Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 37-minute session, Ven Jampa Ignyen teaches the twelve links of dependent arising, grounding the topic in animal welfare ethics. He illustrates three types of karma through factory farming and slaughter: projecting karma (which sets the rebirth condition), establishing karma (which actualizes it), and completing karma (which generates specific happiness or suffering within that rebirth). He then systematically walks through the twelve links organized into four causal and resultant sequences: projecting causes (ignorance, composition, consciousness), projected results (name and form through feeling), establishing causes (craving, grasping, existence), and established results (birth, aging and death). Throughout he clarifies when each link occurs—some during embryonic development, others across lifetimes—and provides precise definitions. For practitioners with foundational Buddhist knowledge.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 12 Links 2001 06 11.mp3
UUID: a17fa5c3-7015-47b2-94d0-101cf95088e9
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y 12 Links of Dependant Arising (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-06-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 37.1 minutes
Words: ~3,656
Yeah, but that’s very unskillful and very negative for the I mean, there’s many practices like that that are feeding animals a lot of antibiotics, which is also very unskillful because it has long term implications for humans and animals. Yeah, a lot of these practices that are motivated by greed or profit or even to some extent they may be motivated to help animals stay free of disease and so forth in an attempt Yeah. Yep. It’s often due to attachment, absolutely. It’s hard to say in individual cases but it appears as if there’s little concern in general for the animals.
Even it’s an issue amongst the Tibetans, for instance, like in Sera in South India, is a group of Tibetan refugee villages and there they had a battery for hens. At one stage a cooperative was formed and they built this place for getting eggs and the chickens of course are all in cages, in long rows of cages and so forth. It’s efficient if you’re trying to generate eggs. You keep them all in one place and you just feed them and so on. Then one year the Dalai Lama came to Sera and he was talking about this and how difficult it was, of course, for the chickens.
You know, they’re stuck there and they they can’t move very far. And it’s really imposing an intolerable state on these chickens. And so he recommended that that shouldn’t be done and so they closed it immediately and let the chickens go, let them run around instead. Yeah, often we don’t think enough about the conditions for animals. And by imposing these sorts of conditions on animals, we potentially will experience the same thing ourselves in the future.
So it’s not very skillful to act in that way. His Holiness also used to talk about this On the way to Dharmasala, there’s a town called Patankot, if anyone’s been through it in India. It’s in the Punjab, big air force town. And it’s pretty it’s full of machinery and it’s not a very attractive town. When you drive down some of the main streets in it and you see all these biryani restaurants.
And outside you see the chickens in these cages you know, waiting to be ordered. And the poor chickens are just stuck there, you know, and they see their number coming up. They’re very, very stressful for the animals and very cruel. His Holiness used to lament the fact that, you know, for how animals are treated, you know, like that. You go into some restaurant, see the fish and the crabs, you know.
And of course, the last thing they wanna do is be served up on a meal and there they are, just waiting to be plucked out of the container. So we do need to, for our own interest, we do need to take care of animals. No, that’s not as bad I don’t think. I mean to really look after a pet, know, it some chocolate if they crave chocolate maybe in moderation. No problem.
I mean if we were there, we’d probably want a bit of chocolate ourselves. But you have to be That’s their exactly, that’s their good karma. The fact that they might inherit a two million dollar mansion is that they’re good actions in their previous life. They have worked, they’ve been generous in their previous lives to inherit such a thing. Mixture of karma, they.
Good completing karma, not so good projecting karma. Okay, we’ll just do that. Right, now, in the second link, we’ll just go back to the second link a little. So here, the second link is the link of composition, the link of karma also it’s called, because that’s what it means, intention, karma. And there’s basically three types of karma.
There is projecting karma, and this is the one that’s mentioned in the definition. And projecting karma, what it does is that it merely generates the identity of the result. Generates the identity of the maturational result. In other words, it’s almost like a blueprint for how we’re gonna be, what our future life will be, the plan, like the Okay? It’s a bit like that.
Then we have establishing karma. Establishing karma is the tenth link. We haven’t got to that yet. Establishing karma definitely establishes the identity of the projecting karma. The projecting karma, in a sense, it gives us the basic ground plan.
The establishing karma, the tenth link, actually establishes that. It’s like the plans of building a house and then actually building it. Oh, It’s just the projecting karma gives the basic identity of our future rebirth. The establishing karma actually establishes that. No, it’s still prior to that point.
Prior to the point of conception. Tenth link occurs before the eleventh birth. But it’s there’s, you know, like in a sense, there’s many possible projecting karmas that we have. Our establishing karma actually establishes one of them, whatever that So in a sense, projecting karma is just on the level of, say, a blueprint, whereas establishing karma really sets in motion the establishment of that blueprint. Is that the loss of the Yes, whatever the future revert is.
Then we have as the third one, completing karma. And completing karma generates the individual happiness or suffering upon the established basis. So whatever rebirth is established by establishing karma, then whatever on that basis, whatever happiness or unhappiness occurs is completing karma. So for someone, for instance, like a dog who inherits a two million dollar mansion, their projecting karma is negative. But their completing karma is very positive.
That’s right. It depends on their current intention, that’s right. That’s not good intention. Yeah, no, she has some good completing karma then because she’s like resident here. That really shows she has some connection from the past.
And hopefully there’s some imprints there as well. She’s not sleeping all the time, she’s listening. But actually at times she really does sit up and take notice and looks around and other times she’s But there’s stories in the past. For instance, there was a, I think, story of this parrot who used to come to a cave where this master, an Indian master called Vasubandhu, used to recite treatises, the ones that he composed and others he’d memorized. He was a great practitioner, great master.
And this parrot would come and listen because they liked the sound of couldn’t really understand what they were saying, but they liked the sound of it. They’d come regularly and dedicated to listening to what was being said. And that parrot eventually died and they were reborn and they became a as a human and became a student of that master, became a great scholar in their own right. And they remembered being a parrot? I’m not sure but In fact, as a good practitioner they probably did develop that.
Parrot? Could it have been who told the story? But that particular person became quite famous in their own right. No, it is good to think a little about animals and feed them as we can and Yeah, try and take care of them. Insects as well even, Although it’s harder, generally harder for us, but it’s easy to do these things, feed the birds when we get a chance, throw a bit of bread out in the lawn.
I remember meeting one there’s one if anyone’s been to Bodh Gaya, there’s a Burmese Bihar there. And the Burmese Bihar there has an abbot, a Bhante. And I was talking with him one day and he was saying he was talking about dogs and all the noise, because there, you know, like in Bodh Gaya you often get the noise of the dogs barking and so forth. And he was saying that once when he was in Burma, and he stayed in this region, I think called Arakan, sort of up in the middle section, and he was saying that he once met a layperson there. He was staying in this one small monastery.
And he used to notice this layperson would come out of an evening with rice and he would put it on the ground and feed the dogs. And he’d seen him do this quite regularly. Come to a street corner and just put down a of rice for the dogs and dogs would come and eat. And one day he was asking about this and this layperson said, Oh yeah, well, I remember my past life. So Bhante was asking, what were you in a past life?
And he said, I was a dog. I was reborn as a dog in my previous life. And I remember just how difficult it was to get food. So for that reason, in this life I’m giving food to the dogs. And so it is very useful, very good for us to do that.
Because otherwise we tend to look at animals and we think, oh, they’re so different than us. They don’t see the world as we see it or you know, so far removed from how we are and so on. But, of course, when we really especially if we’ve got pets ourselves, we just see how much like us they are, how much we are like them. A confused No, it’s your intention. I mean, one is really repulsed by that and tries to intervene but is powerless to do so, one’s intention is to help but may not be possible to help.
There’s no fault there. I mean, some people may be very cruel. If you offer, look, I’ll take the kittens, don’t do that, they say, no, I’m gonna kill these animals, which makes it even more intensely negative for them. Not only are they killing, they’re killing in a very cruel way. So actually what we should be doing there is generating compassion for that person.
It’s a little bit like Timothy McVeigh, who’s died, maybe dead already now, you know, who committed this action, killed so many people for a particular reason. And we really it’s a terrible action, but we should also generate compassion for that person because they would experience great suffering. The And the person Yeah, absolutely. So does that person get the karma or is that collective conscious No, the person that commits the action. Sorry?
Oh, it is. Well, person that’s Well, here if you talk about the executioner, they have That’s their job. They take on that responsibility. There’s responsibility all the way down. It’s the governor of the state and so on.
The jurors Although the jurors don’t actually sentence. Oh, do in America. If they sentence, they choose a sentence, then there’s responsibility there as well. Yeah, yeah. So there’s sort of a shared responsibility there, that’s right.
Yeah. Then that’s negative as well. Well, they gain by rejoicing in that negative rejoicing in the killing, they gain negative karma from that. So, yeah, one has to be careful with all of those. It’s not an easy situation, but it’s good to One has to have compassion for the victim and also for the person that’s committing the negative action.
No, the active killing is negative. Active killing is negative under all circumstances. If he has compassion also, that compassion is positive. But also he has the intention to kill the person. He has the intention to harm that person.
Well, he’s If the action’s been done, I’ve committed the action. Recognition that the action is done and I intended to do the action, that’s the completion of the action. That would be even worse, exactly. That’s right. But if you have regret, strong regret.
Then Yeah. Yeah. The job of an executioner is a wrong livelihood. We should never take it. No matter if we were offered a lot of money, we shouldn’t take up such a job.
Bush. Yeah. In fact, as governor of Texas, how many were executed? Yeah. He has responsibility there.
But that’s the if you’re a leader, then you take responsibility for what happens. Well, Buddhist kings in the past have killed, executed. In terms of their court system, if somebody takes or kills my donkey, what do Oh, then you could imprison them for a while. Compassionate. Well, hopefully with compassion, yeah.
To do everything with compassion, but understanding that a certain level of punishment has to be meted out. In Tibet, they would sometimes put people in these shackles or in stocks and so forth. I think even said that take off a limb, take off a hand, and so on. But these things have to be well thought out. And, yeah, to actually execute someone is does generate negative karma.
Take on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yep. That’s right. There’s a shared karma there. If we benefit from our military forces defending us from others, then, yeah, there is a shared yeah, we’re benefiting from that. There is a one should understand that shared responsibility.
It would, but at times it’s unavoidable. We can recite mantras for the being, which is good, to develop compassion for the animal that was killed. Think about that animal. Give some time to thinking about the suffering of that animal. And then even to make prayers that that animal takes a human rebirth and so on is very good.
Because that, of course, has happened to us in the past. We’ve been killed, been killed, needlessly, countless times over. And in fact, if we were to go to a slaughter yard It used to be near Sera, there was a market at Kushalnagar, and they would slaughter goats there. It was right next to the vegetable market. And you could walk back through the meat market and there would be maybe twenty goats.
And on any one day, maybe two, three, five goats would be slaughtered. And it was actually a little bit strange because the slaughtered ones would have their throats cut and they would just be left on the ground. And the ones next to them would be just grazing on the grass and their companion would be, you know, like dying next to them. They didn’t seem to take much notice. Yeah, that’s right.
Animals have to be slaughtered for us to eat meat. And I met it too, yeah, you’re saying that. Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. They have compassion.
You can see the love they have for others and the hatred and the resentment. Have all fifty one mental factors. Right. So, we have these Now, we’re dealing here with links four, five, six. Now also we’re going to seven.
So these links deal with the stages in the embryo, that is four, five, six and seven. And feeling, the link of feeling is the mental factor of feeling, experiencing the pleasant, unpleasant or intermediate or indifferent type feeling within the five aggregates after complete formation of the sixth sense basis when able to utilize the union of object base or consciousness. So really these follow in a sequence. First we have name and form, which is the first moment of the mind body up until the formation of the sixth sense basis. Then sixth sense bases we have up until the ability to assemble the object sense base and the consciousness.
And then from the time of once we’re able to assemble those, then contact occurs. And that is the link of contact. From the time of achieving contact between object, sense base and consciousness up until the point of feeling arising is contact. When feeling does arise, then we have the link of feeling. That is, when feeling is generated in relation.
Already feeling occurs for the embryo, mental feeling, for instance. But from the point of where feeling arises, in dependence on, say, the physical sense base, sensory object and consciousness, then the link of feeling, for instance, is generated. So these all occur within the embryo prior to actual birth. Right, now then we go on to the eighth link which is the link of craving. So craving is attachment which initially awakens the latency of projecting karma in a complete round of links by craving for either of the three feelings of an incomplete round of links.
So what craving is doing is craving for feeling, positive feeling, generally. Yes. Here craving is a type of attachment. And it’s a type of attachment which initially awakens the latency of projecting karma. That latency of projecting karma is the seed laid down by intention on the consciousness.
So that craving begins to awaken that seed that already exists within the mental continuum. That’s craving. Then after craving, we have grasping. Grasping is again attachment which powerfully awakens the latency of the projecting karma, increasing the intensity of the previous link of craving. So it’s a more intense continuation of attachment, awakening that prior karmic seed.
Okay, here it’s not necessarily in the embryo. Okay, those Here in fact we’ve got roughly these twelve links occur in four different sets. We have one, two and three roughly we can say occur in the first. They’re projecting causes. Might be easier just to write this down on a page.
One, two and three. And here, when we say three, we mean the consciousness of the causal stage is included in the projecting causes. Okay, so one, three, that is ignorance, composition and consciousness, That is, consciousness we’re actually dividing into two. They’re consciousness of the causal stage and consciousness of the resultant stage. So consciousness of the causal stage goes into these projecting causes.
Okay? Then, three. B, consciousness of the resultant stage, name and form, six bases, contact and feeling are projected results. Right. Okay, I’ll just go through it again.
One, two and 3a are projecting causes. 3b, four, five, six, seven are projected results. We’ve got it on the back but it might be easier just to actually, we do have it on the back. Yes, we can do it here. Here we’ve just included consciousness without dividing it into causal result.
So there we have projecting links, projected links, establishing links and established links. Okay. So craving and grasping are what we’re doing now, and they’re establishing links. Craving is attachment, grasping is attachment. And then we have Craving is the initial type of attachment that begins to awaken the karmic seed.
Grasping powerfully awakens that karmic seed. Then, the tenth link is the link of existence. So that is the actualizing karma or the establishing karma which establishes rebirth, the result of the latency of projecting karma which has been awakened by craving and grasping. So the tenth link, again, is a type of karma or intention. Are you calling it the tenth link after finishing the seventh?
Seventh is feeling. Okay, if we look on that chart So here we’re dealing with the establishing links eight, nine and ten. Now the result, those three are causal states. Right. And their result are the established links, which is birth and aging and death.
So we’ll just briefly go through the definitions of birth and then aging and death. So the definition of birth is the aggregates or the mind body just linked to birth existence by the potency of the dependent arising of the prior existence. So the prior existence, he was referring to the tenth, existence itself, the tenth link. Right. Now, aging and death, which is the twelfth link. Aging, there’s really two elements there, age and death.
Aging is the change in the aggregates or the mind body up until death existence from the second moment of birth existence. And death is the destruction of similar type aggregates. Okay, so aging occurs from the second moment of conception. First moment of conception is birth, Right? Birth link number eleven only lasts one moment.
Then the second moment in the embryo, the aging process has started. Started. We tend to think it started around the age of thirty or Actually, it was the second moment. So therefore, age is the change in the aggregates up till death or death existence, from the second moment of birth existence. Second moment after birth.
Here birth means conception, birth into the womb. We need to be clear on that. Birth here means birth into the womb itself, not birth into the outside world. And death is the destruction of a similar type similar type aggregates. At present, we have continuation of similar type aggregates or mind body from moment to moment.
When the destruction of similar type mind body occurs, that’s death. Okay, so now these twelve links, again, on the reverse page, they are divided into two causal sequences and two resultant sequences. So, ignorance composition and consciousness are called projecting links. Projecting means causing to. They are causal links.
And their result are the projected links, which is name and form, the six bases, contact and feeling. And then we have another set of three causes that are called the establishing links, which are craving, grasping and existence. And their result is the established link, which is birth and old age and death. Now, one point that we should be aware of is that link of birth and the link of name and form exist at the same time. When birth occurs, that is the first moment of conception in the womb, birth into the womb, and name and form, which is the first moment of the mind body continuum, they should be coexistent, shouldn’t they?
So those two exist at the same time. Old age and death is really the second moment of name and form right up until one’s death. Okay. Okay, we We might how are we doing for time? Good.
Good time. Good on time. Okay. We’ll just stop there.