Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 41-minute session with a diagnosis: we are all naive realists, accepting appearances at face value as solid, independent reality. He traces a philosophical arc through three Buddhist schools — the Hearer stage, dismantling the appearance of a fixed, independent self; the Mind Only stage, questioning a world existing separately from mind and introducing emptiness as the absence of substantial difference between perceiver and perceived; and the Middle Way school, which holds that nothing truly exists while refusing the extreme of nihilism. Nāgārjuna’s image of waves slowly undermining a beach house captures how inquiry must actually shake habitual grasping; Āryadeva adds that even doubt about true existence shakes the foundations of cyclic existence. The session closes by introducing the Prāsaṇgika view that all phenomena exist only through the designating activity of mind. Suited to students already familiar with Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 HMA 1997 08 27.mp3
UUID: 5b734152-a123-4442-8918-59bffe077188
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-08-27
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 41.3 minutes
Words: ~4,953
We’re we’re what we might call naive realists. We more or less accept everything at face value and that as if all that appeared to us were real and truly existent as it appears. An unquestioned acceptance of all appearances as reality. So we’re slowly and that was a premise in which we are we related with ourselves and aware of. And so we’re slowly beginning to undermine that.
We’re developing another an idea of another possibility. We’re beginning to question these appearances that maybe they are all don’t reflect reality, that perhaps some of those distortions, those those appearances are false in some fashion or other. They aren’t true. You know, at the hearer stage we began to question the appearance of a of a unitary unchanging independent self. And in questioning that, we we discovered that that such a type of self does not exist though it appears.
It appears to us. When you become emotional, it appears. That’s one of the unconscious assumptions that you are operating upon which acts as a foundation for the various conceptual elaborations, the fabrications of mind, the various emotional upsets, whether positive or negative, is based upon that. It’s appearing to us. It may not be obvious but it’s there nonetheless.
But it’s merely an appearance. It’s not reflective of anything in fact in reality. So that, you know, that due to that, it appears under the influence of ignorance. And as a dependent arising. Given this, then that happens.
When ignorance is present, certain appearances arise. The appearance of such a type of self, for example. The insight into that it’s in fact its nonexistence when we look for it, when we analyze, when we investigate, no such type of self can ever be isolated, can ever be in fact found. That insight helps us to remove a coarse level of ignorance, the ignorance which acts as the necessary condition for the arising of that of that appearance and all the afflictive emotions which which depend upon it. At the mind only stage, we begin to refine our analysis of what what is, of these appearances about us.
We begin to question the world out there, a world which is independent of our minds. What we discovered at the level of mind only stage is that the appearance of external objects is false, that mind and its objects are not substantially separate entities. Now this is a particular point of view. And we’re we’re we’re trying to introduce certain notions. We’re not going to carry all these notions further.
Some of these are going to be refuted, aren’t aren’t going to be accepted by the higher schools, the the stages that we’re going to work through. But they’re they’re useful provisional understandings. They’re skillful means to help us to gain a higher view. When we we looked at at these appearance with a greater precision. You know, all of these various objects that appear to us and we begin we distinguish them into three natures.
You know those which are are purely fabrications of mind, of thought, we call those imaginary natures. And those which rely upon causes and conditions, we call we call those dependent natures, you know, tables and glasses of water, people, dependent natures. And those which are are emptinesses. So we’ve we’ve introduced the notion of emptiness which is going to become central to our understanding, the idea of what emptiness is. Emptiness as an absence.
An absence of, in this context, in this at this level, an absence of substantial difference between subject and object. And this emptiness of difference in substance between the the perceiver and the perceived is what’s called thoroughly established nature. So, you know, we’re we’re we’re becoming more precise. We’re analyzing. The world simply isn’t accepted on face value any longer.
We’re beginning to analyze, beginning to break it down. We’re beginning to see some things as false, maybe some things as true. We’re beginning to begin to get a deeper understanding of the way things exist. So the the this insight helps us to it helps us to remove a subtle a subtle level of ignorance than was removed at the hearer stage. But but still our analysis isn’t hasn’t gone far enough.
We there’s still subtle subtle levels of ignorance that we have to remove. There’s certain more profound wisdoms and understandings that we have to gain. So in order to do this then we move on to the third of these four stages. It’s called the Autonomy Middle Way Stage. So there were two Middle Way stages.
There’s the autonomy middle way stage and the Consequentialist Middle Way stage. So you know the term middle way, it’s like middle means like a central position, taking a central position between what are called the two extremes. The two extremes are permanence and annihilation. Another way of expressing these terms, if we put them in other words, the the the middle way between true existence and nonexistence. We’re gonna try to come to understand what these what this what this in fact means.
And we’re gonna try to take a position between things truly existent and nonexistent. According to the Middle Way School, nothing whatsoever truly exists. That’s to say things truly exist is an extreme. On the other hand, to say they don’t exist at all, that’s another extreme. So we want to find a middle path between these two, what are what are seen as extremes.
The middle path between the extreme of true existence and the extreme of nonexistence. So, you know, it’s like, you know, it’s a very delicate balance. We’re trying to a path that we’re trying to weave between these two we’re which is in accordance with the way reality which reflects reality. So the principal assertion of the middle way school is that phenomena exist. So this table exists.
Therefore, we can’t we refute its nonexistence. Nonexistence is the extreme of nihilism. But they do not truly exist which refutes the view of eternalism. So why do we call you know, the idea if we say things don’t truly exist then one who is holding the extreme of then there would be the lower schools would say, well then it doesn’t exist at all. If it doesn’t truly exist, it doesn’t exist at all.
But but the the Middle Way school is saying something cannot truly exist but not necessarily not exist. That if we if that the refuting that the position where we annihilate phenomena by not accepting their true existence. On the other hand, if things truly exist then they become permanent. You know, we’re trying to get a sense that what for something to truly exist, it would have to be it would have to exist independent of mind, independent of causes and conditions, independent of its part. It would be frozen in time and space.
It would be totally encapsulated within itself, unchanging. And we’re trying to get we’re going to try to develop a feeling for what true what a truly existent phenomena would be like. So but just at this time, you know, just trying to get an idea what we mean by middle way. A middle way is taking a is a view which takes the central position between what is seen as two extremes, the extreme of true existence and the extreme of nonexistence. So the fact that phenomena appears to a valid cognition refutes their nonexistence.
Things appear to eye consciousness, they they appear to mental consciousness, for example. And these consciousnesses are valid, therefore these phenomena exist. So we’re we’re not seeking to argue that. Appearances refute nonexistence. Emptiness refutes true existence.
Phenomena exist but are empty of a particular fantasized way of existing. Phenomena exist but they are empty. And the word empty here means that they lack, that they have an absence of. And what is that what is it that they lack? What is absent?
A fantasized way of existing, an imaginary way of existing, a fabricated way of existing. You know, this this fantasized, fabricated, imaginary way of existing has many different names. At this level, we call it true existence. True existence is a fabricated way of existing. Totally, purely imaginary.
We superimpose it upon objects, upon the world. Objects are empty of that way of existing, of that fantasized way of existing. Existing. That is to say, objects are empty of true existence, but they appear to truly exist. But the reality is such that they are empty of that true existence.
So emptiness refutes true existence. Appearances refute nonexistence. Now we can’t say that things don’t exist. You know, it’s a very subtle view we’re going to try to develop, that things function, that they operate, that they appear to us and we’re able to make use of them. The world is coherent and it functions according to certain laws and conventions.
And we can we can plug in that and make use of these objects. But there’s only this world of appearances. There’s nothing behind these appearances. But nothing more needs is needed other than the appearances. And moreover, these are merely appearances.
They do not truly exist. There’s no findable reality upon analysis. You know, I I mentioned that the fact that that maybe religion can be defined as a means of ultimate transformation. So, you know, it it could could begin to sound like what we’re involving ourselves in. This kind of this philosophic discourse.
This just like a mind game of some sort. But if it the final purpose of all of our discussion, of going through these stages, of looking at the middle way which we’re doing now, is to bring about an ultimate transformation. It has a very profound end. It’s not simply an academic diversion. It’s not simply philosophy.
Academic diversion. It’s not simply philosophy. It is fundamental to what Buddhism is about, ultimate transformation. You know, at the at the hearer school, all of all functional phenomena truly exist. You know, now how do how did the, you know, how did we how were we seeking to bring about some kind of ultimate transformation, for example, at the hearer level, at the hearer stage?
You know we use the example of a dream, the analogy of a dream. That as long as one identifies with the dream figure, one goes through the various experiences. You know if you’re being chased by a tiger you experience fear. You go through suffering. The moment you have a lucid dream, that is that you no longer identify with the I figure of the dream, you’re freed from that.
That it was only taken for real in the case of at the hearer stage, that of identifying with a with a independent, unchanging, unitary self that all of these mental fabrications arose, that all the attachment and aversion having to foster and enhance something which was merely appearance. Once upon analysis we seek identifying that as the I, what is merely appearance but which doesn’t have any doesn’t reflect any reality, then just like in the dream when we see we cease identifying with the I figure of the dream, All of the mental elaboration which arises from that misconception cease of themselves. All aversion, attachment, you know, all the afflictive emotions cease. One has ultimately transformed oneself in one’s experience of the world. At the mind only school, you know, we talked about the fact that of ignorance conceiving as real objects which appear to exist external to the mind.
With regard to objects which appear attractive, we develop attachment. With regard to objects which appear unattractive, we develop aversion. When one realizes the emptiness of the objects of such an imaginary nature as existing, you know, just imagine that the like in the dream again, that all of the objects which are appearing in the dream are not separate from the mind. If one is mindful of that fact, then even though objects appear to be attractive, there’s no attachment to them. They’re not attachment has the sense of of a going out and seeking to bring into, to appropriate, to incorporate something to one’s self identity.
We if in in if being aware that all of the all that is occurring within a dream, all the people in the houses, all the dream objects are not separate from your mind. Within that understanding, then there’s no seeking to incorporate them into one’s self identity because they’re not separate from one’s self identity. No attachment would arise. No trying to hold on to them. Nor would there be aversion trying to make them permanently free or separate from the self identity because one realizes they’re a part of the self, they’re a part of one’s own mind.
So out of this coming to understand the emptiness of the perceiver and the perceived being substantially different, then there comes about an ultimate transformation that all of the conceptual elaborations cease. All of the aversion and the attachment and all their associated suffering cease of themselves and the mind simply rests free of all conceptual contrivances, you know, based upon that dualistic thinking. So, you know, would there’s some kind of there’s a there’s a there’s a there’s a a purpose which we’re working toward. You know, it’s we’re trying to eliminate the afflictive emotions. We’re trying to overcome ultimately all conceptual elaborations, fabrications of mind.
This is the basis of all of our suffering, all of our problems. As long as we misconceive the way things exist, the mind will inevitably weave a tale about all of the objects. It will develop all kinds of elaborate theories, all kinds of mental fabrications and contrivances will arise in the mind. This is all of this is simply a byproduct of an initial misconception with regard to the nature of the way the object exists. All of it.
All of this all of this elaborate thinking process, all of these patterns of mind, all all evolving out of this this fundamental misconception about the way things exist, about a misconception as to their nature. All of it. All of this fabrication, contrivances, this whole elaboration of our thinking. If we can remove this misconception then it’s all of this contrivance, all this fabrication, this mental elaboration is pacified, ceases within the expanse of emptiness itself. The mind rests in that emptiness.
In the absence of contrivance, of all of these mental elaborations, one finds peace. There’s no longer the struggle. It’s gone. In the you know both the both the in terms of the middle way school, both the autonomy middle way and Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka schools assert that no phenomena whatsoever truly exist. And we have we’re gonna try to come to an understanding of what truly existent means.
To truly for them, for the middle way school, to truly exist is to assert a kind of realism which assumes that that objects appear from their own side without depending upon on any way upon the mind. Now why is if we look, why would we believe that? Why would we be a realist in that regard? Why would we assume that objects exist independent of the mind? The answer is quite simple in a way because that’s the way they appear.
Like glass, it appears as if it’s not in any way depending for its existence on my mind. In any way. It it appears as if not it exists from its own objectively. That it defines itself. That it is is it exists unrelated to my ideas about it, my beliefs about it, my conceptuality, independent of language, all of that.
It’s out there in a frozen, solid way. You know, it’s you know, but what what we’re trying to do at the Middle Way School what we’re trying to do through these stages is introduce the notion that of a participatory universe, that we are involved in the co creation of the world about us, that the world simply isn’t out there independent of our minds, independent of our thoughts about it, our language which we use to think about it. You know, we we we can say that the reason that we conceive of things to be appearing as independent of our minds is that we conceive of things to be independent of our minds because that is the way they appear. But now we’ve introduced the notion that all appearances cannot be trusted. Oftentimes appearances are false.
You know, according to you know, this isn’t you know, we we have to get familiar, accustomed to this notion that simply because things appear and and this appearance, you know, it’s it’s going to be because we’re we’re undermining a central belief of ourselves. It’s to you know, it’s if that if I for example, if I don’t exist as a unitary, unchanging, independent self, I don’t exist at all. No. If that glass doesn’t exist independent, truly if it doesn’t truly exist, it doesn’t exist at all. Nothing exists.
You know, the the it’s almost if this if I can’t believe in this, it’s something which I’m I’m thoroughly, you know, accustomed to, something which anchors me into some kind of reality, then I’m lost. And there’s nothing at all. You know, that’s that’s that’s a real possible way of thinking, a reasonable way of thinking as it were. So but we have to how can we overcome that resistance that, you know, we we don’t want to let go of the log of of our preconceptions, what is in fact misconception. That’s, you know, that we you know, we want that’s preventing us from some kind of existential going under.
And we have to have we want to hold we want to have something that we can hold on to, something that we can believe in that’s solid and real out there. And to begin to let go is a very gradual undermining of a lot of our notions that anchor us in reality or anchors us into fantasized reality. You know, according according to so I mean the point I’m trying to get across is if it’s to have any transformative value, what we’re discussing, it has to we have to we have to somehow it has to shake. Nāgārjuna used this word shake. It has to actually shake our present complacency, our present grasping at the way things are.
That there has to be some under you know, beginning to like a you know, like a undermining, like like this house we’ve constructed near the beach, you know, and the waves are just starting to undermine it slowly and gradually beginning. We have this we’ve this fabricated world that we’ve developed, that we’ve built on the basis of ignorance. And now this this reality therapy is beginning to undermine that, but it’s a gradual undermine necessarily. But it’s somehow what we’re saying has to begin to shake us, shake that that dualistic conception, shake that that this grasping at, for example, a true existence, or grasping at an independent, unchanging self. We have to actually begin to see that, ah, there is possibility I may be wrong about some iota of doubt, even a glimmer.
Āryadeva says that even the doubt as to whether things truly exist or not, that’s just that doubt shakes the very foundations of cyclic existence. Just that doubt. When we’re really open to the possibility that we might be wrong, we’re not sure, the mind’s vacillating between the possibilities, That even that is transformative. So, you know, we have to to gain a sense of where this is taking us and what it’s trying to do. According for according to the mind only school, objects, you know, tables, glasses, bells, books, people exist prior to our conceptualizing about them.
They exist prior to our thinking about them. They aren’t dependent upon our thinking. They aren’t dependent upon the perceiving consciousness. In fact, they arise simultaneously with the perceiving consciousness. The eye consciousness which perceives the glass and the glass arise simultaneously from the same substantial cause, a previous latency of a karma.
So the glass exists independent of my thoughts about it. Its existence isn’t dependent upon my conceptualizing about it. Things these are the things in themselves, you know, what we call their independent nature. They truly exist because their existence relies solely upon causes and conditions, nothing more. They don’t exist.
They in no way depend upon my mind. But they do, you know, they they are not fabrications of my mind in any way. They don’t they don’t require a perceiving mind for their existence. So then we we looked at another type of nature in terms of what we project upon these objects that already exist. We project names on them.
We project concepts about them. You know, our thoughts, our feelings about them. So you know we affix the name glass, glass of water. We affix the name table. All of the and what we call glasses of water, what we call a table.
So we begin to conceive of the objects. We begin to think about the objects using symbols, using language. So but but the what we begin to project on, to lay upon the object in itself, all of conceptual contrivances. These are fabrications of the imagination essentially. And these are the imaginary natures.
The object in itself is empty of our ideas about it, of our conceptual elaborations about it. These are purely imaginary fabrications which we are projecting onto the object itself. They are creations of the mind, imaginary natures. Then the absence of that imaginary nature within the object itself, within the independent nature, is what we call a thoroughly established nature. You know, that real books, real glasses, real tables are empty of our fabrications, of our ideas that we have about them.
That emptiness is a thoroughly established phenomena. It truly exists. It’s not a fabrication of mind. You know if if The main assertion of the middle way school is that nothing whatsoever truly exists, that nothing whatsoever has an independent reality of its own, that nothing exists independent of mind. All phenomena without exception are dependent for their existence upon a perceiving mind.
There is no independent world out there, you know, independent of our minds. The the it’s a participatory universe. We are involved in the bringing forth of phenomena into existence. So the central assertion of the Middle Way School is that all phenomena are brought into existence through the process of conceptual designation. And this is very this is going we’re going to spend a lot of time on this, as much time as we have.
And what this means, that this is going to take a you know, we’re to you know, we’re beginning initially as a naive realist, the world the world was out there and we were simply passive observers stuck into this reality as it were, and it simply it kind of acts upon ourselves. And now there’s going to be a gradual shifting to the point where we begin to see that we are co creators of our world. But there’s going to be a further shifting, a gradual shifting to where the creator begins to more and more be seen in terms of our own mind. We are the creators of our world. There’s a there’s a there’s a gradual shift from an objective reality to a subjective involvement in in bringing about that reality.
And there’s a transition that we’re working that we’re going to try to work through. So all objects are imputed by terms and conceptuality. Now this is very difficult to understand and we’re going to spend time on this because this is central. This is the and what this might mean. All objects are dependent on terms, on language, names, names, and conceptuality.
That is to say that the thinking process, the processes of mind which make use of terms and language, symbols, names. That the this glass, this table, myself, all phenomena are dependent upon that process. That that they all phenomena are imputed, designated, labeled by means of these terms and conceptualities. And they do not exist independently of this process. So this doesn’t mean that that, you know, okay, now what does it mean?
It doesn’t mean that we’re just you know, if if we try hard enough that that that to think that fire won’t burn us, we won’t get burned. That’s not the case. Or, you know, if we if we all if we all agreed, let’s let’s let’s think that there’s huge pink elephants in this room, that somehow we can conjure pink real pink pink elephants in this room. That’s you know, that that would would be a misunderstanding. That that reality creation reality creation, you know, whatever we call it, world making is not a matter of wish of of just wishful thinking or just whim.
We can just by wishing it so or thinking it, it makes it so. There are very definite criteria, definite rules which determine what is exist and what doesn’t exist. This is what we mean by conventional reality, that we all are plugged into a conventional reality. We’re all following rules of world making which we have assumed, which are present at an unconscious level. So there are are only certain things which given these rules, there are only certain objects which can validly exist.
Other objects are precluded. If you have different rules you’ll have a different reality. There are different realms because there are different rules, different epistemologies. That is to say, the rules we follow to make sense out of our world. And one of the most fundamental and profound notions of Buddhism is that knowing is a process of bringing into the known.
That the very process of knowing is the process of bringing the object into existence. It’s not as if the object exists and then we come to know it. We are continually involved in the construction or the creation of what we come to know. So but it’s here that we begin to differentiate anyway. Okay.
So yeah, I’m gonna stop. Okay. So what I’ve talked about thus far is just some general ideas about the middle way school. The idea that nothing truly exists because and we’re going to talk about why nothing truly exists, that everything is very much dependent is dependent upon mind for its existence. Why?
Because it’s dependent upon designating process of mind, that is to say the types of thought processes which use conceptuality, thought processes are conceptuality, which use language, that we organize our experience into reality. That is what we call knowing. And in this process it’s necessary that we make use of language and therefore whatever we come to know is dependent upon language and the concepts which use language. But that’s in general true of all of the Middle Way School. But we are going to begin to distinguish between the two levels of autonomy and Consequentialist, in terms of the degree of involvement of the mind.
In terms of the Autonomy Middle Way School says there is there’s both a subjective element and an objective element. Objective element necessary combining to bring forth an object into existence. Something is coming from the side of the object. It has a nature of its own. It defines what it is.
But necessary for the mind to for that defining property to appear to the mind and then the mind goes on to designate it, conceive of it. Ah, this is a glass. There’s something about the object in its very nature which determines what it is. But it’s necessary for that what it is, that defining quality, characteristic to appear to a conceptual mind and to be in order for it to come into existence. That’s the autonomy of Mettaway School.
Now the final view that we’re going to try to approach is that and the most difficult notion of all is that there’s nothing coming from the side of the object. That it is purely in terms of designation the mind that the mind the object is not self defining. We define the object. The point is, we’re moving you know, we could we’re we’re always trying all of this what can be can sound like simple philosophy or without any relevancy is always seeking to bring about this ultimate transformation, the removal of ignorance. If we come to see that we are involved in a participatory participatory world, then we know we no longer see ourselves as existing in isolation from the world.
That we are we develop a sense of oneness with the world. The world and myself are codependent. And there’s unity and therefore there’s no attachment, there’s no aversion, and therefore there’s an ultimate transformation. So anyway that’s we’ll explore this more. So we’ll we’ll dedicate some of the creative potential that we’ve accumulated through our practice, through our discussion together.
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.