Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A personal story about asking the Dalai Lama how to be certain a decision expresses wisdom opens this 45-minute session from Ven Jampa Gendun’s year-long series on awakening mind. The answer — that motivation is the one thing we can reliably check — anchors the first half: Gendun traces how choices constitute karma, how going for refuge means committing to consistent awakening choices rather than habitual circular motion. A guided loving-kindness meditation on a difficult person follows, then the classical death contemplation and its three outlines. The session closes with an introduction to the Consequentialist Middle Way view that all phenomena are merely imputed by language and conceptuality, illustrated through the snake-and-rope example, before a four-point analysis meditation is introduced as a practical entry point.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 17 HMA 1997 09 10.mp3
UUID: 6a7d2073-e70f-4dfe-a4d6-63ee8068ffb8
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-09-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.5 minutes
Words: ~6,626
We have to begin as we as we usually do, as we always do in terms of readjusting our motivation. You know, again, it’s not so much what we do but why we do what we do which is very much going to determine the quality of the outcome whether what we do is going to help us to begin to solve some of the problems at a more fundamental level or whether what we do is simply going to be another activity amongst the array of activities which simply supports, extends, complicates our problems. We have to make sure that the solutions that we come up with are actually solving the problem and don’t become part of the problem itself, that they aren’t different forms of the problem in a different in in another guise in some fashion or form or other. So, you know, we can assure this. However, we can’t be sure of all our outcomes of our actions until perhaps we’re a Buddha.
I I I have been fortunate in having been able to spoke speak with the the Dalai Lama a few times. You you can touch me after the the class. Sorry. And anyway, the big d and I were I was talking I once asked the Dalai Lama, I said, I was quite concerned. I was I was trying to make some rather dramatic decisions for myself in my life.
And I said, well, how can I be sure whether whether what I’m deciding to do is an expression of wisdom? You know, how can I be sure of the outcomes? He said, you can’t. I said, the only thing you can be fairly certain of is your motivation behind it. You can check up with regard to that, become aware of what what your intentions are, you know, the why behind what you’re deciding to do.
And then it’s okay to make mistakes. You know, if you if your if your motivation is positive in some fashion or form or other that, you know, it’s a caring attitude if whether for others and a compassionate attitude for yourself. In some way constructive. Seeking positive ends. Okay.
You might make a mistake along the way. But there there’s no great fault. Things always don’t turn out as we would like them to or as, you know, we’re we’re limited in our our present understandings of reality and how cause and effect operate. So we try our best and the best way we can try is in terms of our motivation. So this extends down to, you know, from these big dramatic decisions that we’re confronted with over the course of our life from now and then to minor insignificant choices that we’re making every day of our life.
With our choices we make our life, we make ourselves, with our choices we make our world. We are the summation of the many choices that we’re constantly making every day of our life for better or worse and beginning to check up and what kind of choices are in fact we’re making. What is do we make the choice of the path of least resistance, the the path which keeps taking us back to more of the same, the same problems, the same dysfunctions, the same suffering in one way or another, or do we, you know, begin to take difficult path, the path less traveled, take the chance, to begin to take risk, and make begin to make awakening choices. If we don’t change our direction, we’re likely to end up where we’re headed. Now where am I headed?
And what I’m the way I’m headed is very much determined by these seemingly insignificant choices that we’re making every day of our lives. You know, one choice opens up various possibilities, precludes other possibilities of the path not taken. And, you know, one choice leads on to another, leads on to another, and it plots out a lifetime, almost a destiny. And so I guess you know the best we can do is with our limited wisdom is try to make positive choices in terms of our motivation. Choosing to be here tonight and why we’re going to discuss these these fundamental issues about life.
And if you if you can choose to do it for a sense of caring about yourself, a sense that maybe there’s something here that I can can take up and use as a method to help me to solve my problems at a more fundamental level. And in turn maybe I can be of that much more value to someone near to myself. Maybe if I’m only one other person. For sure, you know, even if I no matter how much I may babble on your patience in listening to my babbling, well well, you will gain some kind of positive reward for it out of that motivation. But on the contrary, if you come with a negative mind or indifference even if the Dalai Lama was sitting up here, it would be of no avail in terms of some positive outcome for yourself.
It could even the whole amount of time and energy that you put into the process result in some suffering or other some difficulties and problems or other, you know, depending upon your motivation. And with the as we’re to gain a sense of and we’re, you know, in this approaching development of awakening mind, the subjective factor which enters into our world making. The world isn’t out there static and fixed. It is very much We we we are co creators our reality and that the type of reality that we experience is very much dependent upon the choices that we make. Choice in a way is almost another word for karma.
It’s quite interesting. It’s said that there is a sūtra that is a discourse by the Buddha where he even said that. I’ve never been able to find it. But if he was smart enough he would have. That choice is karma, volition.
And this is what determines that we will begin to gain some appreciation for the quality of our experience. The world that we live in, the version of the world that we create for ourselves is dependent upon our karma, is dependent upon our choices, is dependent upon, in other words, our motivation. The reasons, why behind it is what we do, our actions. Know, the you know, how whatever situation we may find ourselves in, you know, there’s always the possibility of new choices of to freely choose. You know to Freedom is the is the awareness of alternatives and the ability to choose.
Freedom is the awareness of alternatives. And if anything, Buddhism is simply about presenting alternative possibilities of other ways of being, other approaches to living, other possibilities of life. And and we all have the ability to choose. You know, this again is a a matter that we have to appreciate. You know, the fact that our humanity opens to ourselves a window of opportunity.
It’s one of our greatest gifts that of free and conscious choice to begin to rewrite the story of our life in the terms and according to the plot and the themes that we would very much like to see our lives lived as an expression of. And that we aren’t aren’t doomed. It’s not predetermined. You know, the past only goes so far. The future is still yet to come.
It exists only in probabilities. In which one of the probabilities eventually is actualized is very much dependent upon choice. We have to reassert our freedom. If we deny it often enough, we’ll lose it and we’ll not know where or how it was lost somewhere along the way. So beginning to freely and consciously choose the type of person that you would have yourself be.
Not not what you would have or own or control. The greatest reward for all the blood, sweat, and tears, all that we do, all our struggle, work, and planning is not what we receive for it but who we become by it, who we are as a person for having done it. You know, this is the quality of our life. It’s very difficult to find in precise terms what we mean by quality of a life. And generally we we think in very linear terms, know, if only I had a or if I had b, if I had c somehow my life would be okay, that things would would begin to look up for me.
I’d I’d probably be happier, less suffering. But it it occurs within a context of life. Occurs in terms of all of our values, all of our principles, all of our beliefs, the story that we’re telling ourselves about ourselves in our life. And it’s not an isolated factor, it exists within context. And so how it’s going to be experienced is very much dependent upon all of this we call what we is what we call who I am.
We are the summation of all our values, all of our beliefs, all of our ideas, the story that we are enacting in the course of our living. This is our being. And and and this this is what we’re this is what we need to address in beginning to solve our problems. Not this, you know, by all means, you know, to make use of various methods, material methods, social methods, whatever, you know, in in finding the good life and solving your problems. But underneath it all, at some very deep level, we have to work on who we are as a person and begin to operate at that level if we’re ever going to really solve our problems at fundamental level.
If we’re ever going to find real fulfillment and meaning and purpose. If we’re ever gonna find the sacred in our life which maybe is what ‘re all looking for anyway, beneath all the masks that we that we usually chase after. So, you know, the the committing of ourselves to ourselves, to the rewriting of the story of our life, to becoming a Buddha, to becoming this happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. I guess it’s simply making consistent choices. That’s all we can do is be mindful of where we want to go.
And as life presents us with confronted with the various possibilities and, you know, one path leading off to another and when there’s a fork in the road, even when in the insignificant choice that we have to make, making some kind of awakening, consistent awakening choices in our life rather than this senseless circular motion of our mind which takes us nowhere but to more of the same. I think that’s what we mean by commitment. And going for refuge is a commitment. It’s a a consciously acknowledging what you’re about and what you want for yourself in your life. And a commit commitment is a consistent choice of the discipline that a context prescribes.
The consistent choice of the discipline that a context prescribes. And Buddhism has particular discipline. And the consistent choice of that discipline in order to in the context of trying to awaken our hearts and minds is what Buddhism is about. That is what we mean by going for refuge. It’s not so much the formula that we repeat, but it can be a summation of that if there’s enough background of thinking which has gone into it.
It can be like emblematic of what it is that we stand for and what it is that we would like to be. So the the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha. You know this orientation that we’re trying to create for ourselves. You know otherwise I think I don’t know where are we going in terms of our life. You know we have this pleasure and we have this pleasure and we get away from this pain or we run away from that difficulty.
And it’s just like the proverbial ship without a rudder, isn’t it? It’s being tossed here and there by the waves of the pleasure pain principle. And we really don’t chart a course for our life. Maybe this sounds like the old philosopher, kinda chart a course for your life, my son and my daughter. And I maybe there’s some truth to all these truisms that we kinda take for granted, that we don’t listen to, or don’t have any value for us anymore.
That, you know, to put a kind of a a rudder on your ship, you know, to chart in your course of your life so that you can begin to to move on to to move move on to more peaceful waters where you would like to go, the journey that you’d like to take. So this is what we mean by going for refuge. Go for refuge to the Buddha. This this orientation of this happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. We have to believe in that.
You know, if you believe you can’t or if you believe you can, you’re right. We have to believe that we can. That’s the greatest one of our greatest lessons that we that we need to take very deep into our hearts that we can and begin to try the course to becoming that. And the way that we but we actually actually do something to involve ourselves in this journey and that’s the practice of the Dharma. This this discipline that we’re involved in, these various trainings, these various techniques, meditation, the truth itself is a discipline.
Truth therapy, reality therapy. And, you know, take availing ourselves of the social context in which this occurs, the sangha, those who assist us in in navigating, in the sailing, the course that we’d like our lives to take and trying to raise the love of our motivation and the the why behind it all. If we don’t do anything else in this life, we can only become a little more compassionate, little more caring, a little more tolerant, then our life has had meaning. It it would have been a life worth having lived. In other words, if my teachers are incorrect in any way, if they’re right in anything that they’ve said, this is the one thing that has makes most sense for me.
So even if only one other person, then we’ve gone beyond habitual self centeredness. You know, all of our you know, all the blood, sweat, and tears that we expend motivated out of our self centeredness to find happiness simply becomes more and more part of the problem itself. It simply creates more and more confusion, more and more difficulties and pain for ourselves in some form or another. So it’s it’s it’s fundamental way of being kind to ourselves is to begin to care for others. To begin to develop if only for one other person, another centered attitude as a motivation behind what it is that we’re doing.
So we can do that together tonight in that way. No matter what this idiot up here has to say from your side, if you can if you can take what is said and make use of it in some form to help you solve your problems but additionally to help you to be a little more to develop a little more skill in helping others to do the same, then it was worth it. There definitely is a positive outcome even if we can’t see it immediately. We can rest assured in that. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge into awakening.
Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma, may I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma and the supreme community I go for refuge and to awaken. Through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma May I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community, I go for refuge until awakening through the creative potential of my listening to the Dharma. May I achieve the state of a Buddha for the sake of all living beings.
Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech and mind and present clouds of every type of offering, those actual and imagined. I disclose all my destructive acts accumulated since time without beginning and rejoice in the skillful actions of holy and ordinary beings. Please remain until cyclic existence is ended and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skillful actions of myself and others to the great awakened. So we’re going to to meditate together.
Would you like to stand up for a minute and stretch? It’s pretty mundane reading in a way. It simply means to get used to, to familiarize, to accustom. And here in terms of our motivation again familiarizing ourselves with that of love compassion and working with various objects that we know the spectrum of possible ways of relating with others. And here in a night working with somebody that you’re having some difficulty with, somebody you don’t like.
You know, see if they’ve treated you wrongly. You know, they’ve hurt you. If you think you can you know, some people say why this I don’t have I don’t have anybody in my life like that. Well, you must be a saint. Or maybe you just aren’t really honestly checking up.
It could you know, it doesn’t have to be heavy duty, you know, like the holocaust or something like that. Maybe just somebody who pulled in front of you while you’re driving over here or something. And it could be something as minor with that. But anyway, somebody that you don’t like, somebody that gave you a hard time or gave you some kind of difficulty. You know, working with that individual to to in the spirit of loving-kindness and patience as best we can.
And I think it’s worth the effort. It’s worth trying. Even just the effort. Whether we succeed or not is secondary perhaps. It’s the trying which is of value.
And then I thought we’ve you know, we can’t you know, we’ve gone over a great deal of material over the last long time, a year, I guess, over a year perhaps in working development of the awakened heart and the awakened mind. And, you know, the in terms of the various meditation subjects which we are to consider in the awaken developing the will to awaken. And I thought not to lose sight of some of these pasts. It’s not if we’ve heard them once then we can set them aside. By all means it’s necessary to keep going back to them and and deepening our insight and allowing them to operate upon ourselves.
And one of them, one of the most important of insights, though it’s not it may not seem obvious to ourselves, is that of death. And that we aren’t this is not a pessimistic notion. It’s not to me meant as a downer to bring you down in any way. On the contrary, the contemplation of death is meant to enhance our life. It’s meant to help us to appreciate our life while we still have it so that we don’t waste our lives.
Whatever the kind of life you want to lead, by all means, that. But at least make it a quality way of life. You know? Don’t don’t lead a life of boredom of boredom and tedium, simply, you know, wasting your time. If you’re you know, have some kind develop some kind of intensity to your life, whether it’s whatever way you’re going to lead your life.
Lead it with some kind of a liveliness. So death the contemplation of death can help us to do this. You know, it’s the three the three major outlines of death that that death is certain. It’s going to happen to everyone, even you, even me. Moreover, the uncertainty of the time of death.
We simply don’t know when. We’re perhaps beginning to gain some appreciation for it, are basing our lives, living our lives on the basis of many misconceptions, wrong beliefs, or distorted views. And this is what Buddhism is all about when I when I refer to it as kind of reality therapy truth therapy and trying to correct many of these mis assumptions or misconceptions or wrong premises upon which we’re living our life and therefore which lead us into conflict with reality and therefore we experience suffering. So we, you know, we may intellectually acknowledge the fact that we’re all going to die, but that’s the way that we live. At some level, most likely, there’s a very strong misconception that we’re immortal.
You know, this we there’s there’s a certain premise as if I’m going to live forever. Or even if we were to, you know, at some deep level of our of our awareness, admit to the fact of of my mortality, it’s not going to be anytime soon. You know, just just ask Princess Diana how soon it could be. We don’t know. No matter how powerful, how famous, how beautiful, it doesn’t make any difference.
We simply don’t know. So, you know, it’s not to say that we aren’t to make forward planning by any means, but we we, you know, at least don’t waste your life because we simply don’t know how long we have to live. So the uncertainty around the time of death and then what is going to be of any use to ourselves at the time of our death and beginning to think in those kinds of terms. It’s who we are as a person, think, when it comes down to the impressions which we have implanted with our minds. How have we conditioned our minds?
What have we become familiar with? What have we accustomed our minds to over the course of our life? We are very much our habits. And these habits are going to bring bear some kind of fruit in the future. Future.
These are what we are going to take with us. These are all that we have to rely upon even in the small deaths that occur over the course of our life. When all is known, all that we have found the security in, the familiar has been taken away from us voluntarily or involuntarily through death or divorce or whatever. And what do we have to rely upon? It is only our own internal qualities of our own minds which can see us through.
Other people can support us in various ways, but that way as we all have experienced is rather limited. You know they can hold our hand but that doesn’t relieve the pain deep inside of our hearts. So we have to rely very much upon ourselves and the conditioning factors which we are implanting every day of our life in our own minds. So beginning to think of our death in this way, what type of life are we creating for ourselves for the future terms of these condition factors that we’re planting with our minds, in terms of the habits that we’re continually reinforcing or or interrupting in some fashion or another. Okay.
So we’ll do that. So if you take a firm comfortable posture. So we’re looking at the methods for developing the awakened mind. Without awakening our mind, there’s there’s no way that we can ever resolve our suffering. There will always be a struggle, some form, even if only subtle.
There’s no way that we can find real peace. It’s indispensable as part of the the Buddhist spiritual path. And there are various levels of understanding that we’re working through like rungs of a ladder. We’re working through four recognizable stages of development. The hearer stage, mind only stage, the Svatāntrika Middle Way stage, and finally the Prāsaṇgika Middle Way stage.
So within the context of the middle way stage, we’re trying to you know, at each level we’re trying we’re taking question more and more the nature of reality, what appears to us. We we no longer accept appearances at face value, take them for granted as being true. In fact, we’re beginning to understand that many of the of what appears to us are false. At the middle way stage, are beginning to introduce the notion that things lack true existence. And by true existence is the notion that there is a discrepancy or a disagreement between the way something appears and the way it exists.
If something is true, there must be an agreement between the way it appears. You know, if somebody says one thing and does another, we say they’re not honest. They’re false. There’s a discrepancy between what they say out of their mouth and what their actual feelings are. Likewise, with these various appearances, things appear one way, but they exist another.
Therefore, we say they don’t truly exist. They exist. That’s not that’s not the point. But how do they exist? What is the way they exist?
They do not truly exist. In what way are they false? In what way is there a discrepancy between the way an object appears and the way it exists? All phenomena appear instinctively to exist independent of our mind, independent of within this presently within our experience, but at some time we’re going to have to develop the ability to see that this is in fact the way it is appearing. It’s difficult because it is the only way that we’ve ever seen objects appear to ourselves.
To begin to be able to to discriminate this this this factor within our perception requires a great deal of analysis. But we can begin to gain a sense, a feeling that that it is the case. Phenomena do not truly exist, that they that they appear to exist independent of their causes and conditions, of their parts, and on the conceiving mind. That is to say, on language and conceptuality. Now at the level of the Svatāntrika Middle Way School, And I I maybe just these terms, Autonomy, am I am I pronouncing it correctly?
Autonomy, a u t o n o m y, Autonomy. Yeah? I really? A a u t o t o m y? Yeah.
Autonomy. Autonomy? Yeah. Okay. I’ve got I’m sorry.
I’ve gotten it all wrong here. Yeah. A u t o a u t o n o n y. Yeah? Autonomy.
Okay. Yeah. These terms, autonomy and consequence, they’re they’re technical terms. Have to do this is something of a digression, but it came up in our discussion last week. Thought I’d share it with you since it wasn’t explained.
In in Buddhist logic, they use quite often to make use of syllogisms. Know? Jampa is a man. All men are are men are mortal. Therefore, Jampa is mortal.
Something like that. This this way of presenting arguments and having syllogisms. And there are different types of syllogisms. And there are autonomous syllogisms and consequences. And so they one school makes use of one type of syllogism, the other school makes use of another type of syllogism, and that’s how they got their name.
So it’s it’s rather a technical side issue. So it’s not really central to our understanding. At the at the Autonomy Middle Way School, we we have the notion, we’re trying to introduce the you know, we’ve discussed the hearer, mind only, and autonomy middle way stages. Okay. Now we’re going to begin to look at the Prāsaṇgika Middle Way stage.
You know, we’ve and this is the final thought of the Buddha on the nature of reality. The Buddha said they were this is, you know, I’m I’m not high I’m not holding anything back. You know? To some students, I’ve had to to teach them in a particular way at their particular level. But this is my final thought on the nature of the of reality.
What he and it became systematized in what we recognize as the the Consequentialist Middle Way stage. So, you know, throughout this process of working through these four stages, there’s been a gradual shift away from an unquestioned acceptance of appearances of the self in the world about us to toward a deep a deepening questioning of all the appearances and a greater and greater acknowledgment of the subjective element that underlies reality. That, you know, the naive realist is such that the world is out there independent of myself, independent of my language and thinking about it. And it accepts that, takes it for granted, doesn’t even question it. So there’s there’s been a gradual shift away from that position.
And we’re beginning to acknowledge a greater and greater dependence upon some subjective factor, something within our own mind, which is which is which is bringing forth our lived reality. At the the level of the autonomy middle way stage, we objects arise dependent upon two factors, essentially. Something’s coming from the side of the object and something coming from the side of the subject. There’s something the object defines what it is. There’s some characteristic about it which determines what it is.
I I can’t call as an example, think we used last week, I can’t call a cow a horse. That that would be impro I would be improperly improperly labeling it. If I’m if I if I’m to think about it correctly, if I’m communicating to others in a proper conventional manner, I must label it in accordance with certain conventions, in accordance with some property which it possesses. We don’t define the object. The object defines itself.
But it’s necessary that we conceive of it for what it is. Something appears to the mind, some inherent characteristic, some intrinsic property, which is the nature of that object. For example, if hot and burning appears to the mind, then the mind thinks fire. in dependence upon the hot and burning and the mind thinking fire coming together, fire comes into existence. in dependence upon that that intrinsic property, that characteristic of hot and burning, and the mind conceiving it as as such and labeling it in that way correctly, then fire is brought into existence.
Prior to that, fire did not exist. So something is coming from both from the object objective factor and from the subjective factor. Now we’re going to begin to shift to an even more subjective approach. We’re going to begin to see that and this is difficult. I think all of this is difficult, isn’t it, to some extent?
I I don’t know hardly what I’m talking about, to be honest with you. But it doesn’t matter. There is nothing whatsoever which comes from the side of the object.
Okay. There is nothing whatsoever coming from the side of the object which determines what it is. This is it objects do not define themselves. We define what they are. So this is what we’re going to try to approach.
That the final thought of the Buddha, if we could understand this, is that all phenomena whatsoever are merely imputed by terms and conceptuality. If we can understand that one phrase, then we’re probably liberated. All phenomena whatsoever are merely and the word merely is important. We’re gonna bring out why we say merely. Are merely imputed.
Other words for imputed are designated or labeled by means of terms or we could say language or names and conceptuality. That’s that’s what that’s the final thought of the Buddha that we’re trying to work our way toward and what that might mean. Realism assumes that the objects and events in nature define themselves. But this is our our normal habitual way of thinking about the world if we think at all about the world. They define themselves in ways that can be grasped by human minds.
One way for instance would be through the language of mathematics. Einstein expressed this view in his comment that the most incomprehensible thing about nature is that it is comprehensible. A centrist view. So a Centrist view is just another way for a middle way view. Just another way of translating it.
A Centrist view, on the other hand, denies that physical reality defines itself in terms of mathematics or any other human language or concepts. In short, nature does not define itself at all. human beings define the objects and events of the world that we experience. Those things do not exist intrinsically or absolutely as we define them or conceive of them. They do not exist intrinsically at all.
But this is not to say they do not exist. The entities that we identify exist in relation to us and they perform the functions that we attribute to them. But their very existence as we define them is dependent upon our verbal and conceptual designations. So I hope this isn’t, you know, I’m going to explain what might be gotten at here by what he’s saying here. You know, the world that we that we experience is related to human language.
And the fact that it is humanly comprehensible represents no mystery at all. So, you know, the okay. The the point that, you know, that what what what we’re trying to come to an understanding of, you know, we can we can make you can we can again use that illustration of the snake in the rope, our old friend, the snake in the rope. You know, we talked about it at the hearer stage that, you know, there’s a striped rope in the grass and it’s and it’s it’s getting the sun is going down. It’s getting dark.
So there is not very much light. And what is in fact a coil of rope appears to be a snake due to these conditions. What are the conditions? There is a a coil of rope, similar color, similar shape. There is the lighting conditions.
So maybe some internal conditions, maybe you have been reading in newspapers about lots of snakes in the area lately. All of these can lend themselves to the the the the arising of appearance or the misconception of a snake. There appears to be a snake. So this, you know but upon if we were to investigate that appearance, no snake is found. The the the it’s that that appearance is found to be false and we quickly recognize what is in fact a rope.
So, you know, okay. Now this is the difficult part. We’re going to bring so we use that we use that example, that illustration in the at the hearer stage. The way that appearances can be deceiving. And upon investigation we can we can arrive, we can work through our misconceptions.
Aside from the fact that the conception of a rope is valid and the conception of a snake is invalid, they both involve essentially the same process. From the point of view of the Consequentialist Middle Way stage. There is no difference in the way that the rope and the way that the snake are being designated or projected or labeled. That’s hard to come to grips with, isn’t it? You know, it’s easy to you know, there was there was a there’s a coiled rope there and it it appears to be a snake.
What the mind is is conceiving snake. What that is to say is labeling snake. It’s designating snake. It’s imputing snake. The basis is there.
The basis is a rope. in dependence upon that due to various conditions, we impute snake. We there is that that that that we can sort of begin to get a handle on. You know, we’re imputing as some kind of appearance on on an object. But what is difficult to understand is that there’s no difference whatsoever between imputing a rope to a rope and a snake to a rope from the point of view of the process of imputation.
One’s correct, one’s one’s incorrect. There’s no question about that. There’s no snake there. So one is an incorrect imputation, and the second is a correct imputation. But the mere fact of the process of imputation is exactly the same.
It’s just in this case, you know, trying to to get a sense that how radical this approach to the nature of reality is. That that that in both cases, the nature of the appearing object, which is is which is constructed in the perceptual process are determined by the characteristics of the concepts and terms which we’re using of the perceiving consciousness. It’s purely coming from the side of the subject. That snake now we tried to emphasize the fact this this that snake or the the mere appearance of the snake was coming completely from the side of the subject, wasn’t it? There’s no snakeness around.
There’s that that rope has no snake like properties whatsoever. And, oh, and so it it didn’t define what we called it, that we came to incorrectly label it as a snake. Likewise, trying to come to the understanding that also that coil of rope does not define what we call it. It does not have any intrinsic ropeness about it. It is also merely a matter of being labeled as it were, as a rope, in the same way.
But that one is a correct labeling designation, the other is an incorrect one. So there is there’s very definitely a distinction between the two. Ropes are not snakes. That’s it. But the point is that the that the phenomena do not at all define themselves.
We define them through language and through conceptuality. So I’m what we’re gonna do for we’re going to talk in theory, and then then I’m going to introduce a manner of actual meditation. There’s a very precise method of meditation called the four point analysis. You know, we can take this theory, this take some of this information which perhaps sounds very abstract and very philosophical and actually begin to apply it in a meditation to gain some kind of insight, to come to some personal understanding around what we’re talking about. So first introducing some kind of the groundwork theory and then some practical application in terms of a meditation practice.
Both in scientific research and in everyday experience, we ascertain objects that are endowed with certain attributes. And it is by means of the defining characteristics of an object that we identify it. From a middle way perspective, we assert that entities do not determine their own defining characteristics. That is, they are not self defining. Having recognized a certain object, we say that it has the qualities which we identify it.
So the final view that we’re trying to move toward, that we’re trying to understand is that phenomena are not self defining. Now what do I mean by that? That’s that if there is something about the nature of the object which if we are to think about it and communicate about it correctly, we necessarily must call it or we must conceive of it as being such. That somehow it is you know, it’s like it’s defining what it is. I’m not the I can’t I can’t I don’t play a part in that.
That there is that there is tableness about tables, that there’s a houseness about houses, which when