Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The central question driving this 45-minute session is whether a Western mind can find rational grounds for believing in past lives. Ven Jampa Gendun argues that rebirth is a logical necessity, not an article of faith, using two analytical tools: the distinction between substantial cause and cooperative condition — illustrated by a clay pot and a wheat seed — and the principle of similarity of type. Drawing on physics’ conservation of mass-energy, he makes the case that mind, defined as non-physical and knowing, cannot arise from physical matter; each mind-moment must have a prior mind-moment as its substantial cause, making the continuum beginningless. This grounds the session’s opening point: if rebirths are infinite, recognising all beings as one’s mother is literally true, not symbolic. The session closes with a guided loving-kindness meditation expanding outward from self to all of Australia.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 3 PA 1988 07 08.mp3
UUID: b3ad5d15-2ffd-4cf6-9979-83db566bcd94
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-07-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.4 minutes
Words: ~4,842
This is the level of model that we’re taking as the purest and deepest type of love is the love of a mother for a child. This is the first of the sevenfold cause and effect instructions. Recognizing all mother all sentient beings as one’s mother, remembering their kindness, developing a wish to repay their kindness, developing affectionate love, great compassion, developing exceptional resolve. These are the six causes which lead to the seventh effect, awakening heart or bodhicitta. bodhicitta.
So on the basis of equanimity, of an equal regard for all sentient beings, now we’re going to not leave it at that, we’re going to begin to relate with others and use it as a model for the relationship that we want to develop, a model of the love of a mother and child. We want to begin to see the literal fact that all sentient beings have been our mother at some time or other. It’s not symbolic, it’s quite literal. In order to do that, obviously, we have to have a conviction in past lives. In this life, you had one mother.
To see all sentient beings as having literally been your mother in past lives, we have to begin to have a strong conviction in existence of past lives. So we have to go through I’m going to give a talk, I think, in August on rebirth. So I’m going to go into it a little in little more detail. But I’m going to go through it to get to give the possibility, just to give a feel, to open up the mind, some type of reasoning. And we can establish rebirth by recall, either spontaneous recall, deliberately training in some type of recall, perhaps hypnotic regression, there we can have someone else who recalls past lives, remembering us from a past life, or we can establish rebirth from the point of view of simple reasoning, logic of rebirth.
In developing the reasoning behind rebirth, we have to have some background information, sometimes a little bit of a few logical tools to work with. Two concepts. One is the concept of substantial cause and cooperative cause. That’s one concept. And a cause, that which creates, there are two types of causes.
I’ll explain what they are. Cooperative cause or cooperative condition. I’ll call it cooperative condition and substantial cause. And we’re going to work with this. The other concept is similarity of type.
Let’s take an example. A take an example of a clay pot. It has two causes, two basic causes. One is the substantial cause. That is the lump of clay.
The potter takes the clay, throws it on the wheel. This lump of clay is the substantial cause of the pot. But also, there’s another cause, the potter who forms the pot, the tools that he uses, the wheel, these also create the pot. They’re also causes of the pot. But there’s a difference, isn’t there, between these two types of causes?
In the substantial cause, the clay is actually itself being transformed. Its shape, you know, it’s becoming part of the product. It’s becoming part of the effect. It’s being transformed into something else. In the case of the potter and his wheel and his tools, they cause the pot, they cooperate in the production of the pot, but they don’t become part of the pot.
They aren’t transformed. You know, at the end of the day, the potter takes off his apron, turns off the light, goes home, he’s got all his pot sitting there. And his wheel is still sitting there pretty much as it was when he began the day. So there’s been no transformation of the substance of the potter or his wheel. So there’s these two types of distinctive causes.
One is the substantial cause, the lump of clay, and the other is the cooperative condition, or I’ll say cooperative cause. Cooperative condition, the potter and his various tools that he used. So all products, everything that is a result, table, paper, you, me, this building, the world, all products have these two types of causes, cooperative conditions and substantial causes. Another example, if you plant a flower seed, you can have a seed. Think they have found seeds of wheat in the Egyptian pyramids.
They’ve probably been in there for five thousand years. They take these seeds and put them in earth and add a little bit of water, and they’ve actually sprouted wheat from these seeds. But these seeds, they lay dormant for five thousand years. Now the seed is the substantial cause. It’s what is actually going to be transformed into the sprout.
Without the cooperative condition, no effect is going to arise. You have to have both the cooperative condition and the substantial cause. In the case of this seed, if it’s not placed in the earth, no matter how long it sits there, it’s never going to sprout, it’s never going to produce an effect. Once its cooperative condition is present, like the water, the earth, sunlight, warmth, then the effect comes about quite naturally. We can see how these two work together, but we must have both.
No matter how much nice soil you have, no matter how much water, warmth, sun, if there’s no seed, you’re never going to get a flower, you’re never going to get any wheat. We have to have a couple of cooperative cause, substantial cause. Okay, so that’s the idea, that’s one tool we’re going to work with, substantial cause and cooperative condition. The other idea is similarity of type. Within nature, we can look around this, there is always a similarity of type between a cause and effect, similarity of type.
For example, if you plant a sunflower seed, you get a sunflower. You don’t get an apple tree. No, you don’t get a rose. You get an effect which is similar in type to your cause, that is, sunflower seed. Ice comes from water, it doesn’t come from wood.
So there’s always some relationship between cause and effect, some similarity of type. This is another tool that we have to use to bring to this discussion of rebirth. So it’s the it’s the it’s the view of the material of the materialist that the mind consciousness arises from the body or more particularly from the from the brain, the nervous system. Therefore, when the body dies, the mind ceases, the consciousness ceases because the mind is continually arising from the brain, for example, the nervous system. The body simply returns to its natural elements, know, or whatever.
And the mind consciousness more or less disappears like a rainbow, you know, like it just fades away. Therefore there’s no future life. That’s rather the materialist point of view. We’re going to analyze this point of view. I hope I’m not losing anybody.
It’s getting too complicated. Within a recent modern physics, they’ve come up with one hypothesis, is the conservation of mass-energy. Conservation of mass-energy. All this means more or less is that the sum total of energy and mass in the universe is constant. This is equation energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.
Anyway, that’s not important. Energy and mass are interchangeable. Matter and energy are interchangeable, and their sum total is constant. It never increases or decreases in the entire universe. The universe is not losing mass, it’s not gaining mass or energy.
These are interchangeable mass and energy. When I say mass, you can also think energy. Know, matter. We can just say matter. When I say matter, mean both mass and energy, since they’re interchangeable.
The sum total of matter in the universe is neither decreasing or increasing. So this is one another piece of information we’re going to work with. So all the infinite varieties of material objects in the world are simply transformations of previous material. This table maybe fifteen years ago was growing in a forest, and someone cut it down and they made a table out of it. Pretty soon they, I don’t know how long will Buddha House last.
Twenty five years, it will maybe be thrown out in a rot and become fertilized. Maybe some plant will absorb the nutrition from this table. All the material elements within the Western science, perhaps one hundred and I don’t know anymore, one hundred and nine different elements, it’s like recycling. All the various material in the world is simply being recycled, transformed. One thing is made or grows, it rots and decays and disintegrates, however, and becomes something else, and that becomes part of something else.
There’s always this continuum of this transforming of materials into something else constantly. It’s just a recombining, recombination of the various elements, various material elements. Through all of this, can see that physical We talk about physical and non physical. That physical things do not arise from space, they do not arise from non physical things. For example, you know, whatever we mean by non physical.
That they’re always arising from something which is similar and tight to themselves. In the broadest sense, something which is physical itself. Physical things matter, however it’s combined, always arises from some other matter. It doesn’t arise from non matter, something non physical. Likewise, now we talk about what is the nature of mind.
Within Now, how do we experience the mind? Do we experience this as matter or non matter? Is love matter? Is it, for example, an electron whirling around? Is in my consciousness?
Is it really some atom? I don’t know. It’s traditionally defined as that which is clear and knowing. The nature of mind is clear and knowing. This word clear can mean for simply non physical, non material.
The mind is non material and has the quality of knowing. It can know objects. This is what we mean when we say the nature of mind, that which is non physical and knowing. We’re beginning to ask the question. Now we’re going to start analyzing and we’re going ask the question.
If in fact the sum total of matter and the energy is constant and if the mind is non physical, then if the mind were to rise from matter, from the brain, then there would be two contradictions perhaps. One, that there would be a dissimilarity in type, that something which is non physical is arising from something physical. Also, there would be a decrease in the amount of matter in the universe because matter would be going becoming non matter, in the sense that it would be becoming mind, which is not physical. So there there are these two possibilities of, you know, contradictions. That there would be a decrease in the amount of matter in the universe, that matter would be going out of existence whenever mind arose because mind is non matter, and also mind would be arising from a cause which was dissimilar in type to itself.
In the case of matter, you know, where did the first atom come from? You know, scientists are always talking about where the universe began. They talk about the Big Bang. They even have a time. They can tell you when.
One thing they never talk about is where the first atom came from. Did it come from nothing? Did all of one atom popped up in the universe? Actually, was I don’t remember his name, wish I had remembered. There was a man, a physicist, an English physicist who was interviewed on television a couple months ago, a theoretic physicist, and he came up with the idea that the universe was beginningless and never had a beginning, which of course is what Buddhism has been saying for twenty five hundred years.
That in fact, there is no first atom, there is no beginning to the material world. Every material phenomena, every material object always had to come from something which was material as its cause. There was always some cause which was material preceding it. And so you can never find the first atom, the first material object, no matter how far back you go. Likewise, with mind, the quality of knowing, a clear clearness in knowing arises from a previous moment of mind.
We will go into that. If we look at the nature of our mind, Just non physical and knowing quality of our mind, you know, our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, states of consciousness. They’re experienced as non-physical. Even now we can remember states of mind that we had when we were in our childhood, emotions that we experienced. And we can, you know, we can go back.
You know, for example, perhaps you had a you know, something happened to you at work today. Maybe something good, something bad. But anyway, it’s still with you. You know, you can trace back. You you came in this door about an hour and fifteen minutes ago in a certain state of mind, and that state of mind is carried over to a present state of mind perhaps.
Maybe some anger is still carried over. One moment of anger gave rise to the next moment of anger, and so there’s still a lingering effect of the various states of mind. And we can trace back maybe something happened to you yesterday, and We can go back all the way to our childhood, certain events that happened, certain emotional experiences, and these have affected you down to the present day. There’s a continuum of one mind moment giving rise to another mind moment, emotional states giving rise to a succeeding emotional state. There’s this long stream of mind giving rise to mind in a steady pattern.
Where did the first mind moment come from? If we say the brain, maybe it’s organic molecules. Mind comes from some kind of molecule. That is something which is not knowing and which is physical. So something which is knowing and non physical is arising from something which is not knowing and physical.
The mind doesn’t arise from nowhere. It doesn’t arise out of, for example, space. So it has to have some substantial You know, we talked about substantial cause. It has to have both the substantial cause and cooperative condition or cooperative cause. So the only thing which can act as a substantial cause of mind is a preceding moment of mind.
And just as the only thing which can act as the substantial cause to this clay pot is a lump of clay, The only thing which can act as a substantial cause to a wheat sprout is a wheat seed. Nothing else. No matter what conditions you may have, it’s necessary to have this substantial cause. No matter what cooperative conditions, no matter how many potters, how many wheels, if you don’t have the clay, you can’t make a pot. No matter how much dirt, how much water you have, if you don’t have the seed of a sprout, a wheat sprout, you can’t grow a wheat sprout.
So it’s necessary to have the substantial cause. And the substantial cause must be similar in type to the effect which arises. So the mind, the effect which is arising is clear and knowing. So the substantial cause is similar in type, which must be clear and knowing. And nothing but the substantial cause.
Without this substantial cause, then it’s never going to arise. So each moment of mind requires a previous moment of mind to give rise to it, to act as its cause. So we go back and back and back, you know, the various you know, we have this present mind moment, this present state of mind. We could trace that back moment by moment if we were mindful enough, had a good enough memory to when you walked in the door, to when you got out of your car, to when you left your work, your home, to when you woke up this morning. The various continuing mind moments, continuing consciousness, one moment rising after the next, rising after the next, each conditioning the next moment.
Even from childhood, various experiences conditioning which who you are now. Remember I said we each have our past histories? This is the conditioning who you are now, the various states of mind that arose when you were a child. You go back, back, back, back to a baby, to the moment of conception. You know, the sperm and the ovum.
The sperm and the egg when they unite. Now, there’s a mind there. From where did that mind come from? That’s the question. The whole the whole point, the whole question of rebirth comes down to that one point.
When there’s a union of the sperm and egg, the very first moment of mind, does it arise from the molecules or does it arise from another cause? If it arose from molecules, then it’s the idea that it would be a decrease, maybe a violation of the conservation of mass, maybe a decrease of matter in the universe. Something which was physical would become non physical, and it would be arising from a cause which is dissimilar in type to itself. That mind moment, the very first mind moment of this life, of the moment of conception, arose from a previous mind moment. That mind moment is the last mind moment of the previous life.
And in that life, again, each moment of mind tracing back from that last moment of the life, of that previous life, arose from another mind moments, another mind moments. Each mind state arising, giving rise to the next mind moments, giving rise. It’s like a long stream. And we can never point to any one moment and say, this is the first moment of mind. Just as we cannot say, point to any one moment of physical matter and say, is when matter first began in the universe, the first atom.
We can never find we can never logically find that point because matter always must be arising from matter, and mind likewise must be arising from a previous moment of mind. Logically, we can never point to that first moment. Logically, the mind, the continuum of mind is beginningless. The continuum of matter in the universe is beginningless. The universe is beginningless.
There wasn’t You know, we can’t even say there was space because there’s no such thing as space without matter. It doesn’t make any sense. Space is merely the obstruction, the non-obstruction, intangibility. And if there’s no tangible, it makes no sense to talk about intangibility. There’s no obstructions, there’s no sense.
There cannot be space, which is the absence of obstruction. Simply was no beginning. So there’s no question about the mind being dependent upon the body. The mind is dependent upon the body as a cooperative condition. You know, when you get sick, you can’t think clearly.
Your mind doesn’t function properly as when your body is well, does it? So there’s a definite relationship between the mind and body. The mind depends upon the body, the body depends upon the mind. But it’s a relationship not of substantial cause, but of cooperative conditions. Just like the potter shaping, conditioning the pot, this piece of clay.
Likewise, the body conditions, helps shape the mind. Due to past actions, due to karma, the mind has been associated with a particular set of parents. It unites with a particular union of egg and sperm. Through this force of karma, there establishes a link with the association between this union of egg and sperm. The egg and sperm, the substantial cause of the egg and sperm, this union which will eventually become the body, is the substantial cause of the parents, isn’t it?
So the substantial cause of our body comes from our parents. We’re not bringing that into question. Due to the action of karma, the mind becomes associated with a particular body. When the force of this karma ceases, weakens, then there’s a diminishing of the bond, the link between the mind and body. The body simply disintegrates, returns to its various elements, and the mind will continue on and become re associated with another body.
Actually, it’s always associated with a certain subtle energy, which acts as its vehicle. So there’s this connection, there’s this continuum connection between the mind and body. But this body is going to die, decay, and then the mind, when the link is broken, it’s going to become re associated. This re association of the mind with another union of sperm and egg is simply what we mean by rebirth. This process has been going on since the beginning of this time.
In Western science, talk about a hundred, I think a hundred and nine perhaps, elements. In Buddhism, talk about, as far as material elements, there are four. Are earth, water, fire, and air. Actually, are six elements which make up completely the universe. Earth, water, fire, air, consciousness, and space.
By elements, it’s not quite in the sense that we conceive of it in Western science. There are more factors or qualities than actual particles. We talk about, for example, the earth element is the factor of hardness. The water element is a factor of cohesiveness. The fire element is the factor of heat, and the air or way of putting wind, sometimes it’s called energy, is the factor of motility, movement.
Each of these, in turn, must come from a continuum of its own similar type. All of the material universe is simply made up of a combination of these four qualities. But each of these must arise in respect to their own continuum. Fire element comes from a fire element. The heat factor arises from a previous heat factor.
Hardness factor arises from a previous hardness factor. So it’s simply the material universe is again, simply a recombination of these four basic material elements. The conscious element has a separate continuum. Space element again has its own separate continuum. They’re working together, but each of them have their own substantial stream, their own substantial cause.
From beginningless time without beginning. The concept we can never point to are one, the first moment of consciousness. Throughout these infinite re-associations of mind with bodies, we have taken rebirth an infinite number of places, in an infinite number of situations throughout the universe. There’s not one person who we can point to and say, This person has not been my mother. There’s not one insect, one animal, and say, This person has not been my mother.
For in fact, over an infinite number of rebirths, having having an infinite number of parents, all sentient beings have been literally our mother. Our mother just like our mother of this life, no different. Born from her womb, no different. In fact, I think I’ll leave it there. That’s a little bit of the reasoning.
Maybe you haven’t heard it before, maybe it’s quite new. In Buddhist logic, are many reasonings set forth which try to establish rebirth. Some of them I don’t think have any effect on a Western mind particularly, even though from within their context they’re quite logical, quite reasonable. That’s strange. I mean, yeah.
But I think the things that I brought up, there’s a few valid points which you have to consider, which should cause some questioning to arise in your mind. Where did the first atom come from? That’s a basic question which no one has ever addressed. I think there’s some real area for inquiry, for analysis, then maybe there is this possibility of rebirth even presented from a logical standpoint, let alone from the point of view of people recalling it, know, reporting it, you know, is like in hypnotic regression or like Edgar Cayce. Know, various people have actually remembered, but it’s difficult to take their word on it, isn’t Maybe they’re lying.
Maybe they’re deluded, you know? But at least I think I have brought up some plausible, something to question, something to work with that we can think about. It said that it’s very necessary to come to an understanding of the nature of mind. The nature of mind will and that understanding will convince you of the existence of past lives. So I talked a little bit about it.
So let’s We meditate on loving kindness. Would you like to stand up for a minute? No? Okay. I should have had a break.
So just for the moment, get in touch with some of your feelings of dissatisfaction, problems that you have, difficulties, and the fact that you want to be happy. Whatever you may have done in the past, whatever mistakes you may have created, can simply regret them, determine not to repeat them again in the future as best you can, and begin again. You don’t have to carry it with you. However you may conceive of yourself, whatever identity you may hold to, you can change, You can become anything that you want to be. You can begin again.
Just for the moment, I want to make friends with ourselves, All the various parts of ourselves, even the parts that we don’t particularly like, they’re worthy of our compassion. Be gentle with yourself and wish yourself well. Wish yourself some happiness. You’re worthy of being happy. May I be happy.
May I not suffer? Now think of someone that you like, that you love. Imagine that person in front of you, someone of the same sex. Remember all the good times that you’ve shared, all the happiness that this person has shown you, the kindness. Just simply begin to radiate out, you know, this natural feelings of caring which arise, wanting them to be happy, and wishing them not to suffer.
Just radiate, direct the feelings towards them consciously. Now think of someone that you neither like nor dislike, that you feel indifferent toward. Imagine that person in front of you. We want to try to go beneath superficial appearances that we usually relate to, that we usually judge people by. You know, whether they’re male or female, black or white, rich or poor, ugly or beautiful, educated, uneducated.
Go beneath all that. Try to see the essence of that person. There’s someone there who wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like yourself. And just as we wish our own self happiness, we have to begin to find some space to wish this person happiness. It’s very much a reflection about how we feel about ourselves deep down, how we relate to that essential person.
To wish them happiness, to have good feelings towards them. Now think of someone that disturbs your mind, you have some kind of problem with, that you don’t like. Imagine that person in front of you. This person wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like yourself. Perhaps their method of finding their happiness, eliminating their suffering, conflict with your method, finding your happiness, eliminating your own suffering, It’s just a conflict of egos, of self interest.
You’ve hurt others either intentionally or unintentionally in the past to gain the happiness that you were looking for, and this person’s done the same to you. And just as we have to forgive ourselves for the the mistakes that we’ve made, we have to begin to forgive this person for their mistakes. They’re just for the moment set aside your your grudge, your anger, your hurt. See someone just like yourself, trying the best they can to get some happiness out of life, Being confused about how to go about it and making many mistakes along the way. And wish them happiness just as you would yourself.
Radiate out some good feelings towards them. Imagine all four of these people together, yourself and these three others. Try to see them from the point of view that they’re equal and wanting happiness, Not wanting to suffer, there’s no difference. Without any feelings of bias, wish them all well, wish them all happiness. Radiate out good feelings to all four equally.
All the people in this room wish them success. Everyone’s searching for some happiness and some way to grow, some peace. Wish them all success. Wish them well, happiness, and hope that they find what they’re looking for. And all the people on the block watching television, eating supper, cooking, sleeping, They’re all trying to find happiness.
So simply radiate out this wish, touching everyone on the block, wishing them that they find this happiness that they’re all looking for. And all the people in Adelaide, people in the streets, and cars, and buses, and homes. And spreading out, opening your heart. Letting go spreading out to all of South Australia, all the animals, insects, people. Further and further.
Just extending out without any feelings of limitation. Alice Springs, Perth, Darwin, Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, the entire country.