Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. “Where does mind come from?” drives this 46-minute commentary by Ven Jampa Gendun, who enlists the physics law of conservation of mass-energy to argue that consciousness cannot arise from the brain. He first builds two analytical tools: the distinction between substantial cause and cooperative cause, illustrated with a clay pot and a flower seed, and the principle that causes must resemble their effects in type. Applying both, he reasons that a non-physical mind can only have a non-physical substantial cause — a previous moment of mind — making the mental continuum beginningless, just as matter is. A television-set analogy clinches the point: the brain is a transmission medium, not the generator of mind. The talk closes on the intermediate state following the moment of death. Best suited to listeners comfortable with philosophical argument who want a rational grounding for the Buddhist case for rebirth.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 H and M of B 1992 08 05.mp3
UUID: a2e62008-32ba-428c-8023-331b2ff0db51
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Buddhism (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1992-08-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.4 minutes
Words: ~5,650
Whatever type of life we’ve led, whether whatever types of actions that we’ve created and whether we’ve made use of it at the moment of our death as we’ve described in the death process in terms of seeking to make use of it to gain awakening. You know whether we die completely confused without awareness, whether we die with some sense of dignity, some sense of control. At the moment the clear light appears, death occurs for everyone, whatever. So it is at this moment the dawning of the clear light that the link between the very subtle mind and the subtle energy consciousness that is to say between the coarse and subtle levels of energy, this bond begins has been weakening and finally breaks. This is the moment of death and the next moment begins the rebirth process.
Exploring, so we’re going to talk about rebirth. In exploring the question of rebirth, hopefully we can stimulate some kind of inquiry, perhaps create some kind of questioning, some kind of doubt, opening up our minds to the possibility of rebirth. It is important in the sense that whether rebirth exists or not because as we try to emphasize, it determines how we’re going to live our life. You know whether we’re simply at the moment, you know, at death we are simply annihilated or in fact something else goes on, something continues. It would make a difference if one had deep conviction in the continuity of life.
You know the problem is that the vast majority of people who reject the notion of rebirth have never really investigated, have never really considered the matter even superficially. But the same can be said, the same is true for the vast majority of people who do accept the notion of rebirth. They too probably have not investigated it deeply or at all, you know beyond some superficial level. And therefore even though perhaps believing in the notion of rebirth that belief has no effect on their life. It doesn’t, it’s not integrated into their life.
It has no power over the way they live their life. People are either unthinkingly biased in the direction of mechanistic interpretation of life or they simply wish that life continue on in the face of the possibility of annihilation of an end to their existence. People want more life. So they simply believe there’s going to be more life. But either way there’s not much force in the way they live their life.
So the question of establishing rebirth. And the question of establishing rebirth, and by rebirth I mean reincarnation. I generally use the word rebirth but synonymous with reincarnation. It can be approached by way of several different avenues. We can talk about it in terms of, people having spontaneous remembrance of previous lives, of the deliberate training in the remembrance of past lives, in the development of hypnotic regression to gain remembrance of past lives, credible testimony and other individuals who we can rely on who set out their explanations, their experiences of past lives and through logical reasoning, possibility of establishing, rebirth through reasoning.
So there are many books which published about, say, case history of individuals who experience remembrances of their past lives recalling it one way or another. And so, you know, which tends to support the existence of past and future lives, past lives. So, I want to focus upon the rationale of We’re going to some of the reasoning. First, in order to eliminate perhaps some of the gross misconceptions about what Buddhism means by rebirth. And secondly, to demonstrate that it does have a rational foundation that we can approach through reasoning, through logic.
So in talking about rebirth, initially we’re to make use of two tools. We’re going to develop two concepts and in explaining them later on we’re going to make use of them. So the first of these is to distinguish between two types of causes. Two types of causes and we’re going to develop two concepts here. The first of these is the difference between two types of causes.
The first is called substantial cause and cooperative cause. Substantial cause and cooperative cause. The difference between substantial cause and cooperative cause can be most easily understood using a clay pot as a basis for illustration. So the substance, you know, we have a beautifully formed fired pot like Bruce makes, right? A beautiful lovely fired pot.
The substantial cause of that pot is a wet lump of clay from which it was formed. From somewhere the potter got some clay and he took this wet lump of clay and threw it and threw it on the wheel and fashioned it. So the substance of the clay is transformed into the pot. That the very substance is incorporated into the product, into the result. The cause, the very substance, the clay becomes a part of the finished product of the result.
Therefore, it is called a substantial cause. Now there’s a cooperative cause. The cooperative cause are for example the potter, the wheel, all the various tools that went into working with that clay and fashioning it. So they are cause of the pot. They provide the conditions.
They influence its creation. Without the potter there’s no pot. Simply a wet lump of clay. But the difference is the potter and all those tools, you know, the potter produces the pot and at the end of the day goes home and the tools, the wheel and the fashioning tools are pretty much as he began the day. That is that they aren’t incorporated into the pot.
They don’t become part of the pot. They will use the potter and the tools cooperated in the fashioning of the pot. Therefore, they’re called cooperative causes. They are causes of the pot but they cooperate but they do not become part of the pot. I’m used to, this is a sighlight.
When I lived in Dharamsala in northern India, I went to a school called the Buddhist School of Dialectics and we used to debate. We questioned everything that we were taught. We’d come up with some strange notions. And I never some of our debates would say, we were debating cooperative causes and substantial causes and just trying to come up with all the possible angles and trying to find loopholes. And, well what would happen if if somebody if you killed the potter and and you burnt them and you took those ashes and you throw them and made it into a pot, then then the potter becomes part of the pot, doesn’t Anyway, maybe I’m doing this.
Am I confusing you? But normally, unless It’s the potter. It’s the pot. That’s right. That’s right.
But anyway, let’s let’s give you an idea of where our minds were at. Normally the potter does not become part of the pot. He goes home after work and leaves the pot behind. So we have two types of causes. Another Another illustration.
We can simply take a flower seed. You know, we want to grow a flower. The substantial cause of the flower is the flower seed. This is what carries all the information which is going to determine the structure in which the flower is going to grow. But simply that seed by itself is not enough.
The substance of the seed is going to be transformed into a flower but we need cooperative conditions. We need soil, water, sunlight. These together, when these come together a flower grows. Every product in the universe arises in dependence upon these two types of causes, cooperative causes and substantial causes. We have to have both.
For example, you take that seed. They have found seeds in the pyramids of Egypt which were thousands and thousands of years old and they’ve taken those seeds and they put they placed them on the earth and watered them and they sprouted. So even over thousands of years, the seeds did not lose their potency. There was substantial cause remaining but no matter how long that seed may have remained, it would never have sprouted unless it came in contact with what was brought into conjunction with the cooperative causes. No matter how much water and soil you have, if you don’t have the substantial cause, the seed, not going to grow.
Likewise, no matter how many seeds you have unless you have the cooperative cause, you’re not going to grow. It requires both of these coming together in combination. Any product, whatever it is, tables, people, everything, all necessarily have to have these two types of causes, cooperative causes and substantial causes. Okay, that’s one concept that we’re going to make use of. The second is the concept of similarity of type, similarity of type.
This is simply to say that within nature there is a consistent similarity of type or class between causes and the results. Apple trees come from apple seeds. They don’t come from orange seeds. Know ice comes from water, it doesn’t come from wood. Material objects come from other material objects.
They don’t come from non material objects like space. There is a consistent similarity of type within nature between causes and their effect. Now it is, you know, we’re talking about in terms of the mechanistic view of the mind, the mechanistic science. The mind is or the consciousness arises from the body or more precisely from the nervous system or the brain. Therefore, when the body dies, the causes for the mind ceases.
The body decays and the mind simply kind of disappears like a rainbow fading away. That’s the, mechanistic science viewpoint. Now if we analyze this, we can analyze this from a few points of view. Okay, so far. So the law of conservation of matter, matter and energy.
The law of conservation of mass and energy states that simply that mass and energy in the universe are constant. Mass and energy, the total sum of the mass and energy in the universe is constant. It’s neither decreasing nor increasing. By mass, mass and energy are convertible. We transform mass into energy and theoretically we can transform energy into mass.
But there’s some total. But let us say that which is physical. By physical, I mean that which offers obstruction, matter or that which is physical, physical objects. Both mass and energy are physical objects. That is they offer obstruction as opposed to space.
Space is the absence of obstruction. Things can move without any, obstruction, without any hindrance through space. That’s what space is. Physical objects on the other hand offer some kind of resistance. Both mass, matter, and energy are physical objects.
They obstruct. So the sum total of physical objects in the universe is always constant. It’s neither increasing nor decreasing. This is according to a very important law of the conservation of mass energy. So, the continual production of all the various things in the universe is simply the recycling, the re transformation of previous physical objects mainly atoms, molecules and energies which bind these atoms and molecules together.
This constantly recycling, retransforming, reshaping that all the various objects, the physical objects in our universe are simply recombination of energy and atoms, molecules that are recombining in different ways. All of these objects, they don’t arise from nothing. This would violate the second law of thermodynamics that the sum total of mass energy in the universe would be increasing if matter, if physical objects arose from nothing and nowhere in nature do we find physical objects arising from nothing. They have a cause and that cause is a previous physical object simply a recycling, retransforming a previous physical object into new physical objects. So, Buddhist cosmology medicine say the study of the universe.
It says for six primary elements and we’ve talked about these and when we talked about the death process. We talked about the four elements. Earth, water, fire and sometimes called air, sometimes called wind energy. It is called energy. Earth, water, fire, energy.
The fifth element space and then finally consciousness. These are the primary principles, primary building blocks you might say. Everything in the universe is composed of a combination of either of these six elements in different proportions. The difference in proportion determines the quality of the object. In some, the earth element is predominant and some the water element.
So the difference in proportions of these various elements determine the qualities of various physical and mental objects. But everything in the universe is composed of them. There’s nothing other than this which constitutes an object in our universe as far as Buddhism is concerned. So each of these has their separate continuum. You know that earth does not produce water element or the water element does not arise from the fire element.
That each produces themselves. Each has their own individual continuum and it’s the combination of these continuums in various proportions which determine the qualities of the various physical objects and mental objects. They associate with one another in different proportions. Some people who think of themselves as scientifically minded believe that the mind is the brain or a function of the brain and that for this reason there is no essential mind matter dichotomy. So I’m quoting here.
The mind and the brain, this nervous system are one in the same thing. Therefore there’s no problem between the old western philosophic argument of the dualism between mind and matter. And this has been argued for thousands of years in the west. This trying to overcome this separation between mind and matter and how do mind and matter relate. And so many mechanistic scientists they would say well there’s no problem because there is only matter and various states of this matter we call mind that the brain is in fact mind.
There’s only one. Buddhism would accept a dichotomy but not what we call a dual Buddhism would accept a dualism, but not in a Cartesian sense, in the sense of absolute dualism. There is an entity which has both a cognitive function and a motor function, that is to say movement. There is an entity, one aspect of which functions to cognize, that knows, understands. There’s an aspect of that same object which has the ability to move.
We said energy has the primary principle of motility or movement. So this is simply conventionally the way we’re describing it. It’s not an absolute division. It’s one entity which has these two able to perform these two functions. According to the scientific view, according to their view everything can be explained in terms of the material world.
They choose to overlook the qualities of mind that have no relationship to matter such as subjective experiences, thoughts and emotions. Although they would not take as seriously the story of Pinocchio where a simple piece of matter, a stick inexplicably develops the mind experiencing hopes and fears, pleasure and pain and so on, they would not find it strange if subatomic particles, atoms or molecules started to produce thoughts and feelings. However, not only is there no scientific evidence whatsoever that such a phenomenon is possible, but it represents a semantic 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 the 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 to the question of what might or might not exist external to it. So you know in talking about the proof of rebirth, it comes down to the question from where does mind arise?
Is mind energy the stuff out of which mind is created or does it originate from some other category of phenomena. So the whole question of rebirth comes down to from what and where does the mind arise. Does it simply arise from matter or does it arise from another category of phenomena other than matter? So let’s examine that mind arises from matter, from mass energy. According to the principle of the conservation of mass energy, if any new physical entity such as the heat from a fire is created, some other form of mass energy must, be lost.
When you burn wood, you create energy. In the course of burning the wood, the matter decreases. You end up with a pile of ashes. This concerns the conservation of the total of mass energy that if energy is increasing, the mass must be decreasing proportionately so that the sum total is always constant. So, it therefore follows that if some physical entity, say the 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 awareness.
The physical component would be transformed into cognitive phenomenon 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 phenomena. Now physics hasn’t discovered a vast body of evidence to support the principle that physical phenomena are conserved through all known transformations. That they are conserved means for the physicists 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 vigorously 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 the latter. So if the mind, the definition of mind is that which is clear and knowing and the word clear can have a few different interpretations. But one of those interpretations is that it’s non physical. The mind is non physical. Cognitive states are non physical.
So if cognitive states were to arise from the brain, then they would be non physical then there would have to be a transformation of that which is physical, the brain, into something which is non physical. There would be a diminishment of matter and this would violate the conservation of mass energy. Something would be coming with the sum total mass energy in the universe would be decreasing in the production of mind. The mind does not arise out of nothing. Nowhere in all of nature does a product of phenomena, an object arise from nothing.
It must have a cause. Not only a cause but it must have and then we’re going to begin to use these two concepts that we’ve these tools that we’ve developed. It needs two types of causes. It needs both a substantial cause and a cooperative cause. All products necessarily have both a substantial cause and a cooperative cause.
The substantial cause must additionally be similar in type to itself. This idea of apple trees coming from apple seeds, ice coming from water, material objects coming from previous material objects. The only thing which can act as a substantial cause to mind is a previous moment of mind. Nothing else can, it must have a substantial cause. It is a type of cause in which the very substance is being transformed into the effect and that must, more than that, it must be a similar type to itself.
Now if the mind is in fact non physical, it must have a substantial cause which is also non physical because a physical cause would be dissimilar in type to itself. The same holds true for physical objects. They arise from previous physical objects. So, you know, from where did the first atom come from in the universe? The very first atom.
The very first particle of matter. They too have to have a substantial cause and the only type of substantial cause they can have is a previous moment of matter. So we necessarily come down to the logical conclusion that the continuum of matter in universe is beginningless, that the universe never began. It cannot logically have a first moment of the universe and this is what Stephen Hawking, one of the leading contemporary particle physicists has come up with that the universe is in fact beginningless. I know it kind of boggles my mind that the continuum of matter must necessarily be beginningless.
We can never point to a first moment of matter because it must have a preceding moment of matter as its cause. It cannot arise from nothing. Likewise with continuum of mind, the previous it must arise from a cause and that the only thing which can act as the cause of mind, the substantial cause of mind is a previous moment of mind. So the continuum of matter is beginningless. The continuum of mind is beginningless.
There is no first atom in the universe and similarly there is no first moment of mind. And the two are not convertible one into another. They cannot be transformed one into another. So not only is there conservation of mass energy in the universe but there’s also conservation of mind. That there are no minds being newly created in the universe and there are no minds which are going out of existence.
Mind cannot be newly created nor can it be destroyed. The aspects of mind can undergo radical transformations. We can have new particular states of mind, radically new particular states of mind, just as we can have radically new particular states of matter. But the continuum of which that particular state is a part of is beginningless and endless. Quotation, the very subtle continuum of energy consciousness.
So this is what goes on to rebirth. We talked about this somewhat last week. The subtle, subtlest mind in combination with subtle most energy like horse and rider. The energy has the quality, the principle of motility. It’s able to move.
Mind has the function of cognition. It’s able to know. These are almost one entity with both a cognitive and physical function. This is what goes on to a future existence. It has, within the mind, has imprinted just like DNA molecule.
All the historic, our evolutionary history is imprinted. So it’s our mind. It’s just not any mind. It’s our unique mind in all of the universe. There’s no information system with all that encoded information in particular like it.
It is our mind, our particular mind. This is what is going to take rebirth. This is what is going to go on to a future existence. This combination of subtle most energy, subtle most consciousness which has imprinted on it our evolutionary history, encoded in It is the entrance of this continuum into the union of the sperm and egg. So there’s a continuum of the subtle most energy combination with mind which enters into the sperm and egg that enables the zygote to grow into a fetus.
Consciousness is therefore present from the moment of conception onward. And during the development of a human fetus, the five types of sensory awareness and conceptual cognitions arise from that initial consciousness. Five types, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body conceptual sense consciousnesses. Similarly, during the growth of the fetus, various derivative forms of vital energy arise from the original very subtle life sustaining energy. Modern neuroscience regards human sensory and mental cognitions as being emergent properties of the brain.
Buddhist contemplative science in contrast regards them as emergent properties of a very subtle energy consciousness. So, the mind present at the moment of conception of an individual has as a substantial cause a preceding moment of mind. The mind at the very initial moment of conception, the mind which is present at very moment of conception, that mind has a substantial cause. That substantial cause is a preceding moment of mind. That preceding moment of mind is the last moment of mind of the preceding life.
The mind which is present at the initial conception, moment of conception, that mind has to have a cause. It has to have the substantial cause. The only thing which can act as a substantial cause to mind is a preceding moment of mind. That preceding moment of mind is the last moment of mind of the preceding life. That’s the only thing which can act as its cause.
Each moment of mind arises in dependence upon a previous moment of mind. My present mind arose in dependence upon, you know, if I got out of bed, if I got out of the wrong side of bed this morning My bed’s against the wall so it’s difficult, but anyway. You know, if I had a lousy morning and I come here, you know, it’s going to affect my present mind. So my present mind arose in dependence upon this morning’s mind. This morning’s mind arose in dependence upon yesterday’s mind.
Yesterday’s mind arose in dependence upon last week’s mind. Last week’s mind rose in dependence upon last month. Last month upon last year. Last year upon when I was a four-year-old. I had certain experiences when I was a four-year-old which would still affect me.
Therefore my present mind is dependent upon that mind of a four-year-old. The mind of a four-year-old arose in dependence upon the infant’s mind. The infants upon a baby. Babies upon the fetus. In fact, one moment of mind giving rise to the next giving rise to the next back, back, back, back, back.
You come back. You come back to the first moment of mind at the moment of conception. That mind also just like all the minds through the course of this life have arisen in dependence upon a previous mind, a previous moment of mind. That mind also arose in dependence upon a previous moment of mind and that moment of mind was the last moment of mind of the previous life and that moment of mind arose in dependence upon a previous mind and back and back and back ad infinitum without end. And our continuum of mind is beginningless.
We cannot posit a first moment of mind just as we cannot posit a first moment of matter. We can only posit particular first moments of states of matter or states of mind. I newly generated compassion, newly generated the awakening heart, I newly generated the awakening mind. All of these possibilities. We’ve just created the atomic bomb for the first time.
Can’t even You know, where would matter come from? You know, can’t even say that it came, we can’t even say it comes from space. Space is the absence of obstructability. If there’s nothing to obstruct, there’s no space. If there’s no matter, there’s no space.
We can’t even say it comes from nothing. There has to be something for there to be nothing. They only have meaning in relationship to the other. But this is not to say that the mind exists independent of the body. The mind, that the mind exists independent of the nervous system or the brain.
You know, when we are physically ill, we cannot think well. We cannot think clearly. The body does affect the mind. The body and the nervous system are the cooperative causes. And this idea of the cooperative causes of the mind.
They condition the mind just as the way the potter conditions the clay, shapes the clay, forms the clay. Dependent upon the physical basis is going to determine the potential of the expression of the mind. So the body is a cause of the mind but it’s the cooperative cause not the substantial cause. It’s going to determine the quality of the mind, its ability to function, its shape but not its existence. Likewise, the mind is the cooperative cause of the body.
This is obvious in the case of psychosomatic illnesses or stress related illnesses like asthma or ulcers. It’s obvious that the quality of our mind affects our body. The mind is the cooperative cause of the body, not the substantial cause of the body. The substantial cause of the body is the sperm and ovum from our parents and were contributed by our parents. Maybe let me just maybe I’ll give this one one last illustration.
Okay? I think a good one. You know one of the main arguments that mechanistic science would posit that the brain is the substantial cause of the mind. They would offer observations from clinical and experimental neurology. They would say, you know, example, they would say there’s a clear connection between a tumor in one part of the brain and certain mental states.
If we use anesthesia, if there’s a concussion in the brain, if there’s a restriction in the blood supply, there’s certain very definite losses of consciousness, certain very definite predictable effects to the mind they can address these difficulties through neurosurgery, through chemotherapy, etcetera. And so they’re very good about how working with the brain and therefore, you know, through drug therapy, etc. Understanding this, they think, well obviously if this part of the brain is damaged then we can predict certain losses of consciousness in very predictable ways. So this is one of the main arguments that the brain is the mind or the mind arises from the brain. But the logical inconsistency of this conclusion is illustrated by a simple example of a television set.
The function of the television set is dependent upon the structure, all the components being present and that they’re all functioning well. All the parts are there and that all the parts are working. So, you know, if any of the parts are missing or if any of the parts aren’t working then the television set is not going to operate properly. You know, a television, repair person could come in and by observing the quality of the picture, the quality of the sound could understand which of the parts aren’t functioning, which of the parts are missing, what’s wrong. But he would never say that the television set is the source of the images and voices which are appearing.
You know in the sense that he understands that the television set is the basis of transmission. In other words, the television set is the cooperative condition, cooperative cause. If the cooperative cause is not operating properly, then the basis of transmitting images and pictures and voices is going to be impaired. He would never say that the television set is producing is the substantial cause of those images and those voices like for example the computer generated animation or voice synthesizers. Yeah.
And he understands that there’s a television studio maybe fifty kilometers away and that there is a person in a television studio speaking and appearing and that this is substantial cause and the television set acts as a transmission basis, as a cooperative cause. Substantial cause is the person in the television studio. But this television is not like a voice synthesizer creating sounds of human voices. It is not animate, it is not generating animations like a computer. The things have the substantial cause outside of the television set.
It’s necessary that television set to working properly in order for it to that to be, no distortion of the picture and sound. But the television set is not actually generating voices. It’s not actually generating appearances of people. Does that make a lot of sense? But mechanistic science is saying that the brain is generating mind because if we cause contusions, if we have tumors, if we poke around then we’re going to, we have predictable losses of functions of mind.
But that’s the same, that doesn’t necessarily follow because like in the same way the television set, if we remove the transistors, if we remove the parts, you’re also going to get predictable losses. Does that prove that the television set is actually generating the pictures, generating the voices of humans and the pictures and the images of humans? It is simply a basis of transmission, is cooperative cause. Like the brain, is the basis of transmission, the cooperative cause of mind. And one last.
The probability of human intelligence. Now this is, I’ll just throw this in. The probability of human intelligence developing all the way from the chemical ooze in the ocean to its present state of evolution has been simply through random mechanical chance. That possibility from going all the way from the chemical ooze of the ocean to its present state of evolution by simply by random chance has been compared to a tornado moving through a gigantic junkyard and accidentally, constructing a jumbo seven forty seven. So so the dawning of the clear light.
It sounds like someone used to sing in the sixties, isn’t it? The dawning of the clear light is the moment of death. The first moment subsequent to the dawning of the clear light is the beginning of the rebirth process. The coarse body is left behind and one takes rebirth in an intermediate state. The intermediate state is established.
The intermediate state being has a very subtle body which is achieved through the wind energy element. So it’s a very subtle type of body which is not obstructive. It can pass through walls, etc. And it’s usually in configuration of the eventual rebirth coarse body. If the if the conditions for taking rebirth do not come together, then after seven days there is a