Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using three precise analogies — flame and its light, fire and its heat, a fresco and its wall — Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 47-minute session by dismantling the claim that mind arises from body as its cause, exposing a logical contradiction in each case that points toward mind’s continuity across lives. He then guides a meditation on the equal needs of all sentient beings, anchored by two striking images: a row of starving beggars and a ward of equally ill patients, each prompting the question of what reason we have to favor one over another. The session then covers going for refuge — the two causes (fear of bad rebirth and confidence in the Three Jewels), the four qualities of a refuge-worthy object — before concluding with a systematic walk through the twelve links of dependent origination, using the wheel of life as a visual guide from ignorance through to birth.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 11 WtWNN 1987 09 03.mp3
UUID: c81b4a4d-7f8b-4b95-a4a5-b3a0b175d8b6
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: What the world needs now (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1987-09-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.6 minutes
Words: ~5,282
This is analogous to, from the point of view, as the existence of a former life, there must exist a later life. If there are in fact former lives, then there must be future lives. If we can establish past rebirth, then we have automatically established future rebirth. Why? Because the present life is a future life of a past rebirth.
If there was a past life, there must be future lives because this present life is a future life of our past rebirth. Tomorrow, today is the future of yesterday. So if yesterday existed, then the future must exist. These are just some ideas you could think about and you could play around in your mind. There’s a Okay, now you’ve come up with a question.
Ultimately, the proof of rebirth depends upon the relationship between body and mind. According to Western science, the body the the mind arises independently from the body, the brain. So the question arises, what is There’s definitely a relationship between body and mind. What are the possibilities of the types of relationships between body and mind? He takes up this question.
Because someone says, future lives cannot exist. Why? Because because obviously the body does not transmigrate to a future life, and because the mind is dependent upon the body, when the body dies, then the mind is finished. Since the mind dependent upon the body, what type of relationship, what kind of dependence is the mind’s relationship to the body. There are two ways that things can be related.
They can be related by way of cause and effect, and related by way of same nature, same entity, same nature. In analyzing this relationship, uses three analogies. If the mind is dependent upon the body, is it dependent upon in one, number one, in the mode of effect, like the illumination of a flame in relationship to the flame? We’re talking about cause and effect here, aren’t we? In relationship to the to illumination, the light given off by a flame, which is the effect of the flame itself.
So this this type of relationship between the illumination of the flame and the flame itself. Is this the type of relationship we’re talking about when we talk about mind and body? Or another possibility, in the mode of entity, like heat in relationship to fire. And here we’re talking about the same nature, same entity. Heat is an intrinsic property, the primary quality of fire.
If you have heat, you have fire. It’s the nature of fire that it’s hot. So Is it the very entity, the same nature of the body? Is it mind? Third possibility is the mode of attribute, like a fresco in relationship to the wall.
Here we have the same idea of the same entity, but it’s slightly different. When you look at the wall, when you look at a fresco on the wall, when you look at the fresco, you also look at the wall. When you see the fresco, you see the wall. When you see the wall painting, you see the wall. So there’s this possibility of a way of relating.
He’s saying that there’s no other way that the mind and body can relate outside of these three possibilities: by way of effect, by way of entity, and by way of attribute. If there’s going to be any type of relationship between mind and body, it must be one of these three. So then he goes on to analyze. He’s he’s trying to show some contradictions if if these any of these three were in actual fact the case. He says, If the way that the mind relates to the body is the same way the illumination of a flame relates to the flame, then just as when we increase the flame and decrease the flame, we increase the illumination and decrease the illumination or vice versa.
The increase in illumination corresponds to an increase in the flame. Decrease in illumination corresponds to a decrease in flame. Likewise, the expansion and concentration of the mind should correspond to an expansion and concentration of the body. If one were to expand one’s mind out to cover the world, then there should be a corresponding expansion of the body, just as in the case of the illumination of a flame and the flame. Likewise, if we were to concentrate the mind into a single point, then there should be a corresponding concentration of the body to a single point.
He’s saying that this is a contradiction, this way of relating. Another example. Okay. The second was by way of entity as heat and fire. Whenever you have fire, you must have heat.
Likewise, if the way of relating relationship between mind and body is by same entity, whenever you have body, you must have mind. Therefore, even a dead body would have a mind because there’s a body. They’re the same entity. Whenever you have heat, must have Whenever you have fire, you must have heat. Whenever you have a body, you must have a mind.
Same entity. Therefore, the mind is not related to the body by way of same entity. Third possibility, by way of attribute. The way of attribute. Whenever you see the fresco, you see the wall.
Likewise, if the mind were related to the body in the way of attribute, then whenever you see the body, you must also see the mind. Because mind is an attribute of body. The fresco is an attribute of the wall. When you see body, you must see also see mind, but you don’t. Therefore, he’s saying it does not it also does not relate to the body in this way.
So the body He is trying to refute the possibility that the mind rises from the body as its substantial cause, that it’s only arising from the previous moment of mind. So there’s some possibilities, some logics that you can think about. Maybe We didn’t get through all nine, but we’ll meditate on the first three. So this is developing equanimity, equality of self and others from the point of view, the conventional point of view, from the side of others. So we have to consider the fact that that we don’t want the slightest suffering, not even in our dreams.
And we’re never content with the happiness that we do have. We’re always striving for more happiness, always striving to get rid of our suffering. Likewise, there’s every single living creature from the tiniest insect to human beings, doesn’t want the slightest suffering, and is always trying to find pleasure. Exactly equal, no difference. The mind of that insect is constantly seeking pleasure, seeking to avoid pain, even of a little ant.
That mind wants happiness just like your mind. That mind doesn’t want to suffer just like your mind, completely equal. All people, all sentient beings. Now imagine yourself coming along upon a row of beggars. You’re all hungry.
They’re all starving. They have no money. They’re all reaching their hand out to you, asking you to give to help them. And what reason could you give? What reason do you have not to give one and not and give to the other?
To give to give one more, you may give one less. They’re all equally hungry, all equally in need. On the basis of some superficial differences, are you going to help one and not the other? Because one smiles, the other one doesn’t. Because the other one’s pretty, and the other one’s not.
The other one says please, and the other one doesn’t. Is that your criteria for helping when their needs are equal? They all need your help equally? All sentient beings are holding out their hand to you. They all need caring, your help.
Why do you differentiate on the basis of superficial qualities? Because some say please, some are pretty, some are kind to you, some aren’t. They all are equally in need of your help. They all want happiness equally. Imagine you’re a doctor and you walk into a hospital ward and in this ward there are ten sick people.
They’re all equally ill. They’re all in equally need of your care, your attention, your time. Look at them. Now which one are you going to help the most? Which one are you going to help the least and why?
Don’t they all need your help equally? Aren’t you biased? Aren’t you going to help one or two of them more because of some superficial reason? Because they smile? Perhaps they’re going to pay you more.
But in fact, aren’t they equal in their need? They’re all equally suffering, and they need your help. Why do you have aversion for some and attachment for others just by their superficial difference? All sentient beings without exception want happiness and don’t want to suffer equally. There’s no difference amongst them.
But because of our partialities, our attachments, our aversions, we help some, we avoid others, We hold some close and others distant. But these are on basis of superficial qualities. Deep down, they’re all the same. Why don’t we help them all the same? Feel the equality of all sentient beings?
Dedicate our merit for meditating. By this virtue, may I quickly realize Guru Buddhahood and transfer each sentient being into that enlightened state. May the precious bodhi mind where the unborn arise, may that born have no decline but develop more and more. It’s gonna be very simple. What we’re going to do is he’ll Amusa will come.
He’ll he’ll sit on the throne. Yeah. And doctor, as the director, will offer him the body, speech, and mind as a Buddha representing these And then I thought each of us there’s a long life prayers. Long life prayer, we’ll chant long life prayer, and then we’ll offer tea and sweet fries and then finish. Okay.
So if you set determination that assume that you become aware that your mindfulness is released or And in a way, we go for refuge to sentient beings. Because in dependence upon sentient beings, we can achieve our own ultimate potential, our complete evolution of mind and body, in dependence upon sentient beings. So those are the two objects that we rely on in purification, going for refuge to the Three Jewels, the Buddha jewel, the Dharma jewel, the Sangha jewel, and sentient beings as the sentient being jewel. But we have to have confidence and trust in the Three Jewels, that they are going to be able to protect us, they are going to have the ability to help in this purification process. Going for refuge, as we said, we had two causes.
The first is fear. It’s definite that we have negative potentials on our mind stream, probably a predominance of negative potentials that are going to ripen. We can’t be sure if we don’t use some method which is going to ripen at the moment of our death. If we look at it logically, it is more likely that a negative potential is going to ripen at the moment of our death due the fact that most of our heavy karma is negative and most of our habituated karma is negative. So there’s no reason to think that somehow we’re going to luck out at the moment of our death and things are going to go well.
They probably won’t. That’s the statistical probability of the situation. So we should generate some fear. We’ll try to do this in meditation. Otherwise, there’s no reason for going for refuge.
There’s no cause for going for refuge. The first cause is fear. The second is the confidence and the ability of the Three Jewels to protect you from the object of fear, in this case the bad migrations. In general, we can talk about these various types of migrations within our own everyday life. The six levels within the desire realm, for example, the hell being, hungry ghost, animal, humans, gods, demigods.
We all are constantly passing through these various states of mind in the course of a day. Usually, one of these states will predominate. You know, we all have our same stock occupations, our lifestyles. If we have a lifestyle of an animal, a hungry ghost, or a hell being, a lifestyle of a god or a demigod, they each have their particular patterns, which they are acting out through the force of habituation of ego. We can protect ourselves from these also, from the more undesirable patterns, the more undesirable lifestyles, or you might say styles of suffering, if you like.
We each have our own style of suffering, particular to us. We have our own hell that we go through. It may not appear that way to others, but from our own side it’s suffering. We have to have confidence in the Three Jewels that are able, in some way, to protect us from the suffering that we fear. Object which is worthy of refuge is said to have four characteristics.
It should be have fearlessness, it should be to have skill and means, compassion, and be unbiased. The first was fearless. It is said that the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas are quite willing to do anything whatsoever for the benefit of sentient beings. There’s no holding back on their side. On the part of the Buddhist, there’s completely no fear whatsoever of any type of suffering, because they can no longer suffer.
Therefore, they are worthy of refuge from the point of view that they are willing to help us in any way, regardless of the situation. The second one, someone may be fearless, but if they have no skill or means, then they’re not going to be really of any benefit to us. So we have to have confidence that due to the qualities of the Buddhist body, speech and mind, that they possess all the necessary skills in order to help us. Someone who is having problems themselves, he may be able to help us. That’s true.
Someone who has actually solved the same problem with suffering, he is going to be of even more benefit. No wonder what the situation is, if you having problems with your car, you naturally go to a mechanic, someone who knows what they are doing, who can solve these problems. If someone is just as confused as you about how to get your car running, then he may be sincere and wanted to help you, but there’s not much he can do for you. You can just tinker around with you, you can It’s like the blind leading the blind, isn’t it? It’s not of so much.
It’s nice to have a friend when you’re having troubles, but it’s also nice to have someone who can help you, aid you in solving your problems. So the Buddha said to have skill and means, since he’s actually traveled the path himself. He knows all the ins and outs. It’s like if you’re going into a trekking or out into the bush, walking, and you don’t know the area, it’s good to have a guide, someone who knows the land, someone who show you how to get by get to the goal where you want to get to. Likewise, the Buddha himself has actually traveled a path, and he knows all the problems and difficulties that we will encounter.
He has overcome, solved all those problems, so he has all the skills to help us in solving our problems. Still, if the person were skillful and fearless, if he was not moved to help us in any way, if he didn’t have any compassion, then he wouldn’t be a worthy source of refuge. We couldn’t really rely on him. Perhaps sometime when we were doing something he liked, he might help us. If we did something he didn’t like, he’d say, I can’t be bothered with you.
But in fact, because of the Buddha’s compassion, there is no time whatsoever when he isn’t trying to help sentient beings solve their problems. As I mentioned yesterday, the Buddha said to have the compassion, which is like saying the mother has for her child. No matter what you are doing to him, no matter whether you are anointing him with sandalwood oil or you are cutting his arm with an axe, he has the same compassion, the same beneficial, benevolent attitude towards you. It doesn’t matter from his side what you do. He is going to seek to benefit you because of his great compassion.
The fourth characteristic is unbiasedness. That means he doesn’t help whatever the situation, whatever the individual, whether we make prostrations to the Buddha or not, whether we make offerings the Buddhas or not, whether we’re Christians or Jews or atheists or Buddhists, the Buddha is always trying to help. He has no bias whatsoever. He’s always helping sentient beings, regardless of their dispositions, their categories that we might put them in. They are still sentient beings who are suffering, and because he is unbiased, he’s helping them equally.
If an object has these four qualities, then it’s worthy of our refuge: fearlessness, skill and means, compassion, and unbiasedness. So, we study these and go into them in-depth, then we have some confidence and conviction that the triple gem, for example, the Buddha jewel, actually is worthy of our refuge, he is able to protect us from this fear that we have of, in this case, being taken rebirth in a bad migration. Also, the Dharma We can actually study the doctrine, see how logically it works, see the nature of our mind, the nature of our situation, the nature of our problems, and see how an actual solution can come about. We can use our intuition, our reasoning, and our experience in order to develop confidence in the Dharma jewel through actual practice and study. Likewise, in the Sangha jewel, various teachers, those who have gone beyond the ego, By their example, as Rinpoche mentioned last night, the main source of the benefit of a teacher is not only his teachings, but merely by his example, seeing that someone who is actually a loving, wise, healthy, happy human being who has practiced it.
He gives us a great deal of encouragement, inspiration just by his very example. In this way, the Sangha can be seen as a worthy source of refuge. We can test it. In the offering to the spiritual master, it’s said that the spiritual master is even the hair of one pore of the spiritual master is like a merit field, which exceeds that of all the Buddhas, because he’s there before us now. It’s not something abstract, it’s not something we cannot see.
We see an actual living person who is the fruit of the practice. It serves as a very real inspiration to us, and is not an abstract theory. Therefore, he becomes even more powerful than all the Buddhas for our own mind at that particular moment. These are the two reasons for going for refuge: fear of these various suffering states and then having conviction that the Three Jewels are able to solve our fears, able to protect us from our fears. Rinpoche asked me to talk a little bit about We’ve talked about karma, and we want to talk about it from how karma is actually going to generate our suffering.
I’m going to talk extremely briefly on the subject of the twelve links of dependent origination because we don’t have very much time. This is the wheel of life and it has Which one is that? One of the thangkas. Only you would ask that. Showing the truth.
Don’t know what This one. That’s the that’s the real life. Okay. This is depicting, and this is very popular in Tibetan temples. Are almost always thangkas or murals on the wall with this wheel of life.
We can go into quite an elaborate explanation. For example, the hub of the wheel are the three poisons: desire, hatred, and ignorance. Desire is exemplified by the cock, hatred is by the snake, and ignorance by the pig. This keeps the wheel turning, desire, hatred, ignorance. Are various migrating beings who have died and are going passing through the intermediate state into one of these six types of rebirths.
This is the desire realm. There are three realms within the Buddhist universe, desire realm, form realm and formless realm. This depicts the desire realm. The desire realm has six levels. This is divided into five, but this one level here is actually there are two levels within this one segment.
So there is the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, demigods and gods. It is all within desire realm, all within cyclic existence. This outside wheel depicts the twelve links of dependent origination. This is the evolution of suffering. Very briefly, we begin with a blind man, which represents ignorance.
Ignorance can be on two levels, ignorance of the law of cause and effect and ignorance with respect to the ultimate nature of reality, with ignorance with respect to selflessness, for example. Here we’re talking about the ignorance with respect to selflessness. Ignorance is grasping you know, most We talk about it on a rather primary level. Ignorance is grasping at a type of identity, a self which is permanent, partless, and independently existing. Some sort of identity, self image, which doesn’t depend on anything outside of itself.
It doesn’t depend upon situations, upon the aggregates of body. It doesn’t depend upon mind. This is the way it’s feeling. This is the feeling tone of ignorance. in dependence upon this grasping at a self image of a certain fixed identity of who we think we are, Anything which enhances that image, we move toward.
We want to pull it into us. There is a moving toward and a pulling toward interest to incorporate that because it enhances this image. This represents engaging in actions of desire and attachment. Anything which is threatening to this self image, this fixed idea of who we are, we push away and want to destroy. This is an impermanent entity.
Skillfully afflictive emotion of hatred or anger. So in dependence upon ignorance, we generate attachment and hatred. Without ignorance, there is no attachment and hatred. That’s the foundation. Therefore, the first link of the twelve links of dependent origination is primary ignorance.
It’s grasping at a fixed permanent self independently existing. Due to this, we engage in actions. That is, we generate attachments, hatreds, jealousy, pride. Why do we generate jealousy? Anybody?
Why do we generate jealousy? Because somebody else is attaining something that we want to attain. We haven’t developed that attainment, the ability to do that. So we’re wanting don’t As you The Buddha attained Buddhahood. Don’t you want that attainment?
Are you jealous of the Buddha? No. It’s a mixture of anger and attachment. Attachment. A mixture of anger and attachment?
It’s to a it’s to a physical desire or for something materialistic, isn’t it? Why are you jealous of that? You go up and running off with your putty, for example. What is it because they’re people? Why are you jealous of somebody else’s attainments?
Because you’re not happy for them. The Yeah. I should feel diminished by somebody else’s So you have a fixed sense feeling of inadequacy. You have an identity of inadequacy. If you didn’t have this fixed idea of an inadequate person, you wouldn’t be jealous, would you?
If you felt self sufficient, centered within yourself, there is no jealousy, isn’t it? It is due to this fixation of a certain type of personality pattern, of feeling self sufficient, of feeling of poverty within yourself that causes you jealousy. This fixation, this holding to this type of personality pattern, what is holding it is ignorance. Due to the ignorance holding this particular personality pattern, we become jealous. We incur all these various afflictive emotions, all these actions, right?
Actions. That’s the second link. It is a potter.. A potter is molding pots. We’re creating actions.
The pots are the actions. Because of ignorance, we engage in actions. That is jealousy, pride, hatred, miserliness, spite, whatever desire. The cause of actions depends upon ignorance So this is dependent link. It’s a dependent origination.
One link is dependent upon the link prior to it. In dependence upon basic ignorance, primary ignorance, we engage in actions. If there was no ignorance, we would not engage in actions. There would be no possibility for the arise of desire, hatred, attachment, miserliness, spite, any of them. Since we have ignorance, in dependence upon ignorance, we engage in actions.
The second link. What happens when we engage in actions? These actions will have ethical consequences. These actions condition the mind in some way. They plant seeds in the mind.
The mind is somehow scratched or marked with these actions. They are conditioned. Therefore, the karmic seeds, are implanted in the mind. in dependence upon actions, we implant seeds within the mind stream. So these karmic actions are not just wasted, they are actually implanted in the mind stream.
The third link of the dependent origination, consciousness. But not just general consciousness, consciousness which has particular seeds of actions implanted in their mind stream, on its mind stream. The third link, dependent origination. in dependence upon these, this is consciousness with these seeds takes rebirth in the womb. Consciousness comes into union with the ovum and the egg, with the ovum and the sperm, and this union, there is already the programmed patterns for everything to occur within that lifetime, just to completing karma.
Everything begins to ripen. What ripens out of these? These seeds have mind and body, or more specifically the five aggregates. This is depicted by a boat with four people in it. The four people are the four aggregates of form, feeling, discrimination, and compositional factors.
The boat itself is consciousness, so it holds all these factors. It’s not just a general mind and body, right? We have a particular programmed mind and body. Just like in the example when the being grasped for cold, and it was very hot, very hot. It was burning up.
And the mind was withdrawing from the body, in order to eliminate the pain of that heat, it had to take an embodiment which would be predisposed, would in some way have the capacity to eliminate that particular suffering of heat. Therefore, it was forced into taking a certain type of body, and this type of body was a body buried in ice. So it’s a particular type of body which is already programmed. It’s a type of body which is going to freeze due to the force of activating this ripening karma from a previous life. So we are all born with a particular programmed type of body and mind.
You you have a woman program, I have a male program, which leads us into certain types of suffering, certain possibilities in our lifetime. Also, the mind also has programs, certain mentality that we bring, attitudes that we bring to all our situations in life. So it’s not just a simple mind and body, it’s a special program type of mind and body. So, in dependence upon taking rebirth of this consciousness, which has these various seeds on it, there arises mind and body or the five aggregates, program mind and body. in dependence upon the rise of these five aggregates arises the six sense consciousnesses, the six sense faculties eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind.
These are, for example, in the case of the eye, it is not this yellow and white thing. It’s not this white thing in this organ. This is the eye organ. It is said that inside there is a clear matter, a clear ball. This is the eye sense faculty, also within the ear and the nose.
So those are the six sense faculties. When the five aggregates arise, in dependence upon that, we develop the sixth sense faculties. The sixth is the mental sense faculty. So we’re progressing. One is dependent upon the other, and one is upon the other, depending upon the other.
in dependence upon having developed the six sense faculties, what happens then? Now we have a consciousness, we have all the various objects around us, and now we have the sense faculty. When these three come together, aggregate together, there is contact. We see sights. We hear sounds.
We smell odors. We taste taste. So, we have in dependence upon the sixth sense faculties arising. The aggregation of object, subject, that is consciousness, and the medium, which is the sense faculty, there arises contact with the outside world. The sixth link of the twelve links.
What happens when we have contact with the outside world? We develop feelings, pleasurable feelings, unpleasurable feelings, neutral feelings. Neutral feelings are sometimes, as we said, feelings which we are confused about. We can’t decide whether they’re good feelings or bad feelings, but anyway, they’re neutral. We develop So we come in contact with sight, sound, smells, tastes, whatever, and we develop feelings toward those.
So in dependence upon contact, feeling arises. And dependent upon feeling, what happens then? Desire. Two types of desire. Desire either to possess, to continue, to be repeated again, or desire to be separated from, to not repeat again.
Dependence upon feelings, desire arises. in dependence upon So now we’re we’re getting we are at the place where we are dying, for example. We go through this guy is burning up again with his fever. He is very hot. Is like being laid out in the desert, strapped out and the sun is just baking.
Your skin is beginning to crack, beginning to bubble. His desire arises for coolness. What happens when the actual desire gets to a certain point? It increases in strength, it becomes grasping. This means that the mind not only desires that object, but actually seeking, moving.
It’s becoming desire is more passive. When it actually begins to actively seek to move towards the object, it becomes grasping. It actually wants to grab hold of that object. It’s trying to grab hold of coolness. Desires to be cool.
Now, it’s actually moving towards that coolness, which is the ninth link of the twelve links, grasping. in dependence upon desire arises grasping. What happens then? We’ve got this very strong grasping. The mind is starting seeking to actually get the object it’s looking for.
What is this object in this case? The mind is withdrawing from the body. The mind itself cannot in any way alleviate that pain of the suffering of the body because it doesn’t have a body. Right? It has to take another body in order to relieve that pain of heat.
So it’s grasping for a body. We have all these potencies, these karmic imprints in our mind. Due to this grasping, one of these is activated, is energized, and begins to come into fruition. You know, like putting water, fertilizer, and soil with the seed, it becomes the sprout. The sprouting is becoming the tenth link.
It’s like the actual propelling. This is what happens at the moment of death. This is actually becoming. This energized karma, karmic seed, is actually beginning to sprout. This is the tenth link, becoming.
We’re actually being thrown into a particular type of body. Then we black out. We actually take birth with that body, which is the eleventh link.