Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 77-minute session, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a personal story from a Thai monastery, where a monk’s repeated counsel — “whatever happens, begin again” — frames a teaching on commitment as the engine of spiritual transformation. He explores how genuine commitment differs from passive drifting, and how going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and spiritual community gives that commitment a specific direction and discipline. The session then turns technical: Gendun walks through the nine-round death meditation before delivering a detailed account of the Buddhist physiology of dying — the four elements, three levels of body and consciousness (gross, subtle, and the very subtle “clear light”), channels, wind energies, and drops — explaining how karma encoded on the most subtle consciousness drives rebirth. Suited to practitioners with some background in Buddhist thought.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 26 HMA 1996 07 31.mp3
UUID: e551b1f8-bcad-4b73-a520-2b432bf4cc2e
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-07-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 77.2 minutes
Words: ~10,217
There’s a guess it’s a somewhat familiar saying that the journey of a thousand miles begins with or maybe a thousand kilometers, whatever begins with a first footstep. Begins with that first single step. I guess, is to say that no matter how long the path may be, still we have to actually begin it if we’re ever going to complete it. We have to actually begin. There’s no substitute for beginning, putting one foot in front of another.
And no matter how humble or however tentative or faltering, stumbling, imprecise those steps might be, we actually have to begin to tread the path if we ever hope to solve our problems at the end. And we have to at least begin. And we have to maybe begin for the first time or maybe we’re going to begin differently or we’re going to begin again. But still, we must begin. And we can do that.
We can all choose to do that. A number of years ago, just before I came to Australia originally. I think it was in nineteen eighty seven. I spent about a year in Thailand. And for most of the time I spent on a small island up the northeast or southeast coast called I don’t know, maybe you’re familiar with Thailand.
A small island called Koh Samui. It’s quite a tourist paradise. But I was a monk then. I wasn’t much of a tourist. I stayed in a little wat, a little monastery in the center of the island.
I lived in cave under what was called the Buddhist footprint. It was a huge huge footprint. It was made out of carved out of baroque, think, and it was probably the length of this room. And they built a temple over it to protect it from the elements. And a consequence of having built that shelter, a cave was formed underneath the rock.
So, lived there for a while. And in this little wat, this little monastery, most of the time I spent there, there were two other monks, both Thai monks, one of whom spoke no English, one spoke a little bit of English. I’m never quite sure how much English he actually did understand, but he spoke some English. And, you know, over the number of months that I spent at this monastery in more or less in isolation, in retreat, there were times when I got down, became depressed, lonely, and I began to question, What exactly am I doing here? Separated from everything that was familiar to me, everything that I valued, that I loved, the people I cared about and they cared about me, all my various habitual pleasures, my distractions, anything that was more or less a meaning and value to myself.
Was somewhere else than where I was at present. And we used to meet in the afternoons, the three of us, to have a hot drink, usually chocolate, hot chocolate. And sometimes when I was feeling especially low or depressed, discouraged, I guess you might say, I would share these feelings with the one monk who did speak English. And I was never sure if he understood even half of what I said. You know, perhaps it doesn’t matter.
But he would always smile. Inevitably, he would answer whatever it was that I had said, but begin again. Whatever happens, we can always begin again. The point is that we can always be beginning again. We can begin anew no matter what has gone in the past, no matter who might have been or what we are, even just up to a few moments ago.
We have the freedom, we have the great gift, the opportunity to begin all over again, to bring about the type of person that we might want to be, to bring about the world that we would want to live in. We have the capacity, that chance, that opportunity to begin again, you know, from moment to moment. And it seems as if, you know, you know, the very, as I’ve tried to emphasize, and I think my view of my life, that there are very few dramatic moments over the course of our life, you know, when it’s a life or death decision. Perhaps for some it’s happened. But for most, and if in fact it happens, it’s very few.
But we have many seemingly insignificant choices over the course of our life. An infinite number of choices when we are choosing rather the pattern of our life, the direction, the texture, the context in which our life is going to be experienced. And it’s being mindful of these seemingly insignificant choices that we are continually making over the mundane course of our everyday life. That we begin to choose a destiny for ourselves. And here we can begin to exercise our freedom in these minor choices.
Beginning to, you know, what step do you want to make? Where is it that you want to go? You know, unless you change the direction, you’re going to end up where you’re headed. And beginning to question. It’s a great belief in the potential, our human potential, that we can transcend our past, that we can transcend our history, all these repetitive patterns.
This self subjugating, self oppressive story that most of us keep telling ourselves about ourselves, this loop of self talk that’s continually playing in our minds telling us who we are and what we can expect out of life. You know, what was true once for us may not be true anymore. You know, often I read a quote. Often we do not choose but drift into those modes which eventually define us. Circumstances push and we yield.
We did not choose to be what we had become but gradually and perceptibly became what we are by drifting into the doing of those things that we now characteristically do. You know, I think it’s quite true, isn’t it? I mean, how many of us have chosen to be who we are and consciously in awareness, set our priorities in terms of our options and alternatives and freely chose to be the person we are doing what we’re doing, associating with the people that we do associate, doing the work that we now do. You know, whoever we are, whatever our circumstances, our situation, whatever our lot in life is, and whatever its real or imagined constraints might be, in some way, in some fashion, there’s some form of choice. There’s some measure of freedom.
You know, however limited, however narrowly circumscribed our lives are, the chance is always open to us in a certain fashion if we’re aware, if we’re looking for that opportunity where we can begin to exercise our freedom and begin to choose the type of person that we want to be and the world that we want to live in. You know, the chance is always open, always there within us, around us, and to stop drifting, to stop yielding if we only know what it is that we want and beginning to choose, you know, some kind of new life story for ourselves. We kind of reinvent another version of ourselves who we would have ourselves be in another version of the type of world that we would like to experience, to live in. If only for that moment and, you know, we can’t perhaps consider next year or infinitely into the future, but if only for that moment and for that moment to choose the type of person that you want to be. Maybe that’s all we can do is choose that next step on this long thousand mile journey that we’re all involved in in one way or another.
Simply by means of our ability to choose to do so, The freedom to step onto another path, taking us in another direction. You know, if we’re committed, if we are aware of alternatives and consciously look for them, you know, these chances of choosing a difference that is going to make a difference. You know, this is what changes people. This is what changes lives. A consistent choice in particular direction in which we’ve consciously chosen for ourselves.
You know, that’s some which is all that we mean by commitment. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. This is a quote by Goethe. I think it’s quite profound. Until one is committed there is a hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation.
There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideals and splendid plans. But the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no person could have dreamed would have come their way. Whatever you can do or dream, you can.
Begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. The decision in itself begins, know, we think in a very narrow linear fashion. You know, if I’m going to A to B, and what are the substantial causes?
What are the indispensable, the primary causes from going there? But we don’t see the interconnecting web of circumstances and cooperative conditions which are going to facilitate or cause us obstacles along the way. And there’s a very intentional quality of the mind and beginning to clearly decide what it is that you want, which begins to, you know, as he says here, providence begins to move in your favor. You know, old boundaries are set aside. We go beyond what was a limit for ourselves and our conceived abilities.
It seems as if the world begins to support us in what it is that we want once we’re committed to some course of action, some direction in what it is that we want. Commitment to a consistent choice of a discipline that a particular context prescribes. Commitment to a particular consistent choice that a particular discipline prescribes. You know, if you want to be a doctor, you commit yourself to a particular discipline, the context of study, of development and training and skills. Out of that you become a doctor.
If you want to be a biologist, if you want to be a pianist, there’s particular context of skills which you commit yourself as a discipline to, in the same way with becoming a healthy, loving, sane human being, a Buddha. There is a context, a discipline which we make a consistent choice to follow, to put ourselves in that context. So it’s not just a preference. It’s a belief that some certain mode of life is deserving. It merits our support.
Even though we might find it difficult to live up to it, lives are given over to finding fulfillment in that way, best we can in terms of these ways of life. If necessary, we go through legitimate suffering. But we consistently choose that context as a direction. And this is what it might mean by commitment. And here we’re talking about a commitment of going for refuge, which is another type of commitment.
A particular context in which we’re putting our minds in. A discipline which we’re seeking to consistently choose to follow. You know, going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and the spiritual community is a way of honoring such a commitment to ourselves and ultimately to others as well. It’s a way of not giving up on ourselves. We’re not going to allow our lives to drift.
We deserve more than we’ve experienced up to now. And then, as a way of consistently choosing and supporting a different mode of life, what it is that we must for ourselves, the mode of life that the context of Buddhism prescribes, to ensure that what we choose is going to make a difference for the better. You know, we can always choose, but it’s not necessarily the choice which is going to make things for the better. And here we’re choosing a particular path. And in that context, consistently choosing within that discipline in order to ensure that the energy, the time and the effort that we put in, you know, this commitment is going to make things better in our lives, the quality of our lives, the relationships of our lives.
You know, we’re going to be a better person as an outcome of this choice. You know, we’ve learned to be who we are. And whatever has been learned can be unlearned. And new learning can take its place. You know, we can unlearn to be our present selves and we can begin to learn to be another person and experience the world in other ways.
This is possible. In the beginning of real learning, the very basis of understanding the nature of learning is to appreciate the very fact, which is quite often overlooked, that we can learn, that we have that capacity. The basis of learning is to come to deeply appreciate that, in fact, we can learn. And what it is that we are to learn to to choose what and what to choose, to learn what to choose and not to choose, and how to consciously choose it. That’s all that Buddha offers us.
To learn what it is to choose, what we are to choose in terms of priorities, in terms of our goals, what it is that we want most in life out of our life, what we are to choose and what we are not to choose, and how to consciously go about choosing it, to actually exercise our ability to choose. You know, the beginning of you know, we all have this freedom, this capacity. But perhaps we have never exercised it. We have never availed ourselves of this potential of ourselves. You know, the beginning of real freedom is to choose to act as if we were free.
And thereby we begin to regain the freedom that we have unknowingly lost, that we have unknowingly denied ourselves. You know, to choose, to assume that I am a free human being and I can choose what I want in my life, and thereby to consciously choose what it is that you want, and thereby to regain your freedom. You know, the point is that we are what we do and may do whatever we choose. Freedom is an awareness of alternatives and the ability to choose. And we can choose to change.
We can choose to be other than we are now. There are alternatives. We can choose to be Buddhas if we so choose. You know, we have a sense at some deep level of our being that I can’t be any other way than I am, that I’m pretty much stuck, you know, that all I can do is make cosmetic changes in terms of who I am and the quality of my life, nothing more than that. At some level of our cognitive awareness, we’re holding on to such a conception of ourselves, and we have to challenge this way of being and this understanding that we have or this misunderstanding.
You know, the beginning of genius, of power, and magic are boldly believing that we can. You know, if you believe you can or if you believe you can’t, you’re right. We have to believe that we can. And this is the starting of the path. But not just believing, but consciously determining I will.
We are free to do what we will. So we are not there’s a beautiful quote by Rainer Maria Rilke, the Austrian poet. We are not prisoners. No traps or snares have been set around us, and there is nothing that should frighten or upset us. We have been put into life as into the element we most accord with.
We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors. If it has abysses, these abysses belong to us. If there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with that principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience.
How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races? The myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act just once with beauty and courage. So, there’s nothing left to do but to begin, with beauty and courage to begin. Anew, again, differently.
However, we have to try harder, whichever, but nevertheless begin. And then there’s no time to begin but now and there’s nowhere to begin where each of us is at. You know, there’s no substitute for committing ourselves in stepping on the path. You know, choosing again and again the less traveled, the difficult path, the one of growth, and ultimately of awakening. And we’re all on this thousand mile journey or this thousand eon journey, however you want to look at that on it.
And we perhaps have to become conscious of the fact and begin to consciously involve ourselves in our journey and to begin to take that kind of perspective on our life, on our lives. You know, we are the paths that we have taken up to now. And the path that we choose now what we will become. The path of awakening, the path that we’re discussing, we’re talking about for the last few months now. And it involves very much a realigning of our allegiance, you know, from passively following our hopes and fears to one based upon actively choosing to grow, to change.
You know, we don’t allow our fears and our hopes to dominate our lives any longer. The ones, the dominating forces which have only brought us more of the same and will only bring us more of the same. Only these reoccurring compulsive patterns which have very much constituted our lives at the present. But we want to introduce them, we want to interrupt those patterns to begin some kind of positive feedback where some kind of new possibility. Is a transformation of the system, new adaptation, new ways of being developed.
By taking responsibility for ourselves. We’re deciding how we want to live. We have to stop blaming it on our circumstances, on our history, on other people, whoever and whatever. And beginning to take responsibility, I must be doing what I want to do. And if that’s not what you want, then begin to change it.
These are the consequences of decisions that we’ve made somewhere along the line. Who I am now and what I’m experiencing. Beginning to freely and consciously directing ourselves in the light of our own truths, you know, to new and different possibilities in the future. You know, adjusting our priorities, finding out what works for you, what brings you, brings meaning to your life, a sense of connectedness with others. What is an ultimate concern to you as a very unique self actualizing individual?
You know, what works for you? What makes you feel that life is worth living at a very deep level? And holding that before your mind’s eye as a priority in your life. And it begins with some kind of, in Buddhist context, with a heartfelt commitment to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the spiritual community. You know, in this context, this is the ultimate outcome for what brings meaning to my life.
The inner focus of our life is Buddha, the Buddha inside ourselves. You know, this is your priority however you want to define who and what Buddha is. The outcome of this most the finest story that we can tell ourselves about ourselves, which we actualize. Have to not just imagine it. We have to translate these images in our mind into some kind of reality and that takes work.
We have to make effort along certain lines according to a certain context of discipline, the meditative techniques, the means of Dharma, the teachings, the truth. The various practices that we’re involved in. And this process occurs within the social context of a spiritual community. Those who assist us in implementing the Dharma in our lives. The actual mechanisms by which we can translate these images out of our minds into a reality.
Those people who support us and who validate our Buddhist story. And we try again and again to raise the level of our motivation why we’re doing what we’re doing. Why it is that we’re doing what we’re doing? Why is it that we are going for refuge to this particular refuge? Why are we going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and the spiritual community?
Such that we’re not doing it just for ourselves alone, not just for our own narrow and limited self needs, but for an ever growing altruistic commitment to others, to an ever widening circle of others. Ultimately, for the sake of all living beings. This is the direction of the orientation that we commit, we again and again keep recommitting ourselves to. In going for refuge in ways that we do, whether in terms of reciting the formal formula that we recite before the teachings, before meditation or whatever, but in a more real sense in terms of how we direct our lives, the orientation. This is what it is that we’re committed to.
You know, as I’ve tried to emphasize, we’re all going for refuge to something or other. You know, something that we see as helping us to solve our problems, which is going to bring about what it is that we want in our life. And we try to associate that and try to develop the understanding that which we want most in terms of the person that we can become we’re calling a Buddha. And that discipline, that context which is going to aid that is the Dharma. And those who are assisting are the spiritual community.
And the why behind this process is others. And this is our commitment. Keep reorientating. Like bringing your compass needle back to the same direction. And then we can be assured that what we do and the choices that we do make will be for the better.
That the quality of our relationships, relationships, the quality of our work, the quality of our being in the world will some perhaps unforeseen, perhaps at present impossible to predict, pre vision will be for the better. We have confidence in that. We have faith in all that. And we commit ourselves to that. 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 the 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. 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 the Buddha for the sake of all living beings.
Reverently, I pay homage with my body, speech, and mind, I 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 has ended and turn the wheel of Dharma for living beings. I dedicate the skillful actions of myself and others to the great awakening. So, go ahead and meditate.
Would you like to stand up for a moment and stretch your legs? So, we’ve been discussing depth and we’re going to continue meditating on that. And this is an imaginative technique, a visualization technique where we try to, we go through and actually however best we can, visualize our actual death and we go through the funeral and to sort of give it a try out. See how it’s going to go, how you would actually feel if you could do it over again. You know there’s a saying that life is learning how to play the violin while you’re giving a performance.
It’s too bad that we can’t say, Well now the rehearsal is over, let’s do the actual thing now. And then we can’t go back and having learned all the lessons repeat, give the good performance that we’d rather, that we choose to perform. That’s not the way life works. But we can imagine if they work with predictable outcomes and draw lessons in terms of our felt experience how we might imagine feeling and thereby perhaps learn and begin to adjust, to make adjustments in light of what we learn in the course of our meditation. Meditation is above all else a way that we learn about ourselves and how we might feel about certain possibilities, how we would experience them, and therefore begin to make some kinds of adjustments in the direction of our priorities.
So, we’ve been working in terms of our motivation, the development of love and compassion with, you know, a spectrum of different types of relationships. Now we’re coming to almost the extreme of the of our relationship in terms of those we feel some aversion toward. Know, pick somebody that, you you don’t have any heavy duty anger or hatred toward this person, you don’t feel comfortable, you don’t particularly like them, you’ve had maybe some difficulties or just imagined in the past, you’d rather not be around them. You don’t feel good about them. Choose and work with such an individual.
Nothing heavy duty, nothing really the kind of gut wrenching hatred you might experience with some people, which is just a mild form of aversion. Know some people say, I can’t think of anybody I have that feeling toward that maybe they aren’t being quite honest with themselves. Again, it could be just somebody who steps in front of you in a queue or somebody pulls in front of you in your car or something like that. We can find somebody that we’ve had these experiences with and working with those experiences and how we feel about them. So if you take a comfortable front posture.
And I’ll do it. So let’s get in touch first with the body. Noticing any tightnesses, any tensions. Our life, our human life affords us. And amongst humanity, we are extremely privileged in beginning to appreciate that fact so we don’t throw it away.
We don’t waste this opportunity that our life of leisure and fortune presents us with. Because moreover, the fact is that it’s definite that we’re going to die. And we don’t know when. And the only thing which is going to be of use to us, whether it’s a big death at the end of this life or through the course of the many deaths, the little deaths which occur throughout our life is the patterns of our own mind, the imprints, our attitudes, our beliefs, how we’ve developed our mind, how we’ve grown. We look at death as a means of helping us to appreciate our life, to make the best of it, to lead our lives with an intensity of being and try to achieve a quality of life because the quantity is going to be limited.
So, in terms of death, we’ve looked at the nine-round death meditation. It consists of three roots, each having three supportive points to it or reasons, and coming to three distinct conclusions. The first of these was that death is inevitable. That’s the first root. And this is supported by three points.
The first one of which is that death is certain. It happens to everybody. And then secondly, you know, our life is continually decreasing, the span of our life, constantly, without interruption. And then thirdly, you know, beginning to see in terms of our life, what part of our life has really any quality to it. You know, how much of our lives are dedicated to actually growing, developing ourselves as opposed to other ways that we distract ourselves.
Other ways which perhaps aren’t as significant and might not be bringing us in the quality of life we want. So considering these facts will bring us to a certain conclusion, that is to begin to live our lives wisely and mindful of the quality of our life and the development of our minds and our attitudes. And then second root is that the time of death is uncertain. And the supporting facts in terms of the time of death being uncertain are firstly that our lifespan is indefinite. There’s no certainty as to when we’re going to die.
And then secondly, we begin to look at the fragility of human life, how easily it can be lost. And thirdly, you know, all the very many causes which can end our life. Some are quite subtle. It doesn’t have to be a catastrophe. It can be something petty, insignificant, minor, but still our life can be lost.
And this will lead us to the second of these three conclusions, to use our life wisely while we still have it and to begin something now if it’s what because we’re not sure if we’re going to have enough time in the future to achieve what it is that we want. And if we’re going to practice the Dharma, to begin to practice it now. Because the tomorrow when we were going to practice might come later than the day of our death. Then the third root is beginning to understand what is it that’s going to be of any benefit, of any use to ourselves at the time of our death. And look at the three supporting points in this regard.
That those who love us. And the people who really want to help us, who have our interests in mind sincerely in very unselfish manners, even they, with their best of intentions, can’t be of any benefit to us at the time of our death. That’s the reality of our situation. And what to say of our material possessions, all our enjoyments that we pursue, and even our own body. Those are the three points.
The loved ones, our material possessions and pursuits of enjoyment. And thirdly, our body itself which we have taken such great care of over the course of our life, are of no use at the time of our death. And what can be? You know whether the big death or at the end of our life or these mini deaths, these small deaths that occur over the course of our life. The attitudes of our mind, whether skillful or unskillful.
The imprints, the potentials, beliefs, our world view, and how we’ve developed our mind is the only thing which can see us through, by means of which we can be assured that we’re going to land on our feet at the end of these transition periods, these gaps which death presents us with. And the conclusion that we come to is to begin to practice, to do something, to make self development a priority in our life, to create the space, the time, put forth the energy in working with some systems, some methods, some discipline to improve ourselves, the quality of our mind, and thereby our life. And so, now I thought we’d discuss the death process. It’s a little bit technical, but I think it’s a great interest and I think it can be of great use. An advanced student of Buddhism, and in particular someone who practices Tantra, seeks to make use of the opportunity of death as a means to gain awakening.
Familiarizing themselves with the process of death will prepare them to follow the experience with dying and moving into the intermediate state which we are going to explain with a great deal of confidence and a great deal of awareness. And they can make use of this transition period in terms of their practice. They can be actually transformed into a way of developing their own mind. But even for ordinary individuals like ourselves, you know, an understanding of death, If we understand the process that we’re going to go through, if we can have greater awareness, and this will help us in having greater awareness, will help us in having less fear, and thereby it’s going to contribute to eventual outcome of a more positive rebirth. And understanding the death process also helps us to gain some kind of rational acceptance of the reality of rebirth.
It becomes more plausible. Just not a wishful notion, some kind of a wishing that there’d be more life. And so sort of without any foundation, without any plausible explanation, without any mechanism, we can begin to understand the actual process. So, we’re going to discuss the actual death process. The ordinary physical form, this body that we have composed of all the material elements, is subject to inevitable decay, inner deterioration, sickness, and finally it’s going to die.
And this body that we’re so attached to is inevitably going to be lost. All the causes of death whatsoever, whether due to old age at the end of our lifespan or due to some interruption, perhaps by accident, are determined by the karma of the person, of the individual. You know, any outward happening which might be viewed as the apparent cause of death, is from a Buddhist point of view merely a cooperative condition. The deeper cause of the death is the interruption in the life-sustaining karma of the person. No matter what conditions might occur outside, no matter what happens might happen, if the person still has the karma for their life to continue, they will not die.
On the other hand, once an individual’s life sustaining karma is exhausted, it takes any insignificant event to act as a cooperative condition necessary to bring about their death. And hereby karma we mean all the activities. You know, the notion of karma, there are many ways that we can approach karma. Now we’re going to discuss about it, discuss karma in the near future. But it can be approached from many points of view.
It’s very complex and it’s a very profound subject. It’s really, I think in many ways, way that we thing eyes, we make objects into things. It becomes difficult for us to imagine what karma is because karma is thought of more in terms of processes than things than than it is what is shaping. It’s the, you know, the activities or the shaping that formed the being. Rather than being a a person being a static thing, a person is an expression of a happening.
You know, I remember in the sixties, you know, San Francisco and California and Haight-Ashbury and all that, used to have happenings. You know, you get a bucket full of acid and LSD and you get some music and you get some paint and you get some balloons and you get the venue and you get all these things together. You have to happen. Something happens out of all these conditions. And like we are happening.
We are an expression. Everything, in fact. An expression of a latticework of complex, subtle variables, processes, not isolated things that we somehow try to fixate on. So karma is part of these processes which are maintaining the continuity of life. You know, this flux, this flow of events which we call our life.
And this includes all the imprints of our past actions, our genetic coding, life in the womb, our parental and social and cultural conditioning. The sum of all these interactions between an individual and these processes. You know, we aren’t a solid fixed entity. We are an expression of momentary happenings in continuity over time. Part an intimate or a necessary condition of which is bringing which is supporting this whole context of maintenance of an identity of who we are is our own inner karma, our own inner conditioning, our evolutionary code, finding expression and reacting to the world about it.
The cells of the body, for example, are controlled by karma. Any breakdown of the cells, whether naturally through disease or due to, whether naturally through disease, is a breakdown of the karmic flow, which is sustaining and shaping that form. You know, if something does not arise, this applies to everything, but we can begin to think of it in terms of our embodiment. That things are continually replicating a similar type. And we’re going to discuss this when we talk about rebirth, the logic behind rebirth.
That things do not come out of nothing. They must have a cause. But moreover, there are various types of cause which bring about a product, a result. One of the necessary types of causes is type that’s called a homogene or a type which is is cause which is similar in type. That is to say, there must be a similarity of type between the cause and its effect.
And like with ourselves, there is continuity of our existence over time. I was born in such and such a place. I grew up in such and such a place. I moved to another city. I went to school in another town.
I visited another country, and I came here. There’s been a continuity. But there’s been a constantly changing stream of who I am. You know, even in terms of a gross physiology of the person, body is continually reconstructing itself day after day. I think the figure is after eight years there’s not one single cell that was originally there prior to that eight years, that the whole process recycled.
What is it that keeps the continuity? Why is it that aside from growth and mutation, is there an identifiable entity remains continually over that time? In terms of the being, the deeper cause is one’s individual karma. Once that karma is exhausted, then there’s no replication of the being from the next moment. The continuum of the being ceases.
There’s no the shaping forces which took the materials and out of that synthesized human being in terms of their physical properties, in terms of their mental properties. That the shaping, the conditioning force has exhausted itself and the being comes to an end. So, you know, in terms of the karma, the breakdown of the cells, either naturally or by through disease, is due to the breakdown of the continuum of the karmic flow which is sustaining, which is shaping that form. The cells are in turn made up combination of four elements. You know, there’s various ways, like in Western chemistry, and we take the physical world and we say it’s built up out of certain building blocks.
And we can look at these building blocks in various ways. When you say there are certain basic elements, like I don’t know how many elements there are nowadays, but I remember when I took chemistry I think they had gotten up to one hundred and eight elements. You know, they just were a periodic chart with all these elements. And these were the building blocks of the universe, the material in the universe. And everything was merely a combination of different proportions of these building blocks.
So within the context of what would you call it, Buddhist cosmology, the way the universe is constructed, they essentially assign six elements: earth, water, fire, wind energy, space, and consciousness. Everything in the universe is made up of either of these or a combination of them in different proportions. So, in terms of the body, the body is constructed and composed of earth, water, fire, and wind energy, sometimes called air. The air element. So these four elements are And now, again, not to think of these as some kind of static thing, entity, like a basketball or grapefruit, constructing models of molecules and things like that.
But these four elements refer to the four forces or principles which support a form, which support the cells, for example, the body. So earth is the principle of extension or solidity, hardness. So rather than being a particular type of thing, it is a quality, the quality of hardness, the quality of solidity, the maintenance of physical structure, the pattern over time and in space. So the dense, solid, hard parts of the body, you know, for example, the flesh, the skin, the bones, the nails, that’s predominantly the element. Then there’s the water element which is the principle of cohesion, the binding force of structure, which keeps things together.
So this is the fluid and the flowing substances within the body, such as the blood, urine, the saliva. Then there’s the fire element. Fire is the principle of temperature, the measure of the average energy of movement, of underlying movement. The I think you might call it the entropy, the motion on the microscale, the vibration. That constitutes the warmth of the body.
Then there’s the wind energy. Sometimes it’s called wind element, sometimes it’s called energy, sometimes air element. I’m going to use the term wind energy. Sometimes I might just perhaps just say energy, okay? But that’s what I mean by this.
But energy has the notion, is the principle of the vitalizing force of the body. You know, the currents of air or the energy which causes movement of the body and within the body. You know, it causes circulation of the blood, the flowing of saliva, of urination. And wind energy also serves as a vehicle which we’re going to talk about because it’s very important in our understanding of the process of death. Wind energy serves as a vehicle for consciousness.
So these elements in various combinations constitute or evolve the gross body, you know, this body that we’re going to be talking about in terms of flesh, blood, bones, how we normally think about the body, which in turn serves as a basis for gross consciousness, for gross mind. So what do we mean by gross mind? Gross mind corresponds to the various sense consciousnesses. There are six sense consciousnesses. There are the five physical sense consciousnesses eye, ear, nose, tongue, body sense consciousnesses.
Eye consciousness is that which sees shapes and colors. Ear consciousness is that which hears sounds, etc. Then the mental sense consciousness is that which coordinates the inputs from these various sense consciousnesses and associates them with various concepts, with thoughts and images in our mind. So there are the five physical sense consciousness, the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and then the sixth sense consciousness, mental sense consciousness. So these are called gross minds.
They are supported by the gross body, the gross body which is made up of the four elements. Now we’re going to see how this plays a part in the death process and coming to understand the death process. So we’ve talked about the gross body and its correspondingly dependent gross consciousness and gross mind. But there is a more subtle body. There are more subtle levels of body which serve as a vehicle for more subtle levels of consciousness.
So a basic understanding, an important point is that there is a correspondence between the grossness of consciousness and the grossness of its vehicle or base. We’re going to talk about this more, but consciousness rides like a horse and a rider. Consciousness rides upon the wind energy. The principal characteristic of wind energy is motility, movement. The principal quality of consciousness is cognition, the ability to know.
But when they act together, in consort, dependent upon one another, then they’re able to move to an object and know the object. Consciousness in itself can only know. It’s not able to move to objects. So it’s limited in its scope of awareness. But on the other hand, wind energy is without cognition.
It’s an unknowing quality. If, like a blind man who has strong legs, this is wind energy. If the consciousness which has sight but is crippled gets on the back of the blind man, then together they can move to an object and know it. So they always act in harmony. They act in coordination with one another.
They are each other’s cooperative condition. And depending upon the grossness of the body, and we’re going to talk about the levels of body, there will be a corresponding grossness of consciousness. So in terms of the gross body, this body of flesh and blood made up of these four elements, this acts as a support for gross consciousnesses. But there are more subtle levels of body. For example, there is the body which is made up of channels wind energies and drops.
So in this, the body, this is called a subtle body. The body which is made up of channels, wind energies and drops serves as a basis, as a vehicle for a correspondingly subtle level of consciousness. This subtle level of consciousness there are groupings, for example, or what is called the eighty indicative consciousnesses. And I’ll explain more about this. There are eighty Indicative Consciousnesses.
There are three more. There is white appearance, red increase, and black near-attainment. I’ll go through these and what these mean. White attainment, red increase, and black near. So these are subtle levels of consciousness which ride or depend upon the subtle body.
So I said the subtle body is made up of channels, wind energies and drops. Is this good? Is it too technical? Yeah, actually I asked if there was a whiteboard around it. Somebody borrowed it and it’s gone.
Anyway, yeah? So, channels. Channels are there’s an elaborate structure of wind energy pathways in the body arrayed throughout the body. It’s said to consist of seventy two thousand circulatory passages in which the wind energies move throughout the body. There’s a central axis of a central channel and two side channels.
The central channel runs from approximately the mid brow, moving up toward the crown of the head, just inside the spine, down and to the tip of the genital. That’s the central channel within the body. Running parallel alongside are two of the right and left channels moving down alongside. But these join in about three fingers below the navel, join into the central channel. These are the main channels.
Then branching out from these are lesser channels. There are many of you have heard the term chakras. And we’re getting into what we mean by chakras. Use the term channel wheels. You know, are like, you know, like main junctions.
You can imagine like it’s all of these arteries moving like on streets, but there are a few main junctions where all the streets intersect. There are either five or six or seven, depending upon the explanation of how many of these channel wheels, these main junctions, occur in the body. One explanation has it that in terms of five, that there’s one at the crown of the head, that there’s a main junction, that is to say, along this main axis of the central channel, there are main junctions where many streets, many arteries, many of these channels are coming together like the spokes of an umbrella. There are said to be what? In the crown wheel channel thirty two channels coming together.
There’s one at the throat sixteen, one at the heart eight, at the level of the navel, three fingers below the navel sixty four, and there’s in explanation of six. And there’s one at the base of the spine called the secret wheel channel. And then there’s one at the tip of the So anyway, they’re not particularly important. Some of them are important. In many meditations they’re made use of.
One visualizes them as a template in order to work with these wind energies. The most important working usually is in terms of the wheel channel at the crown, at the throat, the heart and below the navel, approximately at the level of the navel. So anyway, the important thing, we’re just trying to get an understanding of how this process of death is going to occur. So, this requires some conceptual idea about these various channels within the body. But mainly there are the three channels: the central channel and two side channels which run from the nostrils alongside the central channel and join three fingers below the navel into the central channel.
Then there is the wind energy. So the range of wind energies goes all the way from the air that we breathe, that we inhale and exhale, to subtler airs or currents of energy moving through the body. And these assist in the performance of all the bodily functions and are instrumental in the operation of consciousness. They are a vehicle for consciousness. Consciousness is said to ride on these wind energies, on these currents of air.
All the varying levels of subtlety of these wind energies act as a condition for a corresponding very subtle levels of consciousness. And we’re going to see why this is important in bringing this out. So, we’ve talked about channels. We’ve talked about wind energy. And then there’s a subject about drops.
Sometimes called creative drops. Anyway, drops are described as the essence of the seminal fluid from the father and the mother. So, they have evolved from the original white drop. So there are two types of drops basically. There’s various systems of explanation.
Here in the system there are two types of drop. There’s a white drop and a red drop. The white drop originates from the original drop which was present within the seminal fluid coming from the father, which was present at the time of conception. And the red drop originally comes from the fluids from the mother at the time of conception, at the time of the union of the sperm and ovum. So, the coarse drops are found So, there are two levels of drops.
I’m not going to go into this too technically, but just to get the idea. There are two coarse drops. There are two types of drops, coarse drops and subtle drops. Coarse drops are found throughout the body, but predominantly the white drop is held, suspended within the crown channel wheel. Predominantly, the red drop, the coarse red drop is suspended, held within the center of the navel channel wheel.
Okay? That’s where they’re being held. And this is going to play a part in the experience of the dying person eventually. So we’ve talked about the subtle body which is composed of channels, wind energies and drops. Now this subtle body supports correspondingly subtle consciousness and we said that was composed of first the eighty indicative consciousnesses.
These are simply types of wholesome and unwholesome consciousness such as conceptual awarenesses of ordinary experiences ranging from hatred to compassion. There’s a list in case you’re interested of these eighty types of conceptual consciousnesses. The other three types of conceptual consciousness which were listed were the white appearance, red increase, and black near-attainment are conceptual consciousnesses which are very specific conceptual consciousnesses which are induced by the movements of the subtle wind energies. Most specifically in terms of the white drop, the red drop, and their coming together. And we’ll explain that when we go through the actual death process.
So we’re kind of building up inventory, getting some information about the structure of the body in order to understand how the death process occurs. So, this is like background information. So, we’ve talked about a gross body with a corresponding gross consciousness, a subtle body with a corresponding subtle consciousness. But there is still a more subtle level of body with a corresponding, more subtle level of consciousness. This is the very subtle body, which is the very subtle life-bearing wind energy.
And this most subtle level of consciousness, most subtle level of body serves as the vehicle, as the basis for the most subtle level of consciousness. This consciousness is called the clear light. You’ve all heard of the clear light, I’m sure. There’s a cafe in Manley. So it’s very good food, by the way.
This most subtle level of consciousness is termed the clear light. Together, this most subtle level of consciousness and this most subtle level wind energy reside within the center of the heart channel center, within the channel wheel at the level of the heart. They reside in what is called the indestructible drop. This unity of most subtle consciousness and most subtle wind energy is referred to as the internal indestructible drop. Why?
Because it continues life after lifetime after lifetime through to Buddhahood and including Buddhahood. It represents the most subtle, most essential state of an individual being. I’ll read you something about it. So we’re talking about the most subtle level of consciousness in combination with the most subtle level of wind energy. This we call a body.
This most subtle level of wind energy. Very hard to describe or understand and not to be misconstrued as a rigid, fixed identity. This unity, so this combination of very subtle consciousness and very subtle wind energy is beyond body mind duality. It consists of the finest, most sensitive, alive and intelligent energy in the universe. It is a being’s deepest state of pure soul where the being is intelligent light, alive and singular, continuous yet changing, aware of its infinite interconnection with everything.
It is beyond all instinctive patterns of lust, aggression or delusion, beyond all duality, one with reality and one with the truth body of all Buddhas. It is what is referred to by Buddha nature. Each living being is really just this indestructible drop at the extremely subtle level. This is the living soul of every being. It is what makes the boundless process of reincarnation possible.
It is the gateway into liberation, always open, essentially free, though the being evolved around it may identify itself with intensely turbulent states of suffering. It is peaceful, translucent, trouble free and uncreated. Knowing it is what makes Buddhas smile. It is what makes Buddhas and living beings the same. So, we’ve talked about we’re going to go back into that and what that is referring to.
But we’ve talked about three levels of body: gross, subtle and very subtle. And corresponding three levels of consciousness: gross, subtle and very subtle. So, by way of a rough analogy, gross consciousness is likened to a waking state, just like our everyday state. Subtle consciousness is likened to a dream consciousness. Very subtle consciousness is likened to the consciousness present in deep sleep, in a dreamless deep sleep.
So in ordinary waking life only the gross body and gross consciousness along with the subtle consciousness are operative. So now we’re going to So this is like some necessary background information so that when we actually describe what occurs, the physiology and the psychological experience of the dying individual, we can begin to understand why it’s occurring and how it occurs. Essentially, when Buddhism talks about death, what it is talking about is that there is a process and I’m going to go through this in detail, in some detail is there is a withdrawing of wind energies throughout the body initially. Withdrawing of the interface between the gross elements of earth, water, fire, and wind energy more subtle levels of energy. Such that the body begins to lose its capacity, what?
To act as a support for consciousness. That is to say, this very gross sense consciousness begins to lose their ability to function. We no longer can see. We no longer can smell. The gross sense consciousness begins to become inoperative.
The wind energies are withdrawing. And how are they withdrawing? They’re beginning to withdraw into the central channel, into the subtle body. So the gross body and therefore gross consciousness become inoperative. But we’re not dead.
As there begins a process of the subtle levels of life energy, of wind energy, beginning to absorb into this central indestructible drop at the heart. Therefore, the subtle levels of consciousness become inoperative. The eighty indicative consciousnesses and the three subtle consciousnesses become inoperative. But still the being has been reduced to the most subtle level of consciousness in combination with the most subtle level of wind energy. This is what is going to go on to take rebirth.
This is what is going to become re associated with first a subtle level of body and therefore generate subtle levels of consciousness, then a gross level of body and thereby generate gross levels of consciousness. It is us. This most subtle combination of most subtle level of consciousness and most subtle level of energy is us. Why? Because encoded upon it is our entire evolutionary history in terms of all our actions.
Our actions are physical, verbal, our thinking. That is to say, encoded upon this is our karma. That’s why it’s uniquely us. And these when it reassociates by when it’s compulsively reassociates with the more gross embodiment, karmas begin to express themselves in patterns of thinking, in patterns of structuring the body, of the images. They begin to as a template, they begin to how we form ourselves, how we think about the world, how we relate with the world.
The various types of consciousness which arise, our tendencies, our predispositions, our capacities begin to find expression in terms of gross consciousness, in terms of our gross body. This is all encoded upon this most subtle level of consciousness in combination with this subtle level of energy. When this subtle level of consciousness, most subtle level of wind energy, this unity, when it breaks its connection with the subtle level of body, the subtle level of consciousness, when that connection is finally broken, death occurs. Is the actual moment of death. Not when the gross body becomes lifeless, but when the subtle level, this most subtle unity breaks its final connection, when the karma which maintains this supporting light energy, which connects it to more grosser levels of body, when it’s finally exhausted, you know, just like a molecular bond when it finally weakens and breaks, this represents death.
This consciousness will then go on to compulsively seek out re-embodiment, to re associate with a new embodiment. It’s driven just like a leaf in a wind by the winds of karma. It will enter into compulsively, without choice, into a union of a sperm and ovum and begin the process of evolution of a new body, new ways of thinking, new ways of relating, a new world due to the conditioning factors, the karma, which are implanted, imprinted upon this unity. Anyway, we’ll go through that, okay? That’s just kind of rough.
Is this interesting? I think it’s interesting because number of points of view, I think it begins to point out that maybe rebirth needs to be taken a little more seriously. Maybe there’s an actual it’s not just a fanciful thought, there’s some rationale, some mechanism which is able to explain what Buddhism means by rebirth and how it takes place. And therefore it might have some effect on how we actually live, if in fact death is not the end of it all. Something does in fact carry on and we’re responsible for what it is that carries on.
Yeah, it has an intimate connection with us. Yeah, I’m going to explain this. But does anybody have a quick question? I haven’t left you too confused. Anyway, we’ll continue that next week and go through the actual death process, the actual physiology behind the transition, and the psychological experience of the dying person.
So we’ll dedicate the creative potential, this positive energy, this karma that we’ve created. Give it some kind of direction. 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 the 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. So if you’d like to get a cup of tea, we’ll have a discussion. Have a good week.