Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Opening with a Chinese proverb — “If you don’t change your direction, you’ll end up where you’re headed” — Ven Jampa Gendun uses this 46-minute session to reorient practitioners before completing a multi-year study of Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path. He first introduces three stages of faith (clear, longing, and convincing) through a desert-thirst analogy, then recaps four philosophical schools’ progressively subtler views on emptiness: the Hearer stage’s four-point analysis of selfhood, the Mind Only school’s dissolution of external objects, the Autonomy Middle Way’s refutation of true existence, and the Consequentialist Middle Way’s conclusion that all phenomena are mere imputations of mind. The session then unpacks three Sanskrit synonyms for dependent arising and shows why, at this final level, emptiness and dependent arising are two sides of the same coin. Assumes prior familiarity with the series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 3 PA 1990 11 23.mp3
UUID: 2f6ebd7b-5e83-4615-bf98-150bc0e459b1
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1990-11-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.7 minutes
Words: ~5,497
So let’s begin with mindfulness in breathing. Adjust our motivation. Be prioritizing our values. Trying to clarify where it is we’re going, our direction. There’s a Chinese proverb.
If you don’t change your direction, you’re going to end up where you’re headed. So where is it that we’re headed? Where are you going? Where are you taking your mind? What type of future are you creating for yourself?
And in the context of the spiritual path or psychological growth, mental health, orientation, the direction that we’re seeking to continually reorient ourselves toward is the central focus. The inner focus of our life is Buddha. And that is to say, one’s own mental health, one’s own growth, one’s own wisdom, love and compassion and creative spiritual activity, environmental generosity. This becomes the inner goal of our life, to become a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. And we do this through the dharma.
Whatever raises the level of our consciousness, the dharma can be translated as the truth, means, the techniques, the methods. But generally, helps us to grow. And this occurs within the social context of a spiritual community. This is like the spiritual field, the conditions, creating the inner causes and providing the cooperative conditions of a spiritual community. And I said that this recommitting ourselves to this path, means of self development has as it’s motivating force two qualities.
They are faith and anxiety. And I spoke of faith in terms of reason faith and trusting faith. But another metaphor to exemplify faith of what is meant here is a situation where you may be out in the desert. You may be with the United States troops in Saudi Arabia and you’re extremely thirsty. And you you it becomes clear to you what you’re I mean, you feel pain, anxiety, you’re suffering.
And it becomes clear to you what your problem is. So it’s necessary to develop to clarify for yourself, what are my difficulties? And confront our problems. So out of this comes what is called clear faith. A clarification of what the difficulty is.
And then one begins to search around. And one hears in the distance some running water. And there develops a longing. Perhaps this is the solution to my problem. And one develops what is called longing faith.
There’s a hint that maybe this is going to satiate, quench your thirst. It’s going to help you to solve your problems. And then finally, you come to the stream and you drink it and your thirst is quenched. Your problem is solved. And out of this comes convincing faith through one’s own experience, one realizes the validity of the method to solve your problems.
So there are these three levels, this process of developing more and more deeper, more profound, stable types of faith. But first, confronting the issues of your life. Beginning to understand what your problems are. And then beginning to search for the possible solutions. And then possibly coming upon such a situation, such teaching, such methods that you can see though, at least intellectually, these may solve my problems.
And then actually drinking it, taking the medicine as it were, and then seeing within one’s own experience and becoming convinced this was or is not the actual method to solve my problems. Developing this convincing faith is going to help you to commit yourself to this inner path of growth, to the inner goal of your life being mental health, Into the focus of your life being the goal of Buddhahood. Commit yourself to the methods to achieve this end. And to commit yourself to this spiritual situation or social community in which this all takes place. And commit yourself to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
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 practicing giving in the other perfections 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. And the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving in the other perfections 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. And the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain the state of a Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings.
So we’re discussing the three principal aspects of the path. This is very short. Think it’s fourteen verses by the fourteenth century scholar Lama Je Tsongkhapa, whose anniversary is next month, think on the seventeenth. We’ve completed the discussion of the third of these three principal aspects of the path. The three principal aspects of the path: developing a determination to be free, opening our hearts to others, and seeing deeply in the nature of reality.
And we’ve completed the discussion of seeing deeply into the nature of reality. We went through, we moved through the four stages into a more subtle and more profound view of the nature of reality and Coming to see that nature. You know, at these four stages, the hearer stage, the mind only stage, the autonomy stage and the consequence stage. At the the hearer stage, accept the objective true existence of the world out there. People, things, cars, buildings, they exist very much the way they appear out there, truly exist in solid concrete.
We don’t even bring those into question. What we do bring into question is the nature of the self, that thing over here, nothing out there, this thing over here. We begin to question if it exists the way it appears. And we apply the technique of the four point analysis. And we by the application of this analytic technique we find that there’s nothing within the body mind complex which corresponds to the referent object of our conception of who we are.
You know this referent object, we have a conception of ourselves as being singular, unchanging and independently existing. We have this conception instinctively. We grasp towards such a type of self, very concrete, very solid type of self. Through the application of this analysis we come to see that there’s nothing within the complex of the body and the mind which has this quality. We this is deeply realized, the conception which grasp at the existence of such a type of self no longer is able to be supported.
The concept dissolves along with all the tension, the suffering which that concept induces into the emptiness of such a type of self. The cause is gone. The cause the cause of it, of all this tension, all this suffering was the a mental attachment to something which didn’t exist, something which wasn’t there. Having done this, we’ve eliminated a level of ignorance. But now we’ve got to go further.
Going to move up to the next stage. So at the the the hearer stage we take for granted a world out there, very solid and concrete. At the next stage, the mind only stage, we begin to call into question the nature of the world out there. The practitioner of the mind only stage begins to look at the five aggregates, The five aggregates, aggregate forms, feelings, perceptions, thought constructions and consciousnesses, which includes all phenomena, essentially, just a matter of categorization of all phenomena. The practitioner begins to look at these five aggregates in a much more precise manner, with more precision.
He begins to see that the division of awareness into an inner perceiving mind and an outer perceived object. It is a conception. It is simply a conceptual invention, a fabrication of mind. That is, external objects are fabrication of the mind. External objects are simply a hallucination of the mind.
This is one level that’s deeply into the nature of reality. This isn’t the final level. There is no difference in substance between the perceiving mind and the perceived object. They both arise simultaneously due to the activation of karmic seeds which have been implanted upon the mind basis of all. in dependence upon these karmic seeds, these latencies being activated, simultaneously arises the observing subject and the observed object.
They simultaneously arise together simultaneously. The subject and object arise. They’re not different substances nor does the object exist external to the mind just as in a dream object. All the various appearances which occur in the course of a dream are not external to the mind, though we can see them to be in the context of a dream. When, you know, all of these then we begin to get the sense of feeling that all of the various arising appearances are simply the play of the mind, like like waves upon the ocean arising and ceasing.
When we when this is deeply realized, the conception which grasp at the existence of external objects is no longer able to be supported. The conception dissolves along with the tension and the suffering which such a type of conception induces into the emptiness of external objects. The cause of it has is gone. The cause of it was some mental attachment to something which was not there. And another level of ignorance has been removed from the mind.
So at the moment we’re going to move to another level. This is just extremely quick review of the four levels that we’ve taken about four or five months to pass through at the mind only stage. One accepts that though these objects do not exist externally, still they truly exist. Though the perceived objects and the perceiving mind are not of different substances, but they truly exist. They objectively exist.
This is called into question. The true existence of these objects is called into question at the next stage. The autonomy middle way stage. So the practitioner of the autonomy stage begins to question the true existence of these various objects, of the perceiving mind and the perceived objects. He begins to see that these objects have no objective self defining.
He begins to see that these objects do not possess their own reality. Phenomena are posited by the force of appearing to a nondefective awareness, that they do not exist independent of mind, but they appear to. These appearances are false. They’re not true. Therefore, these phenomena do not truly exist.
They exist in a false way. If something does not exist the way it appears, then we say it is false. It’s not true. For something to be true, it must appear, must exist the same way that it appears. Phenomena, you know, all the various things about us, books, tables, people appear to us to exist independent of my mind, at a distance, cut off from my mind, out there.
But in fact, they exist by the force of appearing to my mind, to my awareness. Therefore they appear one way and exist another. And therefore they are said to be false, not true. They do not truly exist. When this is realized deeply, the conception which grasp at the true existence of phenomena dissolves.
And all of this tension, all of this suffering which such a type of conception induces. And it dissolves into the emptiness of true existence. The cause is gone. The cause was a mental attachment to something which was not there. And another level of ignorance is removed.
So at the autonomy stage though phenomena do not truly exist we accept that they naturally exist, that they are self defining, that they inherently exist. At the next stage the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school this is brought into question. So the practitioner of the consequence school begins to to begins to see that upon analysis the imputed object is not the parts itself. It’s not it cannot be found amongst its parts. It’s not separate from its parts, And it’s not the mere collection of its parts.
And then when we performed analysis we went through analysis of a car for example. Or we can go through analysis of a book. The Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school practitioner begins to see that when he performs any type of ultimate analysis to find the object at the place that it appears, he sees that the object does not in here in its parts. The parts are not the object. He can’t find the object amongst the parts.
He the mere collection of the parts is not the object. The shape of the parts is not the object. So he begins to see that all phenomena whatsoever are merely imputed by concepts and terms. All phenomena are merely labeled, designated by mind. They have no objective existence.
They have no natural existence. They have no existence from their own side. They have no independent existence. They exist, but they do not exist objectively. They exist, but they do not define themselves.
They exist, but they do not exist from their own side. That all phenomena whatsoever are mere imputations of mind. And the word mere here was used to refute natural existence, that there was something, some self defining quality would determine what the object was. Nothing whatsoever from the side of the object determines what it is. It’s purely being imputed by mind.
Just as in the case of conceiving of a snake where in fact there’s a rope. The process of imputation is working exactly the same way as if we conceive of a snake or rope and dependence upon that rope. One is the correct imputation. One is incorrect. But the conceiving process, the imputing process, the labeling process is exactly the same.
That the snake, the appearance of the snake comes completely from the side of the subject, the mind side. There’s nothing snakeness about the rope. The same is true of the rope. The conceiving of the rope comes completely from the side of the mind. There’s nothing ropeness about the rope, about the coiled length of hemp.
Basis of designation is not the object imputed. So this is a very quick review. That’s why some of you that haven’t been here before this may sound like a foreign language. Don’t know. When one begins to see this deeply, and we’re going to look at it from another point of view this evening.
So maybe it’ll make a little bit of sense. When one begins to see deeply that that that objects do not naturally exist. When When this is realized, the conception which grasps at the natural existence of phenomena dissolves into the emptiness of natural existence, as does all the tension, all the suffering which this conception induces. All of this suffering, all of this tension arises out of mental attachment to something which was not there. When this is seen clearly, there is a cessation of suffering.
And the most subtle, the finest level of ignorance is finally removed. In Buddhist mental training, great emphasis is placed from the outset on distinguishing between fantasy and valid cognition. Indeed, the tendency of human mind is to assume the existence of things that are in fact nonentities is considered to lie at the root of a broad range of unnecessary conflicts and miseries. The most basic expression of this mental distortion is the reification of oneself as an intrinsically existent personal identity. Reification means the solidification is overestimating, attributing qualities to something which it doesn’t have.
Giving it a way of existing which in fact it doesn’t possess makes it more solid, real than in fact it is. We do this within with the self. Having reified oneself, that means having made the self, the self exists, but we give it a existential status which it does not possess. We give it a way of being which it does not possess. We give it attributes, a solidity, a concreteness which it does not possess.
This is the basis of all our problems. Having reified oneself it is inevitable that one reifies others in the same way. We begin to set off a demarcation, this sense of a solid ego, a skin encapsulated ego, and therefore the initial bifurcation between self and other, self and environment arises. And we take this as real, not merely as convention, not merely as a way of a manner of speaking, not merely a manner of conceiving, but as real, solid, concrete difference. Absolute demarcation between this thick black line that we draw about around ourselves is taken as real.
We give it a status which it doesn’t have. It’s not just something that we a convention, a manner of speaking, but it’s real objectively. This sets up absolute demarcation between self and others. So now we’re reifying the self, attributing a solid concrete existence to my I, myself, my ego identity. Then I naturally set up a situation where others come into existence.
Other comes without I, there is not other. Just as in the case without long, is no short. Without high, there is no low. That they only exist in relative to another. But I begin to see these as absolute.
In setting up self then I naturally set up other. This follows on from setting up self. Demarcation between self and other. One naturally also reifies one’s natural environment as intrinsically existing and therefore as the absolutely other. One does not see oneself as a part of a field, as integrally interrelated with one’s environment, but sees oneself as absolutely other, one’s environment and other people.
By absolutely, the word absolutely here means unrelatedly different. We are different. You and I are different. I am different than my environment. But I’m not unrelatedly different.
I am different only I have a I I am exist in relationship with the environment, though I am different. When such a view is put into action, so we’ve created this world of things, big black lines drawn around them. Me, you, environment. When such a view is put into action, the program is set for establishing one’s own well-being as opposed to and possibly at the expense of that of other people. And one’s environment, seen like other people as unrelated to oneself, is manipulated toward one’s own end.
Such reification encourages the view that one can ravage other sentient beings and one’s environment with impunity. People are to be exploited and nature to be conquered. The centrist view, this centrist view means the middle way view, the centrist view acknowledges the obvious truth that one’s person is different from another and they are different from their inanimate environment. But such distinctions are a conventional, not an absolute nature. The word conventional is important to understand.
One of the secondary meanings of the word convention is an agreement. I am different from you. Simply, this is a way And usually can add a mutual consensus. We have developed these conventions, these agreements between ourselves and they work, they function, they help us to say, I am doing this and you’re not doing that. They have some they work.
They’re simply agreements, consensus, operational ways of thinking. They do not exist in reality. Absolutely. Convention. This does not mean that such demarcations are arbitrary.
So, you know, we’ll get into what we mean by arbitrary. Rather, the centrist view, that is the middle way view, asserts that they exist in dependence upon conceptual designation. Every sentient being, every inanimate object thus exists as a dependently related event. Everything in the universe, dogs, cats, people, stars, planets, Buddhas, exist as dependently related events, dependent arising events. The slogan of the Buddha was dependent arising everything I view this room this book my talk is a dependent arising so now we continuing with Tsongkhapa’s text.
We haven’t looked at it for quite a long time. But we’re going to have to look at begin to look at some of the verses. And we’re going to to develop what we mean by dependent arising, dependently related event. So in his text, this Three Principal Aspects of the Path, Tsongkhapa states the necessity that we have to see deeply into the nature of reality. And he admonished in stating that.
I’ll read the verse. So, you know, we’ve gone through we’ve developed the initial two of the three principal aspects of the path. Developed a determination to be free. I have to change. I have to develop myself.
And we went through all the developmental stages to achieve that end. And then we turn our mind to others. And we developed an open heart. That is, developed the intention to help others grow. You know, these are just ways of when we talk about compassion, compassion for oneself is determination to help yourself to grow.
Turning to others. It’s to help others determination to help others grow. Compassion for oneself, compassion for others, developing determination to help yourself to grow, developing determination to help others to grow. This is different objects. The same causes give rise.
The same aids in the development, the same techniques, the same dharma, just different objects upon which we develop intention. We’ve opened our hearts to others, Developed the determination to be free. But simply that is not enough. Tsongkhapa tells us if you do not have the wisdom realizing the way things are even though you have developed the thought definitely to leave cyclic existence which is the determination to be free and the altruistic intention that is the we’ve opened our hearts to others the root of cyclic existence cannot be cut. We cannot become Buddhas.
We cannot fulfill our ends. Therefore the fourth line of this four-line verse. Therefore work at the means of realizing dependent arising. Therefore, work at the means of realizing dependent arising. All phenomena are dependently related events.
Phenomena are dependent arisings because they are empty and they are empty because they are dependent arisings. So dependent arising is the other side of the coin of emptiness. The reasoning which establishes emptiness establishes dependent arising. And just as there were differing levels of subtlety in the presentation of emptiness, there are differing levels in the presentation, the understanding of dependent arising corresponding to these different levels as to the meaning of what dependent arising is about. Each of these four stages has a different interpretation of what dependent arising mean.
You know, the word dependent arising generally in Sanskrit, it’s Pratitya Samutpada Pratitya Samutpada Depending upon that, depending upon that, this arises. This has many synonyms. There’s arising through meeting, relative existence, dependent existence. I’m going to read a quote. Author is using three different Sanskrit words which are difficult for me to pronounce.
They are synonyms for dependent arising. For example, Pratitya Samutpada, Apeksha Samutpada, Pratitya Samarthata are synonyms. However, they are sometimes explained with individual meanings. This is what I want to get at because just to show the roughly the difference in level understanding what we mean by dependent arising. Generally, they have the same meaning.
They’re synonyms. But schools take them to mean slightly different things. Pratitya Samutpada, arising through meeting arising through meeting, is taken as referring to the dependent arising which is the production of things by their causes. So here dependent arising is taken to mean an object books table people arise dependent upon causes. in dependence upon causes an object arises.
This is a way of dependent arising but it’s not a very profound level of the meaning of dependent arising but it’s one of the mean of dependent arising. This is the meaning that and here again they have some Sanskrit Vaibhāṣika which is the great exposition school, Sautrāntika which is Sūtra school, and Cittamātrins which is mind only school. So Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika, exposition school and Sūtra school combined to make up what we call the Hearer stage. So the hero stage and then the Chitamantra, the mind only stage, these two that we’ve looked at, hero stage and the mind only stage give to dependent arising. They interpret the word dependent arising to mean arising in dependence upon causes and conditions.
Things are dependent arising because they depend upon causes and conditions. That’s the way they interpret the word. It’s not it’s one way of interpreting it. It’s not a very profound, subtle way of interpreting the word. For them, however, dependent arising is a sign of true existence.
If they want if you know, for us, when I when I say I remember one of my teachers, Geshe Sonam Rinchen in Dharmasala, he said, No, if we really understood what these different schools were talking about, we would begin to freak out. If for someone who is in a mind only school, who realizes the assertions of the mind only school, that things truly exist, if they began to think, if the upper school and the middle way school were to refute them and they began to think that things don’t truly exist, they would begin to freak out. Things don’t truly exist. That means they don’t exist at all. That’s what they would think.
If things don’t truly exist, they don’t exist at all. It doesn’t phase us in the least when we say nothing truly exists. We’re not disturbed in the least by such words. But for them it would have earth shaking consequences. So they use dependent arising.
Because things arise in dependence upon causes and conditions, they must truly exist. Not the upper school, the middle way school is going to use that same argument because these objects are dependent arisings, they cannot truly exist. So meeting, existence through meeting. Meeting can be taken to literally in the sense of indicating that a cause approaches cessation and its effect approaches production simultaneously. So as a cause, say a seed is approaching cessation, that means the seed is gradually going out of existence.
And as the seed goes out of existence, the sprout comes into existence. So there’s a meeting place between the cessation of the seed and the production of the sprout. This is what existence through meeting, the meeting of cause and effect. This is their interpretation. Now, the second synonym of the word dependent arising and it will get easier as we go along.
This is maybe a little bit technical. The second word, the Sanskrit word, was apeksha samutpada, existence in reliance, or relative existence. It’s taken as referring to dependent arising, which is attainment by products and non-products of their own entity in reliance on their parts. So here there’s a reliance. There’s a dependence arising in dependence upon parts.
The first view dependent arising could only apply to products things which have causes. They couldn’t apply this dependent arising to non products permanent things like unconditioned space. But here this meaning of the term dependent arising simply means that things arise dependent upon their parts. Everything has parts, even space, you know, the southern directions and northern directions, etcetera. Everything has parts in the universe.
Things arise dependent upon their parts. This would the meaning of dependent arising is a distinguishing feature of the middle way system, the middle way school. And it’s said to be the This is Autonomy Middle Way School. Now we went through the Autonomy stage. This is their favorite means of proving no true existence.
Things do not truly exist because they depend upon their parts. And we discussed this. That through the force of the parts appearing to the mind, the object comes into existence. The parts stimulate the mind to conceive the object. The object doesn’t exist independent of the mind.
When the when the parts of an object appear by the force of that appearing to the mind, a mental image is projected upon those parts, and an object comes into existence. Therefore, the object does not truly exist. Things undeniably appear to the mind to be separate from their parts as when it is thought this house has ten rooms. The house appears to be one thing and the ten rooms be another. Now we come to the most profound interpretation of the word dependent arising.
Pratitya, Pratitya Samutpada, dependent existence, dependent arising. And this is at the level of the final thought of the Buddha and we thought this was the Consequentialist Middle Way stage. It is taken as referring to dependent arising which is the designation of all phenomena in dependence upon thoughts that designate them. All phenomena are dependent upon the conceiving consciousness. It’s dependent upon concepts and terms.
It’s dependent upon the mind. Without thought to designate the existence of phenomena, the arising of phenomena does not occur. Without conceiving of the object, the object does not exist. It arises in dependence upon conception. This is the most profound interpretation of dependent arising.
However, phenomena undeniably appear to common beings as if they exist in and of themselves. All we instinctively conceive phenomena appear to us. This table, the sounds that we hear, they all appear to exist as if they exist from their own side without depending upon our consciousness, without our needing to conceive of them. That’s the way they appear to us. However, phenomena undeniably appear to common beings as if they exist in and of themselves, as if they were they don’t as if they were contained within themselves, as if they exist absolutely.
They exist as if they existed independently of everything else. You could draw a big, thick, black line around them and they would exist. They don’t exist on anything other than themselves. They’re self contained objects, self powered, independently existing. This is the way objects appear to us.
We discussed how the thought process because our concepts, terms which we use are concrete, separate categories. We conceive of the corresponding objects to exist in the same manner, but they don’t. We break up in the world things, people, objects into concrete units, thinking that we conceive of them as being separate from one another, but in fact they exist interdependently with one another. They also exist interdependent with our own mind which conceives of them. But this is not the way they appear to us.
However, phenomena undeniably appear to common beings as if they exist in and of themselves, appearing from the object’s side subject rather than appearing to be imputed by the subject toward the object. It appears the object is forcing itself upon us rather than ourselves creating the object, imputing, designating. Existing in dependence upon a designating consciousness is the special meaning of dependent arising in the Prāsaṇgika existing in dependence upon designating consciousness. The other two meanings are also wholeheartedly accepted by the Prāsaṇgika, but their own special interpretation is to take pratitya samudpata as referring to the designation of phenomena dependent not just on their parts or basis of designation but also on the thought that designates them. So you know we’ll come up cite some examples to make this a little bit easier.
What actually is we’re getting at here in this final interpretation of dependent arising. So the unique meaning of dependent arising as asserted by the autonomy middle way stage is that an object depends upon the an object depends for its existence not only on causes and conditions, not only on its part, but on a conceptual consciousness, on concepts and terms designating it. Furthermore, the meaning of the term dependent arising is not asserted to be the meaning of emptiness. An explicit ascertainment of dependent arising does not even carry with it an implicit ascertainment of emptiness. Rather, emptiness is synonymous with dependent arising for the Mādhyamika middle way, who through valid cognition have refuted inherent existence.
For the middle way school, emptiness and dependent arising are synonymous. Things are dependent arisings because they’re empty of inherent existence. Things are dependent arising because they’re empty of inherent existence. Things are empty of inherent existence because they’re dependent arising. Not just anyone who realizes dependent arising can realize its synonymity with emptiness, since many even see dependent arising as a reason for asserting inherent existence.
However, when a Mādhyamika ascertains that external and internal things are dependent arising, he realizes, based upon the force of this very understanding, that being empty of inherent existence is the meaning of being a dependent arising. For he has realized that what inherently exists does not rely upon anything. And he has realized that inherent existence and dependent arising are contradictory. If something inherently exists, it cannot be a dependent arising. It can’t be dependent upon anything.
If something inherently exists, it exists independently. So independent existence and dependent existence are mutually incompatible, contradictory. So once you understand