Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute session, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a guided Chenrezig meditation — light radiating from the heart, transforming beings across all six realms into Chenrezig before all dissolve into open space — then devotes most of the talk to a single Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka point: identifying the object of negation, the first of four steps for realizing emptiness. The central argument is that you cannot convincingly search for something you cannot clearly picture — just as you can never confirm a room holds no thief if you don’t know the thief’s face. He examines what the inherently existent I looks like during strong emotion, separates it from the conventional self (real, and not denied), and introduces nominal existence through the example of how “John” comes into being through the labeling process alone. Suited to practitioners with some Madhyamaka background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 HoM 1993 11 17.mp3
UUID: d30e2fbd-84dc-4a4f-8db3-1913dc8e6149
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-11-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.1 minutes
Words: ~4,856
But still we need to grow, we need to awaken, we need to solve our problems. And the greatest force that can do that is love and compassion. So, make a sincere request from your heart for compassion and love to enter more and more into your life, into your way of being and acting in the world. And in response to that request, again, a shaft of brilliant white light that extends from the heart of Chenrezig visualized before us to the crown of our head. And along the shaft of light flow, nectars, and lights, completely filling our body, which is love and compassion.
Completely filling our mind with love and compassion. All negativities, angers, hostility, violence, completely eliminated. Just completely fill totally with love and compassion. Body and mind completely filled. Brilliant white lights and nectars of love and compassion.
So beyond all your sense of limitedness and limiting conception, whatever identity you hold, just let go into a sense of that you are love and compassion. I’m a loving person. I’m a compassionate person. And imagine Chenrezig coming to the crown of your head, dissolving into a brilliant white light, dissolving down into your heart. Imagine all the various types of suffering living beings and extending a brilliant white light radiating out lights from your heart, which solve their problems, bring them happiness.
Brilliant light rays radiating out from your heart. And think of the hell beings, beings in in the nature of fire, freezing cold. The lights from your heart touch them, transforming them into Chenrezig. The hungry ghosts with huge stomachs with knots in their necks, insatiable appetites, completely caught up with the feelings of dissatisfaction, transforming them into Chenrezigs, and all the various animals, and all the sufferings that they experience. Light radiating from your heart, transforming them into Chenrezigs.
And think of all the people in the world, people in Somalia and Bosnia, the people who may live next door to you, the people in this room who are suffering. And the light radiating out from your heart touching them, transforming them into Chenrezig. And the lesser celestial beings, full of jealousy, full of pride. And even the gods, the celestial beings, completely absorbed in pleasure, in total self concern. Touch them with the light of your compassion and love, transforming them into Chenrezig.
All living beings, in infinite space. All living beings transformed into Chenrezig. And all these infinite Chenrezigs begin to absorb into oneself. And oneself slowly begins to dissolve from the bottom upwards and from the top downwards. Until there’s only clear infinite space and peace and love.
This clear infinite space and peace and love. Then gently bring your mind to the breath. And slowly becoming aware of your body. In a very relaxed and easy manner, becoming aware of your surroundings. There’s no hurry.
Just take your time. So though we have love and compassion, without wisdom, we cannot realize our ultimate goal of eliminating the root of our problems and the root of others’ problems, ignorance. So, you know, having given birth to the awakening heart, we have to go on to develop wisdom in the awakening mind. And we’re looking at the means of developing that wisdom through these four stages, and we’re looking at the fourth stage, the stage which represents the final thought of the Buddha as to the nature of reality, which is the means of overcoming ignorance, the wisdom realizing emptiness. The The stage of the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school.
So, you know, last week we talked about the inherent existence, the self defining existence. All these various terms which are synonymous, which are used to try to gain a sense of what is being gotten at when we talk about objective existence, objects existing from their own side, intrinsic existence. And we said, you know, that things are object objects are empty of these fantasized ways of existing, and that they’re empty. Emptiness is a lack of a hallucinated way of existing, which we are habitually and instinctively imposing upon all objects, tables, people, houses, fans, whatever. As if they define themselves, rather if they were independent of causes and conditions, as if they were independent of parts, as if they were independent of the perceptual process itself, that is to say independent of labeling, independent of being established through terms and concepts.
That’s the way things appear to us. That’s what the way of existing that we’re superimposing upon everything and everyone continually. Things are empty of that way of existing. Now there various categorizations or ways of classifying emptiness. The most broad classification of emptiness is in terms of emptiness of persons and emptiness of phenomena.
Persons here means living beings, but because we’re usually talking about people, we just use the term persons, but it also includes dogs, insects, just say persons. Emptiness of persons, emptiness of phenomena. This is the broadest classification. By phenomena, we mean those objects aside from living beings: tables, chairs, glasses, things like that, houses, cars. Emptiness of persons, emptiness of phenomena.
These two emptinesses, these lax absences of these fantasized ways of being are equally subtle. There’s no more subtle one is not more subtle than the other. The selflessness of a person is just as or the emptiness of persons is just as subtle as emptiness of phenomena, and vice versa. But because we are more familiar with persons, ourselves as having a self, it’s easy is said it’s more readily we can understand emptiness more readily in terms of the self of persons as opposed to the self of external objects like tables and people, tables and people other than oneself, the glasses, houses, whatever. So we’re beginning with ourselves.
Now we’re going to use a method, a way of you know, we we have to be very exacting. We’re trying to overcome an instinctive, very powerful misconception, and it’s going to require some powerful, conviction to overcome this ingrained belief in true existence in these fantasized ways of existing. There are various methods which are made use of. We’ve been talking about various methods in terms of the lower schools. Now we’re going to look at some method which is made use of at the level of the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school.
One of the most useful methods and most workable is what are called the four essentials or the sometimes called the four point analysis, the four keys. Just these are all the different names for the same thing. The four essentials. As a means, as a method to come to an understanding of emptiness, there are going to be four essentials, four keys, four points that we’re going to go through. The essential of determining the object of negation.
So, this is the first point. The first essential: determining the object of negation. The second is determining the pervasion. Determining the pervasion. The third is determining the lack of being the same.
And the fourth point, fourth essential, is determining the lack of being different. It said if one makes use of this method, there’s no possibility of there’s no danger of error, of mistake. One doesn’t one will come to the correct view. So, first, we’re going to go through these four points, and I have to apologize that I use a lot of time up down there. So, we’re going to have to work through some of these very, I think, in a more hurried fashion than I would like or that you you would like, I think.
Anyway, we’ll do it the best we can. This first essential, the first key, the essential determining or ascertaining or identifying the object negation. It’s both the most difficult and the most important. It’s too bad it works out that way, but that’s the reality of the situation. The first point: ascertaining or determining the object negation is both the most difficult and the most important.
If we don’t get this point right, the remaining three will have no power, will have no force. And it’s also the most difficult. What we must do at this stage is to get a clear picture, a clear picture of what the inherently existent self appears like, the way it appears to exist. An inherently existent self appears to us whenever it appears most vividly when most vividly during the time of extreme emotions. You know, I hate your guts.
At that time, that I is appearing to us to inherently exist, to intrinsically exist, to exist objectively from its own side, independently existing. It doesn’t appear to depend upon body and mind. It appears to be independent of those factors. That’s the way that I — I hate your guts. I’m the most beautiful thing that ever came to Adelaide.
That I, that moment, the way it’s appearing to us is appearing to exist independently, inherently, objectively. So we have to what we want to do within our own emotional experience, we want to begin to identify, to begin to see for ourselves, how does that I appear? We want to begin to see what is this you know, normally when we’re involved in an emotional experience, we’re completely caught up in the object of that experience, that person who I can’t stand, or that beautiful object that I want to get hold of, that I’m attached to, that I desire. We are totally unaware of the subjective aspect of the experience, the I which is wanting that, the I which is doing the hating, this side of the of the the relationship, the subjective experience, that aspect, that’s what we have to begin to ascertain, identify, determine. The the inherently existent I does not exist, but its appearance does.
So I think that’s important to be straight. Just The example that we’ve used in terms of the snake where in fact there’s only a striped coiled rope. The snake the snake doesn’t exist, but the appearance of a snake does. The appearance of a snake does in fact exist. It’s a model that we’re using within our own mind, a mental image that we’re using within our own mind.
If that exists, then we want to begin to identify what does it look like. What is how does it appear to us? How long is it? How short is it? Is it impermanent?
Is it permanent? Is it changing? Is it unchanging? All of its qualities. We have to identify very clearly a model of a type of self that we’re continually making use of, beginning to look at the subjective aspect of our experience during these emotional situations.
So one of the keys to understanding emptiness is unfindability upon analysis, unfindability upon analysis. So, you know, we’re going to we’re going to make we’re going to perform a search for something. It is it is in a search it is a prerequisite in any real search that we know what we’re looking for. I mean, that might sound simple-minded, but we have to begin to approach this step by step. If we’re going to carry on a search, we have to know what it is that we’re looking for.
The clearer that we are the clearer we know what we are looking for, the greater our conviction in its nonexistence upon not being able to find it, where we think it should exist, if in fact exists. If we feel that something exists and we’re clear about what it looks like, when we look at the place where it should be found, if we don’t find it, then we can have a conviction it doesn’t exist. You know, if if we’re not sure what we’re looking for, then we’re never going to have the conviction that it doesn’t exist at the place that we’re looking. You know, if we think there’s a thief in this room, but we’re not sure what they look like, we can never be quite sure. So if we identify the thief, and then the thief thief is such and such a height, has such and such a color hair, has a tattoo here and a mole here, then we can look amongst we can search throughout the room.
And we say, no. A thief doesn’t exist in this room. We’ve made a mistake. But, you know, there there if we don’t if we don’t identify the object that we’re looking for, then there always going there would always be some doubt. Maybe the thief is in this room, and it’s kind of a vague notion.
Śāntideva, in his Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds, says, without contacting the imagined existence, its nonexistence is not apprehended. We imagine something exists, and the way so we have to be clear what it is that we’re imagining exists, if we’re going to really convincingly understand it doesn’t exist at all upon searching. And if one does not firmly identify this such a type of self, such a type of I, then the analysis cannot proceed for the reason that there is either no actual object being searched for, we’re just going through some motions, or because we have such a vague and blurry image of the object, its non findability does not have does doesn’t possess any strength of conviction to overcome our deeply ingrained belief in the existence of the object. So we, you know, we we we must identify what it is we’re looking for very clearly. Otherwise, we’re simply going through the motions motions of a search, or if if our identification of the object that we’re looking for is blurry, if it’s inexact, if it’s vague, Then it’s when we search, then, you know, if we don’t quite know what the thief looks like, then we’re always going to have to harbor some doubts whether they’re in this room or not.
We’re never going to be quite sure. We’re never going to have the conviction of belief which can totally and absolutely determine that the thief not in this room. No doubt. No question. We’re never going to be able to develop that conviction of that belief, and that conviction of belief is what will overcome our belief in its existence, that is to say, ignorance.
So we have to develop we have to clearly identify what it is we’re looking for. Then when we don’t find it, that understanding of its non findability upon looking is which will overcome our conception that, in fact, it exists. So we’re trying to become consciously aware of a presently unconscious model or mental image of a type of self which most of our thinking and emotional life is based upon. We are using a model, a mental image of a type of self, which is the root cause of all our problems. It’s built up out of a network of wrong beliefs.
So, you know, we’re trying to set up a target, and we’re going to aim our arrow of analytic reason at it. So the analysis is only effective to whatever degree we’re able to identify within our own experience this appearance or model, which is created out of this network of wrong beliefs. If we’re ever to hit that target, the target has to be clear to us. This so it’s an important point that we we we we understand that we are not trying to identify the empirical conventionally existent self. We’re not trying to identify that self.
That is to say the everyday self that is sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy, that wakes up in the morning reluctantly. You know, either eats breakfast, takes a shower, goes outside to work or works in the home, involves themselves in the various activities over the course of the day, maybe plays with the kids at the end of the day, fixes fixes supper, know, watches a little bit of TV, goes to bed at night tired. That self that performs all these various activities, these functions, that empirical conventionally existent self, that’s the self we’re not trying to identify. That is not the object of negation. You cannot negate something which exists, and that self exists.
The self which is sitting up here on this platform talking, that self exists. That self which sitting on your on your cushions listening, that self exists. We can’t we can’t deny logically and reasonably that the existence of that self is not the object of negation because it in fact exists. Now we talked about this before. It is a it exists dependently in terms upon the body and mind.
Whatever the body does, like sitting, talk we say, I’m sitting. If the if the body is talking, blah blah blah, I’m talking. And that self exists. That’s no problem. But what we we are trying to identify is a type of self which does not depend upon body and mind.
What appears to exist in reality does not exist at all. You know, it’s the nature of analysis that what appears to exist and in reality does exist will upon an analysis, will upon looking, searching, become more and more obvious. Well, on the other hand, that which appears to exist but in fact does not exist will upon searching, will upon analysis become less and less clear, will become less and less evident until finally it disappears altogether. You know, like that snake we saw where there is a rope. A snake appears to us.
If we search at the place where the snake appears to us, that appearance will become less and less clear. It will become less and less evident until it actually disappears and is replaced with by the appearance of a rope. If we search for that then if we search at the place where the rope appears, that appearance will become more and more verified. It will become clearer and clearer. Ah, there is in fact a rope there.
It becomes more and more obvious. So in in the in the essential of ascertaining the object negation, what do we mean by object negation? Object of refutation. Object of refutation. Negation.
This means you know, what the idea of negation means to do away with. Refutation means to to to dismiss as as being accurate, to eliminate. So this self would so we’re talking about there is an appearance like like the appearance of that snake. If in fact there’s only a rope there, then this appearance is then that referent object, you know, that we’ve talked about the fact that symbols, language, terms, they stand for something. They represent something like the map and the territory.
Some maps refer to actual places, like a map of Adelaide. You can a street map of Adelaide. You can actually navigate. You can you know, they correspond to actual streets that you can drive along and find houses and find shops and things like that. Other maps completely don’t refer to anything.
They don’t have any reference in reality, like the maps of Tolkien. They don’t there’s a map, but they don’t refer to anything. So so we’re refuting the fact that this mental image of a particular type of self actually refer refers to something in reality. The appearance is there. The mental image is there.
We want to clarify. We want to find we want to see it and identify it as vividly, as clearly as possible. Then we’re going to try to find it. If it’s really there, it should become very obvious to us. We should be able to find it.
What does it refer to? In fact, will ultimately be refuted. We come to understand we will negate its referent object. We come to understand it doesn’t really refer to anything in reality, but we think it does. That’s our problem.
We that appearance of a snake refers to something in reality and we generate fear, but it never did. That fear, that suffering, that was all developed on the basis of attachment to something which never existed, but we think it did. So we have to search, but we have to identify what it is that we’re searching for in order to come to a strong conviction, in fact, it doesn’t exist, which will overcome our conviction it does exist, which is ignorance. So so So in in it’s helpful in gaining a a sense of the inherently existent I or intrinsically existent I. I I in all these different terms that we use.
But, you know, I know there are new terms and for many of you, the self defining I. We’re trying to you know, just it’s necessary to to begin to gain some kind of conception, some kind of sense of what’s being gotten at here. You know, it’s it’s not readily apparent. And I’m the first one to admit that within my own experience. But but after we, you know, we we we work with these terms, we we listen, and we we experiment, and we meditate, and we begin to get a sense of what’s being gotten at here.
In gaining the sense of what we mean by this intrinsically existent self or this self defining self, it’s it’s helpful to understand what it’s opposite. What is opposite in meaning to an intrinsic and existent self? That would be a nominally existent self, imputedly existent self, Imputedly existent eye. nominally existent I. Nominal nominal.
We talked about this before, didn’t we? Had some discussion. I remember. In terms of a nominal has a sense of of name, something that would exist by way of name, imputedly existent I, something which exists by way of being imputed or designated or labeled, that eye. It’s merely established through the power of language and concepts.
This means that in a perceptual process, on the basis of an appearance, an object is labeled using language and using concepts. And therefore and thereby, the object, as in this case, the eye comes into existence. Something appears to the mind, and the mind applies a label using language and concepts, thinks that this object is such and such and depends upon that being imputed, being using that name, designated label, the object comes into existence. A quotation. The process of labeling occurs like this.
The basis to be given the name exists out there. From our side comes the concept that applies the name and the name itself. We come out with something labeled, and it’s nothing nothing more than that. There’s something that appears to our mind. Remember in the case that we used, like, the baby which was just born.
What appears to our eyes, essentially? That appears to us. Let’s call it John. in dependence upon being given a name and being thought about as John, John came into existence. John so there was a basis for labeling that appearance of a body, and dependence upon that, we applied a name and we thought about it as John.
And lo and behold, through that process, the perceptual process, this labeling process, nothing more, John came into existence. All phenomena are exactly like you know, so you can go further. We say, okay, know most of us would readily admit that John’s existence is dependent upon that labeling process that we just described. Without it, John would not exist, but a baby would. But then, again, the baby came into existence on the basis of the same process, and the baby’s body came into existence on the basis of the very same process.
And the baby’s arms, legs, head, trunk came into existence on the basis of the very same process. The organs, the skin, the flesh, the bones, came into existence on the basis of that very same process. The organic molecules making up those organs came into existence on the basis of that very same process. We could go on and on and on. Every phenomena whatsoever comes into existence on the basis of that very same process, in dependence upon naming and concepts which apply those names.
That’s what nominal existence means. Something appears to the mind and the mind gives it a name and thinks of it in that way. It comes into existence by the force of that labeling process. Now, can you hang in there for a few more minutes? I’d like to finish this first point while we’re hot.
We’re on a roll here. Okay? So, you know, this is it’s not easy to wrap your mind around this idea, I must admit. I mean, it’s totally con it’s totally contradictory to our habitual way of thinking about things, the the way things appear. If we thought about them in full, but at least it’s contradictory to the way things appear.
Things appear to be objective, existently out there, completely independent of our mind, of our thinking about them, of names. That’s the way they appear to us. Therefore, there’s no reason why we should believe otherwise. But now we’re trying to so it’s very you know, we’re working through it’s we can begin to see the the the the dilemma that we’re in in trying to overcome ignorance. We can begin to gain a sense of the scope of this labeling process when we consider that there is no difference in the process of labeling.
Underline the word in the process of labeling. There is no difference in the process of labeling a snake and a rope to a coil of striped hemp. You have a coil of striped hemp. There is no difference whatsoever from the point of view of the way the process of labeling is occurring between labeling that coil of striped hemp, a rope and a snake.
One is a correct label, one is an incorrect label, but just from the point of view of labeling there’s no difference. So I think that’s that’s really worth considering. You know, we can understand that that the appearance of the snake comes completely from the side of the mind on the basis of some something appearing. But the same so but we try to evade that same sense when we think about that object being labeled as a rope. But there’s no difference in the labeling process between thinking of that object as a snake or as a rope.
This the process of labeling is exactly the same. Something appears in the mind, the mind applies a name and thinks of it in that way. The the opposite of this way of existing, this what we call nominal existing, nominal existence or imputed existence, the opposite of that is inherent existence, intrinsic existence, self defining existence, objective existence, existence from its own side, natural existence. These terms are all attempting to get at the same notion that the object itself defines what it is, not the imputing mind which perceives it. That the object establishes its own identity independent of the mind which perceives it.
You know, it’s as if the object forces us to call it what it is. That these terms, such as intrinsic existence and inherent existence, are trying to get at the idea that the object is self existent, completely existing through its own power, That the object itself is self instituting. It’s able to set itself up. It’s able to it doesn’t rely for its existence on causes and conditions. It doesn’t rely upon parts.
It doesn’t rely upon the perceptual process upon being designated. It’s completely self instituting. It doesn’t need anybody, anything. That the object inheres in itself, that it has some kind of thingness about it, which we have a sense that if we were to that it would be findable if we were to search for it. If we look for it, we could find it.
So, you know, talking about the object in all these various ways, trying to get a sense of feeling, some kind of taste on our tongue, what what is what is being gotten at here. You know, applying all of these characteristics to what inherent existent, I or self in order to begin to generate a sense of what it appears like to us. You know, develop we have a mental image of a self, an I. What how does it exactly look to us? We are we’re trying to identify it so that eventually when we search for it, we can understand we can have conviction as to whether it in fact exists or not.
Now I think and another important point. It it it will be useful for you to understand some information. The self you know, we can talk about a self of phenomena. We can talk talk about a self of person. They are equivalent.
When, you know, phenomena are empty of an intrinsic, self-existence. Persons are empty of an intrinsic, self. That self is equivalent. Aside from one being the presumed self of phenomena and the other being the presumed self of persons