Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Starting with a guided taking-and-giving meditation — breathing light to loved ones while drawing in their suffering to destroy the rock of self-centeredness — Ven Jampa Gendun bridges practice and philosophy in this 45-minute session. The central claim: love and compassion alone cannot bring lasting peace without understanding emptiness, because ignorance — projecting independent existence onto objects and people — is the root of all afflictive emotions. He illustrates how attachment and aversion arise — a sweater glowing with inherent beauty from its own side — and defines emptiness as the absence of that fantasized independence. He closes by laying out a four-stage philosophical roadmap, from the Hearer school to the Middle Way Consequence school, as the graduated path toward realizing dependent arising. Suited to students with some prior Lamrim study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 24 HoM 1993 06 16.mp3
UUID: 06459079-73f2-4aa8-a448-b9bac8774d8b
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-06-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.4 minutes
Words: ~5,144
Lovingly sending out this brilliant white light rising up, melting through your nostrils, and transforming into the pure counterpart, that happiness which is a counterpart of that previous suffering, an immaterial body. Whatever that possible future suffering might have been, give them the counterpart, the happiness. Imagine that you’re making them very, very happy. How pleased they are, how they smile, and share in their happiness. But still they have the basis of suffering within them, that is to say ignorance.
Until that’s removed, there’s always going to be some level of dissatisfaction, some problem. So determine to remove the ignorance from them. You’re going to use it to destroy the huge rock of self centeredness at your heart, that which has been your source of problems your entire life. And the ignorance begins to radiate upwards towards you in the form of all types of weapons, guns and bombs and whatever can destroy this huge rock entering through your nostrils and down. Completely obliterating, destroying.
It’s a rock of self centeredness at your heart. All their negativities, their ignorance, obstacles, their hatred, attachments. Now they’re almost there. They just need to awaken their hearts and awaken their minds to become all of what they can be, to become a Buddha. You’re going to help them to do that.
That’s what you’d want if you were them. I’d want your help. So transforming now that you hold the value, everything that’s precious to you, to a brilliant white light. Lovingly radiating out this light upward in through your nostrils, and as it streams toward them, it transforms into all the conducive conditions necessary for them to complete the spiritual path. Teachers and meditation centers and texts and whatever is necessary, what would help them.
And they grow in love and compassion and wisdom. They come to the end of their journey, completely realize, experiencing only peace. You’ve made this person you love completely happy. You can share in that happiness with them, share in their peace. You’ve done something very wonderful for someone that you loved.
And you can imagine them dissolving into light. And the light entering through your nostrils and down into your heart. And then bring the mind back to the breath. Just easy gentle in and out flow of the natural breath. And slowly, in your own good time, look in the way of your body, way of your surroundings.
We’re beginning to look at the means of developing the awakening mind, this realization of the ultimate nature of reality. We began to talk about the necessity for the development of the awakening mind. It’s simply not an academic pursuit, something which is maybe some kind of might be interesting, but it’s of no real practical consequence to our lives. No matter how compassionate we may be, no matter how much love we may have in our hearts, without this understanding, understanding the nature of the self, understanding the nature of the world about us, we can never bring a lasting peace either to ourselves or to others. We can only make the best of a rather bad situation, a difficult situation, an unsatisfactory situation.
The whole Bodhisattva’s aspiration is to place others in a state of complete peace such that they’re not going to experience any suffering ever again. The root of our suffering, the root of our problems is most basically ignorance. Ignorance, a misconception as to the nature of the self, the I, misconception as to the nature of the things about us, people, tables, the world. It is based upon this that all of the various afflictive emotions, by afflictive emotions, emotions such as these reoccurring types of patterns in our mind, such as attachment, hatred, pride, jealousy, spite, miserliness. There’s said to be eighty four thousand in different varieties.
These afflict the natural peace of the mind. One of the optimistic, or I’d say, reassuring qualities of the premises of Buddhism is that the natural state of the mind is peace. We don’t have to fabricate peace. We don’t have to, you know, create some kind of intricate construction, some maze of thought or of mind, and to manufacture peace. On the contrary, the very nature of our mind is peace.
But this peace is being disturbed by these afflictive emotions. That’s why they’re called afflictive emotions or disturbing attitudes, afflictive patterns. And the basis for the generation of all these afflictive patterns is ignorance. If we remove ignorance, it’s like we’re cutting the root of a tree. The tree of itself will wither.
We don’t have to prune the branches. We don’t have to deal with the limbs the leaves. They of themselves will wither away and die once we’ve cut the root. The root of all our problems, of these reoccurring neurotic compulsive patterns which constitute our present lives, is ignorance, this misconception. So it’s not merely an academic pursuit, not merely something interesting but of no practical consequence to our lives.
It’s very necessary if we’re going to be of ultimate benefit to ourselves and if we’re going to be of ultimate benefit to others. And no matter how determined we may be to grow, no matter how much love and compassion we may have in our heart, We are still not fully awake. We have not fully realized our potential. We have not cut the root of ego-orientated existence. We still do not possess the skills to be of ultimate service to others.
So therefore, Tsongkhapa says that we are to work at the means of realizing dependent arising. So dependent arising is the other side of the coin of emptiness, the ultimate. It’s the ultimate nature of reality. This is what we’re going to be discussing for some time. We’re going to take it in stages and we’re going to hopefully build up to our precision, our understanding to the final thought of the Buddha on the nature of reality.
You know, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama said, dependent arising is the slogan of the Buddha. I remember they used to make for a while there, they had made badges for dependent arising. You know, if if love and compassion are the heart of Buddhism, dependent arising is the mind of Buddhism, I think. And we have to try to understand it. But this understanding is necessarily a gradual unfolding.
As was mentioned last week, one of the primary influences of ignorance is that of a stubborn closed mindedness about learning anything which would cause us to feel that our ego identity is somehow threatened, that would somehow give us a feeling of insecurity, which would upset our sense of security, which would which would give us a sense that our models of reality were mistaken and therefore would begin to undermine our sense of what the world is all about. The idea of learning about ourselves. I think learning means something Here, learning something means something more than a mere accumulation of more information. It means seeing the way things actually are, to the extent that our mistaken conceptions, wrong ideas, our distorted premises are eliminated and are replaced with correct ones. You know, ultimately, we are trying to see things directly as they are in and of themselves, you know, devoid of our mistaken interpretations of them, whether or not our interpretations are even slightly distorted or mistaken.
This is essentially what Buddhism means by when it talks about realization. I think, you know, it’s quite a it’s a word which is quite used and probably misused. Realization is simply the elimination of superimpositions with respect to the way things are. That is to say, we impose characteristics upon things. We exaggerate or depreciate.
We add characteristics which the object doesn’t have or we take away qualities which it does have. So there’s some kind of superimposition of a lack or presence of certain characteristics which are not in fact the nature of the situation, the nature of the object. So this is what realization means. It is not the it is not the sense of you know, the idea of becoming a Buddha is not to that one gets twenty PhDs, You know, they’re gathering together more and more information. In in some sense, it’s an unlearning process.
And, you know, we we are trying to remove our mistaken notions about reality. Reality is always there staring us in front in the face. But we have some obscurations which that these patterns which prevent us from seeing the way things actually are. This pattern of mind which prevents that, this factor that performs that function we call ignorance. So realization is the overcoming of that ignorance.
It is the overcoming the removal of seeing qualities in objects and people, the world about us, are not really there. Stepping we become disillusioned. Stepping out outside of our make believe fantasies and into the nature of what is. That’s realization. You know, it’s very It’s like seeing Initially seeing, you know, a snow colored mountain as green because you’re wearing green sunglasses.
The the real the reality of the situation is that the snow is white, But but due to some obscuring fact, some kind of, you know, laying on of characteristics which are not there, we say it we see it as green. But, you know, and if we have some kind of emotional investment in seeing green snow, then we would quite naturally shy away from questioning what the color of that snow would be. We wouldn’t even entertain the question because we have some emotional investment in believing that that snow is green for some reason. There would be some kind of resistance to entertaining the doubt or the question. Am I could I be mistaken about the the color of that snow?
Only when we begin to see that our conception of a green snow mountain is continually being contradicted, invalidated. But moreover, when we we see that such a conception is detrimental to our well-being, Would we be motivated to to even entertain the notion that perhaps that Snow Mountain is in fact not really green after all? So it has there has to be, you know, we’re trying there’s some resistance involved in coming to this understanding. So we have to be be open to actually entertain the question. You know, one of the great masters of Indian masters of Buddhism in ancient India was Āryadeva.
And he said, Even the doubt, even the doubt whether things truly exist or not shakes the very foundation of cyclic existence. Even some really heartfelt questioning, could I be wrong about the way I conceive of the world about me and the nature of the eye? Just that glimpse of a possible alternative that I could be wrong shakes the very foundation of these neurotic compulsive patterns. Just doubt. We’re not talking about realization coming to true understanding.
Just the doubt, the questioning at a very deep level has that potential, that that power. But we were never able to entertain or direct ourselves even to question, let alone begin to feel that doubt, if we didn’t begin to understand that that misconception is really detrimental to our well-being. It’s causing us suffering. And moreover, we begin to see that our conception is being invalidated. Somehow we have to see that there’s some payoff, and ultimately for us even to begin to enter into seriously this questioning process.
So the process of learning is just that. It’s a process, an unfolding, some kind of restructuring. A letting go. And this involves, as we’ve described, this threefold process of listening, reflecting, and then finally meditating. Now when we’re talking about the awakening mind, we’re talking about seeing deeply into reality.
And by reality, we’re talking about simply the way things are, divorced of our misinterpretations, divorced of our superimpositions, divorced of our exaggerating or depreciating what is there, seeing things in and of themselves for what they actually are. Some kind of unhindered direct awareness. And by deeply, deeply refers to the ultimate way things are, at their most deepest level of being, the most basic nature. You know, that which we come to understand upon ultimate analysis or the way things exist. It’s seen beyond the appearances like Plato’s scene beyond the shadows on the cave wall.
In fact, seen the objects which cast their shadows. The shadows are not the reality of what those things are. The thing about analysis, the thing about investigation, and one of the fundamental premises of Buddhism is that the truth liberates. And it is upon analysis that the truth becomes more obvious, that falsity becomes more and more obscure till it disappears. So, you know, in in in those kinds of terms, Buddha Buddhism has no place for dogma.
It is we willingly ask that you investigate everything as thoroughly as possible because it is in that that you will liberate your mind, that you will begin to grow and finally awaken. So in Buddhism, dependent arising the corollary to dependent arising is emptiness, which is the ultimate nature of reality, is the endpoint of analysis when we’re looking at the way things exist. You know, the most basic fundamental element of existence. You know, if one, for example, took a clay pot, a potter might say that in absolute terms it was made of clay. A scientist might say that it was a collection of atoms.
You know, the scientists were even more precise, he or she might say that it’s made up of a collection of subatomic particles. But even this would be just a rough approximation to reality. In absolute terms, atomic particles can no longer be defined precisely. They cannot be said to be this or that or here or there. They can only be expressed in terms of probabilities.
Probably in a few years they’ll be explained differently. So in the same way, ultimate reality, ultimate truth presents itself differently to practitioners at various levels of their understanding of their practice. So just as this emerged in the practice of in the experience of individual practitioners, it emerged historically in the way that Buddhist the Buddhist scriptures began to interpret the way that the scriptures, the understanding of reality emerged within the Buddhist scriptures themselves, increasingly in terms of increasingly more subtle teachings. Ultimately, are trying to understand dependent arising as set forth by what is called the Middle Way Consequence school. The Middle Way Consequence school.
That’s what we’re aiming for. That’s the most subtle final presentation that the Buddha set forth as to the nature of reality, emptiness. But in coming to such an understanding, it’s highly doubtful that we will gain an accurate understanding of this most profound teaching without having gone through progressive stages of the teaching in order to get there. So in coming to a realization of the nature of reality, there are four readily recognizable stages that we’re going to work through, that we’re going to pass through, that we’re going to learn about, discuss. These present an increasingly subtle level of understanding.
The hearer stage, the Mind Only stage, the Middle Way Autonomy stage, the Middle Way Consequence stage. So these are the four levels. First beginning at a coarse presentation of the nature of reality, and then increasingly more and more subtle until we come to the subtle most stage, the the Middle Way Consequence stage, which is the final thought of the Buddha. You know, all of these stages are named after Buddhist schools that formulate them. In fact, they represent the stages of progression in a single practitioner’s understanding.
Each level of understanding builds on the preceding one. It it it begins to challenge. You know, we’re as I said, realization is overcoming of superimposition. It’s the overcoming of mistaken notions. And as I mentioned, we have as it were stratas, more and more subtle levels of mistaken beliefs with respect to the nature of reality.
We probably aren’t aware that we harbor such beliefs. But as I mentioned, the very fact of the arising of anger, arising of attachment is indicative that such beliefs are in fact there. So we begin to, in like this archeological dig, begin to work down through these stratas of our misconceptions, beginning with the most coarse and then coming to more finer and finer types of beliefs about what the nature of reality, what we hold to be the way things exist. So it’s a working down. It’s an unlearning process, overcoming process, overcoming our misconceptions, and replacing them with valid conceptions.
And then finally, going beyond all conceptions altogether. And this takes place You know, there’s an infinite number of radiations, but if we just place them in recognizable stages, overall schools of thought, there are these four stages that we’re going to work through. Each of them have a more and more subtle presentation, overcoming more and more subtle beliefs through their methods. This occurred through historically in presentation of these four philosophic systems within Buddhism, but it also occurs within the context of a single practitioner. Practitioners are coming to a more and more finding the subtle most understanding of emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality.
So this awakening, the awakening mind, this third fundamental of the path, awakening of our mind to ultimate reality, is to the way things ultimately exist, their final reality, their most basic nature. Now what is the most basic nature of this table, this glass, of myself? That which we come to understand with respect to an object upon ultimate analysis of the way it exists. So it involves penetrating beneath the superficial appearances which present themselves to us and penetrating to its deepest most nature. You know, for example, depending upon our purposes, we can analyze this table on many different levels.
We can, you know, from one which is relatively superficial to one which describes the ultimate way the table exists. Superficially when we examine this table, we can understand it in terms of its size, its shape, its color, its finish, what materials it’s made of. This way of analysis yields valid and useful knowledge about the if you want to buy a table, that would be good to know, about how strong it is, its aesthetics, It’s one level of looking at the table. A carpenter, when looking at that table, might analyze in terms how is it put together, what kind of glue did they use, how do they nail it together, did they use nail. An antique dealer might analyze the table in terms of its rarity, its age, its condition.
A botanist might analyze the table in terms of what kind of wood is it made from. A physicist might analyze the table in terms of, as was mentioned before, that its molecular composition seen as a swirly mass of atoms, its subatomic particles, probability patterns. To a large extent, what we find upon examination of an object is very much determined by what we’re looking for. How we look for it, instruments, the means that we’re performing our analysis. What we’re going to make use of that information that we gain from that analysis and what level of organization we’re looking at.
There are different levels of organization that you can look for example at the body, in terms of systems, in terms of looking at the level of the organs, at the level of the systems, the way the organs interact, relate with one another in the body in terms of cellular structure, in terms of subcellular structures. So, you know, we can look at, we can analyze things at many different levels in many different ways for many different purposes. And what we find is very much determined by what we’re looking for and how we’re looking for it, what instruments we’re using, where we’re going to use, how we’re going to use that information once we get it. So in the context of the awakening mind, we are trying to understand the deepest way the object exists. In this case, the table.
What is its deepest mode of ultimate mode of existence? What is the way what is it that we find upon ultimate analysis of the of the way the table exists? The way the table exists. That’s called the ontological status of the table. Ontology is the study of the existence, the way things are, the way they be, the being of the object.
If our analysis of the table penetrates deeply enough, what we will find is emptiness. We’re going to find the emptiness of the table. That is the table’s emptiness or lack of what we call intrinsic existence. Now we can say that we find the absence of a particular fantasized way of existing, an imaginary way of existing, an emptiness. You know, when we see it when we hear the word emptiness, the idea of, you know, what comes up?
Maybe nothing comes It’s just kind of an emptiness comes up. An emptiness is an absence, a lack. Emptiness does not mean nothing. Yeah. Emptiness does not mean that.
It is a lack, an absence of a particular of something. You know, we can say the empty is room of this room is empty of pink elephants. I guess, there’s an absence of something. You know, that has no great ramifications. Well, I don’t know.
Maybe if you if it wasn’t empty, we’d have problems with So there’s a lack of something. So emptiness has a connotation of lack and absence. What is absent in this case is a particular fantasized way of existing, an imagined way of existing that we are continually, and using this, superimposing. You know I talked about superimposing? This is what these misconceptions do.
They superimpose qualities, characteristics upon objects that they don’t have. We are continually quite naturally and instinctively under the influence of ignorance superimposing, projecting upon a fantasized way of existing, an imagined way of existing upon every object continually at all times. Tables, glasses, people, skies, everything. What we want to come to understand is this is the basis of all our problems. We’re going to try hopefully if I don’t confuse you too much, we’ll come we’ll we’ll understand how this is operating and how this is in fact the basis of our problems and what it is that we’re actually superimposing.
But things do not possess this way of existing that we’re superimposing. This way of existing, you there’s many different names we’re going to use. Each one is trying to get at the idea a little bit from different angles. Different, different, but they’re all synonyms. Intrinsic existence, inherent existence, independent existence, objective existence, true true existence, existing from its own side, self defining existence, natural existence.
These are all synonyms. But this what it this is the type of existence, the characteristic which we are superimposing upon objects continually at all times. And this is the thing this is the object of which phenomena are empty of. This is what they lack. We are superimposing a characteristic upon things, people, ourselves, and they lack this imagined way of existing.
They are empty of this way of existing. This is you’re trying to get at the word what the word emptiness means. You know, this this these terms, you know, inherent existence, intrinsic existence, self defining existence are not concepts which are superimposed by philosophical systems, but they’re referring to our ordinary sense of the way things exist as if they exist independent objectively out there independent of our own minds. It appears and it appears that, for example, that glass of water has nothing to whatsoever to do with my mind. Its existence appears to to to be independent of my mind.
It does not it’s does not depend for its existence upon my mind. That’s the way it appears to me. Maybe I’m deluded. Maybe you do? Maybe there’s something wrong with me. No one’s telling me.
It appears that that glass objectively exists. It doesn’t it’s not dependent upon my mind. My it doesn’t depend upon terms and conceptions, upon concepts and language for its existence. It doesn’t appear it’s depending upon its parts, causes, and conditions. That’s where we have to begin to recognize that way of appearing, which is called independent existence, which is called self defining existence.
That way of existing, I am projecting upon that object. That way of existing, objects are empty of. They don’t that way of existing is absent. They really don’t possess that way of existing. They are empty of that way of existing, that fantasize, that make believe, that imagined way of existing, that I’m continually projecting upon these objects.
They simply don’t have it. They’re empty of that. This is what the word emptiness is getting at. Phenomena are the things which are empty of intrinsic existence. And intrinsic existence is that which phenomena are empty of.
You know, let me let me just see. You know, there there’s a there’s this you know, coming at this from a very mundane kind of you know, just trying to get some handle on this, what what we’re trying to get at here. There’s there’s the expression, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Yeah. You know, in in some cultures, for example, They put plates in their lips.
In some cultures, they put rings around their neck. Their necks become extremely long and extended. But can you imagine? I remember when I was an art student and doing life modeling, drawing from a live model. And sometimes the the model would look very beautiful.
Yeah? There was something like glowing. Some, you know, something appealing, something very beautiful about the object, which made it very attractive to me. And I tried I tried I really wanted to know what what what was beautiful about that object. I tried to analyze, know, especially, you know, say the face for example.
You know, was it the cheekbone, you know, the shape of the nose or fullness of the lips? You know, what what was it? Sometimes it would come and it would go. I’d see a I’d see a pimple on her face and it would go. Then it come and then I she’d move a little bit.
I couldn’t see the pimple. Oh, it came back. So I really wanted to know what what was what made what made me see beauty. And and in these cultures where they have these, you know, they put these large plates in the lip, you know, that that for them, you know, they see someone that’s very attractive, very beautiful. I’m imagining maybe it has other values, I’m not sure.
Maybe, you know, but it’s some kind of aesthetic appeal perhaps, probably. But for us it’s probably repulsive to see that. But what happens? It’s it looks like that beauty that beauty is coming from the side of the object, that there’s something there. You know, when you see a beautiful object, a beautiful man or a beautiful woman, that there’s something inherently.
I mean, it’s there in men. You’re not as if it were projecting a sense of beauty upon that object. That the beauty is coming from that side, the side of the object. And you see a beautiful you’re walking down the street and you’re looking in the windows and you see a beautiful sweater. And it’s it’s kind of glowing.
You know, it’s kind of stands out. It’s like, come take me. You know, buy me. And it’s like, oh, gosh. I don’t know why why no one bought that sweater.
Look at. It’s really it’s design, it’s color, and it’s really it’s fabric. That there’s something appealing inherent about that. It’s self defining. You’re not projecting this quality of beauty upon the object.
It’s from its own side. It’s beautiful. And and it it stands to reason if so and there’s a there’s a certain with beauty, there’s there’s a certain pleasure associated with beauty, isn’t there? Attractiveness. There’s a certain almost a sense of blissful quality about and if there’s if that if that object is is inherently and intrinsically but from its own side, something inside of it, it’s beautiful, then there must be some kind of pleasure in there too.
I’m gonna get that pleasure. I’m gonna make it a part of me. I’m gonna bring it into my ego territory, you know, incorporate it into myself. One develops attachment because one sees an intrinsic beauty. That one isn’t creating that beauty of that object.
It’s coming from that side of the object. It’s coming from its own side. And therefore the pleasure must be there, residing where that beauty is, and I’m going to get that pleasure for myself. And so attachment arises. And the same looks true for aversion.
You know, look at that guy, you know, my enemy. Oh, what a disgusting person. And everybody looks at him would would agree with me. And there’s just something about him. He just repulsed.
Like, get away. Don’t touch me, you know. You’re not creating that enemy. That’s something something about just the way he talks and the way he looks and the way he sits and his expression on his expression on his face, you know, it’s just all it’s just, you know, just totally disgusting, repulsive. Go away.
It’s not as if if you’re projecting those that quality of disgustingness. There is such a word. That unappealing quality upon that person. It’s there for everyone to see, coming from that side, self-defining. I’m not creating.
And I I want to make that a permanent part of not having it part of my ego territory, my my my territory. Get out of my territory. I want to make you now we develop a aversion, hatred, anger. So but we we are trying to get at the This is why this grasping at self defining qualities, intrinsic, independent qualities, independent existence is the basis for the arising of the afflictive emotions, hatred, of attachment, and all the others. If we can begin to see that not only are these superficial qualities of beauty and ugliness, but every quality that we may assert that the that an object has is in fact interdependent with my own mind.
It is that I’m creating these qualities that are dependent upon language and concepts of my own mind, my culture, my prevailing aesthetic values. That there’s nothing that they don’t exist independently of this entire milieu and that they are products of minds, culture, of language, then we don’t become captivated. It’s like