Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. “What could you do to develop your mind if you were a beggar in Calcutta, or a family sheltering from bombardment in Bosnia?” This vivid comparative meditation anchors the core of this 91-minute session by Ven Jampa Gendun, working through the first of Buddhism’s three fundamentals of the path. He opens by recapping Buddha-nature — the seeds of wisdom, love, and creative energy present in everyone, including in moments of intense self-doubt — before guiding a brief mindfulness sit and a reflection on precious human freedoms. The session’s main subject is impermanence and death: a Tibetan story of a meditator who ignored four death-warnings, and a train-journey analogy, frame mortality-awareness as life-enhancing rather than morbid. The final third defends rebirth on rational grounds, using the distinction between substantial and cooperative causes and a television-set analogy to argue that the brain transmits rather than produces consciousness. Suited to newcomers open to philosophical argument alongside meditation practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 1993 05 24 ItB.mp3
UUID: 468b4134-ef55-43ba-846d-60c46d27ea1f
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Intro to Buddhism (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-05-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 91.4 minutes
Words: ~9,894
We may hold as worthwhile, that is to say, some preferred outcome for our life, some preferred story, whatever it might be, something which embodies the qualities of the type of person that we would like to become, happy healthy loving sane human being in some way. And this is going to be very unique to each of us, whatever that might be. And you know this is the the model or the story of Buddhism we call enlightenment or awakening. And I’ve talked about this is the direction that we are continually orientating ourselves toward. And I talked about what its qualities might be in some sort of more relevant terms perhaps to our ordinary selves.
You know the quality of wisdom, knowing the way things are beyond our misconceptions, beyond our superstitions and mistaken ways of knowing. Love and compassion, a burning desire that others be happy that they not suffer, a feeling tone of an awakened state of being, and then the quality of spontaneous creative energy working in the world and enthusiasm for life, a certain vitality of intensity to our being. And trying to understand that all of these qualities that we have the seeds of all of these qualities within inside of ourselves at present. Know that we all know. That we all have some wisdom, no matter how obscure, how faint that wisdom might be, that we all have some love and compassion, no matter how exclusive or how limited our love and compassion might be, that we all have some creative energies and some vitality, body and mind.
So that the seeds of this awakened state, the seeds of this eventual outcome that we’re redirecting ourselves toward are within all of us and gaining some kind of trust, kind of conviction with something innately sane, innately positive about ourselves and that we can begin to take refuge in something with inside of ourselves which can be an ultimate solution to our problems, that we are the creators of our problems and we are the resolvers, that we can find the resolution with inside of ourselves. You know, this quality of awakening or enlightenment, It has its origin in the history of humankind itself that there have been an infinite number of people who have actually achieved such a state, that they have solved the problems of the human dilemma from a very basic level, the human condition that we find ourselves in, which is for most of us quite dissatisfactory. That’s the nature of our situation. You know, We take as a model the historical Buddha, Śākyamūni Buddha who was born about twenty six hundred years ago in what is now modern day Nepal in Lumbini. And the Buddha was a human being just like ourselves.
He was at one time an ordinary person just like ourselves. But he became what he was through his own effort, through evolving what was innate within himself and which is innate within all of ourselves. That is to say that the Buddha was not born as an extraordinary person, that somehow that was his nature intrinsically. But he became an extraordinary person through his own effort, his own human effort. He actualized within himself the potential which exists within all of us.
So it’s not there’s no qualitative difference between ourselves and the model that we’re all working toward. That there’s no unbridgeable gulf between ourselves and Buddhas, these Buddhas, these happy, healthy, loving, sane human beings. It’s simply a matter of quantitative steps that we take, that we actualize the potential inside of ourselves, developing, growing, fostering these seeds that we all have inside of ourselves. You know, the awakened person, the Buddha, and there have been many women and men who have achieved such a state. He is taken as the highest being in the universe, this is like our paradigm, our model that we’re working toward.
And the Buddha is respected, is worshipped, is revered for showing a way, for demonstrating what it is possible by and for setting an example. And that, in other words, the Buddha is worshipped as a teacher, as a guide, as an exemplar. Know, Buddhahood or this state of being a happy, loving, healthy, sane human being is our birthright. You know, however, you know, sometimes we see we’re seeing our pain, dissatisfaction, being completely caught up and focused on our problems, we begin to develop a very negative image of ourselves that there’s something wrong about ourselves innately, that there’s a deficiency, an insufficiency, there’s something not right quite right about ourselves. But we have to understand that that whatever we can may conceive of ourselves is simply that, it is only a conception.
It is not accurately described the totality of who we are in fact. Whatever identity we may hold to is simply that, some peculiar identity that we have latched onto for various reasons over the course of our lives. It is only an identity. It does not encompass the totality of our being. You know, there there are times when in our blackness moments when when we’re really down on ourselves, when we we think the the bottom of of the hole in the road is higher than we are.
You know, when we look out of our garbage minds and and can see only blackness, only darkness around ourselves and what’s inside of ourselves. And I think, you know, it’s it’s important to try to understand what what we are trying to tell ourselves at such moments. It’s asking us to look at our situation. You know, there’s a saying, the wounds are the mouths trying to tell us the truth about ourselves. Our unhappiness and our suffering are trying to make a statement to ourselves about our life and the way we’re living it.
And so it’s very necessary to listen to what it is we’re trying to tell ourselves as it were. You know, in those very moments when you think of yourself as being this lowest person in the world as it it seems like at times, completely insufficient, completely full of negative qualities, That very mind is trying is saying to you, look at your situation, look at what you’re doing and where you’re going. You know, the the the first step in the development of wisdom is to become aware of our ignorance. So at that very moment there’s wisdom working. You know, one of the one of the most in terms of the severely mentally ill, one of the most difficult characteristics is if a person isn’t aware that there’s something inappropriate in a way what they’re saying and what they’re doing, that it somehow is not in keeping with the situation in harmony with the with the circumstance.
But when we become aware that there’s something wrong, there’s something that kilter, there’s kind of discordance, then we can begin to look, we can begin to correct, we can begin to understand. So our our our pain, you know, when we begin to become aware, when we when we think that we were this lowest person in the world, you know, if we can use that mind to understand that our mind, our wisdom is operating at that very moment, trying to tell us something that we’re not quite operating our lives appropriately, that there’s something wrong with the way this system is working. That very mind, is it not a mind of compassion, isn’t it? It’s saying, you know, stop suffering. It’s a it’s a way that we we care for ourselves.
And that very insight, don’t go back to sleep. You’re just a little bit awake to your present circumstance, to what’s happening in your life. That’s energy. So quite often at that very those most difficult, most depressive, self denigrating moments, at that very moment rather than becoming more depressed, more down on ourselves, that we should rejoice that our our Buddha nature, these qualities of wisdom, qualities of love and compassion and creative energy are operating at that very moment, that we’re getting in touch touch with something which is very vital and innate within inside of ourselves. And we can, you know, use those moments as a source of refuge and believe begin to believe in ourselves and what we can do, that we can change, that we can grow.
We have to believe in our wisdom, believe in our love and compassion, use our love and compassion and energy, and that that becomes that is our ultimate refuge. That is the only thing that can really solve our problems at the most basic level. There’s nothing outside of ourselves which creates our problems. There’s nothing outside of ourselves which can solve our problems most basically most basic and the most fundamental level. The mind is in its place and its way can make a heaven of hell a hell of heaven.
It is the measure of all things, and we have a refuge within inside our own mind, and we have the wisdom and love and the creative energy whereby we can solve our problems, that we can change, we can develop our mind such that we can live out our preferred story. So this becomes the orientation that we take at the beginning of a talk or a meditation, the beginning of any activity, trying to open ourselves up to our own our innate sanity, to our own basic goodness, and allowing it to find expression in our daily life and all the various activities and situations that life brings us. And then it becomes a way of life. It becomes the style of a being. Okay.
So let’s we’re we’re going to meditate for a short while, and we can begin with the the practice of mindfulness and breathing using the techniques that is helpful of of of counting and noting, which I’ve been going over in the learning to meditate class at six o’clock. And last week the week before last, we we talked about the that we have all the various necessary external and internal conditions whereby to these seeds, these causes inside of ourselves, and the qualities of love and compassion and wisdom are are very much like a seed in the sense that a seed is is necessary to have both the main cause, which is the seed, but it’s also necessary to have the various the proper conditions. In the case of like a flower seed, the seed the flower seed in itself is not sufficient. It’s necessary that we have proper conditions whereby to activate, to germinate the seed we have to have soil and water, sunlight. And then through this coming together, this aggregation of main cause, the seed itself, plus the proper conditions, then we can grow a flower.
Likewise, we all have the causes to solve our problems of becoming this person that we all want to be in some way or another, however we may define it, however unique expression it might find in our life. But if we have to also appreciate not only that we have the causes, this internal seed, but we have all the necessary conditions and we talked about this last week. And we have to appreciate them that we how fortunate in fact we are and how freed the freedom that we all enjoy. Both in material in terms of material, physical, but also in terms of our internal being. You know, our social freedoms, our social our material prosperity.
But it what we have is extremely rare. If we look at all the millions and billions of people who live on this planet, very few enjoy the standard of living that we have, that they are all our material needs are easily met, comparatively speaking. That we live in a free country where we can we have the hours and the leisure to pursue whatever creative interest that might we might want to follow. These are very rare situations in terms of the world, but also internally, you know, trying to appreciate that we have that we have an inclination to to grow, to develop ourselves, that we have that we have a freedom from many obstacles internally in terms of physical, you know, we’re relatively healthy, that we aren’t we have intelligence, that we aren’t mentally handicapped in some way, that we that we aren’t completely caught up in materialism, bigger, better, more power. So I think, know, appreciating what in fact we all do have is extremely important because if you begin to appreciate something, you’re more inclined to make use of it.
It’s when we take things for granted that we that we don’t avail ourselves of because we don’t we forget the potential that that lies there. It’s like having, you know, a a beggar having golden pot and using it for a to throw trash in, not appreciating its worth. Well, once it’s pointed out, then the sensible thing for that person would probably be to sell it and and gain get whatever would make them happy. Likewise, appreciating all that we do have and to make use of it, to make it meaningful, and to get what it is that we want out of it. So we’re going to also try to we’re going to meditate on some of our freedoms and fortunes that we have and just so that we can develop the mind which appreciates them, that doesn’t take them for granted or doesn’t only look at the negative in our lives, how much of what I don’t have.
We’re quite often orientated in that direction and we we forget what in fact we do have. So if you take a comfortable but firm posture, we’ll begin with mindfulness of breathing. Using, if it’s helpful, the techniques of counting and noting. So bringing the mind to the breath, the natural, easy in and out flow of the breath. Just gently bringing the mind back to the breath consistently.
Now we’re going to look at all the freedoms and measures and fortune that we all have. Let’s do first from a negative point of view. Thinking, you know, what could I do if I was a beggar living on the streets of Calcutta? Imagine yourself in a situation, what you spend all day from early dawn to late at night just trying to get enough money to feed your family for that day, come home tired and dirty and worn. What could you do to develop your mind?
What chances and choices do you have? Or if you were a Muslim in Bosnia and they’ve been in a small village which is continually being bombarded with the fighting that was going on every day, the way the people around you were dying. What choices, what chances do you have in such a situation? What kind of life? Could you you study?
Could you meditate? Could you pursue your interests to grow? Imagine what kind of situation it would be. Imagine even living in Australia that you were completely caught up with materialism, continuing struggling for more power, more higher position, more pay, more possessions, better car, bigger house, all your time, energy, thoughts completely absorbed in bigger, better, more. Or suppose you’re undergoing some kind of chemotherapy, drug therapy for cancer or some other illness that affected your mind, you couldn’t think clearly.
What could you do in such a situation to develop your mind? Or if you’re intellectually handicapped or psychotic. Of you in continual chronic pain physically. Let’s look at our freedom and fortune from a positive point of view. We live in a free country.
We have all our material needs easily met. We can pursue any of our interests. That we’re relatively physically healthy. That we’re intelligent and have love and compassion and an inclination to develop ourselves to grow. So you have everything that you need both inside and outside.
There’s nothing that stops you. And then bring your mind back to the breath. It’s easy to enter in and out flow out the breath. And then slowly become aware of your body, surroundings, gently in your own good time. Last week, I think you spoke on women in Buddhism.
Did you find that useful? Good. Okay. Maybe the maybe the maybe the women did. I don’t know.
So, you know, we’re looking at the three fundamentals of the path. The path is that which takes you from perhaps where you’re at now, an ordinary person with perhaps a lot of problems and some reoccurring compulsive patterns which are impoverishing, subjugating, which are leading to dissatisfactions and unhappiness within your life, to a place perhaps which is the outcome of a pre preferred story, the type of person that you would like to be, the model of which we hold in Buddhism as an awakened person, someone who is a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being, has solved some of the basic problems of ordinary ego-orientated existence, has found inner peace for themselves, and compassionately works skillfully in order to help others to do the same. That’s kind of the model that we use, the direction that we take. These three fundamentals of the path. Developing the determination to awaken, to grow, the awakening heart, cultivation of love and compassion, and the awakening mind.
Developing an understanding or wisdom with respect to the nature of the I, the nature of the self, the nature of phenomena, the way they actually exist, overcoming ignorance with respect to these. And we’re looking at the three first of these three fundamentals. Develop a new determination to be free or to awaken. We we’ve talked we’re working our way through some of the subject matter, the the the series, the steps in the development of this developmental process, that we begin to have some confidence in ourselves, faith in our own basic sanity. And as we talk about at the beginning of every talk, that we discuss that we have a Buddha nature, that we have the the solutions to our problems, that we have wisdom, that we have love, and a vitality, a mental and physical energy, a basic sanity, a basic goodness about ourselves, which acts as the basis for transformation, the seed of awakening within inside of ourselves.
And then we went on to try to develop an appreciation that we have all the necessary circumstances whereby to avail ourselves of our basic sanity to help it to actualize. It’s not enough that we have the seed, we actually have to grow it. And we have the necessary conditions just like the flower seed. We have the soil and the earth, that is to say. We have the soil and water of external situations and internal situation that we just meditated on, that we just took a look at.
But we have to understand that this situation is not going to last forever. It’s definite that we’re going to die in the time of our death that’s uncertain. And this holds true not only for the big death, which occurs at the end of this life. And as someone as someone once said that death is a radical change of lifestyle. And to And in many ways, we we undergo radical changes of lifestyle oftentimes over the course of our life, you know, through through the death of a loved ones, through people lose their job, circumstances change, divorces, whatever.
Really when our whole world is turned upside down, the known is left behind. And then there’s a transition. The old is dying away and the new is yet to begin. And this is a certain kind of death, a process which is going through. So we can talk in terms of the big death at the end of this life, also in terms of these small deaths which are occurring over the course of our lives.
So trying to begin to appreciate our lives. That we talk about death, we confront the issue of death, not in order to make ourselves depressed, but in order to appreciate our life, to make use of it while we still have it. Death is not the last taboo at all, but a very modern one. In this era of demystification, death becomes perverse and more mysterious, more terrible than ever before. We need to have death back again.
It’s transcendence with banalities, emptiness, frustrations, vanities, and some kinds of love in their place. Contemplation of terminal issues is not the least morbid, but in life enhancing. So for most of us, death is something which is dark, unknown, something to be feared. And fear is fundamentally a state of unawareness supported by irrational beliefs. And we all have many grandiose beliefs around the subject of death.
Now, we we have, at some level, a belief I shouldn’t have to die, Things shouldn’t be like this. The universe should be ordered differently than it is. I should have some kind of guarantee that I’m going to live for a long, long time. Death should not be this way for me or for those people I love. And I’m not going to let it happen, because it’s unfair and it’s terribly sad and it makes me feel very lonely and very fearful.
Well, the thing about death is that it may be unfortunate. It might be terribly sad, but it’s also terribly normal. Whoever we might be, whatever we might be doing. It’s the nature of our human condition. We would rather forget about death.
We would rather that you know, to to place some kind of veils between ourselves in an impending death. Okay. You know, maybe, okay, I’m gonna die. But not anytime soon. Sometime in the big and distant future when I’m really old, when I can’t do much anymore.
Then it won’t matter so much if I die. But that’s that’s irrational, that’s foolish thinking. But we’d rather not face up to it. We’d rather not talk about it in death. And thus our our life goes by without having ever really lived our life.
You know, there’s a student who went to a Zen master, And he said to the master, master, how do I prepare for for death? And the master said, learn to live. And the student said, well, how should I learn to live? And the master said, prepare yourself for death. And to face and take control of our fear of death means to take control of our life, to allow this fear to cease running our life, that we gain control of our lives.
And but not only is the purpose of contemplating death to overcome fear, but to begin to live totally, that the contemplation of terminal issues is life enhancing. The Buddha was quite he said, of all the various mindfulnesses, the various things that we could keep in mind, it is probably death which is the most important. Now would the impending death change our life? What call it what how would it what way would we act differently? How would we would we spend our time would we waste our time in doing things which we found meaningless, which we found not only you know, dissatisfactory?
And how could it enhance the quality of our life if we thought that we were going to die, say, within three months or six months? How will we live our life differently? We might begin to to set our priorities along different lines in different ways. We might begin to live the life that of our innermost held dreams, of our highest aspirations, of that which made me happy. I think there would be a a radical restructuring, I think.
This is that is to say, we would live a a a life of greater intensity and with greater meaning in terms of our own unique values, what was important for me, rather than living the life of others, which is the types of lives which have, to a large extent, been imposed upon ourselves. As a means to to confront the notion of death, become aware of its of its basic reality and cultivate a mindfulness of it, there’s a a method of meditation in which we first looking at the that death is definite, overcoming our sense at some level of immortality that we are whole. You know, looking at the very the basic fact that no matter who the individual might be, whether they’re right. We can go down the list of all types of people, you know, dictators, kings, queens, presidents, saints, writers, poets, murderers, criminals, philosophers, students of Buddha house, monks of Buddha house. Whoever it may be, no matter how powerful, how beautiful, how rich that they all live, they they did their various activities over the course of their lives, and that they die.
There is a story of a meditator in the in the in the mountains of Tibet. And he went to meet his teacher on one occasion. And he was quite concerned about death, his own death. And he said to his teacher, please, send me a message if you become aware of the impending of my death, that my death is approaching. I wish you I want to know about it.
So, would you please advise me when you become aware that my death is coming, that it’s approaching? And and his master agreed. And he went back to his his hermitage, his cave, and carry on his meditations. And one day he received a message, and the message said that someone to the village in the north had just died. And they said, well, that’s that’s I’m sorry to hear that, but that really doesn’t have any relevance to, you know, to what I’m doing.
And a few days later, message came, someone died in the village in the south. Oh, wow. Okay. Everybody’s gonna die, but it doesn’t have any relevance to my life. And then sometime later, I messaged someone to the east, village in the east.
Sometime later, another message that a villager in the west had died. And then sometimes later, the meditator himself became gravely ill, mortally ill. He was dying. And he sent a message to his teacher to come. And his teacher came and he said to his teacher, I ask you to please to to let me know when you became aware that my death was approaching.
And you did you you told me nothing. And the master said, I did not not tell you nothing. I sent you four messages That, you know, that the very fact of others dying around us should be a message to ourselves that likewise we too shall die, no matter who they might be. You know, our lifespan our lifespan is continually decreasing. You know, seconds add up to minutes, minutes add up to hours, hours up to days, days to weeks, weeks to years, years to decades, decades to lifetimes.
You know, even as we sit here, it’s very much like Going on a long train journey, you know, overnight journey, maybe across the country. And, you know, you leave the station and you carry out all these activities while you’re on the train. You know, you you read, you talk with people, you laugh, you think, you go to the toilet, you eat, you sleep. Even while you’re going through all of these activities, the train is moving continually toward its destination, moment by moment, kilometer by kilometer, no matter whether you’re enjoying the journey, no matter whether you’re reading, no matter whether you’re unhappy or sleeping, relentlessly moving toward its terminal, its termination. And then when it arrives, you have to give up.
You have no choice. You’re not asked. And even as we sit here now, seconds of our life, we’re moving toward the final moment of our life. And we have to ask ourselves how much time do we actually spend in developing our mind and looking at the quality of our everyday life. How much time do we in average day, how many hours do you sleep?
How many hours do you work? How many how much time do you spend eating, socializing? How much time do you spend feeling depressed, feeling bored, feeling angry, feeling lazy? And as opposed to how much time do you feel do you spend trying to develop your own mind, trying to grow, to foster some of these attitudes and ways of thinking which are going to lead you to the person that you’ve decided that you want to become, to actively taking your life in your own hands, responsibility and becoming that person that you want to be. Very little.
So if we begin to think in this way then there then there we we develop some kind of determination to begin to use our life. Just begin to set our priorities along those lines which are going to enhance our existence, are going to foster ways a lifestyle which is going to bring about the way we want to be somewhere down the track. But we simply don’t know when we’re going to die. The time of our death is uncertain. You know, the some people, you know, fetuses die in the womb.
Babies die at birth. Infants at the age of three. Children at the age of eight. Teenagers, fourteen.. And young people at the age of twenty, twenty three, twenty six, twenty nine, thirty two, thirty five, thirty eight, forty two, forty six, forty nine, fifty three.
We’ll stop there. So the point is, there’s no age that people don’t die at. There’s not one age that someone has not died at. They die at any age. You know, just because we may feel healthy and strong at the moment does not mean in any way that tomorrow we couldn’t be mortally ill, in pain and ready to die.
You you can ask any life insurance person what the statistical probabilities on you dying in the next week are. And they could, give you some kind of policy. And they some kind of odds on it, you know. And they know they’re going to lose once in a while. It’s like a bet that they’re making with you when you’re going to die.
You know, there are many causes of death. And every day, you can hear about disasters, all kinds of earthquakes, landslides, forest fires, floods, storms, famines, terrorism, wars. But we may feel very safe at present. So for us there is heart attacks, cancer. You know, there’s plane crashes, car crashes, fires.
And then of course there’s old age. People die in their sleep. People die going to work. People die at work, coming home from work. They die watching television, vacuuming the house.
They die attending meditation courses, teachings. They die giving talks. There’s probably there’s no activity during which no one someone has not died. People die in their you know, they die at home. They die in hospitals.
They die on the road. There’s no place that people don’t die. There’s no time that people don’t die. There’s no activity during which people don’t die. There’s no age in which people don’t die.
And if you begin to look at our human body, it’s fragility. And it’s nice soft skin which holds it all together. It’s quite vulnerable. You know, just within a minute this body can change from being strong and active to being helpless, weak and full of pain. Just a piece of metal, a sliver of glass, an air bubble, a virus which we can’t even see can end our life.
So death can happen at any time. So thinking about this fact that the time of death is uncertain not only takes us beyond about that I’m going to lead my life meaningfully, but I’m not going to wait until vague and distant time in the future. I’ve got to do something fairly soon. I don’t know how long I’m going to have this chance. And what is going to be of any benefit at the time of my death?
Know what? Know, setting aside the big death at the end of this life, the little deaths, you know, most of us have to be, as it were, you know, we’re we’re we’re drug into change. How many people voluntarily, enthusiastically take on change in their life, take that risk? You know, what gives people confidence to enter into transitions when their values are changing, their world is turning upside down? What facilitates some individuals that they voluntarily almost invite change in their life.
It requires some real degree of inner confidence. You know, the things about us that that this You know, I may not know all the details, the particularities of how things are going to turn out. We you know, we in in many respects, we can’t know. The variables are there are too many to be able to predict all the particular specifics of any outcome. But we can have a sense I know I’m going to land on my feet.
I don’t know this quite what the situation is going to look like when I do land, but I know I’m going to land on my feet. We can have that sort of inner confidence inside of ourselves. And therefore, can enter into change. We can begin to take risks. You know, that all of the possessions about us, you know, in these crises that people go through, you know, what what really is a benefit someone’s life is totally turned upside down, perhaps through a death, perhaps through some great loss?
You know, how of what use are all our material possessions to such a person at that time? Or even if you those around them, even if they were to hold their hand their hand and wish them all the best sincerely, can that take the pain from their heart? And even in a even their own bodies. It is the mind itself which is determinant, which is going to help them to to live through the crisis and make it a springboard to something even better, for it to allow it to be something which crushes the goodness of who they are in their life, losing sight of any possibilities that they become victims of the situation. It’s their own mind and which is going to be determined.
If one understands this then one one is going to make not only begin to do something, to take control of one’s life, to begin to set priorities, not only will one seek to make life meaningful, not only will one begin to act soon but one will begin to determine that the quality to take control over the quality of one’s own mind, to begin to direct one’s own mind, to begin to set priorities in one’s life in terms of developing one’s own mind. So it cannot So it can be seen that coping with the dread of death is not just a small thing, a peculiar A particular technique that makes us feel better about our eventual physical demise. But this really contains the clue to leading an infinitely better life and should therefore be an essential part of our basic education. Any individual who goes into this question at all is faced sooner or later with a certain choice. Either life is brought to fulfillment or life continues as it functions at present, thereby wasting the potential for the happiness which is not only our birthright but unbeknownst to us our real nature.
So looking at we’ve looked at death. Now everybody’s going to so we’re dead, right? And we’re going to be reborn. So I thought I would I would didn’t wanna leave you in a depressed state. I thought talk a little bit about the proof of rebirth.
Talk about that. Ideas around rebirth. You know, there We can approach the question of rebirth, establishing rebirth in several different ways, you know, that perhaps oneself could recollect one’s own previous rebirth. And by rebirth, I use rebirth and reincarnation are synonyms, I just prefer the word rebirth, okay? One self could remember, could recollect one’s own rebirth by just spontaneously or that maybe through recall, deliberate training, maybe under hypnotic regression, some kind of credible testimony, people you believe they remember their rebirths or through logical reasoning.
So there are a lot of books written on rebirth, the case histories, people spontaneously remembering their rebirth and there’s books written on people remembering their birth through hypnotic regression. So I think you can take a look at these. But I want to focus mainly on the logic, the reasoning behind rebirth. And I think mostly to eliminate some of the grosser misconceptions about what Buddhism means about rebirth, and secondly to try in some way to establish that rebirth does have a rational foundation, it’s not a matter of blind faith. I don’t think perhaps the think we have to take a neutral position if we’re going to be reasonable.
There has been no one has ever seen the nonexistence of rebirth. No one has ever established the nonexistence of rebirth. No scientist, no philosopher seen the nonexistence of rebirth. So at best we have to take a neutral position if we’re going to be open minded about it. Most people who believe one way or the other believe again that rebirth doesn’t exist or they believe rebirth does exist.
It doesn’t have much meaning to their life either way because they probably have never looked at it very deeply either way. You know, they just wish for more lives because it makes them feel better or they simply have been influenced by mechanistic science toward the bias of its nonexistence. So it might be useful just to look at it in terms of perhaps in more reasonable terms. So in looking at the rebirth we’re going to look at it it’s necessary to introduce two concepts which we’re going to make use of. The first of these is distinguishing between two types of causes.
One is substantial cause, substantial cause and cooperative cause. Substantial cause and cooperative cause. And the second concept that we’re going to make use of is similarity of type. These are the two tools that we’re going to make use of in establishing in reasonable way the notion of rebirth. Two types of causes and the notion of similarity of type.
So first, the two types of causes. They’re all products. That’s it, everything which is produced, tables, rugs, buildings, people, cars, the world, trees, everything that we can name about us is a product. They all rise in dependence upon a cause. But moreover they require two types of causes.
Every product, every thing in the universe is arises as in dependence upon two types of causes. If we just take a simple example of a pot, you know, that’s been sculpt, that’s been what’s it made by a potter? The substantial cause of the pot is the wet clay, the big lump of wet clay. That’s the substantial cause of the pot. This clay itself becomes the substance of the pot.
It transformed itself. That’s why they call it a substantial cause. The very substance becomes part of the finished product, becomes a part of the thing itself. Substantial cause. Second type of cause is called cooperative cause.
Sometimes cooperative condition, cooperative cause. The cooperative cause of the pot are the potter, the person who makes the pot, the wheel, the various tools. These also are causes of pot. Without the potter, without the wheel, without all these tools, there’s no pot made. But big difference isn’t there?
The potter doesn’t become a part of the pot. The you know, that the potter, you know, puts his apron puts it puts their the potter puts their apron on in the morning, makes lots of pots. And pretty much the same, know, takes the apron off at the end of the day and leaves the studio. And the wheel was pretty much the same as they started the tools. They caused those pots but they didn’t become incorporated into the substance of the pot.
So these two types of causes, substantial cause. Know, we can another example like a flower, growing a flower. You need a seed which has the genetic information, which has the substance of the flower as it were, and you also need causes and conditions. Need I mean, you need cooperative causes in the earth, water. So all products whatsoever must necessarily have these two causes.
You know, if you have one or the other you don’t get a result. There for example, archaeologists have found wheat seeds in the pyramids of Egypt which, you know, perhaps five thousand years old. And they’ve taken these seeds and they’ve put them in earth and watered them and they sprouted wheat. So these seeds, which are the main cause, maintain their potency over five thousand years, but they didn’t produce a result. It was necessary that they came together both not only the substantial cause, the seed, but also the the cooperative condition.
Without without both of these coming together, there’s no product, there’s no result. If you you could have all the water in earth in the world and you’d never grow a flower unless you have flower seed. So we have to have both of these coming together to produce any product. So everything in the universe is exactly the same way, requires both a substantial cause and a cooperative cause. And the second concept that we’re going to make use of is the similarity of type and I’m going have to go a little bit faster I think.
So within nature there is a consistent similarity of type or class between a cause and its result. An apple seed produces an apple tree, an orange seed produces an orange tree. Ice ice comes from water, it doesn’t come from wood. Physical objects produce physical objects. Physical objects are not produced by space, non physical objects.
So there’s always a consistency of similarity and type between You know, if you want an apple tree you plant an apple seed, you don’t plant an orange seed or you don’t plant a bell, it doesn’t work. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried it. Experiment. It is the view of mechanistic science that the mind or consciousness arises from the body or more specifically the brain or the nervous system. Therefore when the body dies the causes for the mind cease and the, the body decomposes, returns to its elements, and the mind disappears like a rainbow fading away.
So, okay, we can look at this. We’re going look at this one thing. I think it’s the the law of within physics, the law of conservation of mass and energy. It says that the sum total of the mass and energy is constant in the universe. That things are simply transforming from mass to energy, energy to mass back and forth, but the sum total in the universe is infinite, I mean, is consistent, is always the same.
If the mind is non physical, you know, the states of love and hate, of faith, mindfulness, compassion, jealousy, all these various states, cognitive states. If they are non physical, then if they are produced from the physical, from the mind, there are two things. One is that there would be a loss of mass and energy. That is that is a mass and energy with which are both physical objects. It would be transforming into something which is not physical.
So there would be a loss of mass energy, the total mass energy in the universe. So this would be contradictory to this the law of conservation of mass energy, which states that the sum total of mass energy in the universe is always the same If the brain acting as the cause for the mind, there would be a lessening of the total amount of physical elements in the universe that would transforming into a non physical substance. Some people who think of themselves as scientifically minded believe that the mind is the mind is the brain or the function of the brain. And that for this reason there is no essential mind matter dichotomy. According to their view everything can be explained in terms of the material world.
They choose to overlook the qualities of the mind that have no relation to matter such as subjective experience, thought, emotion. Although they would not take seriously the story of Pinocchio No, Pinocchio. Pinocchio, where a simple piece of matter, a stick, inexplicably develops a mind experiencing hopes and fears, pleasures and pain and so on. They would not find it strange as subatomic particles, atoms or molecules started to produce thoughts and feelings. However, not only is there no scientific evidence whatever that such phenomena is possible, but it represents a semantic confusion or categories.
Linguistically there is category of mind and there’s category of not mind, that is matter. Matter or the material world is that which exists out there beyond our senses. If it does not exist independent of the senses how can it be categorized as material? How can a material world that exists outside the senses also be the senses that sense and experience it? Such a theory does not answer anything.
It does not even begin to address itself to the question of what consciousness experience is, let alone to the question of what might or might not be external to it. And coming down the proof of rebirth comes down to the question from where does the mind come from? You know, does from where does it arise? Does it arise from mass energy, from physical, or does it arise from something other than physical? The mind doesn’t arise the mind is a thing.
It might be difficult to understand what it is, but it seems to be there. It is our inner lived experience. It does it does not come from nothing. There is no other example in the universe which we can look to where something comes from nothing. It must have a cause.
Its cause must be similar in type to itself. If there’s a consistency of similarity of types it the nature of the mind is non physical. It has a nature of luminosity or knowing, clear and knowing, non physical knowing quality. Non physical knowing quality. So what has been asserted is that that it would be it would contradict the the notion of that the there is a relationship, a consistency of type between result and cause.
That the mind being non physical cannot arise from physical. That just as that there let’s see. All physical, you know, everything that’s around us is simply a re transformation, a recycling of mass and energy. All the various things about this, just transformations of different proportions of mass and energy made of the stuff of mass and energy. Where did the first moment of mind come from in the course of this life?
Now if it arose from a can ask the question, where did the first atom come from? The first bit of matter in the universe come from. The point which is being gotten at here is that matter arises from a previous moment of matter. Mind arises from a previous moment of mind. Matter arises does not arise from mind and does not arise from space.
Mind does not arise from matter and does not arise from space. There are the continuums of previous moments of all of these various substances. So looking at the the very first moment of mind of this life, you know, there is a there is a there is an ovum and a sperm coming together as fertilization. So the question comes comes down to as far as rebirth is concerned, where does the mind come from? Does it come from the combination of sperm and ovum or does it come from the cause other than that?
From the point of view of Buddhism that the mind which is present at the moment of conception necessarily has to come from a cause similar type to itself, that is say from another mind, from a previous moment of mind. The first moment of mind of this life, the cause of the first moment of the mind of this life is the last moment of the mind of the last life. The last moment the last moment of mind of the last life, the previous life is the cause of the first moment of mind of this life. The the just as in the case of today our present mind that we have right now is arose in dependence upon the mind that we walked in the door with, that we that we came to Buddha House with, that we woke up with. The mind of today is dependent upon the mind of yesterday.
That mind is dependent upon last week’s mind, last year’s mind, childhood’s mind, infancy’s mind, all the way back. One you know, the fact that if we had a traumatic experience when we were a child, it still affects our present thinking in some way. That influence has carried forth, that our present thinking is a product of a traumatic experience that we had as a childhood, that mental experience that we had. That mental experience has carried forth in these continuum, these mind moments to the present situation, to our present way of thinking, moving all the way back to the moment of conception. Therefore, the idea is that there is no first moment of mind, that we can never point to a first moment of mind.
This is when the mind began, my continuum of mind, your continuum of mind. As we cannot point to any first moment of Adam, there’s never that these both regress back infinitely without beginning. Each of our minds are beginningless just as the universe is itself physical universe is beginningless. The mind and the body are interdependent. The body acts as the cooperative condition, the cooperative cause of mind.
We talked about the two types of causes. It’s like the seed and the soil and the water. So the mind and body are interdependent on one another. If not feeling well physically, then you can’t think very clearly. Your mind doesn’t operate very well.
Or on the other hand, many you know, it’s quite obvious in the case of psychosomatic illnesses or many stress related illnesses like asthma or Uh-huh. Ulcers, that the quality the nature of our health of our body is dependent upon the mind. So they condition one another. They exist interdependent upon one another. But they do not They are not the substantial cause of one another.
They are each other’s cooperative causes. But they’re not the substantial cause. Now, the the the mechanistic science would posit. They would they would say that the brain is the substantial cause of the mind. The brain is the substantial cause of the mind.
And they would offer observations from clinical and experimental neurology showing that, you know, there seems to be a clear connection between various conscious processes and physiological processes in the brain. The brain contusions, anesthesia, restriction in the blood supply to the brain can bring about loss of consciousness. A tumor in one part of the brain is associated with changes in consciousness that are quite specific. If you have they can actually correct defects of the mind through neurosurgery, through drug therapy. So it is on the basis of this understanding.
You know, like if they they put a needle in one part of the brain, certain characteristic conscious aberrations will occur. Certain visions will occur. Certain states of mind will occur if they when they manipulate the actual brain itself. So from this, they say that the the brain is the cause of the mind, substantial cause of the mind. So this trying to show how this is this is the main mechanistic scientific way of establishing that the brain is the the substantial cause of the mind because they can manipulate the brain and therefore they can manipulate consciousness.
Now, this is We can we can show the illogic of this way of thinking with the simple example of a television set. You know, the the image, the picture, the quality of the picture and the sound of a television set are critically dependent upon the structural and functional integrity of the set, whether all the parts are there, whether they’re all working properly, will determine the quality of the picture and the quality of the sound. If one of them is missing, if one of them is not functioning, and if some component is not working properly, then a specific distortion of the picture, of the sound will occur. A reliable television person can just by watching, by looking at the screen, by listening to the sound, can tell in many instances which component isn’t working, which component may be loose burnt out. Just can tell by the distortions which part isn’t operating properly.
So, you know, we can see that if we’re going to have the prerequisite for the image, the picture to be good and the sound to be good is that all the parts be present and they be operating properly. Yet no one would say that the television itself is the source of the picture, is the source of the images on the screen, is the source of the voices. Yet mechanistic science in interpreting their their this neurological example that they give that the that the brain is the source, is producing the consciousness, would would have to would have to posit would have to say that the television sets and the parts of the television set are producing the images which are seen on the screen, the pictures, just in the same way that a computer can produce animations. Or that they would have to say that the television set is producing the voices just in the same way that voice synthesizer. You know, they have electronic synthesizers which produce sounds which sound like a voice.
They would have to say that television is producing the images. It’s like a computer generated images, It’s like a a voice synthesizer is able to synthesize voices. But we know that that the television set is the basis for transmission of the voices, of the pictures. That actually, there’s somebody in a studio, you know, maybe twenty five kilometers away. Someone in the studio who who is being who is being who is appearing on a camera, who’s saying things.
And that’s the source of that is this person and what they’re saying. And intelligence that is simply the transmission is the cooperative cause, not the substantial cause. The substantial cause is the person themselves standing in a studio and their voice. We need this cooperative cause just like we need the brain as the cooperative cause of consciousness. It acts as a basis for transmission.
If all the parts of our brain are not present, if we manipulate these parts, if we poke it, if we have tumors, then the it’s just like in the case of the television set. Then there’s going to be if there’s a transistor is not present, if there’s some kind of capacitor that’s not working, then there’s going to be a distortion of transmission. But because these the television set is the cooperative cause. This is in the case of the brain. The brain is the cooperative cause.
But the source, the substantial effect of those causes of that voice, of that picture of a person, is the person in a studio, you know, twenty five kilometers away. So this is in the same case. We the body, the brain is the basis of transmission. The basis of transmission. The basis of in which the mind functions.
If it’s impaired, the mind is not able to express itself, just as in the case of the the television set. But the brain is not a substantial cause. It itself does not transform into consciousness. It is a support for consciousness. Just as the consciousness is a condition, a support for our body.
They’re mutually interdependent. But what about the computer? Is it computer? Okay. It says the voice that it creates a picture in the computer.
It’s the source of it. But the Yeah. Doesn’t create a human voice. It it affects similarly of a human voice. Yeah.
To have a to It requires a human to create a human voice. Yeah. So that’s my point. The the the computer can only generate synthesize computer voices. It can’t create a human voice.
It requires, you know, you can you can in in a cassette player, it’s it’s in order to have a sound of my voice on a cassette cassette player, I there has to be someone who actually a human voice which brings which causes that on the cassette. It has to have a a cause which is similar in type. There’s nothing else which can produce a human voice. A computer can produce something which is quite similar but not a human voice. It requires a human to produce a human voice.
It requires consciousness to produce consciousness. And the computer may resemble consciousness in many aspects, but it’s not conscious. And so I don’t know if I got that point across. It’s kind of you know, the one just very quick idea is that that the according to mechanistic science and explaining human intelligence as a product of material processes of the brain, you know, which itself evolved out of some kind of chemical ooze in the primordial primeval ocean. It contradicts the second law of thermodynamics, which is that all open systems tend toward randomness, that the open systems tend toward dissipation, whereas intelligence is obviously a very a process of more and more refined structure.
And the probability of human intelligence, you know, developing all the way from the chemical ooze in the prime primeval ocean to its present state is, you know, solely dependent upon random processes. It has been compared to a tornado blowing, you know, a tornado blowing through a junkyard and accidentally constructing a jumbo seven forty seven, something like that. So I don’t know if that just gives you there is some kind of thinking, reasonable rationale around rebirth. It’s simply not a matter of blind faith or wishful thinking. I think, essentially, I’d like for you to go away with is the notion that it is the mind which is going to take rebirth.
Yeah? There is the combination of mind and body. They have a certain bond. I haven’t gone There is is there is a very subtle consciousness and a subtlest mind.