Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The image of a dream tiger — vivid and terrifying yet arising entirely within the mind — anchors Ven Jampa Gendun’s pivot in this 45-minute commentary from the Hearer stage to the Mind Only school. He first sharpens what “selflessness” means at the Hearer level: not ego or personality but the absence of a felt unitary, unchanging, independent core. He then introduces the Mind Only claim that perceived objects are not truly external to the mind, walks through the eight consciousnesses (including a storehouse-consciousness that carries karmic seeds), and explains three natures of phenomena: imaginary, dependent, and thoroughly established. The session closes by previewing three levels of dependent arising as a bridge toward the Middle Way School. Prior sessions in the series are assumed.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 HMA 1997 08 20.mp3
UUID: 842189c8-d08c-4a44-a5ca-0de8726ce5d0
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-08-20
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.4 minutes
Words: ~6,013
This into it so that you don’t you don’t you have a better indicator of the self that we’re trying to that we’re looking at, that we’re trying to get a sense of. So when we talk about the selflessness of persons, this unitary, unchanging, independent self, we’re not talking about any psychological quality or characteristic. An ego is a psychological structure, whatever however else we may we may define it. So we’re not talking about ego, some kind of subjective sense or identity. Another word we can use for self here, and maybe you can maybe it becomes meaningful for you, is identity.
Identitylessness, the identity of of of ourselves as unitary, unchanging, independent. And you see, all all of those terms which I’m using there, I apply them just as readily to a table. I can talk about the the lack of the table, of the self of a table as being unitary, unchanging, independent. The table has no unitary, unchanging, independent identity or self. Just as I do not, the table also does not.
But we aren’t talking about that at present, but I could and we will later because at the hearer stage, we’re only we’re only investigating the nature of the self of persons. The only object which we’re calling into question. But just to give you some to hone in on what we mean by a self at the hearer stage or in general, I think maybe that’ll be helpful. So, you know, there is there is, you know, the the the an isolated entity within ourselves from which we are acting out of, which constitutes our being, which we identify ourselves, a core to our our our very being, our nature. You know, we we aren’t very specific about it.
We we’ve never we’ve never analyzed it, but we we have that vague general sense of I ness from which from which we express ourselves, in which all our actions are the instigator of all our actions, the thinker of our thoughts, the doer of our deeds, that which stands behind, which is central to who we are, which we identify, from which we act out and express, which is the core of who we are. It’s as if we could take away all of our attributes and they would this this would remain, this core to our being, this soul, ātman, self, which we identify so strongly with, which is a total almost total preoccupation to protect and enhance, and in which we draw this big blacker line around and say, self and not self, and therefore and take this division, this demarcation, not to simply be a relative distinction but to be absolute. If thereby, you know, we developing a a sense of separateness, of isolation from of otherness with regard to the world. There’s there’s and there’s the world over there. And it’s not really a relative distinction, it’s an absolute one.
And from all of this this this distorted context from which we’re we’re now relating, Aversion arises, attachment arises, jealousy arises, all of the various afflictive emotions. Anyway, we’re going to refine our notion in this evolution of our of our various afflictive emotions emotions and how they arise. So this is at the hearer stage. Now now here we’re going to move on We’re moving on to the mind only stage. We have to remove another level of ignorance, a little more increased understanding, a deeper wisdom.
You know, at the hearer stage, we took for granted the world out there beyond our senses. At the mind only stage, you know, having we’ve learned that we’ve learned that this, you know, this is a learning process. We’ve learned that appearances can be deceiving, Just like in the case of the rope and the snake, we saw a snake but we we come to realize, I was deceived. That was a mistake in appearance. I thought it was there, but in fact there was nothing there which corresponded with that appearance.
I was It was mistaken conception. So we we can be deceived with regard to appearances. We we experience that almost every day of our lives. Quite often it goes unnoticed. That that appearance of a snake was false.
Likewise, with regard to that unitary, unchanging, independent self, it appears, but it is also a false appearance. So now at this stage, at the mind only stage, we call into question the appearance of out there, that world which we took for granted at the hearer stage. So this stage is called the mind only stage because the mind only school asserts that all phenomena are the same entity as the mind. We’re breaking down our notion We’re undermining a lot of of taken for granted truths about reality, which are in fact not truths at all, which are a misconception. We’re we’re under You know, this is a We’re undermining this feeling of a concrete solid reality out there beyond my senses, you know, which I have little or nothing to do with in its in its existence.
I am just passive observer placed amongst these things which are define themselves, which preexist to my existence. We’re beginning to break down. The world isn’t quite solid as it once appeared to us. It’s a little bit shaky, a little bit shaky, a little bit fluid. You know, slowly being beginning to break down our rigid, taken for granted conceptions about this this solid concrete I and world.
Here, you know, we began by taking by beginning to work through our notion of a of a particular type of self, the I. We no longer can quite take that so much for granted. We’ve called it into question. Now that world out there which we’ve taken for granted up to this point, we’re going to begin to call into question. So at the mind only stage, the world out there is said to be not out there, but it’s the same, in fact, the same entity as the mind.
So when we say this, we’re not saying that all phenomena are mind. This table is not mind. Minds are observers of objects. And it would be it would be If if if all phenomena were minds, then this glass, this bell, this table would be observers and would have objects of observation. So it’s just but that’s so that’s not what the mind only score is saying.
They do say that all phenomena are the same entity of mind, but they are not saying that all phenomena are mind. What they are saying is and by way this is by way of analogy, trying to get some appreciation of what they are trying to get at. Just as dream objects are not the mind that perceives them, but they’re not separate from the mind. You know, we have a dream. Maybe, you know, you’re going on a on a you’re flying in an airplane or something.
There’s an airplane in the dream. There are fellow passengers in the dream. So that airplane, those fellow passengers are not minds, but they’re not separate from the dreaming mind. They’re not separate from the mind. They’re in the they’re the same entity of the mind, but the dream plane is not a mind.
The dream passengers are not minds, but they’re not separate from the mind. They’re the same entity as the mind. So likewise, you know, that that all the objects of consciousness that we perceive are not separate entities from the mind. This glass is not a separate entity from my mind. Now it appears to be so, but that appearance is false.
So we’re carrying we’re carrying this notion of the the possible falsity of appearances still further. We’ve learned a little bit about falsities. We’re beginning to open up to the possibility that all appearances aren’t necessarily true, that we’ve investigated and there are some types of appearances which are in fact false, and we’re beginning to expand upon that notion. So the the practitioner of of mind only begins to question the out appearance of out there. Appearance of out there.
You know, when we talk about the fact that all phenomena are are the same entity as mind, All phenomena are not necessarily the same entity as your mind, my mind, her mind, his mind. But let us say, all phenomena are not necessarily the same entity as each of our individual minds, unless your mind is an omniscient mind. If your mind is an omniscient mind, that’s different. Okay? So maybe there’s somebody who’s omniscient out there.
I shouldn’t say that. So we we all the objects which we perceive personally, you know, I’m perceiving this glass, are the same entity as our mind, but we don’t perceive all phenomena, do we? There are certain phenomena which we don’t perceive. Those phenomena are not the same entity as my particular, my personal mind, but they are an entity of someone else’s mind, for example, an omniscient mind. But we can say in general that all phenomena are the same entity as mind.
We’re going to talk more about that, what we mean by that. You know, we’re it’s it’s it’s a we’re trying to get we’re trying to break down a lot of rigidity in our thinking, trying to open up to other possibilities and ways of viewing the world, reality. So the practitioner at the mind only stage has already established that there is no unitary, unchanging, independent self in the aggregates. The practitioner now begins to look at the aggregates with more precision. And he begins to realize that the division of each of the moments of awareness into an inner perceiver and an outer perceived object, you know, is is a conceptual invention, that the external objects are a fabrication of thought.
Objects appear to us, and we’re talking about from a particular point of view. They were talking from the from the point of view of a particular school. You’re trying to get into a mind only practitioner’s head and look at look at, you know, what they’re thinking, how they’re viewing the world. You know, later on we’re gonna go beyond this. We’re going to talk we’re we’re going to actually refute it, but this is a step in this in this in this development.
Objects appear to be out there, don’t they? I mean, if we if we can begin to to think about it. It’s In all of this, it’s quite difficult. Why? Because it’s like it’s like if everything were blue, if everything were tinged with the color blue, what would blueness look like?
Could you be able to distinguish that, discriminate that? This is this is going to become even more difficult. But to give you this this notion, you know, something, you know, like a fish being a fish in water, gaining a sense of what appreciating the fact of what water in fact is. It’s a medium that is so taken for granted that it’s existing. It is existing.
It knows no other. To to know something, we we can we know it only in terms of a dichotomy, what it isn’t. And it only exists in relationship to what it is not. If we can’t recognize what it is not, we can’t recognize what it is. So in all of this, it’s very difficult because it’s something that we’ve never it’s so accustomed to, taken for granted, that it’s hard to distinguish within our our experience what we’re what we’re getting at, and this is going to be even more so and more difficult when we come to more subtle levels of of selflessness and emptiness.
But at this point, you know, the glass appears to be out there. It doesn’t it does it appears to be cut off and at a distance. That glass of water doesn’t appear to be in any way just in relationship to my mind. And I can’t you know, trying to gain a sense of that, a feeling for is that the case, or is it just a bunch of words? Is that the way that you you experience that in terms of the way the glass exists in relationship to yourself?
So the sense of that glass being a separate entity from my mind, We that’s our natural sense. But the mind only school is saying that that is a false appearance. That is a fabrication of our mind, an invention of our mind. It appears to be out there, cut off and at a distance from my mind, but in fact, that is a false appearance just like the snake was a false appearance with regard to the rope. That glass existing external to my mind is also a false appearance in the same way.
In a dream, one experiences moment by moment inner perceiving moments of consciousness aware of seemingly outer perceived objects. For example, one experiences an inner perceiving eye consciousness which sees a seemingly outer perceived tiger and one becomes afraid. Okay? So using the dream example. So you’re you’re dreaming, and in this dream, you see a tiger coming.
So there’s a sense of an eye consciousness which in a dream a dream eye consciousness which seems sees a dream tiger. So we have a sense in the course of that dream that that inner perceiving eye consciousness and tiger external to that inner perceiving eye consciousness. You know, we’re always in a dream. Okay, we’re dreaming there’s a tiger coming at us. Now there’s an eye consciousness which is seeing the tiger.
The eye consciousness there’s a sense that the eye that the tiger is external to the eye consciousness, that they’re not the same entity. Yet when one wakes up, one realizes there were no other perceived objects. There was no outer perceived tiger other than the mind itself. Both the inner perceiving moments of consciousness and the outer perceived object were only different manifestations of the mind. They both existed within the mind.
Both the eye consciousness perceiving the tiger and the and the tiger perceived only existed within the mind. They were the same entity as mind. They were not the tiger did not exist external to the mind. It did not exist external to the eye consciousness perceiving it. Both the eye consciousness and the tiger seen by the eye consciousness were simply different manifestations of the mind.
What we’re going to the notion that we’re going to there are certain important points which need to be taken note of. You know, the mind only school is the most vast of all the schools. It’s probably one of the most difficult of the four schools. But but we don’t we don’t need to take it. We don’t need to know a great deal about it, but there are certain points which are useful.
Here we’re introducing the notion that the world about us is the play of the mind. This you know, before before we took the that the world was out there, solid, concrete, real, but now we’re introducing the notion that it somehow exists in relationship to the mind. In fact, the things that we see, the world about us, is very much a play of the mind, developing that sense, that feeling, somehow an we’re intimately related to the world out there. We’re not isolated beings cut off cut off from the world out there, but somehow we’re involved in its co creation, beginning to introduce that notion. This shows that mere appearances of seemingly outer perceived objects is not any proof that such things exist in absolute terms.
In fact, there is no proof that there are any substances substances other than mind anywhere. Furthermore, the Buddha himself taught the three realms of existence are merely mind. So we’re trying to, you know, develop a flexibility of mind, begin to open up to other possibilities of the way the world about us exists and we ourselves exist, introducing new notions, overcoming deconstructing a lot of taken for granted truths along the way. So this here this means simply that there is no different entity between mind and matter, that they aren’t different entities. Mind and matter are are the same substance.
Matter is empty. And here, for the first time, we’re hearing this word empty, and we’re going to hear this word over and over and over again to ad nauseam. Matter is empty of us being a separate entity or an independent nature other than outside of mind. Okay. If we say this another way, ultimately each moment of experience is empty of being different in nature, of perceiving and perceived.
The perceiver, that is the mind, and the perceived, whatever its object might be, are empty of being different substances. Empty. Here, the word empty, we’re introducing the notion of empty. Empty means a lack of, an absence of. There is an absence or an there is an absence of difference in substance in nature between the mind and its object.
On reflection, one can see that the Śrāvaka is a Sanskrit term which means hearer. So that’s the that’s the level that we just discussed, the hearer stage. One can see that the hearer approach is similar to removing suffering in a dream by recognizing that the person in the dream is not really oneself. Okay? At the mind only stage, the approach is like removing suffering by realizing that both the cause suffering, for example, the fire or the tiger, and the person’s suffering are both nothing more than the play of the mind.
Realizing that, one realizes that the fire or the tiger and the one suffering are empty of any reality of their own. Furthermore, recognizing that it is the mind producing both, one could choose to dream whatever one wanted to do wanted to dream. Not only is one liberated from the illusion of self, one is liberated from the sense of powerlessness. You know, there’s this world out there which is in which in which I have little or no control over, that I am stuck down amongst in within this world and I am subject to its forces over which I have little or no control, a sense of powerlessness over the world about me. This that sense of powerlessness prevents one realizing one’s true nature and limits one’s capacity to feel compassion.
So, you know, he’s talking about a dream in which there are tigers or fires and whatnot. Both the tiger and the fire in the dream, they’re not mind, but they’re not separate entities from the mind. You know, they they exist they do not ex exist external to the mind. The mind only school says, you know, we we use the analogy of a dream to help us. Whatever is true of a dream is also true of our waking reality.
And the experiencing subject and the experienced object are not substantially different, are not separate entities. They appear to be separate entities, but this appearance is false. Just as in the case of a dream where the dream tiger and oneself appear to be separate entities, the dream tiger appears to exist external, but in fact is not. This appearance arises under the influence, under the force of ignorance. The mind only school asserts that each living being has what is called a mind basis of all.
They, in the mind only school, assert eight types of consciousnesses. The six that we normally talk about, the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mental consciousnesses, that’s six, but they also they also assert two more. One is called afflicted consciousness and the other is mind basis of all consciousness. Afflicted consciousness is ignorance. Mind basis of all is like a repository of all the karmic seeds that we’ve accumulated.
When a seed is activated, it simultaneously produces a perceived subject and a perceived object. They assert that the subject and object are not substantially and this is why. They are both produced from the same cause, the same substance that is a karmic seed. So this is this is also introducing a very important concept. What is it that’s determining our experiences?
What is it determining what we perceive and the very process of perception itself? It is the conditioning factors within our own mind. That is the past karmic seeds. These karmic seeds are implanted on what is called the mind basis of all. This is what goes on from life to life.
When these seeds are activated by various conditions, what happens? Both the subject and the object arise simultaneously. For example, an eye consciousness perceiving eye consciousness perceiving a tiger and the appearance of a tiger arise from the same substance, karmic seed from a karmic seed. So they both that’s why they’re said to be of the same entity because they both arise from the same cause. The perceiver and the perceived, the subject and object arise from the same cause, a karmic seed implanted on this mind basis of all.
So, you know, we’re continually So this is introducing the notion of the karmic influence upon what it is that we perceive, the nature of our world, what we experience. Our minds are not blank slates, that all that all that we come to know is being filtered through conditioned factors within our own mind, arises out of these factors within our own mind. And this is going to play an even greater role as we go up to the Middle Way School. The substantial cause of all of our experiences is are the karmic seeds, these these latencies or potencies which our past actions have implanted here within this mind only school on the mind basis of all. So the this is what the mind basis of all is within the mind only school is what is said to it goes on to take rebirth.
So it’s carrying our entire evolutionary history in the form of these seeds deposited within it, and who exactly we are, all of our past actions. Our our kind of autobiography is carried along with us in terms of these seeds. And when these ripen, there arises both the perceiving subject and the perceived object, just as in the case of the cup, glass of water. But though and it all exists within the entity of the mind, but it appears to exist external to the mind, and this causes its problems. Appearing to exist external to the mind, we develop attachment, we develop aversion for something which is in fact within the very nature of our own minds.
So the the as I said, the mind only school asserts eight types of consciousnesses. You know, the the six types of consciousnesses plus the afflictive mentality or the afflicted consciousness, which is ignorance plus the mind basis of all. Mind basis of all, Alaya Vijñāna. The afflictive mind is the ignorant moment of consciousness, yet so we’re talking about this afflicted mind, the seventh consciousness, is the ignorant moment of consciousness that instantaneously follows a sense consciousness, causing the outer perceived and inner perceiving aspects to appear as separate entities. So the the it is the seventh consciousness is called afflictive mind. It is the ignorant moment of consciousness that instantaneously follows a sense consciousness, causing the outer perceived and inner perceiving aspects to appear as separate entities, like like the eye consciousness perceiving the glass and the glass.
They due to the afflictive mind, they appear to be separate entities, but in fact they’re the same entity. The glass appears to be cut off and at a distance from my mind, to exist independently of my mind, to be external to my mind out there in the world, but in fact it’s not. The reason it appears that way is due to the influence of this seventh consciousness, afflictive mind. So, you know, at at the hearer stage is is this hope I’m not going off into the void here. Are you all going along with me on this?
So the the Yeah. Well, we can analyze this a little bit more detail, But we’re not going to go into it at a great length. The at the hearer stage, we learned that not all appearances can be trusted, that some appearances are false. Some objects appear one way but exist another, or in fact, they they might not exist at all. For example, that of a unitary, unchanging, independent self.
Then then at the mind only school, we begin to question the truth the truth or falsity of objects appearing external to the mind. That’s what we’re beginning to question, to investigate. We begin to examine them with with with a greater precision. And the way that we do this in terms of gaining of distinguishing them with greater precision is to divide them into three types, into three natures into three natures. Imaginary natures imaginary natures are mere fabrications of mind.
Dependent natures dependent natures are are those phenomena which have relative existence. Those phenomena which have relative existence are called dependent natures. And then finally, those phenomena which ultimately exist are called those phenomena which are ultimately exist are called thoroughly established natures thoroughly established natures. Yeah? So all phenomena can be spoken of in terms of these three natures.
Okay. We’re talking about from a point of view of a particular school, particular stage called the mind only stage, and they’re trying to analyze the world. They’re calling into question whether things exist the way they appear, whether certain appearances are false or true. They’re no longer taking everything for granted, and one of their areas that they’re questioning is in terms of whether things are just out there or not. Now the first of these natures called imaginary is things are imaginary in a sense that our concepts about the world are mere fabrications.
Now some of our our concepts about the world correspond to actual things in the world. Actual things in the world. Some do not some do not. So concept concept concepts about the world are taken to be real and stand for real things. Yeah?
So we have concepts which are taken to be the thing them if we take the concept to be the thing themselves, then that’s a false appearance, isn’t it? But the concept itself, just like like the the map, the map is is like analogous to a concept about something. It but it is merely a fabrication. Concepts are mere fabrications of the mind. So this is what is meant by imaginary natures.
This would be, for example, in using the analogy of a snake and a rope. The snake which appears to us is merely a concept in our mind. That’s the imaginary nature, the snake. The second of these natures was dependent nature or relative nature. So literally the word means other powered in the sense that it has qualities it has a quality of depending upon something other than itself or its existence.
For example, you know, the the I put causes and conditions. You know, the map depends upon the map talks is a concept which talks about which describes roads, buildings, restaurants, cities, villages. So those cities and villages and roads are the dependent natures. The rope is the dependent nature. So there the rope is the dependent nature.
The snake which is seen, which appears to us, is the imaginary nature. And finally, there’s the third of these three natures, which is the thoroughly established nature. This has the quality of being complete. That’s why it’s called thoroughly established. It’s complete and without any relative reference.
So this is the unconditioned real. So this means that in terms of this, this would be the emptiness of the rope being a snake. The lack of the rope being a snake is the thoroughly established nature. That is the one way of another way of saying this is that the absence of our our concepts about something is this thoroughly established nature. Things are empty of our ideas about them.
Quite often we take our ideas about an object to be the object itself because more than quite often our ideas about object, our concepts about an object are much more vivid and stable and real to us than the than the object itself. So we begin to relate with concepts or ideas about objects rather than the objects themselves. We begin to relate with a imaginary nature. We do this with people all the time by stereotyping, by thinking them in terms of categories rather than individual unique people. We do this in various ways, but we do it nonetheless.
So we relate with imaginaries as if they were the real. So the imaginary is the concept, our idea about it. That’s the imaginary nature. The thing in itself is the dependent nature. And the absence of the imaginary in the dependent is the thoroughly established nature.
That is the absence of the imaginary in the dependent. That means that the absence of our ideas about an object in the object itself. The the thing in itself lacks our idea about it. It’s it is not the thing in itself. Our idea about the object is not the object.
The object is empty of our idea about it. It lacks that. It’s free of our fabrications about it. Reality is that free of our fabrications about it, of all our elaborations, all of it, all the stories that we make up about the world. It it it exists.
It has its it has its own existence independent of our of our fabrications about it. It has its own nature independent of our thoughts about it. That lack of that that that freedom from that its existence free of our conceptions about it is its thoroughly established nature. I hope I’m So I’m just I’m just talking This is one particular school. Is that the point you’re just making now, some of the changes?
Yeah. I mean, it’s not Yeah. We’re not gonna use this kind of This Quite this reference when we get when we when we go to the Middle Way School. We’re I mean, we won’t be using this terminology. I hope Okay.
Okay. A few points. One is one is we begin to we introduced the notion that karma that is a that karma, these conditioning factors within our mind, are playing a role in our perception, in what we come to know in the world. Another notion is that that things are empty of our ideas about them. One of our most fundamental ideas, what we’re going to come to, is that things truly exist.
That’s one of our most fundamental ideas about the world. That’s the root, that’s the mother idea that we have, that we project upon the world. You know, talked about imposition, you know, that we’re we’re constantly, you know, like the sunglasses through which we are looking at the world, the overlay of green. The most the very most fundamental fabrication or superimposition idea that we’re laying upon the world in which it is absent, which it is free of, is the notion of true existence, independent existence, inherent existence, existence from its own side, intrinsic existence, self defining existence, all of these terms which more or less mean the same. And this is what we’re trying to approach, this idea, you know, that things that first things exist differently than the way they appear and that they are that they lack, they are free of certain ideas which we’re imposing upon them, moreover the way in fact they do exist is very much interdependent with our own minds, with our own karma, with our perceptual process, just like in a dream.
And we we you know, it it would now when we dream, what is it that what is it that’s causing the dreams to arise in the course of our sleep? You know, I think generally they you know, just generally they would say certain impressions which have been placed upon our consciousness over the course of the day or maybe in the past, you know, with different periods of dream, certain levels of impressions are activated causing these dream images to arise. So and we experience we experience happiness and and suffering in the course of a dream. It’s only an appearance. So but we take those appearances to be real.
We don’t we don’t and and to that this is, you know, this is to begin to help us to develop the notion that the factors of mind are contributing to the world of appearances, just as in a dream. So here in the mind only, nothing is seen external to the mind, that both the object and the subject arise from a single karmic seed. That that is the so that’s their interpretation of dependent arising. At at the when we go further than this, at the at the middle way school, we’re going to begin to interpret dependent arising in a more subtle manner. There are three levels three levels of interpretation of dependent arising.
Remember, Tsongkhapa said, therefore, investigate dependent arising. Dependent arising phenomena arise in dependence upon causes and conditions. That’s one level interpretation. That’s the level that we’ve been looking at in at the hearer stage and here at the mind only stage, that they arise in dependence upon causes and conditions. Here the causes and conditions are the karmic seeds within our mind.
That’s what they’re they’re mainly concerned with. And that if you know, in helping us to overcome, you know, why why bother with all this? You know, why bother with this philosophy? What kind of relevance does it have to our actual what to our suffering? That’s what we’re always trying to come to.
It is because at this stage, we don’t we we are we accept these appearances as being external to ourselves that we develop attachment for them. If if you in a lucid dream, you don’t develop attachment to the dream objects. You you realize that they are the same entity as the observing subject. Attachment cannot arise. You can make use of them.
The dream continues, but attachment, trying to hold on to them, never arises. Trying to push them away never arises, though the interaction continues. So it is it is just this, this undermining of the base of the fundamental cause for the arising of the afflictive emotions which we’re trying to bring about, and this this is the elimination of ignorance. We want to remove ignorance from the mind. It is ignorance which is the basis.
There are levels of ignorance. We we ultimately want to remove the most basic level of ignorance, but we’re working at different levels of ignorance. It is ignorance which causes attachment and aversion to arise and all the various afflictive emotions which causes us to involve ourselves in in activities, in actions, create karma, and therefore perpetuate our suffering. If we remove ignorance, we will end suffering. If we remove ignorance, we will not develop afflictive emotions.
Our actions are not governed by ignorance any longer. We still can act, but the governing will be motivated motivated by not ignorance but compassion. We still exist within the world and interact within the world but on a totally different basis. Three levels of dependent arising. The first was on the dependence upon causes and conditions.
The second is in dependence upon parts. This is what we’re going to look at and investigate at the at the Autonomy School, the Middle Way School, that phenomena are dependent upon their parts. Phenomena exist in dependence upon their parts.