Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 69-minute session, Ven Jampa Ignyen opens with the Avalokiteśvara mantra Om Mani Padme Hum as a gateway into the Heart Sūtra’s core teaching: form is empty, emptiness is form. He spends considerable time clarifying what “empty” actually means—using the moon’s reflection in water to show how we mistake appearances for truly existent objects—and explores the eight characteristics of emptiness. He walks through the five Buddhist paths and how different instructions apply at different practice levels, the two extremes of saṃsāra and nirvana that compassion prevents us from falling into, and Buddha nature as our current stained mind with emptiness as its ultimate nature. Throughout, he addresses student questions about attachment, direct versus conceptual understanding, and the subtlety of recognizing the “object of negation.” For practitioners with some familiarity with Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011 04 24 Heart Sūtra Easter Retreat (3).mp3
UUID: b4799037-3680-4cdf-82f1-6974fe365484
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: Heart Sūtra Retreat (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2011-04-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 68.9 minutes
Words: ~7,112
It’s good to know what these mantras really mean. It’s like the mantra of Avalokiteśvara. You know that one? Om mani padme hum. The meaning of that, you know the meaning?
Well really om and hum are auspicious terms. One begins the mantra sequence and the other ends. And in the middle we got mani padme. Mani is similar to ratna. It means jewel.
Mani. And pad ma is lotus, right? Pad me is the seventh case, locative case meaning in the lotus, right? Mani padme hum meaning jewel in the lotus hum. Right.
The jewel is if we look at have a look at his image over there, see that he’s holding a really a jewel between the two hands. Right. Also, means that in the center of the heart chakra there’s a jewel. Jewel in the lotus. What is it in great compassion?
The jewel in the lotus meaning the lotus of the heart with eight petals. Right? If one imagines a lotus petal at one’s heart, actually the lotus petal symbolizes renunciation, right? So renouncing saṃsāra to attain nirvana. So pure like a lotus that comes out of the mud of the pool where the lotus lives.
Underneath the pool where the lotus lives is saṃsāra. You know, it’s murky and so forth. The lotus comes up, it emerges from that, so it’s like the pure aspiration for renunciation, renouncing saṃsāra. And in that there’s a jewel, which is compassion, great compassion for all sentient beings. So, when you recite the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum, you’re seeking to generate compassion.
Yeah, it’s good to know the meaning. Some of them are very obscure, but also we have a mantra coming up. But also great compassion is underlying the teaching of the Heart Sūtra. So the basis for the practice of the Heart Sūtra is great compassion. Right, so we’ve been looking at the form is empty, emptiness is form.
Emptiness is not other than form, also form is not other than emptiness. Similarly feeling, discrimination, formation and consciousness are empty. So that’s the really that’s teaching the method of practicing the paths of accumulation and preparation. So yesterday we looked at the term or what this meant in terms of form being empty and emptiness being form. Are there any further issues with that?
With those words? There’s a lot of debate on the meaning of these words and how they can be interpreted. And this is all the process of generating the wisdom of study. Getting the words sorted out is the process of generating the wisdom of study, hearing. And because it’s on that basis, the meaning can appear to the mind.
We rely on the words. That’s all we have are the words. True? This is why the speech of the Buddha is so important. And the meaning is something that lies in the words or behind the words.
So every word here has a particular meaning. And that’s why when we recite the Heart Sūtra very slowly, it’s good because then we can just dwell a bit on the words emptiness. Form is empty. And then emptiness is form. And so on.
Alright, we’ll now yesterday we looked at the meaning of empty and different examples of what empty means. The room is empty of an elephant and so on. Empty is what we’re talking about. Here the example, when it says form is empty, it’s empty of there being a truly existent nature. Just doesn’t exist in form and so on.
And then we also looked at the example of the moon. We tend to the reflection of the moon in the lake, when we look at that example, it’s not the moon that we see in the lake, it’s the reflection of the moon. But we mistake the reflection of the moon for the moon. And similarly we mistake objects to be truly existent when they’re not truly existent. But it’s being able to see the mistake that’s very, very difficult.
The mistake is so subtle that, you know, it’s not going to leap out at us. It’s something that requires a great deal of training to see what’s actually happening, you know, when we observe things. There’s no fault in the eye consciousness and the eye consciousness doesn’t hold things to be truly existent. Eye consciousness is too coarse for that. But things do appear to be truly existent.
There’s an appearance that does appear to eye consciousness of them being truly existent, ent, as existing in the way they appear to exist. Things appear to exist in a way they appear to exist. The problem is not the eye consciousness or the ear consciousness. Even the sounds that appear to the ear appear to be true and not illusory. Right?
And the forms also. The problem we have is the ignorance, mental conception of the object. That’s what’s holding the object to be truly existent. Like when we look at something, it’s not the eye consciousness, it’s the mental awareness that then engages that object and thinks about it. There is a misconception, there’s a wrong awareness, conceptual wrong awareness that holds that object to exist in the way it appears to exist.
That’s what we’re trying to eliminate. But first we have to see that it’s at fault. It’s like unless we see the fault in it, can’t we wouldn’t even bother try to get eliminated. At present we, in a way, we affirm it and we, you know, the conception that things truly exist, we just naturally affirm. And we may not even have really a serious doubt that, you know, that conceiving things in that way is at fault.
And that’s why it’s often said, you know, that especially in the Zen kōans, you know, get this all this raising all these issues for what purpose, you know? Confusing us about the way things exist, you We exist okay, we don’t have to think about all these things, you know, trying to work out what’s truly existent and not truly existent. It’s creating a lot of problems for us. For what end? You know, we function okay.
But, again, the reason why we’re engaging in this is the afflictive emotions that are in the middle of all of this process. If there weren’t afflictive emotions, then forget about wisdom of emptiness. Right? Now then here we talked a little bit about the image of the moon in the water and that is a good example to reflect on to gain some understanding of what empty is, you know, such as the reflection of the moon is empty of a moon. True?
The reflection of me in the mirror is empty of me. Anyway, we’re looking at empty here, the meaning of empty. So we’re trying to get an understanding of empty. And as it says here in the text, we’re trying to make emptiness appear and as such we’re trying to make the meaning of dependent origination appear. So as it says, among those ways of making empty, the meaning of empty appear to the mind can be done in various ways.
But the example of the moon is very good for making dependent origination appear to the mind and give rise to an understanding of what empty means. And then he goes on to say, this is this Mongolian lama, Tendar Lharampa, he says, In essence, in the end, the success of our meditation is that we develop a little bit of fear about the object of negation. So fear there is a very good thing. There’s a story in Tibet about one lama from Narthang monastery, one particular Geshe. And apparently he was seated in the Gompa one day and there were some teachings going on.
Halfway through the teachings he suddenly grabbed his robe. And it’s said at that point he understood emptiness. Out of fear that he no longer existed, he grabbed his robe. So, in a way, the fear that is generated at that point is very beneficial, but it indicates that the object of negation that we need to negate is being, you know, one is approaching that object of negation. So that’s a good sign.
And as the author continues, generating such fear is useful. Even though we may talk about emptiness and non inherent existence and non true existence, not existing according to its characteristics. If we don’t understand how they don’t exist truly or inherently and so on, if we’re not familiar with this point of what the object of negation is, we’re not really analyzing emptiness, we’re not really getting near to the topic at hand. But we’re relying on the beginning in the beginning on just you know becoming familiar with the words. Form is empty, emptiness is form.
So that’s good, you know, we can even memorize them. Even just memorizing that one paragraph: form is empty, emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form. Also, is not other than emptiness. In fact, everything is empty of true existence.
So there’s just emptiness everywhere. No matter what we look at, what we experience, it’s empty of true existence. There’s emptiness. But it’s too subtle to appear to the eye consciousness. It will only initially appear to conceptual awareness.
So gradually that’s what we’re seeking to attain. But that emptiness is just the fact of how things exist. It’s nothing more. That emptiness is not anything other than the form itself. It’s just that our eye awareness hasn’t got the subtlety to get down to that level.
But actually, we go to final mode of abidance of an object, it’s emptiness. Emptiness really means zero. In Sanskrit the word is ‘shunyata’ which means ‘shunya’ is empty or means empty or zero. But it doesn’t mean to say nonexistent. Although it sounds like nonexistent.
This is ‘stong pa’, ‘Jungkah’. Is that possibly Could be. Could be. Is there another word there? Openness would be another.
Openness. Just means in a way, it also means infinite potential. It means the object is not fixed as that. And when you get down to the final mode of abidance of that object, it’s completely open. And if it wasn’t like that, you wouldn’t be able to destroy the chair or the table.
Yeah. Empty is actually the exact translation? Śūnyatā or zeroness, nothingness. Nothing. Nothingness.
Yeah. It’s it almost sounds nihilistic. Yeah. Nothingness. But that And emptiness sounds a bit sort of a bit isolated and remote and desolate and, you know, we talk about the empty scene of emptiness or a feeling of emptiness, but it’s not really that either.
A void. Void? Vacuum. You could sort of, you know, mould that term a little bit, to use that, if possible. Yeah.
Philosophy, got a sketchy understanding of but I talk about phenomena and noumena. Phenomena being the way we perceive things, and noumena being the way things actually exist. Is that a similar sort of concept? It’s a bit like that, yes. Phenomena being the appearance and the noumena being the inner nature.
That’s right. The emptiness is the the final mode of abidance of anything, of us, any external object. If we, you know, we just take it, you know, it’s a phenomenon at that level. And we use it, it’s practical and functional. But if we take it down to its final mode of abidance, in a sense how it really is, on the subtlest level, it’s emptiness.
And if it wasn’t like that, it couldn’t function on the coarse level. Right? If it wasn’t perfectly empty then it would be utterly fixed and set. Its emptiness in other words is its dependent origination. Everything in the universe is like that.
Is like that. That’s right. Including ourselves. Yeah. So for that reason, form is empty.
Emptiness is form. So what we’re trying to do here is not impose anything from outside on objects, but it’s we’re trying to get to the fact, just the bare fact, the truth. Now in this process actually we’re making an assertion that that is the final fact. But in a way the actual process is that we’re still trying to discover what the actual fact is. Right?
So So that’s useful anyway. The those just a brief teaching. Form is empty. Emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form.
True. And form is not other than emptiness. But as we mentioned yesterday, there’s a gradation, you know, just understanding the functional nature of the object is, you know, its actual coarse mode of abidance, then its impermanence is a subtler level of how it actually is. And then its selflessness is a subtler level. And then there’s coarse and subtle selflessness.
And then it’s non duality. And then it’s emptiness. So in a way there’s progressively subtler levels that it has. Alright, then. So what part are we up to?
This is the answer part, isn’t it? Right. So we’re dealing with who’s given the answer. It’s Avalokiteśvara. And he’s given the brief answer, hasn’t he?
Let me have a look in here. This is the answer for the people of Dole faculty for us. And we’ve had the brief answer and the short answer. We previously had the brief answer. Now we’re on to the extensive answer.
Correct? My page is a bit of uncommon introduction. I’ve that. I’ve done that. Okay.
Short answer. Yep. So we’re doing the extensive answer, and that’s the first part of the extensive answer and dealing with the path of accumulation and preparation. Alright. Now we’ve looked at empty, what empty means.
We’ve gone, and really also just that image also of the a pile of stones appearing to be a human, but being empty of a human is an example of empty by nature, and that is the type of empty that’s meant here. And that also applies to the reflection of the moon in a lake. That image of the moon is empty of a moon. So then reading from Tendar Lharampa’s text, in brief, ordinary beings who are attached to form and so on are given the instruction that form is empty for the purpose of stopping them falling into the extreme of saṃsāra. Okay.
So that some who are attached to them being empty are given the instruction, emptiness is formed, to stop them from falling into the extreme of peace. Peace. Yes, peace. The extreme of peace. Yes.
It is. Yes, yes. The extreme of peace. P E A C E. Peace.
Tranquility. Serenity. The extreme of serenity. The extreme of serenity. Okay, form is empty to stop them from falling into the extreme of saṃsāra.
Emptiness is form from falling into the extreme of peace or serenity or tranquility. Extreme? Very good question. It’s said that the nirvana of a Buddha is parinirvāṇa because it neither abides in the extreme of saṃsāra or the extreme of peace. Right.
The extreme of peace is simply remaining in nirvana for your own purpose. nirvana is peace where everything is pacified. And a liberated being who doesn’t have great compassion will tend to abide in nirvana without end, because it’s just absolute pacification, absolute peace, pure peace, liberation, bliss, uncontaminated, perfect state. Beyond fantastic. Absolutely beyond.
It’s what one it’s the goal of one’s innermost aspiration. But it’s just not good enough. If a Buddha will not dwell in that state, his nirvana is not abiding in either extreme. And the reason why wouldn’t we abide in that extreme? There are really two extremes, nirvana Samsāra.
Right? Both are in a way they’re like an extreme. We can look at it in a in that way. Why doesn’t a Buddha abide in the extreme state of nirvana? Because of their compassion.
Because they have to act out of compassion. They become the slaves of compassion. A Buddha is like a slave of compassion. A servant of beings. Sorry?
If there is positive attachment, that would be it. Yeah. Now it is this is a very interesting question because some some say that attachment can be neutral because bodhisattvas and so forth are attached to the welfare of beings. So because we can come up with an instance of attachment that is not non virtuous, then we should say that attachment in general is a neutral state because bodhisattvas are attached to the welfare of others. Right?
Yeah, one can say that. It’s also said that we can’t be attached to a Buddha. Right? Because you can only be attached to something if that object of attachment, you know, has both good and bad qualities and you’re only looking at the good qualities of it. That’s what attachment is.
But if something only has good qualities Attachment. Same. Yep. But if something only has good qualities, then you can’t have really the attachment you have for that is not a false discrimination. So that sort of attachment is okay.
It’s not really attachment. Devotion. It’ll be more like devotion, regard. Yeah. If attachment to the welfare of others is carried to the extreme where you neglect your own welfare, which we’ve seen in certain cases and Oh, I think.
Be so fixed on the welfare of others, they neglect themselves. That then be unhealthy attachment. It would, absolutely. There was a time, at the time of the Buddha there was a household called Anathapindika, a householder. And he made this vow that he would always give to the Sangha if they came to the door.
And this became well known. And the monks and nuns out on their alms rounds, you know, because they knew that he made such nice food and he would always give, you know, they’d tend to go to his. They may start off in that direction, but then circle around. Anyway, and he was very wealthy. And then over the years, he got poorer and poorer.
But he would give because he’d made this vow. Finally until the Buddha had to say to the monks, You’re not allowed to go there. Yeah. Because in a way though, it’s a wonderful vow to make, but if you end up in poverty and your children are starving, then not good. One has to look after oneself, of course.
Yes. Yeah. But probably because he’d made the vow and he wasn’t going to break it, then the Buddha had to step in. We can be generous to a fault. It’s not that often are we generous to a fault, but it does exist.
Okay, so form is empty eliminates the extreme of falling into saṃsāra. Form is empty. Okay. So we’re we’re not in much danger of falling into the extreme of peace. We’re more in the danger of falling into the extreme of saṃsāra.
So this is for us. This instruction is for us. Form is empty. So when we’re having problems with our afflictive emotions, we can think and the afflictive emotions that are going to lead us directly to the lower realms, falling deeper into saṃsāra, then we should reflect form is empty, feelings are empty, discrimination is empty, intention is empty, consciousness is empty, and so on. So that will help.
The instruction here is that will help us from falling deeper into saṃsāra. Does that make sense? Form is empty of true existence. Or we can take it on a little form is impermanent. We can take it at that level as well, that also.
Feelings are impermanent. Because we apply these to all the five aggregates. Feelings are impermanent. My feelings are impermanent. So, very useful.
And feelings are selfless. Feelings are non dual. Don’t know, they might not help us much. Feelings are empty. You know, we have a choice.
On the other hand, if we are in danger of falling into tranquility, perfect, pure, uncontaminated bliss, then we should reflect emptiness, which is the state of peace nirvana, emptiness is form. So, that is really such an excellent instruction on what the meaning of those two terms is. Form is empty. Emptiness is form. And then the author gives an example.
For example, if one were to travel down a narrow path with thorns to the right and a ravine to the left, and if someone with sight had eyes said, there are thorns to the right, there would be a danger of falling into the ravine. Then we might veer away from the thorns and potentially fall into the ravine. But if they said there is a ravine to the left, there would be opposite danger of falling of going too far to the right and falling into the right. Therefore, both are taught together to avoid falling into either extreme. So the method of meditating here, this method of meditating on emptiness is primarily used on the paths of accumulation and preparation.
Okay, so there’s paths that we haven’t entered yet. We don’t enter the path of accumulation until we become a bodhisattva. So at present we’re sort of, you know, ordinary beings haven’t generated great compassion yet. Have we generated great compassion yet? Okay, we’ve got a bit of compassion, but it’s not great compassion.
We haven’t generated infinite compassion yet. We don’t have compassion that’s even to all beings. What we have is compassion that takes a fair amount of effort to generate, if it’s not directly focused on our children, for instance, or our family. That sort of comes easier because of our special relationship with those beings. And that’s a wonderful example.
That compassion I have from my children is real compassion. It’s mixed a bit with attachment, but it’s not bad. There’s genuine compassion there. Really there is because, you know, a mother will selflessly, without even thinking of her own danger, guard the child, preserve the child from suffering. So that’s really compassion.
So the work we have is to develop that. And there’s a lot of resistance to developing. And at times the mind is just so it’s like, you know, just unimmovable. Just doesn’t want to expand. Children are enough, almost we’re saying.
And even then I’ve got reservations about my own children, now that they’ve grown up. Grandchildren are Yeah. When they’re really young and they don’t, you know, they’re cute and so forth, compassion becomes really easy. They keep you up all night, they’re not so easy, but they still hang in there. You haven’t put them in a bag and drowned them yet, but But when they get older and they answer back and they make all these demands and, oh gosh, you know.
Compassion takes longer. Sorry? That’s why compassion can be limited. Yes, yes. So we have a sort of a limited compassion.
So extending that compassion is where the work is for us at present. That’s the coalface. And to actually extend it is going to take a lot of reasoning also from our side. We’ve got to think through it quite a lot. And that’s why in generating great compassion we start off with, All sentient beings have been our mothers.
And then we think of the kindness of the mother to the child. Compassion, especially when the child is young, that the mother has. I mean, that’s the real example we have. So we have to work with that example. A mother with a young baby, they’re just uncontrollably compassionate towards their child.
They don’t even think it’s there, it’s automatic, it’s uncontrived, genuine, sincere concern. So extending that beyond that six month old baby, twelve month old baby, to other beings is the work we have. So whatever we can bring to bear to in that process, we have to do. But gradually it’s not going to take place overnight. It’s just that we have this fixed idea that it’s just that child of ours when they’re very young, you know, is in a special case, and they’re deserving of such compassion.
Everyone else is not deserving of it. And, So we need to generate great compassion. When we generate great compassion, then we’re almost there. We’ve you know, it may take it’s a proof of the existence of past life, actually. There must be past lives because if you generate great compassion, you can’t do it in one life.
It’s just not possible to generate great compassion in one life. Or the compassion of a Buddha, a fully awakened being, you can’t do it in one life. So if anyone’s got it, there must be past lives for them to have done it. Like Śākyamūni for instance, or Avalokiteśvara for instance. So when we do get great compassion, still we haven’t got bodhicitta.
Then great compassion is a mental factor invaluable and that will protect us. That then that great compassion is like our will protect us throughout the universe. It becomes our universal protector. Even if we’re born in hell, just awakening that great compassion is incompatible with being in the deepest hell or any of the hells. One comes out of the hells straight away.
So it’s like armor. That we need. But then, from there, we generate universal responsibility. Not only do we have great compassion, but beyond that, then we’ve got to upgrade it to taking on a universal responsibility to liberate everyone without absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, every being in the universe, I myself am going to liberate. I myself am going to be with them and help them to get beyond their emotional problems.
And then, after one generates that and perfects it, then one generates bodhicitta. Now, at that point, one enters the path of accumulation. So, then this instruction becomes dedicated to such a being. Form is empty. Emptiness is formed, is directed to that being.
So then we go into the next of the five paths, which is the path of seeing itself. Now the path of seeing, then we have the next section of the text. Okay. So down towards the bottom of page number five or on the Heart Sūtra, then it says, Śāriputra, likewise all phenomena are emptiness without characteristics, unproduced, unceased, stainless, not without stain, not deficient, not fulfilled. So that’s the specific instruction for someone on the path of seeing.
Right, so it’s again, it’s teaching emptiness, but teaching the eight characteristics of emptiness. All phenomena are emptiness. Śāriputra in that way all phenomena are emptiness. Now, in a way what it’s saying is all phenomena, if we look at the final mode of abidance of anything that exists, it is emptiness. So all phenomena are emptiness without characteristics.
Characteristics here means, you know, without anything extraneous or actually it’s just emptiness there, there’s nothing tacked onto that without having arisen or what do we say here? Unproduced without having arisen. They actually didn’t didn’t arise. Without ceasing. They don’t cease either because they didn’t arise without stain.
They’re not actually stained and they’re free from stain. And they’re without decrease and they’re without increase. They don’t actually grow or fade away. Right, so it’s a bit obscure this passage. But there is a deep meaning here.
These eight characteristics or eight attributes of emptiness, one could say, all phenomena are divided into the three doors of liberation. And the first one, all phenomena emptiness refers to the door of liberation, of emptiness. And then without characteristics, without being produced or having arisen, without ceasing, without stain and free from stain, are the door of liberation, of signlessness. And without decrease and without increase is the door of liberation, of wishlessness. Anyway, there’s no need for us to go into that.
Also, if we really wanted to go into detail about these eight, then they also reflect on the path of seeing. There are said to be sixteen moments of the path of seeing. So this is an instruction given that’s directed to those on the path of seeing. Is anyone familiar with the path of seeing? Yeah.
Path of seeing, seeing what? Emptiness. Really, it’s seeing emptiness. It’s not that emptiness wasn’t seen previously on the path of accumulation and preparation, but it’s seen on the earlier paths conceptually. Right?
It’s understood. Emptiness is understood conceptually. Right? It’s like if we understand you know, we understand impermanence conceptually. When we look at that right?
And we can say, and you know, if we think about it being impermanent, then oh, we can understand that it is impermanent, can’t we? That understanding is conceptual, isn’t it? Now, up to this point, the practitioners of the perfection of wisdom on the path of accumulation and preparation understand emptiness conceptually. Meaning they, you know, the penny has dropped, they’ve understood. But the level of understanding is only on an unclear conceptual level.
So then, on the path of seeing, they break through to full clarity, like the clarity we have with eye consciousness. Understand emptiness directly. Experience it. Perceptually, with mental, with yogic perception, what’s called yogic perception, which is a type of awareness that is supported by calm abiding and insight, the union of calm abiding and insight, that’s able to directly experience its object. So at that point they perceptually comprehend emptiness.
So that is the real antidote to the ignorance. That’s like when one sees. That seeing illuminates the darkness of ignorance. It illuminates the ignorance holding things to be truly existent. And one is finally able to directly see how things exist, how we exist, how the universe, all things in the universe, actually exist.
So in that state there are eight attributes of all phenomena: emptiness, without characteristics, without having arisen, without ceasing, without stain, free from stain, without decrease, without increase. So there are said to be sixteen moments that occur serially at that time. And these attributes, there are eight of them, Each attribute occurs for each in two moments. One can look at it that way. Anyway, we don’t don’t need to go into too much detail there.
Also the path of seeing. Are we actually seeing? We’re seeing emptiness, but in particular we’re seeing the Four Noble Truths. The path of seeing means see directly, perceptually the Four Noble Truths. So the truth of suffering, origin, cessation, and path.
And the truth of cessation is the emptiness. Right. Are there any more issues with those eight characteristics there? Yes. It is a phenomenon.
Yes. So when you say that our compassion is also empty without characteristic? A bodhicitta is emptiness. Love, compassion Love is emptiness. Compassion is We’re saying it in a particular way.
We have to be when we say something like compassion is emptiness, it’s probably easy to put it in the terms compassion is empty. Right? But if we were to say compassion is emptiness, what we would mean is that compassion itself has different modes of abidance, and the deepest mode of abidance is its emptiness. So the compassion actually is emptiness in the sense that it has an attribute of emptiness. And that is actually the very nature of compassion.
Is that Can I just ask you a question? Are there any phenomena that have not entered? No. Everything in the universe is a phenomena. Everything that exists.
We don’t have to worry about what doesn’t exist. But even those that don’t exist are empty of true existence as well. But you may laugh, but actually this isit comes up a lot in debate. And they say, and then they say, that if you prove a non existent thing to be empty of true existence, and even if you understand its emptiness, you still don’t understand emptiness, because you have to do it in relation to an existent thing. Anyway, sorry.
Well, emptiness is the first of the eight characteristics. Here it’s saying that all phenomena, anything that exists, have these eight characteristics. First is emptiness, Then we should count them out. Emptiness, without characteristics, without what have we got? Let me get the actual I’m using a slightly different text here.
Emptiness without characteristics, unproduced, unceased, stainless, not without stain, not deficient, not fulfilled. Eight characteristics. So emptiness is the first. Right? So anything that exists exists in this way.
They are emptiness. They have the characteristic of emptiness, we could say. Or they are emptiness. They are without characteristics, meaning they lack defining characteristics, truly existent defining characteristics. They have not arisen.
And we finally get to that point, what do you mean ‘not arisen’? You know, there’s lots of things that have arisen, have been generated from causes and conditions. What it means here is there there’s no truly existent No, no. There’s no truly existent arisen entity. Right?
So without having arisen or without being produced, not produced, not ceasing, without stain, free from stain. Free from stain also there are different ways of describing that. Some have two negatives, some have only one negative. It doesn’t matter. Different commentaries.
What are the other ones? Deficient or do not decrease and not fulfilled, meaning do not increase. So anything that exists, exists in that way. But, that’s where getting, you know, just getting the word straight is the main task we have in this sūtra. And at present, if we think about it, we’ll have a lot of doubts about this description.
Unarisen or unproduced. What does that mean? Unceased. They’re without ceasing. Well, they’re not produced, they cannot cease.
Now it appears that things are, you know, generated. Like with the table, you know, have the example of the table. It appears as if there’s a table there. We try and find the table, hard to find. So really the table didn’t exist to begin with in an actual sense.
But we use the table because it functions as a table and that functions fine. So really the table is unarisen. That is a truly existent table. If there were a truly existent table it would exist independent of its parts. Right?
It would be absolutely, you know, the real article. And then we take away all the parts and there’d still be a table there, because a table has parts. Right? But if we took away all the parts of the table, there wouldn’t be much left. So it presents a bit of a paradox for us.
But it gives a little bit of an indication of what we’re talking about here in meaning unarisen, unceasing. Can you also mean that because Beginning and end, mean in a like Because here it says that not deficient and not fulfilled. Deficit and empty. Right. Right.
So it’s neither at extreme end it should be in the middle. Oh it just means really not deficient not fulfilled. It really means not it doesn’t increase and doesn’t decrease. Well it’s without without increase. We tend to think that it or without evolving or devolving or without So if your compassion is neither increased or decreased it has always been there?
No, no it doesn’t mean that really. Compassion is a phenomena and it has these eight attributes and compassion is a good example to use. And what is compassion? Compassion is awareness. Yeah.
It’s a type of awareness, isn’t it? A mental awareness, mental conception. Right? Where does it exist? Well, exists within the body, doesn’t it?
If we had to find our compassion, it’s somewhere in our mental. Well the seed of consciousness is said to be at the heart. And what is that consciousness? It’s something that’s immaterial, it’s not physical, right? It’s a definition of awareness is clear and cognizing, that which is a type of energy that is clear and it cognizes its object.
So it’s a type of energy that’s non physical, it’s not made of atoms and molecules. So that we have inside of us, along with various other consciousnesses, that compassion is empty of true existence. If we were to practice Mahāmudrā, then we use the consciousness itself as the basis for understanding emptiness. You may be a very good candidate for practicing Mahāmudrā. Because when we contemplate emptiness we can do it with anything and some are drawn to examples of form to understand emptiness but some prefer inner internal objects, internal states like consciousness which is subtler.
The energy of consciousness is subtler than the energy of form, isn’t it? We can’t see consciousness, we can’t hear it, right? No, it’s not an object to the senses. The only way we can understand it is through our conception, thinking about it. Even these days, many scientists don’t even think there is any energy of consciousness.
It’s all just the physical brain. Right? But anyway, compassion exists in its not physical from a Buddhist perspective, and it also is empty of true existence. It is unarisen, You know, it’s unceasing in that sense. All that’s really being described here, I mean, we can just stop with the first of the eight characteristics: empty.
And that’s, in a way, it’s sufficient. Compassion is empty of true existence. And if it wasn’t empty of true existence, compassion could not arise, could not be generated. It’s said to be unarisen because there’s no truly existent compassion. Right?
That’s why it’s unarisen, because it has the first characteristic of being empty. Being empty means there was never any truly existing compassion to begin with. It is? The Buddha nature in us is also characterized as empty. Is empty.
Yep. Our Buddha nature is empty. What is our Buddha nature? Okay. Where does it exist?
Okay, what is it? It’s a mind. What type of mind? It’s non physical, it’s a mind. What is our Buddha nature?
It’s current stained consciousness. Imperfect, impure consciousness is our Buddha nature. Yep. Think we were all born. Didn’t they say we were all born with Buddha nature?
And I thought that meant that you were one little pristine Yeah, right. Exactly. Sorry, there’s not even one little pristine bit. It’s all contaminated. Even good in nature.
Absolutely. Fully contaminated. Yeah, no, the I misunderstood that for years then. Well, there’s two types of Buddha nature. There’s an escape clause here.
There’s the evolving Buddha nature, and there’s the natural Buddha nature. And the evolving Buddha nature is the current stained mental consciousness we have. That one. The natural Buddha nature is the emptiness of that mind. Now the emptiness of that mind is emptiness, and that’s unstained.
Right? Yeah. Sorry. Don’t mean to be rude. Oh, no, no, not at all, no.
Well, the basis of the emptiness is stained, our present mental consciousness. But the emptiness itself is unstained. But actually those two are we know that the base and the emptiness are, you know, form is empty, emptiness is form. They’re not inseparable. But the emptiness itself is never stained by the stains of the mind.
We have to come to understand that. We have Buddha nature, we have stained mind. And the continuum of that mind eventually will become unstained due to it having emptiness. Right? Because it is empty of true existence, it means that it can be changed.
Yeah. So our Buddha nature yeah. Our Buddha nature on one hand, there’s a permanent Buddha nature and an impermanent Buddha nature. The emptiness is permanent and our current stained mental consciousness is impermanent. So that’s what Buddha nature is.
Every being has Buddha nature because they have mind, have a stained mind. Every ordinary or every non fully awakened being. A Buddha himself, well, has Buddha nature? Not in the normal sense, because a Buddha just has a completely unstained mind. So it’s not evolving Buddha nature.
Oh, well. Śākyamūni Buddha went through three countless eons of practice. Three countless eons. In that lifetime, in the lifetime that we started No, no, he was already No, it’s said from the great vehicle point of view that he was fully awakened prior to that life. In that life he just demonstrated how you practice, demonstrated the twelve deeds of a Buddha.
It was a bit of a play. Now the small vehicle says, No, it wasn’t a play. He was actually went through the process. He started off on the path of accumulation in that life and then evolved through to the path of preparation and path of seeing and so on. That Mahāyāna vehicle, enlightened in one life.
He did, yes. That’s Tantric vehicle. Oh, I saw. Yep. That’s the great compassion of Śākyamūni Buddha.
It’s hard to Śākyamūni Buddha didn’t enter the tantric vehicle until he was on the tenth ground as a bodhisattva. So, it’s said that he spent three countless eons. Every countless eon has sixty great eons, and each great eon has eighty intermediate eons. And so on. And if you count out the years, it’s a long time.
And many countless lifetimes, but he spent training to become a Buddha as a bodhisattva in order to teach other beings. So incredibly, you know, dedicated. It’s almost inconceivable, Śākyamūni Buddha. For that reason, when you see statues of Maitreya, he has a stupa, often you see with a stupa up here. You’ve seen that You see a Buddha that has a stupa marked here.
That’s Maitreya. And the stupa represents Śākyamūni and it’s to depict Maitreya’s reverence or respect for Śākyamūni and his practice. Now, one of the reasons why Śākyamūni is so revered is that he spent three countless eons training to become a Buddha. And then when he became a Buddha, he set forth the tantric vehicle that allows a person to attain the same result in one lifetime. So, you know, he spent three countless eons achieving it.
He made available the extremely speedy way. Rest of us would probably say, well, the rest of you can do what I did and spend three countless eons on the path. So have you used the tantric vehicle that wouldn’t have taken this long? No, but it just it wasn’t available, I guess. It is extremely rare that the tantric vehicle is taught.
But Śākyamūni had yeah, he did teach. And only I think in this I’ve said in this eon, fortunate eon of one thousand Buddhas, I think there’s maybe three or four teach the tantric vehicle. And Śākyamūni being the first. Yes, so anyway, we Okay. We should have a break there.
Before we do, could we please say a prayer for Lama Oh, yes. Everyone’s heard the news of Lama Zopa. Lama Zopa had