Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Beginning from the visceral “I don’t wanna die,” Ven Jampa Gendun uses raw self-clinging as a gateway into identifying the object of negation — the inherently existent self. In this 45-minute session he works through the third and fourth of the four essentials: the I is neither identical to body and mind (if it were, there would have to be as many I’s as body parts) nor unrelatedly different from them (if so, bodily harm would leave the I untouched, like a table and a chair). He maps the five aggregates, uses shepherd-and-sheep and head-salesman analogies to frame how the I might relate to them, and leads listeners to mentally search each aggregate for this elusive I. A brief equanimity visualization on friend, stranger, and enemy is woven in midway. For practitioners with some grounding in emptiness analysis.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 HMA 1997 10 08.mp3
UUID: 48ee9982-5086-4993-bc5f-68940cb51d23
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-10-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.2 minutes
Words: ~4,172
It’s I I I’m I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna die. There’s like, the eye is like a unit, a seamless, a homogenous mass of something. I I I don’t wanna die. I don’t.
I It’s not a detailed many it’s not something with many characteristics which is which has, you know, many discernible qualities. It’s it’s an it’s an amorphous kind of mass, an entity, a unit, homogenous. That means undifferentiated, indistinct, You know, like a singularity of something. That’s you know, that’s one of the ways that we could sense the eye in a in a very gross kind of coarse way of feeling it, thinking about it, sensing it, gaining appreciation, the way it appears. You know, and then we say, well, what happens if that singularity, that mass, that indistinguishable, homogenous entity is is the same as the body and the mind.
By saying we mean identical in every characteristic. Any characteristic that this I has, the body and mind must have. Every single characteristic that the I has, the body and mind must also have if they’re identical, if they’re one, if they’re the same. So so there there is a there is one characteristic we’ve we’ve discovered about the eye is that it’s like a homogenous, an indistinguished indistinct mass, a whole without parts. Okay.
If that if that’s the case, if that’s what we’ve seen, would and if it’s the same as the body and mind, then the body and mind must have also have that same characteristic of being a whole, a kind of indistinguishable mass, a homogenous unit. If every if every characteristic is exactly alike, identical. Well then, is that the case? Is that the case? Is that how we experience the body and mind?
No. The body is there would have to be the body has many parts. It’s not an indistinguishable whole mass homogeneous. It has many, you know, arms, legs, organs. The mind has many different facets and many different emotions, beliefs, ideas.
If if so if if every characteristic of this eye were characteristic of the body and mind, then because then there would have to be as many eyes as there were parts of the body. There would have to be at least minimally a mental part, a mental eye, and a physical eye. You know, only one eye could stand for each part because the eye appears to be partless. So every part would have to be an eye. There would have to be an eye ness kinda smeared across the body and mind.
And everything you know, we the the quality all the characteristics of the eye would have to be would permeate the body and mind. Every characteristic of the eye would have to be a characteristic of every part of the body. Everything would have this kind of I ness about it. So there would have to be as many I’s as there are parts of the body. Or we could go the other way.
We could say that every characteristic of the body and mind must be characteristics of this eye that we’ve identified since they’re identical. So so the body and mind, obviously, they have many parts. There and therefore, there would have to be many eyes. But that’s not what we experience. We experience, I don’t know, maybe schizophren I don’t know, small split personalities or something.
Maybe they experience differently, but generally, we experience a single eye, one eye. And then whatever is the characteristic of the eye would be a characteristic of the body and mind. Every characteristic. So therefore, the body and mind, the eye would have the physical characteristic. It would have color.
It would shape. It would have shape. But that’s not that’s not the eye we identify. I’m I’m so afraid. Does that eye have color and shape?
Is it physical? You know, if the eye were identified, it would have to have every characteristic of the body if they’re identical. It would have to have every every characteristic of the mind if they’re identical. It would it would makes it would be make no sense to talk about my body. If the body and if the I and the that’s been identified in the body and mind were identical in every characteristic, then there was they’re indistinguishable, then it would make no sense to say my body, my mind because the that which possesses and that which is possessed must be different.
They cannot be the same. And it would it would make no sense to say I’m thinking because there would be no agent behind the thinking. The thinking itself would necessarily be the I. If a characteristic of the mind is thinking, then that would necessarily be a characteristic of the I, not that it is the thinker. The thinking is itself the eye.
So, you know, go you know, work working with these and finding reasons for yourself and what begins to under have some kind of impact, some kind of kind of pushes a button for yourself and it has some begins to undermine your what in fact is your belief in its existence of this I. So this is what we’re going to meditate on. I guess I I Yeah. This this sense of I, this this sense of I ness spread throughout all the parts. As if as if in every part it’s like we we can we’re gonna go on perhaps to you know, all of what we’re talking about here can be applied to phenomena as well.
So we’re not talking about psychological qualities, are we? We’re talking about everything that we’re talking about here can be applied to this table. The table, we can identify the object negation in terms of this table, the truly the inherently existent table. And it’s more difficult to identify. And it’s difficult enough to identify in terms of ourself.
But but we can we can go on to identify in terms of the table. And we can go on to to say, well, if the table exists, it must be either the same or different than its parts, its top, its sides, etcetera. Those are its parts. And then if if it’s then we go on to examine his lack of sameness with its parts. There’s a sense and here I’ll just jump ahead but maybe this will be to help you to apply this to the present understanding.
There’s a sense that the table is that there’s a tableness which is which permeates its parts. It’s kind of this tableness is kind of homogeneously spread throughout all its parts. You know, if you take a car, you have a sense of a car. There’s sort of a carness which goes throughout all of its parts. You know, there’s a there’s there’s that sense.
You know, we’re talking we’re not about It’s not it’s not analytic in something we’re we’re describing. It is an unexamined sense that we have, as if a car permeates or is homogeneously spread out through all of its parts. There’s a carness about it all. There’s there’s something as of almost like a carness which covers all its parts. That’s the object negation with regard to a car, for example.
So we can we can do that with any object. And here we’re working with the eye, the self. If, you know, is it whatever in the case of a car, whatever was a a characteristic of the car, if this if this quality of being homogeneously spread throughout all its parts there’s there’s like a car car kind of pervades all of those parts, the wheels, the the steering wheel, the frame, the motor, the body. There’s kind of a carness which permeates, which spreads throughout it all. There’s a carness about it.
If that were the case, then whatever was characteristic of the car would have to be a characteristic of every part. You know, every everything had car-ness about it. The wheel had carniness about it. The the frame had carniness about it. The engine had carniness about it.
You know, whatever characteristic is carniness, everything would have to have that But it’s not the case, is it? Everything doesn’t have the characteristic of car. Matter of a matter of fact, none of the parts have the characteristic of car. So we have a sense that the body and the mind have the characteristics of the eye, of this of this eye object of negation. And we’re we’re investigating that.
So we’ve gone into quite a I guess it’s useful to to go over this. So if you take a comfortable, firm posture. So first, get in touch with your body. Noticing any tightnesses, any tensions in your body. And bring your awareness to those areas and consciously relax and soften.
Just letting go. And we’ll practice the nine round breathing meditation. Now enumerating enumerating for yourself these various individuals, this feeling that they’re there, this person that you feel extremely close to that you love, a person slightly further in terms of intimacy, but that you like a great deal sitting next to that person. Sitting next to that person, a stranger but someone who is very appealing in terms of their appearance. Next to that person, someone a stranger but unappealing, unattractive for some reason just by way of their appearance.
Someone you have some slight difficulties for. Some problems, slight problems with. And then somebody you don’t like. You find really difficult. Be wonderful if all six of you didn’t have any problems, if you didn’t have any dissatisfactions or frustrations or disappointments, ments.
You didn’t suffer. Even though I have different feelings for each of you, I can understand that none of you want to suffer. I wish you didn’t. May you not suffer. I am going to commit myself to all of you, work with all of you in helping to work through your problems.
It would be wonderful if all of you were happy. I wish each of you happiness. May you all be happy. I’m going to help each of you to find happiness. And the way I’m going to express my commitment to you at this very moment is through my meditation by gaining insight, by working through my ignorance, by alleviating the root of my own suffering, achieving my own potential, then I can be of real significant and practical benefit to you.
What I’m doing now, if only indirectly and if only at some time in the far distant future is for you. And then bring your mind to the breath. Easy, gentle, in and out flow of the natural breath. If it’s helpful, use some techniques of counting and inhabiting the breath. So we’re gonna continue the discussion of these four essentials.
So firstly, determining what it is we’re looking for. It’s called the object of negation, determining the object of negation. And secondly, determining that this object of negation, this eye that we’ve identified, And keeping in mind, we’re not talking about the eye in general. That’s not what we’re looking for. The conventionally existent eye, the empirically existent eye.
That’s not what we’re looking for. That’s not the eye that we identified. The this eye the general the empirically existent eye, the conventionally existent eye, Jampa.. This person exists. The person exists.
The person, the I is synonymous. The person exists. The I exists. You exist. I exist.
We exist. But the object of negation, the I, the way it’s appearing, the way it’s being conceived of by ignorance does not exist. An eye which appears to exist independent, inherently, independent of body and mind, independent of causes and conditions, independent of labeling, of language, of conceptuality. That eye appears just like the snake appears where there’s a rope. The rope exists.
But what we’re negating is the is identifying the appearance of the snake and negating its existence. We we at one point, we believe the snake exists and we react with fear, aversion. But if we examine, we’re gonna see that that fear and aversion was baseless. It was merely an appearance but we grasp at that appearance to be true. Likewise, with respect to the eye, the eye appears in particular way.
It appears to exist independent independently and moreover we grasp at that appearance to be true. We go on to investigate and we negate that appearance. We say it appears but in fact it doesn’t exist the way it appears. That’s what we mean by illusion like existence. Even when you negate it, this appearance, it will still appear, but you will no longer grasp to it as being true.
It still appears, but you are no longer grasp to it as being reality, as the way it actually exists. It begins to appear like an illusion. At a certain level, at a very high level of realization, the actual appearance will be eliminated. We a a inherently existent, independently independently existent eye will no longer appear to ourselves. Until that time, the I will still appear to ourselves as if it were independently existent.
But mentally, the wisdom consciousness refutes that existence as being true. We know it and thereby eliminating ignorance which grasped at it as being true. Therefore, we understand that there are simultaneously there is appearance and it and of an independently existent self, But there there is the negation, the refutation of it existing as being true. And this is this is why things appear as illusions. They appear like illusions because there is this dual way of relating to the object.
It appears to be truly existent, independent existent, but the mind does not grasp to it to as being true. It does not exist the way it appears. And it is this in your case, you know, even that snake, could it still appear to you? And visually, you get an impression that there’s a snake. The mind is conceiving snake, but a part of our mind is aware that that’s merely an appearance.
It has this maybe that’s happened here. It’s at different times. And like especially, there’s a I’ve always it seems like dusk is a very unusual time or maybe dawn. And when there’s like I think Don Juan calls it the crack between the worlds. I never know why he called it that but I know it’s somehow stuck in my mind.
That at dusk as the sun is going down, the way things aren’t as clear. You know, like you could be walking along and there’d be a bush in next to the side of the sidewalk. And it could just lend itself to being seen as a person standing there, something like that. And and and your mind wavers back and forth. You can sometimes I don’t know if this has ever happened to you.
You can almost watch and see your mind labeling, going between bush and person, bush and person, bush and person, and I quite sure what it is. And even when it appears so it’s like flipping back and forth between how it’s going to interpret that, how it’s going to label that stimulus. Sometimes it can even go on you can it will label a person, but you know at another level it’s not a person. So you can almost just watch it as an appearance with grasp without grasping to that appearance as being true. It appears to be a person and you know it’s not.
Sometimes it’s there’s that unusual situations will arise. It’s the notion how of how things appear like illusions. So we let’s see. We we identify the object of negation. We go on to ascertain, to determine the pervasion.
And we we go on to the third point, this lack of sameness, that this object of negation, the eye we identified, is not the same or identical with the body and mind. Now we’re going to the fourth part. As determining that the object of negation is not inherently different than the body and mind. Inherently different, important. We have to that’s an important qualifier, important word.
By inherently different, we mean unrelatedly different. Unrelatedly different. Not just different, but unrelatedly different. So the the fourth of these four essentials is the essential of determining the lack of inherent difference. It’s that the eye which we identified in the first essential is not inherently different from the body and the mind.
That is to say, is not unrelatedly different than the body and the mind. Now if if the if the if this eye that we identified was unrelatedly different than the body and mind, immediately certain problems would arise which contradict our our experience. So the first is this is that because the eye appears as you know, how does the eye appear? It may appear, it probably appears, if you gain a sense of what I’m getting at here, as an isolated unit. You know, it’s like like a big thick line drawn around it.
It’s a something which is unrelated. It doesn’t seem to depend upon other things for its existence. It seems to be just theirs, self arisen, self self existent. It is just it has a sense of just having brought itself into existence and having always been there. That’s the kind of sense it has about it, if you can get a gain a feeling for that.
So if if that’s the case, then if it exists without relationship to anything else, then then whatever then we then the contradiction arises. Whatever the body and the mind experienced would not occur to the eye. There the eye and the body and mind are completely unrelatedly different. And it’s like just like this vase and this piece of paper or a table and a chair. We can destroy the table and the chair remains unaffected.
They’re unrelatedly different, aren’t they? Likewise, if the body and mind on the one hand and the eye were unrelatedly different, then the mind could experience joy or could experience anger or sorrow and the eye would remain totally unaffected. Or the the the body could be harmed, could and the eye would would be remain totally unaffected because the eye and the body and the mind are just like a table and a chair. What goes what what one experiences, the other doesn’t necessarily experience because they’re unrelatedly different. So we talk about the five aggregates or the Also, if if if the what what we’re going to do is we’re actually going to to analyze in terms of observation.
We’re actually going to search through the body and the mind. Now we can there’s different there’s if There’s a sense that the eye is in control of the body and mind. That’s the feeling that we have. I am in control. I’m I’m running the show as it were.
Something which is which is the thinker of our thoughts, the the doer of our deeds, the feeler of our feelings. Now if if that if that eye, it can appear in two different ways with with regard to the body and the mind. It can it can appear as the same type as the body and mind or another way of saying the body and mind as is the five aggregates. Aggregates. You know, sometimes we often use the term five aggregates.
It’s just the way of a systematic fashion of of detailing what we mean by body and mind in in more elaborately. Five aggregates, the aggregate of forms. Aggregate of forms is equivalent to the body. Then there’s the mind and here we divide mind up into four aggregates. Aggregates are bundles of events, here mental events.
So the aggregate of feelings, pleasurable feelings, pleasurable, displeasurable, unpleasurable feelings, neutral feelings. Aggregate of perceptions. This is a type of thought pattern which discriminates, which recognizes this is good, this is bad, this is a table, this is long, this is short. That type of discriminating thought pattern is the aggregate of perceptions. The aggregate of compositional factors, it just has lots of different, mental factors in it.
For example, there are fifty one secondary mental factors. Of this fifty one, feelings and perception are two. The remaining forty nine are included in what are called the aggregate of compositional factors. Mindfulness, introspection, faith, love, anger, These are all various these are all secondary mental factors. There are forty nine.
Karmic seeds, karmic latencies are also included in this. Then there’s the aggregate of consciousnesses, the various the six types of primary consciousnesses and thoughts. Know, eye consciousness, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mental consciousnesses. So it’s a systematic way of detailing what we mean by body and mind. So there is the eye and there is the five aggregates.
And we’re going to see whether they’re inherently different. This is what we’re examining before. Now there’s there’s two ways that they could relate in being different. There’s the way of like a a different type, like the eye is of a different type to the five aggregates. For example, a shepherd and his sheep.
They’re different type, aren’t aren’t they? The shepherd is in control of the sheep. And moreover, he’s a different type than the sheep, a different type of being, a different type of creature than the sheep. So the eye seems to be in control of the five aggregates and moreover is a different type to the aggregates. But there’s another way that we could be in control and be of the same type.
And this would be, for example, if you had a group of salesman and one of them was the head salesman. So they’re all of the same type. They’re all salespeople, but one of them is in charge. So there’s the notion that maybe the the eye is not is is is different but of the same type. It’s different in that it’s in charge of the aggregates, it’s in control of what’s going on, but it’s somehow of the same type as the aggregates.
So so we want we’re going to go through a very detailed observation of our body and mind. And we want to ensure that we don’t overlook any possibility. So where do you know, where does the eye appear to ourselves when when when we it arises in these emotional situations? We have a sense it’s over here. Maybe you have that sense.
You know, like, you know, we have a sense that it’s somewhere on this cushion. It’s in this vicinity. I, you know, when I I I have a sense I’m speaking to you. I’m speaking to you. And I have that sense that I, its location in space is somewhere over here.
It’s not sitting it’s not on the street right now. The I which is speaking to you now, I don’t have a sense that it’s walking down the sidewalk at this moment. It’s it’s over here, somewhere in here. I’m not quite sure where but, you know, if I was gonna look for it, would at this very moment, I wouldn’t look in my car, look here. I think that I I have a sense that’s where it is.
That’s how I, you know, yeah, that’s where I feel about it, somewhere over here in the vicinity of body and mind. So that’s where we’re going to look. And, you know, it’s what we’re going to do is we’re going to the place where this eye appears is in the vicinity of the body and the mind. So if we’re to find this eye at all, this eye that we’ve identified in the first essential, we should be able to find it within the body and mind. And we don’t find it within the body and mind, then we should be able to set aside the body and the mind and have it left over.
Okay? So there are two ways that the eye could exist, exist, either in the same type as the body and the mind. So we’re going to go through the body and the mind and we’re gonna look at the aggregates. We’re gonna look at all the elements in the body and the mind, all the elements of the body, all the elements of the mind. And maybe one of them is the eye who’s in charge, just like the salespeople and the head salesman.
The same type, but a little bit different, one who’s in charge. Or of a different type, like a shepherd and a sheep. If it in that case, we’re going to we’re going to set aside the body and the mind. We’re actually going to mentally dismember our body and mind. You know, take off your arm.
Look at it. That’s not the eye. Set it over there. Take off men