. So emptiness isn’t this ultimate ground of being or some kind of black hole.
It’s not a positive existing phenomena out there somewhere. It’s just a quality of every existing thing. Namely, it’s absence of inherent existence. So you can’t talk about emptiness, and sometimes this is a wrong view people have about emptiness, which was sort of, you know, some of the early translators of Buddhist sutras. The void, capital v.
You know? Emptiness, capital e, like, oh, the goal of the path is to somehow plunge into this black hole, the void. No. It’s just talking about the quality of every existing thing because everything is empty of inherent existence because everything is a dependent arising. Right?
So we can’t talk about emptiness separate from the phenomena that it’s the characteristic of. Okay? So in the next part of the Heart Heart Sūtra, I’m skipping ahead a little bit, but the form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. That’s talking about that.
It’s saying emptiness is a quality of every existing thing, and you can’t talk about emptiness somehow divorced from the object that it’s qualifying. Does that make sense? Okay. So questions about any of that? That’s right.
Emptiness is also empty of inherent existence. Everything is. Buddhas, Buddhahood. When I first started studying, I thought, oh, inherent existence, but Buddhas are really exist. You know?
But, again, that was just the mistaken view that comes from the fact that it’s really hard for us to peel away inherent existence and leave existence undamaged. Because for us, it’s like, you know, the stickers sometimes that are so stuck and you try and peel them off and you can’t and the whole thing shreds. Like for us, existence and inherent existence, and that’s why I say we have to meditate on it over and over and over again. We’re not denying that this is a cup at all. You know, we’re not saying a Buddha just has sort of premature Alzheimer’s and isn’t perceiving anything.
We’re just saying we’re peeling away that very last layer of inherent existence and leaving the cup undamaged, Conventionally existent cup. No problem. Oh, conventionally existent cup for a twenty first century Western human person who, you know, perceives that. Would it be the cup for all the dogs that were here last weekend during the animal blessing? You know, we had nineteen dogs out there.
Which one of them would have perceived it as a cup? Not even your Westie, even though he’s like, so not even your spaniel. I mean, they’re really smart, but right? So the consensus, I always think of in terms of sort of concentric circles of consensus. You know?
Like, there were certain things that every human being on the planet would probably agree on, like water is for drinking. I can’t think of any human being on the planet that wouldn’t perceive water as something nice to drink. But then there’s culture gets in there. Right? And there’s, you know, smaller and smaller concentric circles, twenty first century Western people would probably all share a view view of this as a cup.
Now how many people would see this as Chenrezig? Right? When they see those colors and shapes would have the conceptual imputation Chenrezig, much smaller concentric circle. What you see it as Chenrezig seems like Chenrezig from its own side but at some point we had to learn that generic image. Right?
You know, so it gets smaller and smaller so it’s interesting to think in terms of how what are the concentric circles of shared reality, really? Because it is determining our perceptions, you know, our concepts completely, you know, as you were saying, determine how we perceive reality. Okay? What do you mean? How we stop perceiving?
That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh.
Yeah. That’s right. And that’s because and, actually, one of the things that Buddhist philosophy says, after the first split second of sense input, what we’re really relating to is our generic image and not what’s out there at all. And that’s that thing. When we don’t have the generic image yet, like this flower, I was like, wow.
Never seen one of those. If it were Daisy, I would have been like, oh, Daisy. And then I’d just be relating to my image and not even the sense data anymore. So Buddhism says that too. Mostly what we we think we’re interacting with the external world and what we’re mostly doing is interacting with our concepts, you know, in our minds.
So that gets interesting. And like you say, when there’s a new thing that we can’t work out what it is we pay a lot more attention to the sense data the minute we’ve come up with a label often yeah we’re not paying attention to the sense data anymore at all. Yeah. You mean their consciousness? Well, let’s look at the person.
Great segue into let’s look back at the five aggregates. Whoops. Which I think we’re up here somewhere. And let’s start looking at the person. In fact, let’s stay on this flip chart and then we’ll flip back to the person because let’s or the aggregates.
Let’s look at the person too. So let’s just say a person the same thing applies to an animal. Okay? How are we dependent on causes and conditions? What’s our what’s that?
Yeah. Mom and dad. So we got the original genetic material and then all the food that we ate, the air we breathe, the sleep that we got. Alright? That’s kind of the stuff that went into making us.
And then the conditions, our education, whatever, you know, influences we got when we were growing up, our teachers, our exercise, etcetera, etcetera, culture, all of those things. So all of those things, you know, the material things that went into making our body and things that went into forming our mind, our concepts, our language, all of those things. So, obviously, we didn’t just arise born fully formed from a lotus somewhere. You know, all these things went into making who we are. So again, like the cup that level is easy to understand.
Then what about the parts? Yeah. Physical part, mental parts, five aggregates. Right? How many of those could be missing and could you still call it a human being?
If it’s the body without the mind, it’s a corpse. Isn’t it? Even some of the parts of the body can be missing and it’s still a human being. I’ve gotten into this thing now. I’m living someplace with the television for the first time in like ages.
I’ve gotten into this thing of watching the news, which is great. I know more about my own presidential election than I’ve known at all. You know? I have to find out about it in Australia where there was this thing last week that the thalidomide manufacturers apologized and they showed all of these thalidomide babies just a torso, no arms and legs, still a person, isn’t it? Right?
So the body some some parts yeah. Some parts of the body are negotiable. The head isn’t. Right? But some parts are, you know, because they had these babies and, yeah, some of the Paralympians and so forth.
So, you know not all of the parts have to be there. There’s a certain threshold for that but you you know depending on the parts we label human we need both a body and a mind to label human being. Now, here comes the interesting part. On those parts which by the way themselves are changing moment by moment by moment, right? Nothing Nothing permanent about those parts, the body and mind, body changing moment by moment by moment.
Even though it seems like I’ve been sitting here all day, I’m aging. I mean, it gets more the slope gets steeper the older you get, you know? Everything you you look in the mirror from one day to the next and you’re like, oh, I see it now. In my decade of my twenties, I look the same. You know?
Now it’s getting So changing body, changing moment by moment by moment. Mind changing moment by moment by moment. So even the parts themselves are composed of parts in a sort of infinite regression that way. So those are the parts and on top of those parts I label Tenzin Choki just like I did with the cup. No difference at all.
I have an idea in my mind Tenzin Chökyi, I label it on my five aggregates but I think that there’s something else extra on top of that from its own side. You know, I struggle not conceptually and Buddhistically but innately in All I am is a label slapped on these five bundles of ever changing stuff. That’s all. But just like the cup, that’s the way we exist in exactly the way that the cup exists is that which is merely labeled on a valid basis. Now this is a valid basis of the label Tenzin Chökyi.
It’s not the valid basis of the label Barack Obama. If I started labeling myself Barack Obama, I think Kathy would have to call my emergency contact and maybe see about some medical help. You know, just like this is not the yeah. Right. It’ll be Judy.
She’s the sangha care person. It’s all up to Judy. Nobody else is gonna care at all. Poor Judy is gonna be stuck with my hallucination. Sorry, Judy.
You thought it was just about wheat free bread. That’s right. That’ll be alright. So just like this is in the valid basis of the label mobile phone, I don’t function as the president of the United States. So that’s not a valid label for this basis.
Know, we’ve all decided, yeah, really tall American nun from California who came to Buddha House to teach in August is Tenzin Choki. You know, we agree, but we we all have different concepts of who that person is. In this room there’s twelve different Tens and Chokis. Am I right? Are you guys right?
We think we’re right. Have you ever had somebody tell you what they think about you or their view of who you are as a person? And you get really indignant. You don’t know me at all. I’m not like I know who I am.
Oh! Oh! And especially when somebody shows you and says, this is such a great picture of you and you’re like, oh! Right? You’re like, really?
I usually look worse than that? Or you have a friend who has a really low self-concept. Right? And they’re talking about their qualities and you think they’re amazing and they’re talking about themselves like they’re a total loser and you’re trying to convince them because your concept of who they are and their concept is just like and you’re going, no, you’re really like this. No.
Who’s right? Nobody and everybody. You know, it’s okay. It’s just that we don’t have consensus necessarily like when you know, when we talk about the concentric circles, we get down to a concentric circle of our own consciousness. Right?
And no two people can actually ever have the same exact concept about anything, you know, and the more subjective it gets. But that’s the way that we do exist. Getting back to Michael’s what was that? All you have do is get married to learn that much. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. Right? And your concentric circles don’t even overlap at all. They’re like on, you know, different sides of the planet.
So to get back to Michael’s thing of what is the me that sees myself or whatever it was, something like that. It’s just a concept. You have a concept of Michael that you’re labeling on the five aggregates and that’s how Michael does conventionally exist. And it’s very subtle and it’s not any of those other ways. Right?
So part of what we try and do in meditation is peel away the overlay. You know, we have all of these other ideas of how we exist laid on top of that, which is so subtle. It’s like this ever changing continuum of body and mind changing moment by moment by moment. Just an idea on top of that. Wow.
That’s all. But that exists and it functions in the same way that the cup functions for us to drink water. That’s how you exist. That’s how you function and it’s okay. And then you have a different you still have the continuum of mental consciousness going into the next rebirth and then it becomes conjoined with different genetic material making up the form body and then you have a different basis of imputation with that new body.
You know, you’ve got the mental consciousness carrying the karmic imprints. We actually say in the intermediate state there’s a subtle form body so you’re never completely devoid of form. It’s just that the form body that you have in the intermediate state between rebirth is this subtle kind of energy body kind of like an astral body but you well, it’s just very very subtle, you know, and it has these properties that we don’t have it with our gross physical body but you still basically have the five aggregates in the intermediate state and then the next rebirth. So the basis of imputation is changing just like it is in this rebirth. It’s just a bigger karmic shift just the way our body and mind is changing moment to moment in this life but all death is is a bigger karmic shift and the karma for the, you know, basis of imputation of this life finishes and a new one starts up.
So new set of five aggregates in the next life. Gross sense consciousness is dependent on brain. The fact of the mental, the subtle mental consciousness that goes from life to life is independent of brain. Certain for example, all the experiments of, you know, your your visual cortex is damaged and you become blind or something happens to the eye. For sure, gross sense consciousness is dependent on brain function, but the fact of consciousness existing, unlike what Western science says, which says, once the brain is dead, no more being, no more consciousness.
Consciousness. And Buddhism would say, no, it’s not that. It’s just that gross sense consciousness is dependent on brain, but the subtlest consciousness is completely independent of form at all. Right? And goes and that’s what goes to the next re birth.
Okay. Yep. Well the cause of the form would be the genetic material and the food that you’ve eaten and so forth, you know. So, you know, we can say causes and conditions for both the mind and body. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. So, that’s how things do exist including us. No different at all from the cup. Okay?
That which is merely labeled on a valid basis of imputation. That’s conventional existence. So Buddhism isn’t saying there’s no cup, there’s no me, there’s no room, there’s no chair. What Buddhism is saying is doesn’t exist from its own side in the way that you always thought. So the little phrase that we can add to each of these, you know, little phrases in the Heart Sūtra is no ear from its own side.
No eye inherently existent. You know, no ear, no nose, no tongue from its own side. So let’s look now at the five aggregates and break those down and then I think we’ll leave it at that for today because everybody’s starting to flatline. Okay. I can see it.
It’s kind of like, and then we’ll digest a little bit. I can yeah. I know. You’re still all, you know, sitting upright but it’s a little bit starting to be too much. But that’s alright because we’ll review tomorrow as you can predict.
So let’s look at the five aggregates and let’s see how all of them are also dependent on all of these. Okay? Because remember that’s what Avalokiteśvara is telling us to do. He’s saying, it’s all well and good to think, okay, the way I exist as that which merely on the aggregates. You know, we’ve got the five parts of the person and then on top of that with my concepts I’m labeling me.
But he’s saying we have to go farther than that because that leaves the aggregates unexamined. And you might think, well, they’re inherently existent and then the whole pile of them is labeled me. But even the parts of us isn’t inherently existent. So let’s look at that questions and then we’ll kind of leave it. So form aggregate, dependent on causes and conditions.
We kind of just went through that. Right? Genetic material, food, oxygen, exercise, yada yada you know, process. Okay? Feeling.
Oh, so form. The causes and conditions, parts, we went through that too. Right? All the different parts. Now, on that whole bundle of stuff that’s hooked together somehow by the tendons and the ligaments we have a concept my body’ that we then impute onto those component parts.
So we say the body doesn’t exist independent of that concept, my body. I’m imputing on all of those parts. What about feeling? And remember feeling is the mental factor of pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. So what would the causes and conditions of that be?
Yep. Well, first of all, even more fundamentally, some sense contact with an object. Right? Which we’re always having. Contact is another one of the omnipresent mental factors.
So we’re always having some kind of sense experience or mental experience. Always happening. So that’s giving rise to feeling. Right? Those causes and conditions of the contact coming together gives rise to feeling.
Now, we can also think about the parts of a feeling because we say that every kind of consciousness that we have or mental event, excuse me, is made up of all of these little moments of consciousness in a continuum. So for every unpleasant sense experience that you have, for example, by now the chair is not as neutral as it was at nine thirty this morning and there’s a continuum of, oh my rear end is starting to hurt happening all hooked together. Right? So those are the parts of that feeling continuum and then the conceptual imputation. What have I done?
I’ve narrowed out, again, cut kind of a little, you know, cut out from all of the mental experience I’m having in every given moment. Right, everything that’s happening with my mental experience, I’m dividing out this little function of pleasant, unpleasant, neutral and I’m labeling it the feeling aggregate. Okay? It’s labeled by mind the feeling aggregate. It’s part of just the whole mush of my sensory and mental experience in this given moment.
But I’ve said, Oh, that thing that feels a little bit sore on my rear end is unpleasant feeling. That’s the feeling aggregate. So mentally, I’ve sliced out that one little mental event out of so many other ones and I’ve labeled it feeling. Same thing with discrimination. Labeled by mind.
You know the function my mind has of discriminating between objects. I said, oh, that thing that my mind can do, I’m calling that the discrimination aggregate. Okay? It coexists with so many different mental events but again, I’m conceptually just sort of slicing it up and saying that is discrimination. Compositional factors same.
List of fifty one, you know, Mahāyuta. So those forty nine things same. I’ve taken all of the possible mental events that I can have and I’ve said okay I’ll call this one attachment, I’ll call that one pride, you know this function I’ll call this, this function I’ll call that. I’m labeling it dependent function of that mental event so same thing and then even the consciousness itself dependent on the contact with the object because even our what’s the object of our mental consciousness? A thought.
Right? So every one of the six consciousnesses is dependent on some kind of interaction, you know, sense consciousness or mental consciousness with a thought or sense consciousness with an external object and then I label that consciousness. Again, continuum of moments strung together and then in my mind I say, oh, that’s consciousness. You know, that’s my mind. That’s my consciousness.
So all of those five aggregates you can break down in exactly the same way. And so that’s what we do in this meditation. We think about the self. Well, you and we won’t do it now because everybody’s flat lined already. We’ll just take questions and then we’ll do it in the morning when we’re fresh.
What we do in the meditation is we analyze the self. Right? And we say, okay, this idea I have of me, it’s, you know, causes and conditions went into my body and mind. All these different parts, the five aggregates go into making me and then I label on top of that and that’s the only way I exist. I’m empty of any inherent existence from its own side.
That’s all. And then we go, okay, now let’s look at the parts and we go through that same analysis for all of the five aggregates. And then we go back to the self and you flip flop back and forth in meditation, again, down and it helps pull the rug out from under that solid feeling we have of how we exist. Again, it doesn’t mean we don’t exist because it’s important to also meditate on how you do validly conventionally exist. Cause sometimes, otherwise, you could go into that place of, I don’t exist.
Nothing matters. I can do whatever I want. Nothing functions. Or the depression that our friend was experiencing before. Oh, it seems like death.
Too bad she had to leave, you know. She’s not getting to the hopefully, she’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll review. Because it’s important to realize, no, the Buddha taught selflessness, but he didn’t mean we don’t exist at all. Right? And meditating on how we do conventionally exist helps us understand emptiness and that’s a special teaching of Lama Tsongkhapa.
There’s no contradiction at all between dependent arising and emptiness. They support each other. Right? Some of the other Buddhist schools says, oh, things are empty, then they don’t really exist or they don’t No. We can see how there are two sides of a coin, the dependent arising and the emptiness.
Okay? So it’s important to see how they’re as it says in this one prayer that we read, complementary and not contradictory at all. Because things are dependent arising, they’re empty of inherent existence. Their emptiness of inherent existence allows them to arise. Right?
Nāgārjuna, this great Master said, If it weren’t for emptiness, nothing could exist. Because things are empty everything is possible. Thank God for emptiness otherwise nothing could exist as a dependent arising. So in a way emptiness allows for phenomena to exist. Right?
If things weren’t empty, if we weren’t empty, if we were inherently existent, we couldn’t function. We couldn’t change. We couldn’t I mean, forget about meditating if you’re inherently existent. We’d just be stuck in the way that we are. In fact, we couldn’t even eat lunch.
It wouldn’t even turn into nutrition in our body. You know? I mean, there’s no way that we could actually function if we were inherent existent. So this is the kind of meditation that we have to do over and over to break down that solid grasping. Now I think what we’ll do in the morning is we’ll recite the Heart Sūtra up to the point that we’ve gotten to, do that meditation on the five aggregates in the self to just get a taste of how we do it and then we’ll carry on with the next part of the Heart Sūtra which is probably the most famous lines.
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form, emptiness is not other than form, form too is not other than emptiness but now you have an idea of what that means. This is just emphasizing that relationship between dependent arising and emptiness. Right? It’s saying we’ll go into it more tomorrow but it’s just saying, you know, emptiness couldn’t exist by itself without a form that it’s the quality of. A form couldn’t exist unless things were empty because there’d be no way for it to arise.
So it’s just emphasizing this, you know, between dependent arising and emptiness and saying they’re completely allow for each other. You know, if things weren’t empty, there’d be no way that they could dependently arise. Right? And without depend without the object that dependently is there, we couldn’t talk about emptiness because it’s not the black hole thing. It’s just a characteristic of all existing objects.
Right? Are you okay? Overwhelmed but okay? Alright. Read your booklet too.
Review to where we’ve gotten up to, which is we’ve actually right on target, believe it or not, because once all of these basic concepts have been explained I know I keep saying that. I’ve been saying that with Bodhisattva vows, but it’s true. It’s very true. So we’re up to page twelve, the bottom of page twelve. Very good.
See? So review tonight if you get a chance through to form is emptiness, emptiness is form. And then we’ll start in the morning with the meditation and questions, you know, so make sure because this was a lot. But like I said I wanted to give you the basic concepts and now we’ll apply them which is what Lord Buddha does for the rest of the Heart Sūtra to every existing thing. The rest of the Heart Sūtra is just lists And Lord Buddha is saying, just like it is with yourself, same with everything else that exists.
Right? And then we’ll also talk about the path. So what’s happening in terms of the realizations of the path? So what’s happening to the meditator in terms of their intellectual first and then direct realizations of emptiness? And that part is really cool.
Preview of coming attractions. Always a good thing. Doesn’t it make you, you know, when you go to the movies and they have the preview and you’re like, Oh, I want to see that one. So, we’re going to have one of those too. So burning last minute, we do have time for questions because I’m even though I can’t see the clock, I can see my watch and we do have time.
We’re a bit early, but I think it’s okay to leave leave things at this note. But questions? Michael? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly right. Like, seeing the emptiness of the cup isn’t really going to help me much. I don’t have strong attachment or aversion to the cup but by thinking that we exist from our own side in this solid inherent way, anything to do with us is loaded. Like you say, the a piece of paper, who cares?
It is exactly as empty as Tenzin Chökyi is, but I don’t care about the piece of paper. But, boy, nobody better criticize me. I mean, most of what we’re doing is trying to defend and reinforce our sense of self and, you know, pushing away anything that seems to threaten it. Because we think that there’s a me that exists there from its own side and that’s the root ignorance. Right?
Especially in terms of our view of how we exist that leads to all the disturbing emotions that lead to all the karmic actions. And I’m so glad you brought this up because an example of how this helps us because that’s what it gets down to. So how is this gonna help me suffer less? Right? Because that’s all the Buddha was interested in.
I had an experience a couple of years ago that I did something. And I wish I could remember what it was because it would make a better example, and I just can’t. But since it was me doing it, it was no doubt some action motivated by some deluded wish for happiness and wish to avoid suffering, you know, and I did something. One person in my life thought it was the most selfish, heinous act of a horrible person. One person in my life who had much better karma thought that it was the enlightened activity of a holy being, you know, manifesting to teach her what she needed to learn.
Meanwhile, I’m in the middle like, whatever. I’m just flailing around trying to be happy and avoid suffering. Now my understanding of the conceptual imputation thing prevented me from getting angry at the person who thought I was a jerk or feeling proud. Oh, maybe she’s right. Maybe I really am an emanation.
I just didn’t know it. Right? Because what did I you know, I realized, wow, check it out. I mean, it was such an interesting example because I go, wow, check it out. I do something that to me is innocuous.
This guy’s karma forces him to perceive it as like the most selfish act he’s ever perceived and I’m just horrible. And meanwhile, understanding the conceptual imputation thing, I’m like, dude, man, I’m so sorry that you’ve got that karma to force you to have that perception. I didn’t react. I wasn’t upset. I really saw.
Wow. I mean, because it was so extreme, it forced me to remember emptiness. Most things don’t, you know, but just because it was so and then the other one was so extreme and the opposite. I thought, she’s got so much virtue. You know, she’s really got this pure vision thing down.
You know, we’re supposed to be looking at everybody as our teacher. I can’t pull it off much of the time, but look at her. This thing that I did, she saw as a teaching and thinks that I’m some great being. So that’s how understanding this helps you not have disturbing emotions, you know, because I didn’t react to either one in that case because I saw that. And I also saw how ease to try to invoke the ego gratifying feedback.
Right? Because that’s kind of what we do all the time. You know, when you look at your actions, I mean, it’s quite embarrassing. How much do we do to try and invoke the ego gratifying feedback and fend off the feedback that we don’t want even though that might be what’s most valuable and all about a self that doesn’t even exist. I mean it’s ridiculous.
It’s kind of really every action that we’ve done that’s kept us stuck in saṃsāra since beginningless time is motivated by a total hallucination about how we exist. I’m over it. I don’t know about you guys. I mean, I think about every rebirth since beginningless time and I think every action that I’ve done to try and gratify my ego and ward off threats for something that doesn’t even exist. How pathetic is that?
Right? So thinking like that, you know, and like I say, we can use it intellectually now even before the direct realization of emptiness in those moments when you feel a disturbing emotion start to arise, start to check how much is it this thing about like whether or not my ego’s getting gratified or not that’s invoking this reaction, you know? And that helps a lot. Like you said, the piece of paper, who cares? But it’s Michael and your view of yourself and that’s the root ignorance that’s the root of Samsāra is that wrong view of how we exist and peeling that away so that you can say, hey, I’m just an ever changing continuum of moments of body and mind.
I have an idea of me slapped on top of that. Everybody else does too. That’s alright. Theirs is just as valid as mine is. It’s not that my concept of myself is any more valid, so free country.
Whatever. Right? And it’s helpful. It actually really helps us not have these reactions because it’s usually in terms of ourselves and our objects of attraction and aversion that that solid concept is the dangerous one. The cup, who cares?
It’s a nice cup. It served me well this last month at Buddha House, but I’m gonna be able to get on that plane and say goodbye. No problem. I can’t say that about everything in my life, you know, and it’s the more problematic objects and my view of myself that that’s where it really comes down to how does this make me suffer less? And that’s an example, you know, my thing of the three people, me and the other two people.
And then you’re just like, wow, whatever. We all just have our concepts forced on us by our karma. We have no choice really because our conceptual imputation is also dependent on karma, You know? And then it’s, are we going to be stupid and react in a stupid way to that or not? Meanwhile, trying to, you know, get enough virtue that we become like my one friend who just saw everything is like blissful and perfect.
Wouldn’t that be great? You know, that’s dependent on tremendous amounts of virtue to be able to really experience everything is pleasant like His Holiness the Dalai Lama does. Oh, Chinese tortured my countrymen. You know? I mean, does.
He has compassion and he has so much joy. And can you imagine if you’re the head of a country and we’re responsible for your people suffering like that, it takes somebody who understands emptiness to be able to have the mind and the reaction that he has. Isn’t it? And to not only have that but have compassion because he understands dependent arising and he understands karma. The rest of us, I mean, we just have a bad day and we’re pathetic, aren’t we?
You know, and here’s the leader of a country, you know, who feels responsible for all of what happened and just that spaciousness of mind, you know? So that’s kind of what we’re after, really. And it happens slowly, slowly, slowly. Like I said, you know, since beginningless time, there’s been this inextricable fusion of existence and inherent existence. So peeling it away takes time, you know.
And and we also say it’s sort of like the middle way consequence view is like a razor’s edge. And it’s really hard to get the balance and not fall into either nihilism negating too much or eternalism reifying too much. You know? And it’s a very, very subtle razor’s edge. So it takes a lot of study and a lot of meditation.
You know, what we’re gonna do this weekend, hopefully, is just a taste, but it’s up to you to reinforce with more study and tons of meditation. Yeah. I can’t even remember what the question is. Something about the piece of paper getting burned. But anyway, which set off an impassioned riff about emptiness as it as it often does.
Any other questions before we go for this evening? Oh good. Oh, right. And then our class begins later at ten thirty. So our starting time.
Yeah. Okay. So humble. Oh, good. Yeah.
Oh, right. Because they’re doing an ad advert for something. Sarah, I saw that. You can run, but you can’t. Really, let me let me fix my hair.
Yeah. Oh, good. Great. So we’ll our session then will be ten thirty to twelve thirty will be the morning session. I’ll give you a quicker break, not a twenty minute break, but I’ll let you get up and stretch at some point unless we get really carried away, in which case, whatever.
And then we’ll have the same lunch break, twelve thirty to one thirty, and then one thirty to about I mean, it’s booked for about four thirty, and we may be able to make it to four thirty tomorrow because we won’t have had such a long morning. But like I say, I usually just try and see what’s gauge, what’s happening in the room and the overwhelm level of everybody. So that’s why we’re finishing a bit early. But four or four thirty ish, we’ll finish tomorrow afternoon. Alright.
So let’s dedicate. Let’s take a minute to dedicate all of the positive energy of our sessions today. So as I said before, incredible to start investigating this subject, that ignorance about how the way things exist, especially about how the self exists, is the root of saṃsāra, the key to all of our problems, all of our suffering. So starting to deconstruct that wrong view, infusing it with wisdom about the nature of reality, incredibly important. So let’s dedicate all of the incredible positive energy that we’ve generated towards being able to have that direct realization of emptiness leading us all the way to enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings.
Pick you. See you in the morning.