Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A smoker reaching for a cigarette becomes a complete worked example of all twelve links of dependent origination in this 41-minute talk by Ven Jampa Gendun. He first walks each link in sequence — from root misknowledge (the false belief in a solid, independent self) through karmic formations, conditioned consciousness, name and form, the six sense faculties, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, and birth — then runs the cigarette through the entire chain. A vivid parallel illustration shows how a human, a hungry ghost, a fish, and a celestial being each perceive the same glass of water in radically different ways, making the point that karma shapes perception rather than objects having fixed qualities. The talk closes with Buddha standing outside the Wheel of Life, pointing to the exit.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 20 H and M of B 1992 09 23.mp3
UUID: ddc91f70-737e-402a-b41a-e98802f2f02e
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Buddhism (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1992-09-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 41.4 minutes
Words: ~4,105
You are free of your difficulty. May you be free of all your difficulties and problems. I wish very much you didn’t have any dissatisfaction or suffering. I’m going to help you. I’m going to commit myself to working with you, taking responsibility to helping you to solve your problem.
And then the cultivation of love. It’d be wonderful if you too were happy. I like that very much. May you be very happy when this is the greatest happiness. I’m going to help you to be happy.
You’re working with you. The way I’m going to express that commitment at this very moment is in developing myself through my meditation. I want to meditate so that I can eventually help you. And bring your mind to the breath. Be gentle, easy, in and out flow of the breath.
Still there. So we’re looking we’re gonna finish the our discussion on karma and finish it with a discussion of the ego enterprise. We’ve been looking at the iconographic representation. The very circle, beginning with the innermost circle, the driving force, the hub of the wheel, which continually occurring compulsive neurotic patterns that we’re bound up in. Attachment, hatred, but the most basic of all, misknowledge or ignorance.
Then moving on to the next concentric circle, being re embodied according to their dispositions, the karmas that they’ve created. And then the various types of realms or levels. In terms of the desire realm, the six levels, Those are the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animal, human, demigods and gods. And then the mechanism by which this system is perpetuated, This negative feedback, this continual reinforcement, which causes cyclic pattern to repeat themselves infinitely without end. And we began, this is the twelve links of dependent origination.
We began our discussion of that last week. And we talked about the very first link was basic misknowledge or ignorance and the ignoring the precise quality of the mind. But in terms of more technically speaking, the misconception as to the nature of the self, which we’re going to be looking at quite extensively when we come to the third fundamental path, the awakening mind. But here just very roughly in a very simple sense, we misconceive the nature of the self. There is a self, and I am speaking to you.
And there’s Janto, the Monk, etc. This malady exists, but we have a misconception with respect to the self. We imbue it with qualities which it does not possess. And this is the the the basis of all our problems. It’s simple misconception, this wrong idea, mistaken belief.
We have a faulty premise in which we’re basing our life. And everything which evolves out of this is inappropriate because the premise is inappropriate, it’s mistaken. We believe ourselves to be a singular, unchanging, independent self, A self concrete solid which does not depend upon body, does not depend upon mind, which does not depend upon any condition, cultural conditions, our social conditions, our peer situations, our environment. Something which is independent of all other factors and regard and hold on to that factor that we identify as our self. And we talked about the in trying to enhance it or moving toward attractive objects or trying to protect it, moving away from those objects which we see as threatening, we engage in various actions, which is the second link of the twelve links of dependent origination.
On the basis of misknowledge, we engage in inappropriate action, actions which perpetuate our neurotic pattern. But moreover these actions leave latency, encode some kind of imprint upon the mind. The second link of dependent origination, karmic formations, action formations, these encoded programs within the mind which have arisen on the basis of misknowledge, of ignorance. The karmic information themselves are the second link, but the consciousness in which they are planted is the third link. Consciousness but more than simply consciousness, consciousness plus karmic formation.
These predispositions, these tendencies, these patterns, programs which are simply going to be played out. The third link of dependent origination. in dependence upon the karmic formations within the mind. The third link, then we seek re-embodiment. We seek a continuity of materiality and mentality in accordance with the disposition and the continuity of materiality is re-embodiment, physical.
This is the fourth name, name and form. Name refers to mental aspect of discontinuity and form refers to the physical, the actual embodiment, name and form. And we discussed this re-embodiment of name and form in terms of the five aggregates. If we were to Break down mind in terms of its most significant elements. Could set up four, we could emphasize four factors.
So in terms of mind, in terms of body, so there we develop or call to five aggregates, form, feeling, perception, mental construction, and consciousness. And as we said, in terms of form this is the primitive distinction which we begin to make between self and not self. But this is simply a convention at this moment. When this convention is absolutized, when this distinction between self and not self is seen to exist not merely as convention, but inherently in reality, as self defined. Not merely being defined by social convention, but something about it is determined.
We begin to develop the skin encapsulated ego, the boundary between self and not self. Out of this we begin to relate with what is not self and we develop various feelings, pleasurable feelings, unpleasurable feelings, neutral feelings of indifference. in dependence upon that we begin to make primitive judgments about in dependence upon his feelings. This is a threatening object. This is an attractive object.
This is an unattractive object. This is a good object. This is a bad object. in dependence upon that we begin to relate with it in terms of complex emotional pattern, belief, ideas. When we see an attractive object, in dependence upon perception, then we relate with it with attachment, mental construction.
When perceive an unattractive object, relate with an aversion, mental construction. And this entire process is taking place in the meshwork of consciousness. This fills in all the gaps. That it’s a complete gestalt, a complete reality is created out of consciousness. It’s like we have the main character or the main focus of the situation in terms of these first four, but then the fifth aggregate of consciousness fills in all the background, the details.
And therefore we have a complete reality. There’s nothing missing. There’s nothing uncertain. That’s the fifth aggregate. We got to the fourth fourth make of dependent origination name and form.
So we’re gonna continue from there. So we have at the level of the fourth aggregate, mind and body essentially, but this is the fourth link. But before the ego can begin to extend out its territory, the evolution of some kind of medium in relating is necessary. So this is the fifth link of the twelve links of dependent origination. The sixth sense faculties, sixth sense faculties, or sometimes they’re called sources.
There’s eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mental sense faculties. Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mental sense faculties. This is illustrated by a house with one door and five windows. So this is the one mental sense faculty and the five physical eye, ear, nose, tongue, body sense faculty. This is the way we relate with the world through these sense faculty, through which we look out onto and step into the world.
So in dependence upon the sixth sense faculties, the ego makes contact. So now we’ve developed a medium of relating to faculties. in dependence upon having developed that medium of relating, we then make contact with reality out there, which we have cut off from ourselves. Is, that is to say, we make contact with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tangible objects and its touches, and objects of mind. Objects of mind such as mental images, thoughts, and thereby we experience the world.
So this is the sixth of the twelve links of dependent origination, contact. So we develop the body and mind, in dependence upon developing the body and mind, we then develop a medium by which to relate with the outside world, and then we actually contact the outside world, the sixth link. In dependence upon experiencing experiences or sensation at contact, the seventh link, feeling arises. So the seventh link of dependent origination is feeling. Feelings are either, strictly speaking, pleasurable, unpleasurable or indifferent.
This is illustrated by a man with an arrow in his eye, a very, a gross experience of unpleasant contact, a man with an arrow in his eye. And dependence upon feeling there arises the eighth link, which is called craving. So we make contact. in dependence upon contact, we develop feeling. in dependence upon a feeling, we develop a craving.
So craving either to prolong contact and repeat it again in the future, or craving to break off contact and not to repeat contact in the future. In the case of a pleasant feeling, then we would develop a craving to maintain contact with that object. Repeat the contact again in future. in dependence upon unpleasurable feelings, would develop a craving to break off contact and crave never to come in contact with that object again in the future, to avoid contact in the future. But when there’s an indifference, then the mind is confused.
It’s not as to whether it should break off contact or maintain contact. So it’s illustrated by a woman, it’s about a sexist problem, right? It’s illustrated by a woman offering a drink of alcohol to a man. And depends upon craving. There arises the ninth link.
The ninth link is called grasping. So we have craving, which is a craving to either to, generally speaking, to break off contact or to maintain contact. So grasping is a heightened craving. It is a type of craving, it is the selecting out of an appropriate program. An appropriate pattern which is going to be able to act as a means to give you craving expression, grasping.
We’re grasping at an appropriate reactive program, a behavior pattern by which we can express the craving to satisfy. So it’s the operational means to fulfill the object of our craving, the operational means, the way we’re going to deal with the situation. And it is intensified craving. So it’s illustrated by a monkey picking fruit in a tree. So the fruit are the karmic formations.
These encoded information, these predispositions, these reactive patterns, these programs. I think programs is kind of a nice image. So the monkey is selecting out of program. We’ve developed a craving. And then the grasping is how are we going to actualize?
What are the operational means by which we’re going to either break off contact or maintain contact. And this activates a particular type of program, so the grasping is the heightened craving which acts as a means by which we actually select. We take out of our computer file the proper program which we’re going to use to actualize our craving, to bring about in fact. So in dependence upon grasping, there arises the tenth link. The tenth link is called coming to being, coming to be.
An appropriate program, we’ve selected an appropriate program and we now insert it. Particular karmic formation is being activated. This latency within our mind is ripening. This is what we mean when we say karmic, ripening of karma, the activation of these latencies, this coming to be. It’s illustrated by a pregnant woman.
There’s some kind of incubation going on, gestation, the program’s been selected and now it’s been activated and it’s just about ready to come into being, it’s coming to be. It’s just about ready to give birth like a pregnant woman and this is the eleventh link, which is birth. This is the full functioning program. The information contained within the karmic formation has found full expression in a specific manifest system of mentality materiality. We’ve been able to completely express the object of craving in some sort of concrete fashion, in some sort of pattern type of mentality, some sort of pattern type of materiality, a type of embodiment with a particular mentality, a way of thinking.
So it’s illustrated by a baby being born. Then having coming into being, into a particular mode of being, from the second moment onwards there naturally ensues the gradual diminishment of the situation to maintain itself. The situation begins to deteriorate until a point is reached where it can no longer maintain itself, It can no longer sustain itself and it begins to break down. This is the twelfth link and the final link, aging and death. It is illustrated by a bent old man and a corpse being carried away.
It is through the course of this process of dependent origination, there have been three afflictive emotions and two karmic formations were brought into play. So the first, the eighth and ninth are the afflictive emotions, ignorance or misknowledge, craving and grasping. And there have been two karmic formations which have been brought into play. The second link was karmic formations. This was the actual creation of the action, the implanting of this latency within the mind through an action.
And then the tenth link coming to be was the activation of that latency. You know, we implanted a seed at the second link and we fertilized it and germinated it at the tenth link. These are two karmic formations that came into play. So, you know, just to take an example to help illustrate the operation of twelve links of dependent origination, this is a very different way of explanation which I’m making use of. Presented in a very linear serial fashion and I think it’s quite useful.
Now first, just a way to get some idea of how idea of how everything fits together, how things are dependent arising, how we are creating the type of reality moment by moment that we’re experiencing. So taking a simple example. First we see a cigarette, for example. This coming together of an object, a visual object, a consciousness and a eye sense faculty. It’s coming together these three factors is contact.
The sixth link of the twelve links of dependent origination. So we have an object, a cigarette, we have a medium of exchange, that is the eye sense faculty, and we have a consciousness subjective factor coming together, they come in contact. This represents the six link, the twelve links of dependent origination. Contact, we’re going to go back to see how contact arose. Contact arose in dependence upon a medium by which contact could take place.
Without this medium of the internal and external being able to come together, there would be no contact. So we need a medium, a passageway, for the object and the subject to come together. So this was the fifth link of the twelve links, that is the sense faculty, specifically an eye sense faculty. So contact arose in dependence upon sense faculties, the fifth link. Alright, this in turn arose in dependence upon the fourth link.
That is to say, if we didn’t have a body and mind, there would be the body and mind acts as a condition, prerequisite necessary for there to arise. Sense faculties, without a body there would be no possibility for sense faculties to arise. So we need the condition of body and mind, that is a name and form, the fourth link, in order for sense faculties to arrive. So sense faculties depend upon a body, name and form, the fourth link dependent origination. This in turn, body and mind in turn rose in dependence upon conditioned consciousness, a consciousness which had various dispositions implanted on it means due to which the mind was impelled to grasp at a material and mental continuity to maintain a sense of I ness.
We want to maintain a sense of I ness and specifically the I ness of a human embodiment in condition, in this case. We want to maintain the I ness and the only way that we can maintain this I ness is through a specific type of physical and mental embodiment. This disposition, this tendency, this drive towards the maintenance of this continuity of I ness and a particular type of I ness, of human I ness was due to the latency implanted in the consciousness, the third link of dependent origination. Due to this tendency by which we are impelled to maintain and to grasp at and to actualize a particular mentality and to grasp at a particular material continuity which we call a body is due to the third link of dependent origination, conditioned consciousness. Conditioned consciousness is conscious conditioned by karmic formations, which is the second link of dependent origination.
That is to say, the types of actions that we’ve created are implanted upon the mind. Without actions, then there would be no condition of consciousness. So due to these karmic formations being implanted on the consciousness, the third link arises. The third link arises in dependence upon committing actions. The only reason that we create these types of actions is due to misknowledge.
That these types of actions which perpetuate ego based existence have as their fundamental premise the misconception as to the nature of the I. So this takes us all the way back to the first link of misknowledge. in dependence upon misknowledge, we engage in actions. in dependence upon actions, we implant latencies upon consciousness. in dependence upon implanting latencies upon the consciousness, we are impelled to actualize a particular materiality and mentality, mind and body.
in dependence upon that as a prerequisite condition, we then generate sense faculties. Mediums of exchange, and in dependence upon developing these mediums of exchange, we come in contact. So we come up to the sixth link. And depending upon developing contact, we tend to make contact, experience, we relate in terms of feeling. We see at the level of the sixth link contact, we see a cigarette.
So this situation of seeing a cigarette has originated in dependence upon a series of interdependent links. The very fact that one sees a cigarette as opposed to just seeing a long white object It’s dependent upon our perception, particular type of way of discriminating, way of organizing, interpreting our reality, which is again karmically determined, which again can go back all the way to fundamental misknowledge. So the reason, if we take a simple example, we, the way that we’re continually discriminating, organizing, interpreting our reality. The diversity of the possibilities of ways of perceiving, for example, that glass of water, that glass of fluid. A human being might see it as a glass of water and experience it as something refreshing.
But a person who had rabies would have great dread toward that same object. A celestial being would see a glass of nectar and would experience great bliss. A hungry ghost would see a glass of pus and blood and would experience great revulsion. A mosquito might perceive it as a place to lay its eggs. A fish would see it as a place to live, an environment, a complete environment.
So all of these beings due to their predispositions, their latencies discriminate, organize, interpret the realities in extremely radically different ways. So the entirety of our present situation is seen in this example, the seeing of the cigarette is thus far the result of discernible karmically determined variables. It didn’t arise out of nowhere. We can trace it back, how it arose, its origination. But the cigarette is not seen as something which is long and white, something which is simply a sensory pattern.
It is also seen in terms of affective terms of whether it appears attractive or repulsive or neither. So the tobacco industry spends billions of dollars trying to help us develop the karma. Whereby the cigarette appears to be attractive because they understand that our beliefs inform our perception. Our beliefs inform our perception. Our karma is influencing.
karma in the sense of belief, these structured ways of dealing, of relating, of will influence our perception such that certain objects appear attractive to us. Certain objects appear unattractive. And this appearance arises under the influence of our belief. Now how we’ve been conditioned. It’s not the desirability, the attractiveness or the undesirability, the repulsiveness of the object is not inherent in the object itself.
If it were inherent in the object itself, then the various types of being should perceive the same object in the same way, if it was coming from only the side of the object. The same beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. What we perceive is being karmically determined, the conditioning factors within our mind. Our beliefs inform our perception. So in dependence upon contacting, if we just take for the sake of example the attractive object of a cigarette.
So we’ve come to the sixth link, we have contact with a cigarette. A pleasurable feeling arises. This pleasurable feeling that arises in reaction to seeing a cigarette is associated with smoking them. So out of this pleasurable feeling associated with that object arises the a craving, The desire to smoke again. This is a behavior pattern appropriate, this gives rise to grasping, the ninth link.
That is a type of behavior pattern which is going to be able to satisfy one’s craving, to actualize, to give it expression. The appropriate type of behavior pattern which is going to be able to satisfy our expression to smoke, our craving to smoke. This in turn gives rise to coming to be. The or the manifest physical and mental behavior involved in actually taking out a cigarette and lighting it. And this action gives rise to the eleventh link, birth, one is born in the smoking realm as it were.
Then there naturally ensues a diminishment of the situation to be able to maintain itself. That is to say the cigarette begins to burn down. The situation can no longer support itself, it’s in the very nature of the situation that it begins to deteriorate, the diminishment of the capacity of the situation to maintain itself. The cigarette slowly burns down and is exhausted. That is the twelfth link, aging and finally death.
And due to the conditioned influence of basic misknowledge, the wheel turns again And another way of perceiving and experiencing the world. One will pass on from the realm of the smoker into another realm. One will move on, one will turn the channel to another program, another particular version of reality will come into being. And the entire ego emprise is held in the clutches in the grip of the Lord of Death. But standing, this is to say that no matter how comfortable our present niche within the ego enterprise might be, that however attractive our prison cell that we’ve created for ourselves, it cannot be maintained, it cannot be sustained forever.
Whatever it might be, eventually death is going to overtake us. All things are impermanent and the wheel will inevitably turn again. And outside of it all, which we’ve been hiding up to now, is Buddha and he’s pointing to the exit, its way out. And it’s showing the way to exit the system. So anyway, that gives you a rough idea of the twelve links of dependent origination.
We’re continually recreating our particular version of reality, our particular identity, and the way that it all fits together. It’s very appropriate. It’s all the logical outcome of discernible variables, And these variables are the particular karmic formations which we are implanting within our mind. Our various beliefs, assumptions, ideas, premises upon which we’re operating determine our reality. Dedicate the positive energy that we create.
And one of the reasons for dedication is that it is said through dedication that the positive energy that we create, these creative potentials, skillful actions cannot be destroyed by anger. We give it some sort of direction. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual teacher and lead each and every sentient being to an enlightened realm through these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakening heart that has not arisen arise and grow, And may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more. Thank you.
I’ll see you next time. But for those who would like to get a cup of tea, we’ll have a discussion.