Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using a magician’s illusion — pebbles appearing as horses and elephants — Ven Jampa Gendun explains the Autonomy Middle Way school’s central claim: phenomena have intrinsic defining characteristics that partly force the mind’s labeling, even though they do not truly exist. In this 33-minute commentary, he maps three observers onto stages of understanding emptiness — the magician who sees the illusion without grasping it, the audience who grasps it as real, and the latecomer immune to the spell — then grounds the philosophy in an everyday example: a friend’s scowl that reads as anger but is simply illness, showing how reasoning can undermine habitual misreadings before direct perception of emptiness removes ignorance altogether. He closes by previewing the Prāsaṇgika view that nothing at all comes from the object’s side. Suited for practitioners already familiar with the Madhyamaka debate.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 HMA 1997 09 03.mp3
UUID: e5c0889a-7dab-4fbb-8c56-9f66f11b85bd
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-09-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 32.8 minutes
Words: ~4,190
On the on the on the degree of the mind’s role in bringing forth this lived reality. So the Svatāntrika Madhyamaka, it denies that phenomena truly exist, but they do assert that phenomena naturally exist. I know okay. Well, it sounds like we’re just playing with words and maybe just splitting hairs, but there is I mean, this we’re trying to work our way up to a more and more subtle viewpoint, so we have to understand this step in the process, trying to, you know, gain an appreciation for what we mean by truly existent. And now the Svatāntrika Madhyamaka says, this glass does not truly exist, but it naturally exists.
Phenomena that is to say that phenomena define themselves. We don’t define the object. Phenomena define themselves by the force of their own intrinsic characteristics, their intrinsic identity, that there is something of, you know, there is something about that object which if I’m to to label it correctly, if I’m going to to think about it and talk about it in a in a correct fashion, I am forced to call it something. I am forced to conceive of it as being a glass. So there’s there’s something there’s some there’s some characteristic which defines what it is.
Though it’s necessary that it it my perceptual it’s necessary that it become involved in my conceiving of it, I cannot completely determine what the impact it is. There’s some defining quality about it which forces me to conceive of it that way. By the force of this nature, for example, the nature the the intrinsic character of fire is hot and burning. That’s that’s the intrinsic nature of fire. By the force of this nature, this hot and burning appearing to my awareness, my mind perceives fire, and the and the fire validly exists.
It depends upon that perceptual process. Hot and burning are what we call the basis of designation. Something appears to me, some intrinsic like like a code, some stimulus, some in my environment. It it it stimulates, acts as a catalyst for my conceiving. But but I can’t conceive of anything if I’m to properly or validly perceive that object.
It’s that there’s something from the side of the so what what we’re getting at here, we’re beginning to to develop the notion that there’s something coming from this side of the object, there’s something coming from the side of the subject, and this the combination of the two brings forth a phenomenon into reality. There’s a basis of designation. There’s a labeling process. What I mean by labeling is that my mind designates, thinks, glass. For example, in dependence upon upon a sheets of paper, printed sheets of paper in in an orderly fashion bound by a cover.
in dependence upon that, I think book. That’s the basis of my designation. in dependence upon a round cylinder of glass, you know, with a flat bottom able to hold liquid, I can see glass. That there’s something there, and when that appears to my mind on that basis, there’s something that is intrinsic, there’s some kind of quality, some kind of self defining quality about the object. By that appearing to my mind, I I am stimulated to think glass, stimulated to think book, sim stimulated to think fire.
in dependence upon my thinking that, fire has come into existence, glass has come into existence, book has come into existence, beauty has come into existence, ugliness has come into existence on the basis of some intrinsic nature and objects. Without me conceiving of it, the object never doesn’t come in, doesn’t have the status of existence. It has only a potentiality. It requires a subjective element. It requires my mind becoming involved in it and using language and symbols to think about it.
But there is something coming from the side of the object. I mean, this might sound like we’re just just a technicality, but I think, you know, we’re going to try to when we come to the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka, we’re going to show how this how this what might appear to be just splitting hairs is really a very profound difference in terms of how the Consequentialist school goes on to conceive of the reality. You know, we have to understand that this is all a transformative process. This is not simply philosophy. This is this is you know, I I I think I I mentioned that one of the one of the definitions of religion is that which brings about ultimate transformation.
And it is just this what we’re talking about now, which is has the potential to bring about ultimate transformation. So it’s not it’s not simply academic or irrelevant philosophy. We’re trying to we’re trying to approach in an intellect initially, in an intellectual fashion, in a rational fashion, some deep seated misconceptions within our mind. And by by transforming these, by opposing these, then we transform ourselves. You know, objects have something from their own side, some kind of defining characteristic about them, which determines what we can think about them, what we can validly call them if we’re going to relate with them in a correct fashion.
You know, just because, for example, just because we call a cow a horse, it doesn’t make it a cow. Just because we call a horse a cow, just because we call a horse a cow doesn’t make it a cow. A horse is not proper based upon which we can label cow. You know? A horse has no intrinsic cowness about it.
No inherent characteristics which could allow us to correctly designate it as a cow. We are, as it were, forced to call a horse a horse if we’re going to relate with it in a correct fashion, if we’re going to think of it in proper terms according to certain conventions. So this this is an important point, an important differentiating point, and we’ll come back to that when we when we move on to the Consequentialist Middle Way school. So in in trying to in the Consequentialist Middle Way school, they use an analogy of a magician’s illusion to illustrate how this the status of existence is posited through the force of an awareness. So, you know, just imagine situation.
And, you know, maybe it’s an impossible situation, it doesn’t matter. You know, the analogy still works. You can you can begin to use it to think about what what is being gotten at you. Because, you know, for example, and this is a very traditional analogy, but nonetheless, I and I think it’s still useful. You know, a magician is is giving a magic a magic show, and and the magician uses a special mantra, some some spell.
Good. And the spell is cast over everyone present, the audience but also the magician himself. And what this spell does is that it causes a pebble and a stick to appear to be a horse and an elephant. So there so there there appears due to the influence of this spell, a horse and an elephant, both to the magician himself, but also to the audience who were present when the spell was cast. So but then there’s a third person, a third category of people.
You know, as as usually the case, somebody comes in late, especially in Australia, and this person hasn’t had the the spell cast upon them. So we have three categories of people, magician, the audience who was present when the spell was cast, and the latecomer. And we so to the magician who was who was also under the influence of the spell, there appears to be a horse and elephant. Yeah. But he knows that it’s only appearing due to the force of the spell of the mantra.
So though there there is there is this appearance, he he does not conceive of that horse and elephant to be a real horse and elephant, though it appears. So he he is not captivated, as it were, by that appearance through his understanding of the nature of that appearance. But the those in the audience, they are the naive realists. They take what what appears to be reality. They take it for granted in that way.
So their appearance for them to be a horse and elephant, and moreover, they accede to that appearance. They grasp at that appearance to be, in fact, a real horse and a real elephant. And in the case of, you know, if it’s an attractive horse and they’re horse lovers, you know, they’re gonna be attracted to that horse. Oh, I wish I I wonder if he might sell that horse. That’s a good horse.
I I used to have a horse like that. You know, if I had that horse, it’d be just like the horse I had when I was little. I used to have so much fun with that. And they would develop maybe some kind of attachment, desire for that horse. If they didn’t like if they weren’t into horses or whatever, they they might develop aversion.
So but it’s dependent upon them conceiving of that horse as a real horse, as a real elephant. But what happens is the latecomer. The latecomer doesn’t even because they are not under the influence of the spell, of the mantra, even the appearance of a horse and elephant aren’t there. The horse and elephant don’t even appear to the the latecomer. So okay.
In discussing, what is the meaning of this analogy? The magician is is analogous to someone who has understanding of emptiness, but has not removed ignorance completely from their mind. They have an understanding of emptiness, but they have not removed ignorance completely from their mind. You know, just because we understand emptiness, there are, you know, infinite number of gradations of understanding of emptiness that we, you know, from a we all understand emptiness a little bit even at present. You know, we all have maybe a reasonably good understanding about emptiness, but we’re going to refine that and develop that, you know, developing inferential understanding, then going on to have direct perception of emptiness.
So there there are different levels of understanding of emptiness, more and more refined, more and more powerful. So here’s an individual who has an understanding of emptiness, but still ignorance has not been removed from their mind. They have the wisdom, some wisdom, but it’s not strong enough to have removed it’s not strong enough to have removed ignorance from their mind. So for them, true existence still appears. Objects still appear to be truly existent.
Yeah? But having some understanding of emptiness, though they appear that way, they don’t accede to that appearance. They don’t fall they aren’t captivated by that appearance. They aren’t they don’t take that appearance to be true. True existence appears, but they don’t conceive of it as true.
Okay? That’s the magician. But the audience, on the other hand, are like those who have no, you know, the naive realist, those who have no conception of emptiness whatsoever. For them, all appearances are taken to be reality. Whatever appears is taken to be true.
For them the horse and the elephant appear, and they take them to be a real horse and elephant. For them all phenomena appear to truly exist, and they accede to that appearance. They conceive of them to truly exist, and therefore and they go on to develop attachment and aversion to those appearances. The latecomer is someone who has actually removed ignorance from their mind altogether along with latencies of ignorance. For them, even true existence doesn’t even appear.
A truly existent beauty does not appear. Truly existent ugliness does not appear, let alone grasp for it. There’s appearance and then grasping. We can begin to remove the grasping though it still appears. You know, just like in in the in the case of the of the snake and the rope.
You know, we can we can can here’s like here’s one. Like, you know, you you there’s a you have a friend and and they and they you just saw them yesterday and today today you see them and they walk they walk by and they’ve got this, you know, scowl on their face, red in the face. And you say, well, what did I do? What did I do wrong? Why is this so angry at me?
So there’s this appearance And you can and and but you begin you can either accede to that appearance or you can begin to question that appearance. You say, well, you know, I just I didn’t do anything. And, you know, yesterday we got along, we were going getting along just fine, you know. Maybe they’re sick. Yeah?
Oh, yeah. That’s right. They said they were I I talked to them last night on the phone and they said they were they were getting a cold. Maybe that scowl on their face, what appears to be, is just sign of their being sick. It has nothing to do with me.
So but, you know, so this would be this this using these reasonings, we could this this process of reason, we could begin to undermine that initial belief that this person was angry with me. You know, we can we we can begin to oppose that conception of, you know, of this what of this there appears to us, there’s a sign. We take this sign, we how do we interpret this sign? This person’s red in the face, know, they’re frowning. Normally we take that as a sign of disapproval, but we can begin to refute that habitual way of relating, that no, there’s no reason why I should be disapproved.
There’s no, you know, there’s no I haven’t done anything. Moreover, we’re good friends, and someone else you know, and But on the other hand So the point I’m beginning to make here is that this this actual lines of reasoning can help us to oppose habitual ways of reacting to to appearances. We can begin to undermine habitual beliefs that might have been evoked by these appearances. In this case, the appearance was, you know, this person being red in the face and frowning. But we but we can but we can go on to actually go up to them and say, are you angry at me?
Oh, no. No. No. No. I’m just kinda sick today.
I’m sorry. You know, actually, it’s nice to have you around. I find you quite comforting too. And directly refuting that that possible misconception, that belief that we’re being disapproved of, that they’re angry at us. And that that that opposing conception, what is in fact a misconception that somehow they’re angry at us, completely undermined, completely eliminated from the mind.
So, you know, this is maybe rather simple minded notion, but it holds this it’s analogous to our present situation. There is an appearance. We we have habitual ways of relating to that appearance. We interpret it in habitual ways. And we we we can we can accede to that appearance and keep keep relating, continue to relate in the same way.
Or we can begin to though there remains the appearance, we can begin to refute rationally using reasoning that in fact this appearance isn’t the case, that my past interpretation of that appearance was invalid. You know, though things to appear to exist independent of my mind, and though they continue to, that appearance continues, I can begin to undermine my belief in that it is true, that that appearance is true, that appearance is in fact false. The appearance can continue, but then we if we go on with that, undermining the belief, undermining this belief that this appearance is true, if we could have a direct cognition, if we can directly understand emptiness, not just intellectually, but have a bare perception, just as if, you know, if the stick in the palm of my hand, just as if my eye consciousness were seeing that stick, my mental consciousness can directly realize emptiness without the necessity of thought. Then this is like going up to that person and saying, are you angry at me? And then saying, no.
It directly refutes and has the power to completely remove that misbelief from our mind, that misperception. So, you know, this is a gradual undermining of these beliefs. It is you know, we’re trying to form what we call inferences, you know, using logic, using reason, but we want to get to a direct a direct understanding. That’s that that is what has power to uproot the ignorance completely. Just as they’re directly asking this person, are you angry with me?
Has the power to to completely uproot the misbelief that this person is angry with you. You know, This is where we want to get to. This is where we’re moving in terms of this reasoning. So the reasoning does have some purpose. It does have a function.
It’s just not philosophy or irrelevant academia. So looking at these three types of individuals. Okay. I was going to go into the reasoning that the Svatāntrika Madhyamaka makes use of, and maybe we’ll hold on to that a little bit, till next week. They had a Okay.
This level what do we want to to understand, to take notice of? First off, that the mind is playing a part in the bringing forth of phenomena into reality. In general, this probably doesn’t make the significance of that is very much in terms of the desirable and undesirable objects. Neutral objects, in general, doesn’t not of any real psychological significance, but it it we begin to appreciate it in terms of when we when we when desirable objects appear to our mind, when undesirable objects appear to our mind, then it then this notion begins to have real relevance in because it it can if we can be mindful of the part that our own minds are playing in this appearance, then we won’t as readily accede to that appearance as true. And here true means that that beauty, that desirability, that repulsiveness, that ugliness is inherent in that object by its own nature, and that it has nothing to do with our own minds conceiving it as so.
You know? If we can if we were mindful of that fact, the beauty could still appear to us, but we would, at the same time, be mindful of the fact that that beauty is a social construct. That my mind, in dependence upon its values, its aesthetic conceptions, is playing a part in that appearance. And therefore, within this context of this mindfulness, the part our mind is playing in this whole, you could say, happening, You know, we have a Geshe-la for this happening. Within this, desire will not arise.
Attachment will not arise. Aversion will not arrive. Hatred will not arrive. You know, we appreciate the beauty, but that’s a reality. It’s like I said, you know, beauty does exist, ugliness does exist, but it exists in a different fashion than we normally conceive of it.
And especially within the autonomy middle way school, the distinguishing factor is that there is something about which an inherent characteristic of the object, which if we are to speak of it correctly or think of it correctly or relate with it in a correct fashion, in accordance with the social norms, conventions, that requires us to conceive of it as that. You know, that there is and this is a level of understanding, and we’re going to go beyond this. There is there is beauty. There is by its own definition. There is ugliness by its own definition.
Things have something there is something coming from the side of them, but it is necessary that the mind go on to conceive of it as such. What we’re going to do I’ll stop I’m going stop there. What we’re going to do, what we’re going to the place where we’re trying to go to is to begin the next step in the process, and it may be useful just to introduce that notion now, is to understand the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka position is that there is nothing whatsoever coming from the side of the object. But this is a very difficult position to get to, which makes it so. There is no glassness about the glass.
There is nothing which requires us to conceive of it as that. There is nothing which it is not self defining. It is we who define it. It is minds who are creating this world. It is not to say that these things are like in the Mind Only school, are are a part of our mind.
They exist out there, but they exist in terms of a social construct, of convention. We are born into a pre existent world, and we learn what are the rules of creating that world as we grow, and we continue to spin a tale about this world of others which maintains it, which keeps it keeps it in existence, We can begin to change those rules. We can begin to spin different tales if we if we can begin to transcend rules in which we’ve been habituated to. We’ll We’ll talk about that more next week. So is this maybe when we have a discussion, we can give you some feedback where if this is making any sense, if you feel if it’s it’s connecting.
Yeah. I I said that religion is religion is the means of ultimate transformation. What is it that stops us from this ultimate transformation? It is our misconception in terms of how we conceive of ourselves and the world about us. At one level, if we if we conceive ourselves as a fixed, unchanging entity, as that I that there is a core to my being which is concrete and solid, then we are we are and we fixate upon that, we are doomed to then fixate upon that, we are doomed to a life of simply protecting and trying to enhance something at the center of who we conceive of ourselves to be, but moreover with a very fixed conception with an unchanging identity.
And it becomes tremendously hard to even to develop the change. Moreover, how can we you know, that we are suffering individuals. And there’s no there will never there will never be you know, unless we can we will always be traveling the traveling the path. We we could never conceive of ourselves to ever finish the path. There’s no possibility of liberating a permanently suffering sentient being.
If that suffering is a fixed part of our identity, then we can never be healthy. There’s no possibility if we’re permanently ill. So within the internal logic, there’s there’s really no way out of such a situation. And moreover, our conceiving of the things about us, all of the various phenomena to inherently exist, you know, just, you know, as fixed as separate entities. You know, this is the way our thinking process takes place, is linear.
We think of things in linear fashion, one by one, and they seem to be unrelated to the next. You know, the dog chased the cat across the room and ran outside. That, you know, this process, the way of thinking, and that we can there is a certain we take these these what are thoughts, what are in fact separate separate entities in terms of thought to be reality, and therefore the world seems to be broken up into unrelated chunks of bits. We never find ourselves as alien to that, as standing outside of all of that. We aren’t able to conceive it as an interdependent whole, as a unity of which we are an inextricable part of and involved in mutual dependence, in co creation.
We are one with this universe. We can’t we can’t conceive of that due to the due to the very perceptual process itself, due to the way that we think. Let me stop here. 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 this supreme jewel of bodhicitta that has not arisen rise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish but increase over and more. Thank you. I think six, maybe maybe six. Yeah.
Six. Yeah. So you all be awakened, have awakened minds in six weeks. Gives you something to look forward to. So have a good week or if you like to stay for the discussion, might want to get a cup of tea.
Thank you.