Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A Kadampa master who prayed on his deathbed to be reborn in hell — and was paradoxically refused — anchors Ven Jampa Gendun’s treatment of joyous effort in this 106-minute session. Covering the final three of the six Bodhisattva perfections, he contrasts grim self-coercion with the genuine delight in virtue that makes effort sustainable, then examines concentration as a tool for penetrative insight rather than escapism, and presents wisdom — specifically the understanding of emptiness — as the essential partner to compassionate method, the two likened to the wings of a bird. The second half turns to rebirth, building a careful logical case through the concepts of substantial cause and cooperative condition: since mind can only arise from a prior moment of mind, each individual’s mental continuum extends back without beginning. Suited to practitioners already following the series on the Bodhisattva path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 30 HMA 1996 08 28.mp3
UUID: f2d0139b-dde2-4efa-9727-e14955eea4fc
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1996-08-28
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 106.2 minutes
Words: ~11,418
Taking ourselves and redirecting ourselves. You know, I think it seems to be very much a part of the basis of Buddhist practice. Ongoing necessity to again and again determine what it is that we want and what it is that we don’t want. And in doing that determining to create the causes, finding happiness, solving our problems, and desist from creating those causes which are causing us a lot of problems in our life. Seems as if it’s just a moving away, clarifying for itself, and a tendency of the mind to move away from that which it sees as detrimental, that which it sees as problematic, difficult, seeing for oneself as clearly as possible what is it that brings us happiness, what works for ourselves, what makes us feel good about ourselves and brings meaning to our lives.
And the mind beginning to tend in that direction. You know it’s been said and I think there’s a great deal of truth to it that we are to a great extent our habit. You know these reoccurring compulsive patterns of our thinking and behaving. And to know who we are we have to look at our habits and to change who we are beginning to change the overall pattern, the predominant tendencies of our life and where they’re taking us. So, I think basically we have to change.
In my own personal experience I for some reason have begun to see the obvious necessity of that more and more. And we can’t, you know if something isn’t working, we have to begin to let go of it. We we have to open, create the inner ecology of mind whereby some opening of change is possible. We have a self righteousness about ourselves that we know best. That is following our particular sets of beliefs, our ideas, our present world view.
That we can still, even though it hasn’t worked up to now, get what we want out of our life. We hold onto that with a great persistence. You know like dragging, breaking our nails trying to hold on to these ideas and beliefs. But you know, it’s not to say that we have to put ourselves into some kind of ideological straight jacket or some kind of religious dogma and force you know do kind of some kind of mental gymnastics to force ourselves into some kind of preconceived notions about how we should be acting and thinking. But I think it’s quite necessary to really see what is being said.
Perhaps the various religions of the world, they aren’t really trying to fool us. They aren’t trying to simply to take advantage of ourselves. And if the basis of religion is compassion, and if that is the case, then perhaps they are trying in the most compassionate way possible to show us how to find a better life according to each of their distinctive world views and how they perceive it, what the good life is all about. And the same holds true of Buddhism. It has a vast array of ideas and beliefs and systems of thinking and overall world view.
And beginning to try to sincerely as possible, look to see what is actually being said and how is it relevant to one’s own life. And try to see if it might work to begin to adapt it in a relevant way to what is actually happening for yourself. We have to change and this gives us a format to work with for change. Something that we can actually do for ourselves in very practical sense. Now we’ve been discussing the practices of a Bodhisattva, the six perfections or the six transcendent practices.
And this is what a Bodhisattva actually does. A Bodhisattva, that hero with respect to awakening, with respect to enlightenment, having awakened their heart to all living beings, having their central focus of their life, Buddhahood for the benefit of all living beings. And they actually have to do something. You know there are two levels to the awakened heart. There’s a level of aspiration and really wishing that it be so.
And this is quite a radical departure from most of our ways of thinking in terms of what we consider as most important. Generally, it’s in terms of our own self centered wants and needs and our own exaggerated self concern which is central focus to our life and absorbs all energy and time, everything that we are about. But this is really a radical transformation, refocusing on others, on other centeredness. And, you know, wanting to do something for them. What can we do most?
Develop some skills in how to help them solve their problem. And the most skillful we call a Buddha. So if I can become a Buddha, then I can be of greatest optimum benefit for the sake of the greatest number of people. I can be all things to all people so that by some means I can help a few. So, but merely wishing though it’s as rare as a star during the day, the appearance of a star during the day, we actually have to do something.
We have to begin to travel the path. So, the Bodhisattva takes up as a practical measure the six perfections or the six transcendent practices. And we’ve been discussing these and we talked about the first is generosity and ethics and tolerance. Fourth of the six perfections or the fourth of these transcendent practices is that of joyous effort or something we can call it endeavor. It goes beyond the notion of valiantly struggling against all the odds.
Obstinately see something through to the bitter end. The notion of diligently keeping our nose to the grindstone. This is kind of the conception that we usually have that we associate associate with the idea of effort and endeavor and perseverance. It’s rather heavy handed and could be rather self oppressive. It’s not to say that there may not be times when such a way of exerting ourselves might not be necessary.
To stoically see something through to the end and doggedly struggle. But more, that’s not the intended notion behind this perfection. It is to generate the energy intention necessary to exert ourselves and to persevere, to do so toward a positive end. And secondly, to delight in doing so. So there’s a great deal of difference, isn’t there?
The practice of effort is learning to exert ourselves and to persevere in what we’re doing towards skillful ends and to enjoy doing so. You know, to be able to transform efforts such that they’re seen as worthwhile. There’s a certain self satisfaction that we’re able to derive from them. Not something that we do. If you consistently do something which you feel with a sense of discouragement, with a sense that it’s painful, then quite perhaps sanely your mind will begin to turn away.
You know, if it’s simply a prostrations, then there’s something lacking in your practice. You know, we aren’t using our wisdom. You know, throughout there has to be some kind of discrimination about what we’re doing. We simply can’t do violence to ourselves in terms of our practice and the directions that we make our effort. We actually have to develop the skill of liking to do virtue.
Interesting. I think there’s a phrase that Confucius said. He said, the rarest thing is someone who loves virtue. Then there’s no problem in directing our mind. You know, this is the idea that somehow we find great joy through our practice in exerting ourselves.
You know, it’s the eagerness of effort that overcomes our procrastination, our indolence, our laziness, the habit of losing our self in distraction. You know, something that you really enjoy doing. You don’t have to force yourself. You don’t have to talk yourself into it. You don’t have a laziness or a hesitation or you keep putting it off, procrastinating around it.
There’s no self defeating inadequacy about it. For the Bodhisattva, the joy associated with making effort. It’s like the protective armor that they’re able to wear. Though it’s hard to imagine, I think it’s more than just figurative going into the deepest hells for the sake of living being. I mean, it’s hard to give, you know, whether hell actually exists or not.
Perhaps it’s difficult enough to believe in that. But for an individual to actually joyfully to take rebirth in hell, so that, you know, because of their real need to help these beings, It’s unimaginable. But just because it’s unimaginable to ourselves with our present worldview doesn’t mean it’s not possible. That in fact is not the case. There’s a story I think of one of the great Kadampa Geshe.
And Kadampa Geshe were noted for their emphasis on the development of compassion and love, and the simplicity of life, and their emphasis on mind training, transforming their minds. And this one great Kadampa Geshe, this was a lineage that began with Atisha who reintroduced Buddhism into that after it degenerated. And it was a lineage which was continued by Tsongkhapa in the fourteenth century. And there was one great master by the name of Geshe Sharawa and he was on his deathbed and he was praying with sincere earnestness that he’d be reborn in the hells for sake of other living beings. And he had his students who would gather around his deathbed.
And he really, you know, can you imagine? He really wanted to be born in hell. You know, he had that much compassion. He felt that so few people are born there for the sake of others that he could really, his life in such a situation would be tremendously worthwhile. So he wanted with all his heart to be born there.
But as he was dying he said to students, these are my prayers that not going to be answered. He didn’t go to hell. But he wanted to. And it’s like a paradox, isn’t it? It’s like the Christianity, the last shall be first.
And if you’re willing to let others go before you, then you yourself will get to have before them properly. It’s interesting that this is as a side comment, the context of the awakened heart, bodhicitta, it said that there are three types. There’s kingly, horseman like, and shepherd like. And the kingly type of the Bodhisattva says, well I’ll go ahead of that like a parade in which the king leads the way, and I’ll lead all living beings to awakening, to enlightenment. That’s one type of motivation, one type of seeing the goal of the journey of attaining Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings.
The other one is oarsman like, where all get in the same boat and I’ll do the ropeing and we’ll all get there together, that kind of notion. And then finally there’s shepherd like. And shepherd like says, is like an actual shepherd who lets the flock go first. You go first. I’ll bring up the rear kind of idea.
Trying to, they all, you know, I’m going to be the last one out. And it’s said that it’s paradoxical because the stronger one’s shepherd like motivation to achieve awakening, that is to say that helping others to achieve Buddhahood before one, the faster that you achieve Buddhahood. It’s the notion that the last shall be first. The Bodhisattva has a great exhilaration for working with others. And this is part of their joyous effort.
So, you know, I think in all these practices we have to use our intelligence. I don’t think there’s any getting around it to use our mind. So that our practice, it is somehow fits our self. It sort of organically grows out of who we are at present in terms of our values, in terms of what it is that we believe, in terms of what works for us. That is not something which we’re artificially placing upon ourselves, which doesn’t quite fit who we are, which we really can’t identify with.
We’re just assuming, putting ourselves in some kind of straight jacket. I don’t think that way of practice will work very well and for sure not very long. Perhaps, you know, our own basic sanity will express itself and we’ll give it up after some time and search for a more authentic way of expressing our spirituality. Expressing our Buddha nature. So joy is effort.
Trying to, you know, the training in endeavor towards skillful action, but finding a way to take joy in that. So that it’s not something heavy handed. It’s not a burden. You know, helping other people is no longer a burden. It’s something that you find inner satisfaction, that you find worthwhile, that you take some kind of delight in.
And the fifth of the six perfections, transcendent practice of concentration. Concentration here is included in what is called the category of calm abiding. And calm abiding means to the abiding of the mind upon an inner skillful object, an inner object of observation of the mind. Abiding on that calmly, that is calming the tendency of the mind to run outside. So that’s where the idea of calm abiding comes from.
Abiding on an inner skillful object. So one characteristic of it is skillful object. It’s just not any object. It’s something which is of use to helping you on your spiritual path. And there’s a calming.
There’s a pacification to our natural tendency to become distracted to our mind, you know, running about to the external objects, to the world around us. So in such a state the mind is effortlessly able to remain focused clearly upon whatever object it is placed upon for as long as one wishes and it’s accompanied by physical and mental bliss. So that sounds pretty good I think. You if you place the mind on any object it remains there effortlessly accompanied by, you know, for however long you might wish, for hours and days, and accompanied by mental and physical bliss. But, you know, a real tendency, tendency, you know, even at our level of practice to make meditation, to make concentration a form of escapism, you know, from our problem as opposed to a means to help us to solve our problem.
You know, it’s like it’s just it’s just like in a way perhaps more skillful. It’s just like indulging in drugs, indulging in alcohol, something just to numb ourselves, something just a means another means of spacing out, of distracting ourselves temporarily from our problems. So the the Bodhisattva cultivates what’s called mundane concentration. There are, you know, I don’t need to become technical about it, but in general there are two types of concentrations. There’s a supra mundane and mundane concentration.
Mundane concentrations are able to temporarily suppress the disturbing factors in our mind. If you can attain a very high degree of concentration, your mind becomes very peaceful. It can become very blissful. You no longer no problems, disturbing factors in your mind no longer manifesting. But in the end, you haven’t really done anything for yourself.
When you arise from your meditation, all your problems are still there and the cause of those problems are still there within your mind. Nothing really has changed. But in a supra mundane concentration there is, it’s used as a means whereby the disturbing factors within your mind are completely uprooted. The causes of our difficulties are eliminated from our mind altogether. So in this way, the Bodhisattva practices concentration, but not as a means of escapism, not as a means to avoid problems like perhaps I and a lot of other people do, but as a means that sees concentration as an indispensable tool of the mind necessary for gaining penetrative insight to empower our wisdom consciousness needed to work more skillfully in the world.
So meditation or meditative concentration is calm abiding. They are not in themselves. Sometimes some of you may be familiar with the various levels of concentration in Buddhism, some of what they call the jhanas or jnanas. They become more and more blissful, more and more peaceful. And they become pretty seductive, it’s said.
And there’s certain danger that you can sort of be sucked into absorbing bliss and peace which these states offer. But in the end they seen as they can become simply an obstruction, just another addiction to getting on with solving our problem. So then the sixth of the six perfections, the last of these six perfections. This is what, you know, like the primary work of a Bodhisattva, what they do with their life and how they go about their day, the day in the life of a Bodhisattva. The sixth of these six perfections.
Maybe the maybe on SPS pretty soon. The day in the life. Wisdom. The sixth of the six perfections is a perfections transcendent practice of wisdom. In general, usually we think of wisdom like someone with a long beard and very wise and they say very neat kind of things.
But we all have wisdom. It’s a function of our mind. In general wisdom is an analytic function of our mind. It’s the analytic faculty of the mind that probes into the deeper nature of things. That’s its kind of function, that’s its quality.
It tries to go beneath the superficial and look at things on a deeper deeper level. Go beneath the superficial appearances and try to understand the deeper nature of things to analyze the analytic function factor of mind. So basically it said that there are three types of wisdom. There are many categories of wisdom. But overall three categories of wisdom.
There is the wisdom of conventionality. So these are said to be the five sciences. This is within a Buddhist context. Five areas that we can have knowledge about, that we can have understanding about. The five sciences: medicine, art, logic, linguistics, grammar, knowing the nature of language, and then philosophy.
So these were areas that Buddha studied in ancient times. These were called the five sciences. And then there’s a second category of wisdom which is the wisdom understanding how to bring about the welfare of others which is a very functional, very useful type of understanding. Now what is it that brings about happiness? Suffering?
What is to be avoided? What is to be practiced? So, you know, gaining some understanding about what it is that hinders you on your progress on path, and what is it that promotes your progress on the path. So this type of wisdom. And then finally there’s the wisdom understanding the ultimate.
And this is the wisdom of understanding emptiness, the most profound, the most far reaching of all the wisdom. This is what actually liberates us, liberates the mind from any problems whatsoever and what actually is able to bring us to a state where we can be of greatest benefit to all living beings. The wisdom, this is in general, when it talks about the perfection of wisdom, this is the wisdom that’s mainly being spoken up here. The wisdom understanding emptiness. Wisdom understanding the absence of inherent existence.
We’re going to, when we come to third of the Three Principal Aspects of the path, you know, the awakened mind, we’re going to go into this ad nauseam really a lot for a long period of time, looking at it from different points of view at different levels. It’s quite, you know, if if if the awakened heart and it is this love and compassion are the heart of Buddhism, then this wisdom, wisdom of understanding emptiness is the mind of Buddhism. It is central focus in Buddhism. Without this wisdom, then all of the Bodhisattva’s struggles, all of his efforts, his endeavors are simply, you know, the Bodhisattva ideal is the sublime ethic. The Bodhisattva could never actually free anyone because no one could ever be freed without this wisdom of understanding emptiness.
You know, understanding how ignorance acts as the the basis for all our problems, all our afflicted emotions, for all our difficulties, how how all our reoccurring compulsive patterns are based upon the fact of ignorance. The misconception as the nature of ourselves, the I, and the things about it based upon this. And without the wisdom understanding emptiness, the exact antidote to this ignorance, we can never free ourselves. We can never achieve liberation from our problems. We can only make the best of a difficult situation.
There would always be some type of suffering one way or another. But it is fundamental to Buddhism that it is possible to eliminate the fundamental cause of our problem. I mean it sounds absurd when you first hear that one could achieve a state such that you no longer could be disturbed. That you would no longer experience any dissatisfaction, frustration, disappointment. That you would experience only continual bliss and peace and still remain in the world with others.
Go about all of the relationships, of them, all interacting with the world on an everyday level. But still you’re in whatever occurred outside of yourself would never disturb your internal peace. This is very much a part of the goal of Buddhism. And when you begin to see the underlying logic, is a rationale around it and it becomes conceivable, it becomes feasible and the Bodhisattva believes in dedicates his or her life to this, to the achievement of Buddhahood, and that for the sake of all living beings. Through the, you know, all of this bodhisattva is practicing these six perfections.
The creative potential. And by creative potential, you know, it’s my kind of term for what’s usually termed as merit. Merit. It’s a little bit difficult to understand what it is. It’s like the force which keeps our momentum in a particular direction in a way.
It’s of some kind of potency of mind which we’re able to develop and which keeps us keeps our mind tending toward this idea of tending I think is quite important but keeps tending ourselves toward positive goals. The greater one’s creative potential, the faster our movement toward those goals will be and along the way the more supportive our conditions will be toward that end. So, the creative potential of this practice, of these first five perfections, of these first five of these six transcendental practices, generosity, ethics, tolerance, joyous effort, and concentration. These are what are called method. And then the sixth is the practice of wisdom and that is called, strangely enough, wisdom.
So our practice is a combination of method and wisdom. So the force of method the force of method or this creative potential which sufficiently empowers the wisdom consciousness to remove all of the obstacles to realizing the totality of the potential of the mind. You know there are certain obstructions, levels of obstruction which prevent us from realizing the fullest capacity of our mind. It is wisdom. Wisdom is like the laser which cuts through these these obstructions.
There are various levels of obstruction but overall two levels of obstruction. Could classify them into two overall categories. There were afflictive obstructions and knowledge obstruction. Afflictive obstructions prevent liberation. Liberation from all of these reoccurring compulsive patterns, these dysfunctional patterns in the pathologies of our lives.
By removing the afflictive obstructions we are free. We no longer suffer. By removing the knowledge obstructions we remove the final obstructions to omniscience, to becoming a complete, unsurpassable, perfect Buddha, you know, just like Śākyamūni Buddha of the past. There’s no difference whatsoever. So these two work together.
Wisdom, removing the ignorance, and then empowered by method, this creative potential whereby to remove the final, most subtle obstructions of the mind. So, in turn, wisdom so method empowers wisdom. But wisdom also empowers method. By method like practices of generosity, like giving. If through our wisdom we understand what is called the emptiness of the three spheres.
The three spheres are the giver, the action of giving, and the recipient of our gift. You know, what is it that stops us from being totally generous, letting go? You know, if we can begin to understand that, we can begin to see how a Bodhisattva can actually raise the level of their practice such that they can give anything. They can give up all of their possessions, all of their roots of virtue, even their own body. They can let it all go.
And moreover, they can give it to limitless beings over a limitless period of time. You know, it sounds just like a romantic notion, you know, something which is, you know, maybe isn’t practically possible. But if we understand that having practiced the perfection of wisdom, understanding that there is no truly existent giver, there is no truly existent giving, And there is no truly existent recipient of our gift. And through that wisdom, the method becomes limitless. The generosity becomes possible to be practiced in a limitless in period of time towards limitless living beings.
I mean it is possible. There is a rationale. It’s practically possible. It could do. It could happen.
It’s just not a matter of brainwashing ourselves into believing that this could be the case or that these people are just out of their minds. It’s not the case. So it is a union of these two in our practice. Method and wisdom, method and wisdom which totally removes all the barriers obstructing the bodhisattva from achieving the goal of unsurpassed perfect complete awakening. And with that the greatest ability to benefit others which is the main concern of the bodhisattva.
In a way what we’re saying is this, know, method and wisdom. Method essentially is altruistic activity. That is to say, various activities that we do out of compassion. That’s method. Wisdom is a certain understanding, an understanding of the nature of the I, the self.
Okay? Wisdom without method is bondage. Method without wisdom is bondage. Let’s just say even if we don’t have wisdom on a very practical and simplistic level, even if we have great wisdom, if we don’t have compassion, we’re still not liberated. We need not only to gain in our intelligence and analytic faculty, to come to understand things in a deeper nature, but we also have to cultivate our loving kindness simply.
But having loving kindness, even being a tremendously compassionate person in itself is not sufficient to realize our totality. We might be sincerely wish to help but we have no wisdom to actually in fact help. So one without the other is not sufficient. These two are likened to the two wings of a bird. We need understanding.
We need to develop in our wisdom, our skillful ability to help others, to see things at a deeper level than perhaps we normally operate at. On the other hand we need to be loving. We need to be kind, caring people. These are likened to the two wings of a bird. You know this is over and over again repeated in the context of Buddhism that we need both to lead a balanced life.
We need not only to be self assertive but we also need to be self integrative. That autonomy and interdependence are complementary. We have to not only find an experience of peace for ourselves but find a way of relating skillfully with the world about us. These finding some kind of balance between all of these possibilities for ourselves. There’s a quote which talks about wisdom and method.
On the vast wide spreading wings of both the conventional method and the real wisdom, the king goose flies at the center point in the formation of the other geese, all beings spurred by the winds of virtue reaching to the farther shore of the ocean of victors’ qualities. The images of this is I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a migration of geese or ducks in a V formation and there’s this goose flying out in front and this is the leader of the flock is depending upon these two wings of method and wisdom. That is to say an understanding of the nature of the way things are but also a loving kindness. And through those two, the combination of those two is able to lead others, is able to be a great benefit to others. And we can relate this to ourselves even at our level of practice.
The more profound our wisdom, the more extensive we can be in terms of our acts of loving kindness. That this will empower our loving kindness. And the more our activities motivated by compassion, motivated by caring, the more penetrating our wisdom will become. So in this, for the Bodhisattva, the inner focus of his life, of her life, of our life becomes Buddha. Now I think it’s worthwhile to think about these, to give our life some kind of direction.
I think it’s worthwhile because I think we will achieve much more over the course of our life. You know it is like proverbial ship without a rudder. Sometimes it’s a drift in the ocean. Sometimes it goes in the direction of where it might want to go. And as I say, it might experience some types of happiness.
But it is very much haphazardly experienced. It comes and goes without much control. But if we have some kind of direction, if we begin to again and again orientate ourselves toward what in fact might be the ultimately good life for ourselves, which we are calling a Buddha, you know, this happy, healthy, loving, sane human being, then we begin to become authorities with our lives. We gain some kind of control of our lives and what we in fact experience. And we will eventually experience more and more of what it is that we want and less and less of what it is that we don’t.
You know taking control of our lives. But you’re beginning to determine the direction of our lives. And so in this process, and this is the reorientation, redirecting ourselves, the focus, the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha. And you’re trying to form for yourself what a Buddha might be for you within our own limited vision, own limited understanding, our limited conception of what is possible for ourselves and what we think we could achieve. That’s Buddha.
And continually orientating ourselves and trying but doing more than simply wishing it be so, actually doing something. That is, like going for refuge to Dharma which is practice involving ourselves in the various trainings, the techniques, learning about the way things, our minds operate and the world about us. The way that we actualize Buddha in our life, that way that we can actually achieve what it is that we want, actually helping ourselves in a very concrete, practical fashion. You know aside, you know, it’s one of our practice of Buddhism is like one tool that we have that we can make use of. We have an array of tools.
Have our jobs, relationships, our hobbies. All these different ways we try to make use of it in different ways to get what we want to create for ourselves a good life however we might conceive of it. And Buddhism should play a part in that. It’s like in a way everything that we do and say and experience occurs within the context of the mind. And Buddhism is directly concerned with the mind.
So no matter what else we may be doing, you know, in terms of trying to provide for our material welfare, our social welfare, you know, all these other possibilities, these realms of concern. Concerning ourselves with the mind itself and how we’re experiencing them I think is fundamental and it’s easy to overlook but quite necessary. And this entire process occurs within the social context of the spiritual community and those who assist us, who aid us in our practice and we in turn aid them and do what we can in helping them along. And again and again trying to raise the level of motivation. It is quite necessary, another process of reorientation to again and again try to go beyond our usual scope of concern.
The total preoccupation with this I, I, I, my wants, my need. This claustrophobic, self suffocating approach to life which is in fact self defeating, which hasn’t gotten as much except for pain and frustration and disappointment, dissatisfaction, and trying to as best we can open up to another vision of how we could be in this world, another possible basis for another possible worldview in which we might be able to operate in this world successfully. And that is to say from the viewpoint of being wisely selfish. And this is to say concerning ourselves more and more with others. As a real and practical means, we get more of what it is that we want for ourselves and mine..
So the inner focus of life becomes Buddha which we actualize, we achieve by means of the Dharma in the social context of the spiritual community. And we do this not just for ourselves, not just for our own narrow needs but for an ever wider circle, circle of others. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Community, I go for refuge and 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 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. 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. It’s gom, and it’s related to the word habit, related to the word familiarize, accustomed. So that’s what the word, you know, meditation has the connotation of becoming more familiar, productive, skillful states of mind, insight, accustomed, habituating.
And I think it relates to my earlier remark and to a great degree we are our habits and changing our habits, our patterns of thinking and behaving. So it’s quite necessary to keep going over again and again the same idea, the same thinking, not only to deepen that thinking but to begin to the process of integration and change. So we’re going to meditate on mindfulness of breathing. Thought toward the end of the session we’ll just change the object of our mindfulness to that of the mind itself. We’ve done this before.
Perhaps you might be counting and noting the breaths and then just simply stop counting but continue to note or if you’re not noting note the breaths. Knowing that you’re breathing in, emphasize this factor yourself, what is in fact you’re aware of. You’re aware that you’re breathing in. Note this by a gentle noting in your mind in, that you’re breathing out, noting out. And then the point we’re going to concern ourselves only with the mental consciousness.
So we’re going to focus on the mental consciousness. Now this would comprise like feelings, pleasurable feelings, displeasurable feelings, various emotions, maybe sadness, happiness, boredom, all kinds of possibilities. All this very mental gossip that’s going on in your mind, all the various images. So whatever that internal object might be, simply note thinking. Discriminating, making distinctions.
It’s all just thought. If pictures come up, thinking. If thoughts come up, thinking. If feelings come up, thinking. If your mind wanders, bring it back to the mind itself, the mental consciousness.
So we’re going to try to focus upon the mental consciousness itself. Using the technique of noting in terms of just thinking, thinking. Really, the thinking is not to be done like a mantra, something you mindlessly repeat, which you shouldn’t do anyhow, but anyway. You’re actually describing that something is happening, what your mind is involved in. It’s involved in some internal object and what’s simply going to describe it as thinking. Keep bringing the mind back to the mental consciousness itself again and again and again.
You know we cultivate love and compassion, this process of accustoming, changing our habits. And we were working with, I think last time we worked with somebody that we’re very close with that we love a great deal and then someone a little bit further out from that. We like a great deal but we’re not as close. Now this time we’re going to add a third person to expand the scope of our ability to develop love and compassion, the object of our love and compassion. Someone who is appealing to you, you know, they have a very pleasant appearance but they’re not particularly close.
You don’t have any particular relationship with maybe somebody that you see at work, one of your peers, somebody that’s a tradesperson, somebody that you see in the course of your day, daily life. You have no particular relationship, but still there’s a positive connotation around your relationship. You’re inclined to wish you know, think of them well because of their appearance in some way or who they are. But no, we have no particular relationship. We’re going to try as best you can to imagine that these three people, just if you can’t see them, the visualization is useful but not that important.
The feeling is what is important. Imagine that this person that is very close to you, maybe it’s your partner, maybe a parent or a child is there and then someone is a little bit distant from that. Maybe a close relative or maybe another member of your family, you know, of your best friends is there. And then this third person is appealing but the type of person you don’t have a very close relationship, but still they have a very positive appearance for you. Imagine that there’s an increasing group of people with very, which you have naturally various feelings for, that we’re going to try to cultivate the feelings of love and compassion for all of them as a group, as together, as a whole, something worth loving, something is worth thinking that I wish they didn’t suffer, all three of them.
So working working with them. Okay? So taking a comfortable firm posture. So even talking a great deal about death and what we can do as a means to improve the quality of our life, to appreciate our life while we have our life. We talked about the death process, the transition that occurs, the physiology and psychology.
The experiences surrounding death and what we can do for ourselves in terms of helping ourselves at the time of our death, the five forces. So, whether or not we as dying people or as a dying person has been able to make use of opportunity of death as we described in terms of the clear light of death which the tantric practitioner makes use of in order to achieve liberation or whether we have been able to apply the five forces which we described skillfully or whether we die completely without awareness in the case most people, you know in a state of confusion and perhaps fear that the average person dies in. The moment of the clear light is the moment of our death. So it is this moment of the clear light that the link between this subtle most wind energy conscious combination breaks, is severed from the grosser levels of the physical body, the actual moment of death. Subsequent to that, the actual rebirth process begins.
So we’re going to talk about rebirth. There’s still hope. And in exploring the question of rebirth, hopefully we can maybe stimulate some kind of questioning, some kind of inquiry around it even for ourselves. And maybe open ourselves to its possibility if we haven’t really considered it before or have been close to it previously. Important to try to come to some understanding as to whether rebirth exists or not.
Because it has bearing, whether rebirth does exist or doesn’t exist, it will have some bearing on the way that we live our lives which is ultimately what we’re concerned with. Why we’re going into all these? They aren’t just academic subjects or interesting theories but they have practical implications in the quality and the way that we lead our lives. The problem is that the vast majority of people who reject the notion of rebirth have never really considered the matter even superficially. And the same and also the same can be applied to those who accept the notion of rebirth.
Having never really considered it, The concept of rebirth deeply, whichever position is taken, whether accepting it or rejecting it, it has very little effect or impact upon our lives. Most people are either unthinkingly biased the direction of a mechanistic interpretation of life or they accept rebirth or they wish rebirth to exist in their desire for more life, you know, the continuity of life in the face of death, you know, the annihilation of ourselves. But there’s still something more I can look forward to in terms of life. So the question of establishing rebirth, you know, I use the word rebirth, same word as reincarnation, I think. It can be approached in several different phases.
It can be that people have spontaneous recall of previous rebirth, previous lives. Some people are said to be trained into actually gaining memories of past lives. Some people recall it through hypnotic regression. We could use credible testimony by reliable people who have knowledge, direct knowledge of the existence of past and future lives. Or we can approach it through perhaps some kind of logical reasoning.
So, I think, you know, there are many books published setting forth, you know, like case histories or experiments or individual experiences which tend to support the existence of past and future lives. But here I like just to focus upon some of the rationale, some of the logic which tends to support the existence of past and future lives. That in fact, it does have a rational basis. It’s not wishful thinking which we need to blindly accept enough. Can intelligently consider it and maybe in that way begin to tend ourselves towards its existence and in that way perhaps it can have some useful effect on the way we live our lives, the quality of our lives.
So in talking about rebirth, it’s first necessary to introduce two concepts which we’re going to use like tools. One is the concept of distinguishing between two types of causes. Two types of causes: substantial cause and cooperative condition. So this is one idea that we’re going to make use of later. And the other is the other concept that we’re going to make use of is the notion of similarity of type.
So, two types of causes: substantial cause and cooperative condition. So, the difference between a substantial cause and a cooperative condition, we can understand it easily if we take the example of a clay pot. The substantial cause of a clay pot is a wet lump of clay. You go down to the river bank and you dig up a lump of and then you put it on your wheel and you shape it. And you shape it into a clay pot.
The substantial cause of that clay pot is that, you know, that that mass of wet clay, that lump of clay. The cooperative condition, you know, why is it the cause? Because it assists in the production of the clay pot. That’s what the definition of a cause is. That which assists in the production of is a cause.
So the wet lump of clay assisted in the production. It is a substantial cause because the actual substance of the clay is being incorporated into the product, into the result, the That’s the substantial cause. The cooperative condition, it is a cause because it also assists in production. But what do we mean by the cooperative? That would be for example, would be the potter, the wheel that the potter uses and all the various tools.
The potter and these various tools, they also assist in the production of the pot. But they’re a different type of cause, aren’t they? The cooperative condition is the cause of the pot because it assists in its production but it does not determine the type of pot. The potter could have shaped a plate and he or she would have ended up with a clay plate or could have shaped a cup would have ended up with a clay cup. But it is the substantial cause which determines the identity that in fact whatever it’s going to be, it’s going to be clay.
And it is the potter who actually shapes the final shape, determines what shape the clay is going to take, whether it’s a cup or a pot, a plate. So they are both playing their parts in creating this final result, a clay pot. So all products, and by products I mean like tables, houses, cells, this building, whatsoever, Anything which arises dependent upon causes necessarily has both a substantial cause and a cooperative condition. If one of those is missing, then the result will not arise. So, know, take another simple example.
A flower grows from the seed, from soil, from moisture, from light. Seed, soil, moisture, light, these are all causes of the flower. They all assist in the production and the development, the growth of the flower. They all cause the flower. The seed is the substantial cause of the flower.
It supplies the material necessary for the flower’s growth and it’s going to determine the substantial identity. What is the identity of result? Whether it’s a flower or not. It’s a flower rather than being a carrot. Or it’s a sunflower rather than being a marigold.
So, the seed is the substantial cause. On the other hand, the soil, the moisture, sunlight are the cooperative conditions for the flower. They contribute the conditions necessary for the potential of the seed to actualize. If you had poor soil, if you had a lack of moisture, if you had little sunlight, then the flower which is produced, the plant which is produced could be shriveled and could be stunted. But they by themselves would not determine the substantial identity that it in fact is a flower.
For example, in this case a sunflower. You might end up with a stunted sunflower or shriveled sunflower because of lack of moisture or lack of poor soil, whatever. So both of these are necessary in the production of any result of substantial cause and cooperative conditions. So everything in the universe is exactly the same way. If one of these is missing, the result will not arrive.
We’re gonna use that idea and apply it to the notion of Weber, it applies. The other idea, the other tool that we need to make use of is that of similarity of type. This is simply the fact that there is within nature a consistency of a similarity of type between a cause and a result. That from an apple seed, an apple tree grows. Not an orange tree, not a carrot.
But there’s a similarity in type. The apple seed is the cause. The apple tree is the result. And moreover, is some kind of similarity of type between the two. It’s not haphazard.
It’s not random. There is definitely some kind of relationship between the type of cause and the type of effect that’s going to rise out of that cause. And the cooperative condition. The cooperative condition is the stuff, yeah. The stuff which in itself is going to be incorporated in the result as opposed to the forces which are shaping result but they aren’t incorporating to the result.
Like the potter stands up. The potter takes off his apron, you know, he finishes his pot and at the end of the day he takes off his apron and he’s more or less unchanged by having created that pot. But he’s still the cause of the pot, there’s no question about that. But he hasn’t been we used to debate on this. I went to in Dharmasala, it’s actually called the Buddhist School of Dialectics, but we used to call it the Buddhist School of Dramatics.
And we used to do a lot of debating and it was very dramatic debating but then, you know, remember when we were looking into this particular subject, kind of an elementary subject but, you know, well we would say, what happens if you, you know, the potter potter died and you ground him up and you and you put him in the clay and he became part of the pot? Is he a substantial cause or is he a cooperative condition? These kind of mind games. Anyway, that that’s to give you the idea. Yeah, it’s like a yeah.
There’s a yeah. It’s just a transformation. Yeah. They condition the final product. Supplies the actual substantial material and the identity.
Yeah. That’s yeah. So the seed whatever this potter made it was going to be clay. Either clay plate or clay pot, clay cup. So the substantial identity, the substance, identity of the substance is determined by the substantial cause.
How that’s being shaped was determined by the cooperative condition. Just like in the case of sun, the seed, it’s going to determine what is the identity and whether it’s going to be a plant at all or whether it’s going to be what type, what variety, the substantial material is going to determine that. But how that develops is it’s going to be shaped if it’s going to grow at all. The quality of the soil, how much moisture sunlight. It could be a sunflower.
So, I don’t know if that’s we’re kind of getting there. I don’t know. There’s something which is being transformed and there’s something which is conditioning that, which is shaping that transformation process. The central cause of experiences, our mind state, is karma. But that’s conditioned by the world about us.
Who we come in contact, who we don’t come in contact with, our situation, our social environment, our diet. Yeah, this would all be cooperative conditions. Yeah? Okay, maybe we’re going to use these ideas and we can expand upon them. But I think it’s interesting that we can begin to — maybe you’ve never considered the fact that there are two types of causes in fact.
And both are, they’re different, aren’t They’re different in how they operate and bring about a result. And we’re going to make use of this in terms of how we look at rebirth, in terms of the mind and where is the mind coming from because that’s what Libra comes down to basically. Where does the mind arrive? What is the cause of mind? That’s what rebirth comes down to essentially.
And the second concept that we’re going to make use of is this idea of similarity of type. That there is a relationship between cause and effect. It’s not haphazard, it’s not random. We use this understanding every day. We can predict results from the type of cause.
And by determining the quality of the cause, the type of cause, can bring about whatever kind of results that we want. That there is this consistent, predictable relationship between causes and effect in terms of some type of similarity of type. Okay? Okay. The notion that we’re trying to develop is that all of the continual production of all the various physical phenomena in the universe is most simply recombination, like a recycling, a transformation of previously existent physical phenomena, material phenomena, which act as a substantial cause.
We can say that physical phenomena act as the substantial cause of this physical phenomena. Matter acts as a substantial cause of material objects. That’s kind of the notion that we want to get a handle on, come some kind of understanding now. That physical entities are produced from other physical entities. That might, I don’t know if that sounds overly simple minded or maybe it’s necessary to go into that.
Physical entities, they don’t arise from nothing. Matter does not arise from nothing nor does it arise from a substantial cause dissimilar in type to itself. For example, space. Matter does not arise out of space nor does, for example, nor does space arise from matter. That they arise from a substantial cause similar in type to themselves.
It’s just the transformation of physical things into other physical things. There’s space arises from space. And we’re going to try to get to a sense that mind only arises from mind. Now, in terms of mechanistic science, the mind is or consciousness arises from the body. Or we could say more specifically that the mind or the consciousness arises from the nervous system or the brain.
Mind is what’s called an emergent property of matter. That’s basically what mechanistic science is saying that consciousness arises from matter. If it arises from the brain, if it arises from the nervous system which they do assert. So when the body dies, then the causes of mind cease, the body decomposes and returns to its natural elements and the mind fades away like a rainbow. That’s kind of the, if it’s thought of at all mechanistic approach.
Let’s think of it, I’ll read a quote here. Some people who think of themselves as scientifically believe that the mind is the brain and that for this reason there is no essential mind matter dichotomy. According to their view, everything can be explained in terms of the material world. They chose to overlook the qualities of mind that have no relation to matter such as subjective experience, thoughts and emotions. Although they would not take seriously story of Pinocchio.
Remember the story of Pinocchio? Remember he told a lie, his nose grew long ago. Although, Pinocchio’s noses get longer and longer. Although they would not take seriously the story of Pinocchio if a simple piece of matter, a stick — Pinocchio was made out of wood by the way — a stick inexplicably develops a mind experiencing hopes and fears, pleasures and pain, and so on, it would not find it strange if subatomic particles started to produce thoughts and feelings. However, not only is there no scientific evidence whatever that such a phenomenon is possible, but represents a somatic confusion of categories.
Linguistically, there is the category of mind and what is not mind that is matter. Matter or the material world is what exists out there beyond the senses. If it does not exist independent of the senses, how can it be categorized as material? How can a material world that exists outside senses also be the senses that sense and experience it? Such a theory does not answer anything.
It does not even begin to address itself to the question of what conscious experience is, let alone the question of what might not exist external to it. So in Buddhist cosmology, that is to say the Buddhist theory on the makeup of the universe, there are six primary elements. We’ve talked about four of these at length. Earth, water, fire, wind energy, air element. Then there’s space element.
And space is the lack of obstructive contact. My hand isn’t obstructive because there is space existing there. If there was not that space, my hand would be obstructed from moving. I couldn’t move my hand. The fact that there exists space there allows for that movement.
And then finally the sixth element, that of consciousness itself. Consciousness is defined as that which is clear in knowing, in that luminous in knowing, clear in knowing. So all of the multiplicity of phenomena is within the universe, everything in the universe, whether it’s animate or inanimate, is a combination of either one or many of these six elements in various proportion. So all of the diversity of things in the universe from a Buddhist point of view are just simply combinations of various proportions of these six elements. So the definition of consciousness is clear and knowing.
Here clear is taken to mean non material, non physical. Our various emotions and feelings, all our various cognitive states, our consciousness are not material or are not physical. That is, they don’t, that is to say, they’re not obstructive. Like, love as a state of mind is non obstructive. It allows it, it could be moved through.
That way it’s space like. That’s why the mind is being space like and that it’s non material, it’s non obstructive, just like space itself. So mind exists as a different type, a different category of phenomena from physical phenomena, from mass and energy, from material. Now the crux of rebirth comes down to the question, from where does mind arise? Are physical phenomena the substantial cause of mind?
In other words, is mass and energy the the stuff of which the mind is made? Or does the mind come from a different type of phenomenon such as mind or space? Let’s examine the hypothesis that mind arises from mass energy. According to the principle of conservation of mass energy, if any new physical entity such as heat from a fire is created, some other form of mass energy must have been used up in the process. That heat may have originated from some of the stored energy of wood which is released in the process of combustion.
It therefore follows that if some physical entity, say a component of the brain, is to be identified as the origin of awareness, that physical entity must be used up in the process of producing the awareness. The physical component would be transformed into the cognitive phenomena just as the energy in the wood is transformed into heat. The difference in our hypothetical production of awareness is that the physical component would be transformed into a non physical phenomenon. Physics has discovered a vast body of evidence to support the principle that physical phenomena are conserved through all known transformations. That they are conserved means that they retain their physical status as forms of mass energy.
Thus, the hypothesis that any physical component or process in the brain transforms into a non physical cognitive event can be rigorously denied on the grounds of energy conservation. Given our initial hypothesis that mental events are non physical, events in the brain certainly influence cognitive phenomena but the former cannot be the source of them. So the mind does not arise out of nothing. Nowhere in the whole of nature do phenomena arise simply from nothing. Being a product, mind is a product.
Being a product it must arise from a cause. And moreover it must arise from a substantial cause similar in type to itself. What is that? It must be that which is clear in knowing. Therefore it arises from a previous moment of mind.
Physical phenomena, material objects, brain, nervous system are dissimilar in type. They are neither clear nor are they knowing. The only phenomenon that is of a similar type to mind and therefore can act as a substantial cause of mind is another moment of mind, a previous moment of mind. Nothing other than a preceding moment of mind can act as the substantial cause of mind. This holds true equally for physical entities, matter.
They too have a substantial cause. And that substantial cause is too also must be necessarily similar in type to itself. Therefore, matter can only arise from previous moment of matter. We cannot logically posit a first moment physical phenomena. We cannot logically posit a first moment of the universe.
You know, each there must be always a preceding cause. You know, this is an old philosophic debate in the West. First call. From the Buddhist point of view, within their logic, that since every product must necessarily have a cause, that there must be always an antecedent. There must be always a preceding cause before every product.
Therefore, there’s an infinite regression backward. Therefore, this is where the notion comes up with Buddhist thinking which is very difficult to get to, I think, wrap your mind around is that the universe is beginningless. That in fact our minds are beginningless. Why? We can never point to a first moment when it began.
That every moment we point to must have a prior moment preceding it as its cause. Therefore it becomes a logical necessity to assert that there is no beginning. The idea of beginning is simply a limit of our usual western thinking in terms of our logic that things necessarily have a beginning. The Buddhism would say that in fact the mind does not have a beginning. Each of our mind streams does not have a beginning.
There is no first atom that this process of universes coming into existence and going out of existence, the big bang and the big crunch has been going on since beginningless time. That not only is there a conservation of mass and energy, but there also is a conservation of mind as well. That mind is not newly created nor is it ever destroyed. The aspects, the states of mind may change dramatically but mind in itself is essentially conserved. Physical events modify and condition cognitive states without transforming into them and this is a notion of cooperative conditions and substantial causes.
From where does the mind come? That’s where rebirth comes down to. Buddhism asserts that the mind present at the moment of conception of this life must necessarily have had a substantial cause similar in type to itself preceding it. That previous movement of mind was the last movement of mind of the previous life. Each movement of an individual’s mind arises in dependence upon a previous moment.
The mind that we have at present, that we are all hearing, are all thinking, that mind arose from this morning’s mind. All the peculiarities of this morning’s Mind, its various conditioning factors, its various emotions, its various types of habits and patterns, proceeded down in a serial fashion, in a similarity of type, reproducing what is called a homogenous series. Our present mind that we have arose from this morning’s mind. This morning’s mind arose from yesterday’s mind. Yesterday’s mind arose in dependence upon last week’s mind.
Last week’s mind arose in dependence upon last year’s mind. You know, trying to form some kind of continuum. That notion that this is proceeding backwards. One moment of mind rising from the next, from the next, from the next, next. It doesn’t rise from nowhere.
It arose from in dependence upon something. It arose from dependence upon a previous mind. You know, if we got up in a bad mood this morning, maybe we still feel kind of uncomfortable or present. That something carried through. All our habits, thinking, our ways of thinking, our emotions.
Last year’s mind arose in dependence upon the mind of ten years ago, twenty years ago, to childhood, to infancy, to the mind present at birth, the mind present during gestation, the mind present at the moment conception. That moment of mind also rose from a previous moment of mind. That previous moment of mind was the last moment of mind in the previous life. Trying to get a sense that mind is dependent upon a previous moment of mind continually. We cannot posit a first moment of mind, just as we cannot posit a first atom of the universe or a first physical phenomenon.
Each can be traced backward, infinitely back. From where did they originate? From where did matter originate? Asking that kind of question. We cannot, you know, some scientists would say that there was the notion of a free lunch.
That there was only space. Even that is not plausible because without matter there is no space. If space is the absence of obstructed contact, if there is nothing to obstruct, then space doesn’t even If there’s no matter, there’s no space. That they arise simultaneously. If it can’t arise out of nothing because without something, nothing is meaningless.
Without something, nothing doesn’t exist. So, nothing and something arose simultaneously. And it can’t arise from, can’t, its existence depends upon the mind for being perceived. Without a perceiving mind, which validates its existence, it itself would not exist. So all of these, these six elements, the material elements, space, and the consciousness itself, have existed without beginning.
So, it’s not to say that mind does not depend upon the body or that the body does not depend upon the mind. The body is the cooperative condition. The brain, the nervous system, etc. Is the cooperative condition of the mind. The mind is dependent upon the body but not for its substantial continuity but only for its necessary supportive condition.
You know when we talked about the death process we said that the various elements begin to dissolve and that as they dissolve the physical elements are no longer able to act as a support for consciousness. For example, the eye sense faculty began to lose its ability to act as a support for the eye consciousness. If we damage the eye, then the eye consciousness is lost. The eye consciousness is dependent upon that physical base as a cooperative condition. But its substantial cause is a previous moment of mind, not this physical eye sense base.
If we’re physically ill, it affects our mind. Perhaps we can’t think clearly. If the nervous system is damaged, then the function of mind is impaired. So the body does affect the mind. The body and nervous system are cooperative causes.
The body and nervous system are cooperative conditions for the mind itself. They condition the mind. They influence the various states and qualities of the mind in the same way that the potter influences the shape of the pot or the soil quality of the plant. Likewise, the mind is the cooperative condition of the body. The body depends upon the mind, is affected by the mind.
This is obvious in the case of psychosomatic illnesses or stress related disorders like some types of ulcers and some types of asthma, some types of skin diseases and allergies are very much psychosomatic or stress related. That is, they are very much dependent upon our mind. But they have a physical expression. So the quality of the body is very much dependent upon as a cooperative condition the state of the mind, the various qualities of our mind. The substantial cause of the body is the sperm and ovum of our parents.
The substantial cause of the body is not the mind. So mind and body act in interdependence. They are usually one another’s cooperative conditions but not each other’s substantial causes. When we talked about Okay. We said that what goes on to the future is rigorous.
It is this subtle most wind energy conscious combination. It is our consciousness. In the fact that our, in a roughly speaking, our evolutionary history is encoded upon it. Therefore, it carries our karma. So, due to the force of craving and grasping, this combination will compulsively reassociate itself with coarser wind energy patterns.
That is say, it will compulsively reassociate itself with a coarser body. That is to say, it will compulsively enter into a fertilized ovum. It will be drawn into that union of future parents. So it is the entrance of this continuum of this very subtle wind energy consciousness combination into the fertilized ovum which constitutes rebirth. So from that coarser, once this combination takes place, coarser consciousness such as all the sense consciousnesses, conceptual consciousnesses, start to be generated in accordance with a specific type.