Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using a table examined by carpenter, botanist, and atomic physicist as his entry point, Ven Jampa Gendun devotes this 47-minute session to building a working sense of what “inherent existence” actually means — because emptiness, as its absence, can only be grasped once the thing being negated is clearly seen. He traces four progressively subtler stages of self-misconception, then focuses on the first: the coarse, unreflective sense of an I that is separate, persistent, and autonomous. Western thinkers — Hume, William James, Sartre — are cited as philosophers who noticed the problem without prescribing a cure; Buddhism’s claim, by contrast, is that this inquiry is the ultimate therapy for suffering. The session ends by introducing the “illusory I” as the precise object meditators must first identify and bring to conscious awareness before they can begin to refute it. Suited to practitioners beginning serious study of the selflessness teachings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 3 PA 1990 08 10.mp3
UUID: d2007a7b-819b-4a55-9a48-b7bf9fe67061
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1990-08-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.9 minutes
Words: ~5,185
Recommitting oneself to the inner principle of awakening by means of the Dharma in the social context of a spiritual community. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. When the virtuous merit that I collect by listening to the teachings may attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by listening to the teachings, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merit that I collect by listening to the teachings, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. So we’re looking at the three principal aspects of the path, developing the determination to be free, opening the hearts to others, and presently seeing deeply into the nature of reality. When we talk about seeing deeply into the nature of reality, seeing things, how things actually are divorced of our beliefs about them, divorced of our preconceptions, our assumptions, our ideas about seeing things as they actually are. And when we say deeply, we mean the ultimate way that things are, their final reality, their most, most basic nature.
If we make an ultimate analysis with respect to an object, that which we come to, that which we, as far as its existence, see. Seeing deeply into the nature of reality. It means seeing beneath the appearance, superficial nature, like, you know, seeing beyond the shadows which are cast upon the wall and looking at the actual object which is casting those shadows. For example, we could take this this table, and we can see it on various different levels, the various different levels of organization. We can look at it on a superficial level.
For example, that it’s made of wood. It’s maybe a meter by thirty centimetres by thirty centimetres, something like that. This would be quite useful information to a carpenter if it it would or if you had to make use of a table. It would be functional in that way. We could go on and analyze it in a different respect.
We could analyze it to a botanist. He might want to know what type of wood it’s made out of. Again, to analyze it on a deeper level, an atomic scientist, He would look at it, at this table, as being made up of molecules. That’s another level of the way it exists. Still deeper, you know, the subatomic particles at the table simply exist as a probability pattern of whirling atoms, like subatomic particles in space.
It’s not quite as solid as it might appear to us on superficial examination. So, you know, a carpenter might look at the table one way, a botanist another, an atomic physicist another, a chemist another. So, you know, whatever it is functional, whatever it is, the context we’re viewing the object in is going to determine in part what we see. And what the level of the organization of the object we’re analyzing. So the deepest way that the table exists is its ultimate mode of existence, and that’s what we’re going to examine.
This is what we mean by seeing deeply into the nature of reality. And that is the table’s emptiness, It’s lack of you know, we have many synonyms, many different ways, words that we use to describe this ultimate mode of existence of the table. It’s lack of inherent existence. It’s lack of objective existence, of true existence, of natural existence, of existing from its own side. And these all have a slightly different connotations, but they’re all very much synonyms getting at this same fact of the table’s emptiness.
When we talk about inherent existence or objective existence, natural existence, we’re talking about it’s not, some concept that we’re superimposing upon the object. But this is our our ordinary sense of the way things are, the way the table exists. It’s not like we’ve learned about inherent existence, and now we’re superimposing it upon these objects, and we’re going to take it back away. But quite naturally, without any study of philosophic systems, without ever hearing the word inherent existence, true existence, natural existence, we instinctively superimpose this way of existing upon all phenomena at all times. That these objects concretely exist in and of themselves, ourselves, people, tables, and whatever, all objects.
So phenomena are the things which are empty of inherent existence, and inherent existence is that which phenomena are empty of. So the the essence of Buddhist practice hinges on the realization of emptiness. And I talked about this. And this is the linchpin which undoes this whole structure of all the various afflictive emotions. And therefore, has the potentiality to liberate us from the disturbing patterns within our mind.
And therefore, the possibility of finding peace within our mind. But when we use these terms like inherent existence, objective existence, natural existence, nothing appears to our mind. Now, we don’t have There’s no real image. We don’t have a concept of what that might mean. What does inherent existence mean?
What does true existence mean? Nothing clear appears to our mind. So the because the notion of inherent existence is so far removed from our ordinary, everyday thinking that initially we are unable to grasp its significance. What does it mean? What does inherent existence mean?
What is the significance of saying the table lacks inherent existence? At this point, it probably doesn’t mean much at all. It doesn’t have any impact on the mind. And emptiness is a phenomenon’s lack of inherent existence. It is a negative.
It is an utter absence. In a way, it’s a non affirming negation. It is an absence of a concrete mode of existence to which we have become habituated to, which we are so familiar to. So we’re talking about an absence of something. Without identifying what inherent existence is, what it’s like, then we can never really identify what its absence is.
That is emptiness. Emptiness is the absence of inherent existence. If we don’t know what inherent existence is, we can never know what the absence of inherent existence is and never understand emptiness. So inherent existence is the most subtle of the various fantasized ways of existing. We view things instinctively in terms of a fantasized ways of existing.
And amongst the various levels, degrees, fantasized ways of existing that we superimpose onto objects, the most subtle is inherent existence. This is what we’re projecting on all objects, superimposing. So as a prerequisite to understanding the notion of inherent existence, we have to understand coarser, less subtle ways that we fantasize existence. Different, coarser ways in which we’re superimposing and projecting modes of existence upon objects which they don’t naturally possess. So, you know, as mentioned last week, this involves progressing through four readily recognizable stages.
In this coming to the most subtle recognition of this of what inherent existence means, we try to understand more coarser ways in which we are projecting fantasized ways of existing, more easily recognizable, coarser, grosser projections, superimpositions. These can be divided into four stages: the hearer stage, the mind only school stage, the autonomy middle way school stage, and the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school stage. So although these stages are named after particular Buddhist schools that founded them, they represent the the stages in the development of an individual’s understanding of the nature of reality. And each level is like runs on a ladder. Each level builds upon the preceding level.
You know, each stage challenges more and more, deeply held, more strongly held models of reality, incorrect models of reality. This this this process of of letting go, of transforming our fixed beliefs is a very difficult process. It’s said that those with little personal power, positive potential or merit, when they begin to first understand emptiness or selflessness, they become very afraid. It’s as if they’re beginning to lose an old friend who’s always been there with them constantly throughout their awakened life, their conscious life. But for those who have a great deal of personal power, it’s said that the understanding of selflessness, of emptiness, does arise as a joyful experience, liberating experience.
It’s as if there’s been a huge burden taken off your shoulders, some kind like a bundle of thorns which have been you’ve been carrying around with you everywhere you’ve gone, constantly sticking here. Gaining insight, overcoming resistance, letting go is a gradual process. And I used the analogy of someone as if someone’s standing on the shore of a of a river, and the ground is very solid and firm. There’s no problem. This is a naive realist accepting everything on its face value.
Everything exists as it appears. But the moment we begin to analyze question, we begin to see that things aren’t quite what they appear to be. And we begin to slowly wade out into the water. Finally, as we grow more and more confident in our analysis, more and more courageous to deal with a newfound reality which is slowly revealing itself to us, then we become We no longer have to We’re able to move out into this water of We no longer need the security of our previous belief systems. We’re transforming them.
We’re letting go of our old models. We’re beginning to replace them with more accurate ones. So we no longer have to stand on a fixed shore. So this is a, you know, a gradual process necessarily so until you can finally wade out into the water, swim in the in the ocean of suchness, the way things actually are without fear. And then we realize there was never anything to fear all along.
But that’s a long journey. So, you know, we’re beginning with the hearer stage. And we begin with the first question, you know, who am I? And with that question, you know, one could answer, Who cares? You know, what does it matter who I am or what I am or if I am?
And Buddhism would answer that you should because it means it’s very important that you understand. And you would you would do well to to ask and try to answer the question about, where am I or who am I or what am I? Because it is your your present presently unconscious, instinctive confusion as about who in fact you are which is giving rise to all your problems. Now, again, I mentioned to emphasize the point. You know, Buddhism is not telling us that we have a self or that we don’t have a self, that we should believe in a self or that we shouldn’t believe in a self, But that when we suffer, that when we think, that when we respond emotionally to situations, we respond, think as if we believe that there was a self which was unchanging, singular, unitary, independently existing.
But upon closer analysis, no type of such type of self can be found. Ways of responding, ways of interacting, ways of relating, are based upon this mis conceived model as to the nature of the self, are characterized with the experience of dissatisfaction, frustration, disappointment. A way of life, a way of relation, a way of acting which is based upon the absence of such an incorrect model as to the nature of the self is characterized with the experiences of fulfillment, peace, tranquility, happiness. So therefore, it becomes very important. You know, when I call you ugly, I say, hey, stupid.
You’re probably the ugliest, most stupid person I’ve ever met. You know what happens? What is the natural response emotionally? You know what? There’s perhaps fear, shame, anger, aggression.
Most feel most simply, you feel as if you are being attacked. Yourself, your I is being attacked. What is being attacked? You know, if we talk very simply initially, your self image is being attacked. You know, you’re stupid, you’re ugly.
And it conflicts with your self image that you wish to hold about yourself. And because you identify the I, the self with that self image, when your self image is under attack, it’s threatened, you are under attack. I am under attack because my self image is under attack. We identify completely with our self image as the I. Our self representation, this model that we have, which we make use of in thinking about ourselves, is simply a model, a self representation, a mental image.
But we identified it as not just an image, not just as a representation, but the actual I. And when that self image is under attack, there is a sense, I am under attack through a misconception, a mistaken belief. So without this basic confusion, a sense of threat would not arise, a sense of bewilderment, then your mind would remain at peace. I could say you’re ugly, you’re stupid, and it would leave you completely undisturbed. It would be impossible for attachment, for hatred, for jealousy, pride, all other very afflictive emotions to arise.
Therefore, and trying to answer the question, who am I, is extremely important. Ultimately, your happiness depends upon it, depends upon trying to realize that answer. So throughout all of this discussion of the I, you know, we have to keep one thing in mind, and it is simply simply that I exist, you exist, Jampa exists, the self exists. I, in fact, exist. You, in fact, exist.
I’m talking. You’re listening. No problem. What the problem is that we misconceive the nature of this I, Jampa, the self, the person who’s talking, the person who’s listening. This is when the problem arises.
The I, self, has never been a problem to anyone. It is the misconceived I, the misunderstood I, the wrongly perceived I, self person, which represents the problem, the root of our difficulties. Not the mere I, the self, but the misconceived I, self, which is the root of our problems. So, you know, talking the question about who I am has been has been asked many times in the Western tradition, but more out of a sense of essentially a philosophical analysis. And there there has never been probably been has never been the therapeutic value of inquiry has never been emphasized.
For example, you know, some some Western philosophers who have who have talked about the nature of the self, the nature of the I, David Hume. He said, for my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other. I never catch myself. And then the American psychologist William James concluded that the continuous self was a belief constructed out of endless sequence of thought which overlap and the process pass along and in the process pass along an illusion of ownership. Each thought dies away and is replaced by another thought saying, thou art mine and part of the same self with me.
And then the French existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre also talked about the suffering when he said the essential role of ego is to mask from consciousness its very spontaneity. Everything happens as if consciousness were hypnotized by this ego, which it has established, which it has constructed, becoming absorbed in it as if to make the ego its guardian and law. But all of these in all of these, the therapeutic value of the inquiry into the nature of self is never indicated. This is the significance within Buddhism. This inquiry into the nature of the self is the ultimate therapy for all our problems.
There was one American anthropologist, Gregory Bateson, and he seems to be approaching the problem, the the some understanding of the the salutary effects of this inquiry, but he doesn’t quite know how to go about it. He says, there is a difference between the conscious self and the world and the true nature of the self and the world. And later on he says, I have worked to practice living in a world of truth instead of the world of epistemological fantasies, but I don’t think I’ve succeeded. Sanity, after all, takes psychotherapy to change, or some very great new experience. Six years later, he he went on to say, if I am right, the whole of our thinking about what we are and what other people are has got to be reconstructed.
And Buddhism would would totally agree. We’ve got to restructure our thinking about who we are. So in this Buddhist in the Buddhist analysis, we begin to answer the question of who I am with the question, how do I experience myself? How do I how do I experience my I? The first maybe we can just have some discussion about this.
How do we experience the eye, the self? The first feature in talking about some of the features that that that you might recognize in with respect to how you actually experience yourself is our sense we have a sense of separateness. We’re beginning to point out attributes. Initially, these are going to be very coarse. We’re trying to identify a very coarse type of self that we’re constructing, that we are misbelieving in.
It’s beginning. We have a sense of separateness. This is I experience myself separately from you. I’m over here. You’re over there.
A sense of self as an individual, as localized. You know, I’m not over there. There’s a there’s a sense of being over here somewhere. It’s very vague. All of this is very vague.
We’ve never analyzed it. But we have this sense of individual localized personal self and myself. It belongs to this little space over here, and what is not here is not me. This is what has become termed the skin encapsulated ego. For there to be a me, there has to be a not me.
And this this initially may sound absurd but it’s not. During the process of individuation of a child this is a learning process. Initially the child does not conceive of me and not me, I and not I. There’s this complete open space. There’s no feeling of localized I.
There is an instinctive grasping or moving toward the conceiving of an eye. But what this eye is going to be identified with is still open. It’s a learning process. Initially, baby itself is not conceived of as separate. It’s mother in itself, are not conceived of as separate.
So it’s not absurd to talk about this I and not I, though it sounds obvious. There has to be there must be some kind of for there to be a not me and a me, there has to be we have to create some kind of boundary. That something which separates me and not me, the two. So this boundary might not be very sharp. It might be it might not be always well defined, but it must be there in some way, What I’m going to call I and what I’m going to call not I.
And there also seems to be some kind of central command, some kind of headquarters who’s calling the shots, running the show. There’s there’s an experiencer. Because there are feelings, there must be a feeler of the feelings. We have this sense. This is how we’re experiencing.
I have feelings. There must be an experience of these feelings, a feeler of my feelings. Because there are thoughts, there must be a thinker of thoughts, an agent doing these actions. Because there are actions, there must be an actor. There’s someone performing, someone behind the who is running the show that’s going on.
If if I am this, then I must not be that. If, I am not the table, the table does not feel my feelings. But but am I the body? You know, we can begin to ask, do I or do I have a body? Am I the body or do I have a body?
Is my is my body is my body feeling my body? Is my body feeling my feelings? Is my body feeling my my feelings? Or am I feeling my feelings? I have a headache, but I am not a headache.
But if I strain a muscle, I am sore. If I stub my toe, I am hurt. Sometimes when I’m angry, I say, I am angry. But I don’t or do I mean to say, I am anger or I have anger? You know, if I could possess this emotion of anger that there’s somebody who possesses the emotion, or am I that emotion?
Am I the anger when I say I’m angry? So when we begin to, even on a very superficial level begin to question our experiences, things become difficult. Our concrete notion of a solid sense of I begins to come into doubt. Another feature of of our normal sense of self, you know, I think, you know, we aren’t trying to fabricate some theory about the self. We’re trying to analyze our actual experience about the self.
This is the way, you know, I’m experiencing myself. We’re discussing how I actually sense myself quite naturally without ever having studied Buddhism, for example, that that this would be the case. You know, I I there’s a normal sense of a self which is persistent, ongoing. You know, I was born in such and such a place. I grew up in in this town, then I moved to this town.
And then I traveled around, I got a job. And then I I left that job, I went overseas. And then I I came here, and I got married, and I had three kids. And throughout all these, there seems to be this I continually moving throughout all of these various experiences. Throughout this, there’s a sense of an unchanging essence, which which is me.
You know, I this constant thread which is running throughout my life. And it’s like there’s a I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a Tasmanian axe. A Tasmanian axe. You know, there’s there’s an old woodsman, and he’s very he has an axe. He’s had this axe for the last twenty seven years, the same exact axe.
And I’m really proud of this axe. I’ve had this axe for twenty seven years. It’s had six different handles and three different blades. But it’s I’ve had the same axe for the last twenty seven years. And this is the sense he has about that acts.
And it’s just that he’s had this acts for twenty seven years. Even though it’s this is a sense, the feeling he has about it. You know, we can logically analyze and say, oh, that’s that’s there’s nothing original about that axe. But he has a sense it’s the same axe. So we have to begin to differentiate between our logical analysis, what we arrive at through logical analysis, and what we naturally experience, sense, without analysis.
You know, how do we actually sense the self, experience the self? And the third factor about the self is the characteristic of autonomy. You know, much of my experience seems to happen to me. It kind of is forced upon me. It impinges upon me without my having anything to say about it.
You know, a car goes by, you know, I can hear the heater. It’s kind of coming from over there and impinging upon me, or I can see the table. So even I don’t have any control over those things. I see the table. I hear the heater.
But even some internal events, we don’t seem to have any seem to go on independently of me. Like, I wouldn’t say, I gurgle my stomach, or I it would be difficult to say that I beat my heart. I gurgle my stomach. I beat my heart. These things these seem these things, events, seem to go on independent of me, just like the heater of the table.
They don’t really depend upon me. But there are some particular actions we claim to have control over. They seem to depend upon me, on I. Now I’m talking to you. I thought it over, and I decided not to go.
There’s a sense of an I as a producer, as the cause, as the initiator. We have a sense of at least that we are in control at least of some of our actions, of what’s happening to us, of what I think and what I do. I have a sense that there’s a controller about this. I reason, I choose, I decide, I intend, I initiate. Behind all of these, there is an actor who is initiating, who is entitled to any kind of praise or blame that comes from these actions.
The I am and feel responsible for these actions. I intended to do this, and I did it, and I’m taking responsibility. There’s some agent behind these types of actions and thoughts. So this is, you know, beginning to This is our first rough approximation as to the nature of the self, a separate persistent autonomous self. You know, in this question about who am I?
We begin with how do I experience myself? And it’s important here to the important word here is experience. Not what do I think I am, but how do I actually experience who I am. How do I actually experience myself? Initially, what we’re doing now is being given some guidelines on what to begin to look for, some possible features of how we might be ourselves quite naturally, experiences of how we ourselves misconceive ourselves.
We have to go deeper and deeper into our own unconscious and bring these models that we are basing our actions upon, mistaken beliefs, to full conscious awareness and contradict them. This is a We have beliefs. We have varying levels of awareness, cognitive awareness, and we have different models, representations of ourselves, self representations based upon which we interact, relate with the world, conceive of our world, think. And we have to begin to become aware of, bring to full conscious awareness, and contradict these mistaken self representation models of ourselves. So we have to actually contact and experience these models that we have never looked at but still are influencing our life.
These are the objects of negation. These are the objects which are to be refuted. If we have never really seen the object we are looking for, we can never really refute it. In a very important text by the great Indian master, Śāntideva, called Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds. He talks about this.
He says that without contacting the imagined existence, its nonexistence is not apprehended. To determine that an object in fact doesn’t exist, we have to know what we’re looking for. If someone said, There’s a thief in I think there’s a thief in this room. Without knowing what that thief looks like, there’s no way we could ascertain with any certainty whether that thief existed in this room or not. We have to gain a description and then we can go around and see if the thief is actually in the room or not.
So we have to identify these mistaken self representation models of the self. These mistaken beliefs, these models about who we think we are. We have to identify them, bring them to awareness, contradict them. As I mentioned, empirically there is a self. There is a conventionally existent self.
There is a relatively existent self. The I, the self, is simply a handy reference, a manner of speaking. This is what we mean in the word conventional reality. Convention means One of the meanings of the word convention is something which is agreed upon. There’s consensus.
We have a self, an I, which is conventionally existent because it’s readily accepted to exist, and there’s no contradiction in accepting that existence. It’s a handy reference. It serves a function. It’s a way of speaking. You know, I am this being as opposed to that being.
When I say, I am for example, when I say, I am sitting on the cushion, this is empirically verifiable. Why? Because because my body is on the cushion, I can say I am on the cushion. Generally, wherever my body is, that’s where I am because my I is imputed upon my body. So it’s meaningful to say I am sitting on the cushion.
You know, when I say, for example, that I am sitting on the cushion, there’s no it’s not being said out of any sense of separateness, of I being separate from the cushion or non separateness. These attributes don’t even come into consideration. This I actually exists. It sits on cushions, gives talks, eats, feels happy, sad, thinks about things, the nature of the eye, etc. On the other hand, there is an eye about which there is a sense of separateness.
It’s a feature of the misconceived I. This eye has never existed. This is the eye we’re trying to This is the image. This is the eye we’re trying to recognize. Now we can’t recognize something that doesn’t exist, but we can begin to gain the we can recognize the image that we have about such an eye.
The eye this eye has never existed. It appears to exist. When something appears to exist but in fact does not, we call it an illusion. This is what we mean by an illusion. Therefore, we’re talking now about about the empirical I, the conventionally existing I, the relatively existing I, but an illusory I, self.
A self or I which appears to exist due to the force of ignorance Under the influence of misconception, distorted awareness, there appears an I which appears autonomous, persistent, separate. It’s merely an appearance. It does not refer to anything in reality. There is no such type of I. So in all our discussion of this I, we’re referring to this illusory eye, not to the empirical eye, empirical relatively existing self.
So when you’re talking about, again, this eye has a sense of being it appears to us to be very solid, concrete. It appears to us to be, for example, persistent, talking about this, unchanging. It appears to us to be autonomous, That it a controller of our actions, of our thoughts. So you know we’ll go through these again. These qualities.
We become aware of this object of negation, this illusory eye, this appearance, this self representative model, bringing it to awareness, trying to actually become aware of it through our own actual experience, bring it more and more