Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute commentary, Ven Jampa Gendun opens with a detailed account of the death process — the sequential dissolution of earth, water, fire, and wind elements, the meeting of the white and red drops at the heart, and the dawning of the clear light of death — contrasting a trained yogi’s clear, unfrightened awareness at each stage with the ordinary person’s confusion and fear. He then builds a philosophical case for rebirth using two key concepts: substantial cause versus cooperative cause, illustrated with a clay pot and a flower seed. Applying the law of conservation of mass and energy, he argues that non-physical mind cannot arise from physical matter; the brain is a cooperative cause, like a television that transmits but does not originate its signal.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 3 PA 1990 05 25.mp3
UUID: ea74017e-ee4d-4438-acbd-ea42bfc09d4f
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1990-05-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.9 minutes
Words: ~5,768
Then the water element sinks into the fire element, and a vision of swirling smoke appears. So the the yogi is watching him. He knows he knows exactly what’s coming up next and next and next. For us, ordinary ordinary person, it’s a very confused and frightening process. As this happens, we may feel we are drowning or being carried away by violent currents of water.
Next, the fire element dissolves, and our body gradually grows colder. You perceive a vision like the sparks dancing over an open fire at night. During this process, sometimes people cry out thinking that their body is being consumed by flames. Finally, the wind or the air element dissolves. Our breathing grows shallow, and we may feel that we are blowing about like a leaf in the wind.
Along with this experience comes the vision of a dying flame in a darkened room. As is the case when a candle is about to go out, the flame suddenly grows brighter as if exploding in a final burst of energy. Our breathing, which has been becoming more and more difficult, now comes to a complete halt. To the outside world, we now seem to be dead, and this is often the signal for those gathered around us to burst into tears, but we are not dead yet. So so the four gross elements and the conceptual minds associated with them have ceased to function, but there remains the subtle level of consciousness still to be absorbed.
This happens as the subtle white drops received from our father at conception located during our life at the crown of our head, and the red drop received from our mother and located at our navel, they begin to come toward each other and eventually meet at our heart. As the white drop descends, we perceive a vision of empty space pervaded by whiteness. And as the red drop arises, we perceive a similar vision of empty space, this time pervaded by redness. Finally, the two drops meet forming a sphere, enclosing our very very subtle fundamental consciousness and its associated wind at our heart. And we experience the blackness of completely darkened room.
This darkness becomes blacker and blacker until we eventually fall into total unconsciousness, but still we are not dead. Within this sphere at our heart center resides our very subtle consciousness and its associated subtle energy winds. After some time, which can be as long as three days even for an untrained person, For for example, some people remain in this in this state, as will be explained, which can last as long as three days even for an untrained person. This sphere opens and our mind is illuminated. The very subtle mind awakens and nothing appears to it but a vision of empty space, clear and luminous.
This clear light consciousness is the last and most subtle of all the states of mind experienced during this lifetime. And this is a trained practitioner. The yogi seeks to stay remain in this state for as long as possible. He uses this moment to realize emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality. It is said that the late tutor to his holiness, the Dalai Lama, remained in the state for thirteen days, and there have been many great practitioners who have remained in the state for long periods of time sitting in meditation.
This is one of the signs of a great practitioner, the duration they’re able to stay in this state. For an ordinary person, all these absorptions from the appearance of the mirage like vision to the dawning of the clear light are uncontrolled. They happen one after the other, but we are barely conscious of them. Our mind is too confused and distracted. But those who have trained themselves well before beforehand maintain clear awareness awareness of everything that is happening during this process.
They know which vision will come next and understand that this that everything they are perceiving is merely an appearance to their dying mind, empty of all independent self existence as something truly out there. Because of this understanding, they are not frightened by what they see. Instead, as their mind grows more and more subtle, their awareness of emptiness of true existence becomes more and more penetrating. Finally, with the rise of the clear light, this very subtle mind mixes indistinguishably with emptiness in experience of inexpressible bliss. For such a person, death has become the precious opportunity for perfecting the wisdom of nonduality.
By means of this clear and unobstructed wisdom, the trained practitioner has transformed the ordinary death process into the enlightened dharmakaya experience. So, you know, whether or not the dying person has made use of this opportunity of the clear light of death in the case of a yogi or it passes without awareness in the case of a confused state within the confused state of a ordinary person and the average person. The moment of clear light is the moment of death. When the clear light dawns, this is the moment of death. This is when the the this combination of subtlemost energy and mind has severed its connection with the coarser body.
The severance of this link between the very subtle mind mind energy and the coarser and subtle elements of the body. And this the next moment is the beginning of rebirth. And I wanted to talk a little bit about rebirth, hopefully. You know, I don’t think I I I can I don’t think I can prove its existence to anyone? But I think I can perhaps, you know, hopefully, we can stimulate some kind of inquiry, some kind of kind of thinking about it, some kind of openness of its possibility for its existence.
You know, we should try to come to an understanding of the existence of future life. You know, try to understand whether it exists or not because it does make a difference. It is important to know. It has a bearing on the way we live our life, if in fact future lives do exist. You know, the problem that that the vast majority of people have who reject the notion of future life is that they never really considered it even superficially.
And the same can be said for those who accept future life. They the vast majority of them too have never really looked into it except perhaps superficially. You know, rather, Having never really considered deeply whether future lives exist or not, then whatever conclusion either of these two people types of people may come to has very little impact on their life. You know, they’re they’re either unthinkingly biased in the direction of of a mechanistic science and mechanistic interpretation of life, or they simply have a great wish that that it exists.
You know, they they’re out of their desire for continuity that in the face of death are the prospects of more life. You know, they just wish it to have wish it it did exist. They perhaps have not reason through it. So either way, whether we most of us, whether we have a notion of the existence or the nonexistence of future life, it’s probably based upon very little critical examination of evidence either way. And therefore, either conclusion doesn’t have much effect on our life, on our practice, and on our behavior.
So, you know, we can come to some a question of establishing rebirth. And by rebirth, I mean, you know, I use the word rebirth, but generally, we can use the word reincarnation. It can be approached in many different ways, several different ways. Oneself recollecting one’s own past life by spontaneously recalling it, by training oneself to recalling to recall it. We can can be recalled through hypnotic regression.
Other people can tell you about what you did in your past life. Or we can use some kind of logical reasoning. So I like to go into some of the rationale behind rebirth and perhaps some of the logical reasoning which might support the notion of the existence of future lives and past lives. If if we do this, at least we can eliminate some of the gross misconceptions about what Buddhism means by reincarnation, what Buddhism Buddhism means by rebirth. And it if we can show it, it has some logical foundation.
So first, it’s necessary that that we have to introduce two concepts, which we’re going to make you use of later. And these two concepts are two different types of causes, namely substantial cause and cooperative cause. Substantial cause and cooperative cause. That’s one that’s one type of concept that we’re going to use. And the other is the concept of similarity of type similarity of type.
So, firstly, the what do we mean by these two types of causes? Cooperative, substantial cause, and cooperative cause. And I’ll use a very simple example to illustrate these two different types of causes in the case of a clay pot. The substantial cause of the clay pot is is a wet lump of clay or mud. That is substantial cause.
The it’s what the the pot is made from. You know, the substance of the of this lump of clay is itself transformed into the pot. It’s incorporated into the pot. It go the lump of clay no longer exists after you’ve made the pot. It becomes the pot.
It’s transformed. On the other hand, the cooperative cause of this clay pot is the potter and its various tools, you know, the wheel and the various implements that he uses to shape producing a pot. They too are a cause, but they are a cooperative cause. They are not incorporated into the pot. The potter is not transformed by making this pot.
You know, after he’s made his pot, he takes off his apron. He goes home. His tools are pretty much in the same condition that he before he made the pot. They cooperate in the production of the pot. They are not transformed in any way.
They do not become part of the pot, but they are causes of the pot. So we have substantial cause and cooperative cause. All products, anything which arises from causes and conditions, tables, people, pencils, paper, whatever, everything must have both a substantial cause and a cooperative cause for it to come into existence. If one of those two is missing, it will not come into existence. All products.
So, you know, take another example, a flower. So the substantial cause of the flower is a flower seed. The seed is subs while the the soil, the water, fertilizer, like sun, warmth are the cooperative causes. The seed supplies the blueprint for growth whereas the soil, the water supply material for the growth. So we need the blueprint and that which is going to construct out of this blueprint.
That which cooperates in the growth. Without both these two types of causes, the flower would never grow. This is in the case that they have found, for example, wheat seed which had been stored in the Egyptian tombs for perhaps five thousand years. They take these seeds, they put them in earth, add water and these wheat seeds actually sprouted. The substantial cause was always there.
It was a potent seed and it remained there five thousand years without sprouting because there was not secondary cooperative causes. But once it came in contact with that cooperative cause, then the effect arose. The sprout arose. The wheat arose. We have to have both of these causes.
No matter how much earth and water you have, you’re not going to have sprouts unless you have a seed. No matter how many seeds you have, you’re not going to have a sprout unless you have the proper causes of earth and water. There’s two types of causes. That’s our first concept that we’re going to make use of in coming to an understanding of rebirth. The second concept is the similarity of type.
Similarity of type, similarity of Simply that within nature, there’s always a consistent similarity between cause and effect. That from orange seeds comes orang come orange trees. You don’t plant an orange seed into an apple tree. There’s always some kind of similarity of type of class between cause and effect. Ice comes arises from water.
It doesn’t arise from wood. There’s some kind of consistency, consistent type of relationship between cause and effect. So, anyways, the so we’ll we’ll take the scientific view. What we say the mechanistic scientific view is that the mind, the consciousness arises from the body or more specifically that the consciousness arises from the nervous system, from the brain. That when the body dies, the cause is for the mind to cease.
The the body decomposes and returns to, you know, the natural element. And the mind sort of fades away like a rainbow fading away. Something like that. And therefore, there’s there’s there’s no rebirth. There’s nothing to continue on.
There’s no future lives. So we’re gonna analyze this this mechanistic hypothesis. So, you know, there is what is called the law of conservation of mass and energy. The law of conservation of mass and energy. Mass and energy.
And this simply means that the mass and energy in the universe are constant. That this sum total of mass and energy is neither neither increasing nor just decreasing. That there’s no neither loss or gain of the sum total of mass and energy in the universe. It’s constant. It’s constant.
It’s conserved. You know, all of the infinite varieties varieties of physical objects in the universe are just various combinations of mass and energy, just transformations of various mass types of mass and energy. All the various by physical objects, I mean, objects which offer obstruction as opposed to say space, which is a nonphysical object. It doesn’t offer obstruction. Therefore, it’s a it’s a nonphysical object.
So both mass and energy are physical objects. So, you know, the the continual production of all the the various phenomenon in the universe, all the objects in the universe by simply recombinations of previous physical objects, just transformations of physical objects that existed before being transformed into new always a similarity in type between an effect, which is a physical object, and its cause. Its cause is always a physical object. There’s always a similarity in type between effect which is a physical object and its cause. Its cause must always be a physical object.
It can’t be a nonphysical object. For example, such as space. Physical objects do not arise out of space. Physical objects do not arise out of space nor do nor does space arise out of physical objects. They are dissimilar in type, space and and physical objects.
One is physical object, one is nonphysical object. They don’t arise one out of the other. If if in fact they did, then this would violate the law conservation of mass and energy. They would if a physical object somehow transformed into a space, a nonphysical object, there’d be a loss of mass and energy in the universe. Or if on the other hand, physical objects arose out of space, then there would be an increase in mass and energy in the universe.
The sum total of mass and energy in the universe. So Buddhist cosmology, you know, the area of which studies the makeup of the universe says states that there are six primary principles or elements. And we’ve talked about the first four, earth, fire, water, air. Earth, fire, water, air. Plus space and consciousness.
Everything in the universe is a combination of these six principles, these six elements, whether it’s animate or inanimate, a combination of those. None of these elements arise at one from out of the other. Each have a a separate continuum, and it’s the association of these continuum in different proportions, varying proportions, constitutes the universe, all the various objects in the universe. Now we talk about the nature of mind. The nature of mind is clear and knowing.
This is the primary characteristic of mind. And by clear here, it means nonphysical, nonobstructive. So like the various emotions, feelings, cognitive states, consciousness are all non physical. That is, they don’t obstruct. They’re very much like space.
They aren’t space. They’re like space in being non physical. The question of rebirth comes down to this point. From where do the cognitive events, let us say mind, consciousness, from where does consciousness arise? Is mass energy the stuff out of which mind is made?
Is mind coming from mass energy or does it originate from some other type of phenomena? So, you know, if we examine this this question, this hypothesis that mind comes from mass energy, and this is what would be accepted by the average scientist today. That mind arises from mass energy like the brain. It’s a combination of mass energy, nervous system. So according to the principle of conservation of mass energy, if any new physical entity, for example heat from a fire, if it’s created, some form of mass energy must be used up in the process.
It’s simply a transformation of mass and energy into some new other state. You know, the heat may have originated from some stored energy like in wood and this is released by the process of combustion. I quote here. It therefore follows that if some physical entity, say a component of the brain, is to be identified as the origin of awareness. If we identify something in the brain which is producing consciousness, that physical entity must be used up in the process of producing awareness.
Awareness. There must be a lessening of that organ, that part of the brain. Since it’s acting to produce something other than itself, it’s being transformed. It’s producing a result. So the physical component would be transformed into a cognitive phenomenon, into consciousness.
Just as the energy in the wood is transformed into heat. Now the difference between these two is that the production of awareness is that the physical component would be transformed into a non physical component. The brain, matter, cells, organic material is being transformed which is physical, is being transformed into something which non physical. Cognitive states, consciousness. Now, physics has discovered a vast body of evidence to support the principle that physical phenomena are conserved through all known transformations.
They are conserved means for the physicists that they retain their physical status as forms of mass and energy. And this is to say that mass and energy only transforms transforms into another form of mass and energy. They are never lost. Thus, the hypothesis that any physical component or 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 the brain certainly influence cognitive phenomena but the former cannot be the source of them, source of the latter.
So the, you know, the mind does not, you know, additionally, the mind does not arise out of nowhere. Know, there’s nothing within the whole range of nature. There’s no entity which arises simply out of nothing. Wherever we look, everything arises out of something else. Nothing arises out of nothing.
So it must have a and as we said, every product must have a substantial cause. And that substantial cause must be a similar type to it’s self. So we’re making use of these two concepts that we talked about previously. And this substantial cause which must be similar in type to itself is nothing other than a preceding moment of consciousness. Mental states arise out of previous mental states.
Just as physical objects must have, as they’re caused, other physical objects. Physical objects arise out of physical objects. Mental states arise out of previous mental states. There is no first atom of the universe. The first there’s no first moment of matter.
There must always be a preceding moment of matter. Likewise, there is no first moment of mind. There must be always a preceding moment of mind giving rise to each moment, similar type. And these two are not convertible, mind and matter. They cannot be transformed one into another.
And just as there is conservation of mass and energy, there’s also conservation of mind, that mind is neither newly created nor destroyed. So the the aspects of mind, you know, they may change dramatically, but mind is essentially conserved. Our physical events modify a condition, our our minds, our cognitive processes without transforming them into something other than that. Mind present at the first moment of conception must have a cause. There’s no result without a cause.
It must have a substantial cause. In fact, substantial cause must be similar in type to mind. Therefore, the substantial cause, the cause of the first moment of mind at the moment of conception in this life is the last moment of consciousness of the previous life. Now each moment of the mind of an individual has a preceding moment of mind. When it rises in the dependence upon a preceding moment of mind, and that same continuum.
You know, you cannot pause it a first moment of mind just as we can’t posit a first moment of matter. We think the mind that I have presently at this very moment arose in dependence upon the mind which I had when I walked into this room. There’s some kind of continuity involved. If when I as I was driving over here, somebody pulled in front of me and I got upset, maybe I’m still a little bit upset. There’s a continuity carrying over of states from one moment of mind to the next moment of mind to the next moment of mind.
Just in the same way that, there can be a continuity of flame. One flame giving rise to the next flame, giving rise to the next flame. Each being impermanent, each arising, changing, but giving rise to a similar type to itself continually in unbroken stream. This is in the case a wave moving across the surface of an ocean. You know, every moment, not every moment.
Say, over depending upon the speed of the wave, maybe every every minute, thirty seconds, every drop of that water every drop of water in a particular wave has changed, but the form of the wave is maintained across the surface of the water. It looks as if the wave itself is moving across the water, but that’s not quite true, is it? There’s some kind of force which is moving, and the water is constantly changing, rising up into the wave and flowing out, rising up. So it’s a constant change, but the the continuity of form, of type moving through time. Likewise, this morning’s mind arose from yesterday’s mind, dependent upon that mind, dependent upon last year’s mind, dependent upon the mind when I was a child.
If some significant event happened when you were a child, which it did, then it affects your present thinking, your emotional state. It hasn’t been lost. It’s not there’s been a carry on. So we can trace back, back, back, back to the very first moment consciousness in this life, the very moment of conception. And that mind also arose in dependence upon a previous mind.
And the first moment of mind in this life arose in dependence upon the last moment of mind of of previous life. Where would it come from? Where would that first moment of consciousness come from? This is where the the crux of rebirth come arises. Where does the first moment of consciousness arise?
Does it arise from a cause which is of a different type? That is to say, there’s mind which is which is, essentially nonphysical that has arise from a physical cause, a dissimilar type of cause? Does it arise from nothing? If it arose from a dissimilar type of cause, mass and energy, physical, then there would be a loss of mass and energy in the universe. Something physical would become nonphysical.
Mass and energy would be lost. Can it arise from nothing? And if we if we say it can’t arise from either of these two, it cannot arise out of the out of mass and energy, it cannot rise out of nothing, Then if it has to rise from something with a similar type, then it has to can only arise out of previous moment of mind. You know, we can’t even you know, we can’t say that we can’t pause it at first moment of matter. Matter too is arising out of previous moment of matter.
You know, where could it come from? Could it come from space? You know, you can’t even posit space in the first moment of and space is the absence of obstructability. If there’s nothing which obstructs, then there’s no space. There’s no absence of obstructability.
Without matter, there’s no space. And without mind, you know, due to the participatory nature of the universe, without subject, there are no objects. And so all of these elements, mass, energy, space, consciousness have always existed without beginning. We cannot find the first moment of any of them. There’s no point in time which we can point to and say this is when the first moment of mind began, of my continuum or your continuum, your conscious continuum.
Mind always had to have a substantial cause similar in type to itself. And the only thing which can serve as a substantial cause similar in type to itself is a previous moment of mind. So dependent upon the body. Let’s see. Maybe I’ll just tired?
Try to finish this off quickly. It’s getting away from me. The mind is so obviously, the body affects the mind and the mind affects the body. The mind is dependent upon the body. We’ve already made that clear when we talked about the death process.
The body, you know, for example, when we can’t, when we are sick, when we’re, when we’re ill, we can’t think clearly. The body affects the mind. The body and the mind are the cooperative causes of consciousness of the mind. They condition the mind. They influence the mind.
The various states, the quality of our mind. And in the same way that the the potter influence shapes a pot, the body, the brain shape the mind, cooperate, condition, the quality of the mind, the states of mind which arise. In the same way that the quality of the soil affects the type of flower, the quality of the flower which grows. The soil is a cooperative cause. It influences the growth of the flower.
What kind of flower? Not what kind, but the the structure whether it’s a healthy flower or unhealthy flower. And likewise, the mind is a cooperative cause of the body. This is obvious in the case of for example, psychosomatic illnesses, stress illnesses, ulcers, lots of mental stress, get an ulcer, asthma, things like that. So there’s there’s definitely there’s an interrelationship between body and mind.
There’s inter there they’re both cooperative causes for for one another, but they are not substantial causes for one another. The body and mind do not the body does not arise out of the mind and the mind does not arise out of the body. The body the substantial cause of body is the sperm and ovum contributed by the parents. Contributed by the parents. And one of the main arguments that mechanistic science would have in supporting that the mind arises from the brain, the body.
That the that the the brain is the substantial cause of mind. They would they would offer the observations. They would be on clinical experimental neurology. They would say that there is a connection between various conscious processes and physiological processes in the brain. For example, in a brain concussions, anesthesia, cutting off the supply of the brain, blood supply cutting off the blood supply to the brain will lead to loss of consciousness.
You know, a tumor in one part of the brain is associated with changes of consciousness that are quite specific and different from those accompanying tumors in another part of the brain. Even distortions of consciousness, of conscious processes can be corrected by neurosurgery, by drug therapy. Represents the main thrust of the argument of mechanistic science that the brain is the substantial cause of mind because if they probe, they stick a probe in this part of the brain, they can induce a specific state of mind. If there’s a tummo, if there’s a blow in the head here, they can predict what types of loss of impairment of consciousness are going to occur. So therefore, they’re saying that these areas are producing the consciousnesses.
If we, you know, try to refute this, you know, the logical inconsistency of what they’re saying. We use a simple example of a television set. So the quality of the picture and the sound is is critically dependent upon the structure and function, the integrity of the set. That is to say, we have to have all the if we have we have to have all the parts and each of all the parts have to be working properly if we’re going to have proper picture and sound. And if we have some kind of malfunction or destruction of any of the parts, then this is going to lead to a specific distortion of the program.
We’re going to have some it’s going to affect the sound or the picture in some way. So, you know, if a good television repair person came to diagnose you have some problem with your television, just by the nature of the distortion, they can correct it. Simply by repairing the hardware, replacing it, a transistor, replacing a circuit board. You know, he he sees, you know, the the the picture wobbly or something or the fuzzy sound. By the distortion, he’s, I know what’s wrong.
It’s about your somebody you know, your circuit is broken or something. Don’t know. Yeah. A broken wire. Anyway, in by distortion, he knows what is malfunctioning in the television set.
But he would never think that that television set is the source of those of that of those images and voices that is generating those voices, those images. You know, like a computer generated animation or computer generated voices. You know, have it has no relationship to human voice at all. It’s simply the ability of of computers to generate sounds which which sound they they they appear to be like a human voice. They sound like a human, but they’re purely the source of them is purely some mechanical apparatus, some computer animations that the the television repairman would not would never stop to think that this television is the source of the images and the voices.
You know, he would understand that this television is merely the the basis for transmission. That actual source is in a studio, you know, fifty kilometers away. That there is people standing in front of a television camera speaking and that they’re what is appearing on that picture and that sound is simply a transformation of something which is the source of that is taking place somewhere else altogether. That the sound that the television set is simply a basis of transmission. It is a cooperative cause.
It is not the substantial cause of the voices and images. The the television set must be working properly in order to serve as a basis for the transmission of these voices and images. You know, if you want to get a clear picture and clear sound. But mechanistic science would in in interpreting these what? These neurological findings, they would say they would be forced to conclude that the that the TB set itself is the source of these appearances of these voices.
It is generating them. And because if we if we manipulate the dials, we can distort these images. We can distort the sounds. And likewise, by probing in the brain, we can we can distort the consciousness, the awarenesses. So there’s a there’s a similarity, a parallel, but we can understand from the television set that the television is simply the basis, the cooperative cause.
If you impair the cooperative cause, you’re going to impair the the ultimate result, the picture, the sound. And you’re going to if you impair the cooperative cause of the brain, you’re going to impair the result, the types of state states of consciousness which arise. But in no way, tends to support that the brain is the source of the mind because in no way likewise, the television set itself is not the the source, the ultimate source of the images and the voices. It simply is a cooperative cause serving to bring about these results, basis of transmission. Well, there was more reason.
Can we hold on for five more One other type of reasoning. You know, talking about the that the human intelligence is a a product of material processes of the brain. And this and the brain itself evolved out of some kind of, chemical ooze in the primordial matter, primordial ocean. You know, there’s a it’s called the second law of thermodynamics which states that all systems tend toward randomness. They called entropy.
Systems tend toward the simplest states. The probability of human intelligence developing all the way from this chemical ooze in this primordial ocean to its present state solely through random mechanical processes has been compared to the probability of a tornado blow blowing through a junkyard and accidentally assembling a seven forty seven jet plane, something like that. This would be the same comparison. Just through random actions that we have achieved as human intelligence. The dawning of the clear light is the moment of death.
The first moment after the dawning of the clear light is the beginning of the rebirth process. The coarse body is left behind and the intermediate state begins. The intermediate state has a very subtle mental body which is made from energy alone and is unobstructed. The intermediate state body is able to pass through walls and things like this. It does not have a coarse body composed of gross elements.
The process of