Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 14-minute session, Ven Jampa Gendun works through the third step of a four-point analytical method for realizing the emptiness of the self. The central question is whether the “I” we instinctively feel ourselves to be could be identical with body and mind. He dismantles this through several logical contradictions: if the I were identical to body and mind, it would have to be material with color and shape; saying “my body” would be nonsensical since the possessor and the possessed must differ; memory and continuity would be impossible; and refuting the inherently existent I would make body and mind disappear along with it. He closes by previewing the next session’s direct search through body and mind to locate the self, and notes that even partial insight into selflessness can help dissipate strong emotions in daily life. Suited to practitioners already engaged with this four-point analytical framework.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 HMA 1997 10 01.mp3
UUID: 1377415e-7c4c-4095-a300-0080f185345c
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-10-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 14.2 minutes
Words: ~2,198
I’d have to have an eye for the physical component of myself and an eye for the mental component of myself. The eye doesn’t appear to have any parts. Yeah. So if the eye if the eye is the same as the body and the mind, then I’d have to have one partless eye for the which would cover the component of mind, one partless eye which would stand for the component of the body. Or, you know, there would have to be at least two eyes for these two parts.
In fact, really, we could go on and there would have to be as many eyes as there are parts of the body. Each eye must stand for one part because the eye in itself appears to be partless. So we can’t have an eye with many, many parts. It doesn’t appear that way. So we would if the body and mind have lots of parts, we’d have to have lots of eyes to account for each of those parts.
You know, we’d be crawling with eyes, you know. But on the other hand, you know, if the eye is identical, you know, when we say same we mean identical, no difference whatsoever. So if if the if the that identified eye is the same as the body and the mind, right, and we’ve said the eye doesn’t appear to have any parts, then there must be one eye for every part of the body. So but this does not accord with our own experience, does it? Or maybe it does.
Know? We we have we have a conception of ourselves as being a single eye. Maybe schizophrenics. I didn’t. I have multiple split personalities.
Anyway, you know, I have a sense I’m I’m one person. On the but we can look at it in from the other direction. You know, just as the I appears to be a partless unit, a homogenous, undifferentiated blob, a whole, undifferentiated partless, just as it appears that way to me. Likewise, the body and mind would have to be an undifferentiated partless whole because they they they if they’re identical, then any any characteristic of the eye which we identified must be a characteristic of the body and mind if they’re the same. We’re we’re exploring whether they’re the same or not.
So I’ve identified the eye as being partless. Therefore the mind and mind and body must be partless. But obviously that can’t be the case. We already have the parts two parts already, the mind and the body. But we also have the various other parts of the body, the arms, the legs, the trunk.
We have the parts of the mind, the various feelings, emotions, etcetera. So the the there’s certain contradictions which which begin to arise when we begin to immediately when we begin to analyze. Also, if the body and mind were but the body and the mind would have to be the same. If, you know, if if if the if this I that we identified is exactly the same as the body and mind, then any characteristics that we identified of the eye must be characteristics of the body and mind, therefore and vice versa. Therefore the eye would have to have physical properties.
It would have to be material because the body is material, isn’t it? Therefore the eye would have to be material. It would have to have color and shape. But when we identified the eye, it didn’t have color, it didn’t have shape, and this contradicts our own experience of the I being immaterial, non-material, as being colorless, as being shapeless. Also, if the body depends upon causes and conditions, you know, for its well-being, for ill health, then the I too would necessarily have to depend upon causes and conditions, if the I is identical to the body and the mind.
But the I appears to exist independent of causes and conditions. So also, if the I were identical, were one, the same as the body and mind, it would make no sense to say my body or my mind. You know, how could they be how could that which is identical with the body and the mind possess the body and the mind? You know, that which owns something else must be different than that which it owns. The possessor and the possessed must be different.
So the the if if we say that how could the I be the same as the body and mind and still own the body and the mind? How could we say my body, my mind? It wouldn’t make any sense. It would be senseless. It would be senseless to say I’m angry or I’m happy because the I could not have own mental states.
Or it would be senseless to say I’m thinking because the thinking itself is the I. And if the I is identical with the mind, then the thinking in itself is the I. It couldn’t be an agent of the thinking. It couldn’t be the thinker because it it has to be identical with with the thought itself, thinking itself. So these are some kind of contradictions which immediately begin to arise.
You know, the the we we would the eye doesn’t appear to ourselves to be changing, but the mind effect and the body effect are constantly changing. So how could that which is unchanging be the same as that which is changing? Also, we couldn’t have any memories of of past occurrences. There would be no I which would connect them up together. You know, it’s interesting to think if you if the eye were the same as the body and the mind, if you were to you went I went to this to the supermarket this afternoon, I wouldn’t have any way of connecting up that eye with the eye at present because, you know, I could have a memory of an I.
I have a memory of an I going to the supermarket this afternoon, but there’s no connection with this present I. There’s not a continuum because the I appears to be an unrelated different. It is a unit in itself. Its existence isn’t dependent upon previous moments or past moments or future moments. It is a unit in and of itself in isolation from it doesn’t exist in a continuum.
So to say I went I went to the store this afternoon, it could be just like saying, well, John went to the store this afternoon. I have a memory of John going to the store this afternoon. I have a memory of I going to this an I. And the I doesn’t have any sense of being having a sense of relationship with this I, a present who’s thinking that because the I appears not to exist in relationship to anything other than it outside of itself. So there’d be no memories in terms of I did this or I did that to connect up.
If if in the course of of if we directly realize the emptiness of the inherently existent I, you know, the the if we refute the the its existence, then our mind our body and mind would disappear because the I, which is the object of negation, having been refuted, if it’s identical with the body and mind, once we refuted that I, we would refute the body and mind and we would disappear since they’re identical. So there there are many dialectical tests which we can which we can make use of in demonstrating that the body and mind and the identified I are not the same. They’re not identical. They’re not one. So we have to we should test each of these consequences for ourselves and, you know, what kind of ramifications does it have for ourselves until we find one that kind of shakes our beliefs that the I is the same as the body and the mind.
So we’re not talking about the empirical I, the conventionally existing I. Again, we have to keep coming back to that fact. We’re talking about the I that we ascertained or we determined in the first essential, the identified I, that I which appears in the course of these emotional situations. That I, does the I exist or not? Yeah.
If it exists, it must exist either the same or different than the body and the mind. Here we’re testing to see whether it exists the same as the body and mind. And when we begin to analyze it, we begin to see what it doesn’t make any it can’t rationally be the same as the body and mind. It cannot logically, reasonably be the same as the body and the mind. Next we’re going to test to see whether it’s different to the body and the mind.
And here we are going to make use of an actual observation. We are going to go through the body and the mind to search for it, to see if we can find it other than the body and the mind. So we’re going to actually proceed in a very detailed examination of the body and the mind to see if we can find that I that we’ve identified. So let’s take a few minutes. So I hope you’ve been following along here.
Aye. Aye, aye. Aye, captain. Do you have any questions? Does it make any sense?
Really? Yeah. Wow. Wanna explain it to me? I have to take that.
Okay. So, you know yeah. So we’ll we can work with these some more. We can go back through this. But so we’re we’re using this this method, and as I I explained last week, it said if we use this method of the four essentials, of this four-point analysis, we can’t go wrong.
We’re we’re gonna come to the correct conclusion. We won’t go off into some tangent or some mistaken path. We we identify what we’re going to look for. We decided where we’re going to look. Now we’re beginning the process of looking in which we we at this third essential, we we can use dialectic tests, you know, that this we can come to a firm conclusion, decisive conclusion, that this I which appeared to me, the object of negation, does not is not identical to the body and the mind.
There are all these various faults, all these absurd consequences which arise, which contradict my own experience, my own logic, my own therefore I can we can play with this more. These are just ideas and some suggestions. Why this identified I cannot be the same as the body and mind? Then next time we’re going to go through the fourth essential, the essential determining the lack of difference. If it’s not the same, if it exists, it must be different than the body and mind.
And here we’re going to use dialectical methods but we’re also going to use observation. We’re actually going to go through the body and mind trying to locate this I, this self. And what we’re going to it has some forceful conclusion. If you really have a you know, getting a feel or sense for what we’re we’re working with here, when you when the the the systematic and methodical procedures that we’re going through will have some force. If there’s enough commitment to the reasonableness and logic and one’s own experience, then it will it will begin in even if only in some small measure, to begin to undermine this powerful grasping of ignorance.
And we can use this this mindfulness of this this understanding even in small ways in our mundane life. You know, when when emotions strong emotions begin to arise, we can call upon our understanding of selflessness. This and this will dissipate the, the emotion because it undermines ignorance, which is the basis for that emotion. So we’ll stop there, and we’ll dedicate the merit and potential. In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being.
Powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso. Please remain until the end of cyclic existence. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm through these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakened heart that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more. Maybe I can make a commercial announcement before you go.
This is a reminder, Buddha House, as a catering service, is going to be working at the Victor Harbor at the folk festival this weekend, and they have to do some preparation tomorrow. It’s what’s called a veggie chop. There’s lots of vegetables that have to be cut up and made into curries, etcetera. So if you have any time tomorrow and you’d like to volunteer some labor, come along tomorrow morning. You might enjoy it.
So have a good week, or if you like to get a cup of tea and join our discussion. Thank you.