Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute teaching, Ven Jampa Ignyen unpacks the 12 Links of Dependent Arising: how two causal phases (projecting and establishing) generate rebirth, the precise timeline across lifetimes, and which links are karma versus affliction. Ignorance and attachment together lock us in saṃsāra. He then moves to the practical remedy: the four opponent powers for purifying karma. These are refuge (touching the path beyond saṃsāra), regret (seeing fault in past actions), resolve (committing never to repeat), and practicing the antidote through recitation, prostrations, or tonglen. Regret is non-negotiable, he stresses—without it, patterns repeat. A detailed Q&A clarifies how mental habits determine which karmic seeds ripen and why craving awakens seeds for future rebirth.
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File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 12 Links 2001 06 11.mp3
UUID: 69400c5a-de8c-40e0-9fed-24a36e3ba75f
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: 12 Links of Dependant Arising (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-06-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~4,252
And these again are divided up into causal and resultant links. And there are two sets of causes and two sets of results. So the first set of causes the projecting causes. And the second set of causes are the establishing links, or the establishing causes. So, there are six there which are basically causes, okay?
And that’s one, two and three, eight, nine and ten. And they each have their own results. So the results of the establishing causes are the established links, which are eleven and twelve. And the results of the projecting causes are the projected results, or the projected links, which are four, five, six and seven. Right, so as we look at this we can see there are two sets of causes and two sets of results.
Okay, we’ll get to that point. Well actually we can deal with that now. Yep, that’s good. So these twelve links, they have two sets of causes and two sets of results. And they’re basically projecting causes, projected results, establishing causes, establishing results.
And they exist one group after the other. Right. Now, if we look at these twelve links from the point of view of whether they’re the truth of origin or the truth of suffering, then in fact they’re all the truth of suffering. All the twelve are the truth of suffering. But some also are the truth of origin as well, both the truth of origin and the truth of suffering.
So origin origin here means the origin of suffering. So when we look down that fifth column in the chart that we have, we have ignorance and compositional factors are the truth of origin as well as the truth of suffering. Consciousness is regarded as the truth of suffering. Here, when it’s put there, really referring to the resultant stage of consciousness. Yes.
It’s still a cause, but whether in fact Well, fact, we did mention before that consciousness has two aspects, a causal aspect and a resultant aspect. Here, putting it that way, is the resultant aspect that’s being talked about. Right. So the twelve links are all the truth of suffering and some of them are the truth of origin as well. Which ones really are the truth of origin are ignorance and compositional factors, and craving, grasping, and existence.
All of those are the truth of origin as well as the truth of suffering. So five, in other words, are also the truth of origin. Now the truth of origin itself is divided up into karma and affliction. So of those five which are the truth of origin, there are two which are karma and three which are affliction. So in the final column there, have the division of origin, which is that ignorance is an affliction, compositional factors is karma, craving and grasping are affliction, and existence is karma.
So therefore, have of the five which are the truth of origin, two of those are karma, three of those are affliction. So it’s really this karma and affliction, in a sense, which is the cause of saṃsāra. karma and affliction is the cause of saṃsāra. When we look at the list, we can see that karma here is the second link and the tenth link. Affliction here really is the first link, the eighth and the ninth link.
When we look, we see that the eighth and the ninth craving and grasping themselves are attachment. So really, it’s ignorance and attachment and the karma also that are the causes of our existence in saṃsāra. Okay. So this is the way that generally the twelve links are divided up. They’re all the truth of suffering, five of them are the truth of origin, and of the truth of origin two are karma.
Those two which are karma, the first one is projecting karma, that’s the second link, and the tenth link is establishing karma. And before we discussed, there were three types of karma. There’s projecting, establishing, and also completing. In our current life, we’re at the stage of experiencing our completing karma. Sorry?
Oh, sorry. We’ve already projected this current life, we’ve already established it. So now we’re just completing it. And there’s certain karma that we’ve accumulated in the past that now completes our life for us. In fact, it generates our experience, what we experience in the present, whether it’s good or bad.
This mixture is our completing karma. Right. Now, also another issue here is that we have two causal sequences. We have the projecting causes and the projected results, the establishing causes and the established results. And it’s good to know these clearly what these two refer to.
But then when we look at it, can see that the twelve links are not just one series of what? A series of events because we know that the fourth link begins at the same time as the eleventh link. We need to keep that in mind. The link of birth, here birth into the womb, and this map here is not for miraculous birth, which has a slightly different root. This is really for womb birth.
Probably egg birth would also be covered, but miraculous birth is not described by this type of process. Petri dish? Yeah, that’s womb birth. We can include that cloning, petri dish as All that’s happening there is the same process that a womb birth would experience is also happening. It’s just that it’s not happening in the womb necessarily.
Or bits of it are happening outside of the womb. Right, but still the same processes of the embryo must be followed. For a miraculous birth there’s no need for the stages of the embryo and so on to occur. Right, so we have these two causal sequences and these occur in two or three lifetimes. Minimum of two, maximum of three.
So in the third column there, have how these twelve links occur in two lifetimes. So here in the first life, we have, say, those three: ignorance, compositional factors and causal consciousness, if it’s included as the cause, as a projecting cause. Then the second life, the life directly after that, then we have name and form, the six bases: contact, feeling and craving. Sorry, contact and feeling. Stop there.
Now, in the first life also we have craving, grasping and existence, and necessarily in the second life again we have birth, aging and death. Always four, five, six and seven and eleven and twelve must occur in the same life because we know that four and eleven begin at the same time, begin in the same life, always. So what that means is that in one life we generate ignorance, intention, and then the consciousness, the causal consciousness upon which that imprint is embedded or that seed is imprinted. Then in that same life, we also then generate craving, grasping and existence in that very same life. That craving, grasping is actually ripening a karmic seed that we have, say, in that very life itself.
Say, for instance, if we committed a very good action in this lifetime, even though it’s motivated by ignorance, it’s conditioned by ignorance, we have a very strong positive intention and we act on that and therefore we imprint our mental consciousness with that action. Later in this lifetime, through craving and grasping, we mature the seed, that karmic seed, especially towards the end of our life at the time of death. And then we go through the three establishing links, that is craving, grasping and existence. Then at the end of existence one experiences actual death. And then in the next life, one experiences the two sets of resultant links, that is four, five, six and seven, plus eleven and twelve.
So that’s a possibility in one life sorry, in two lives. So therefore in the first life six links, in the second life six links. That’s the shortest possible, that’s generally the shortest possible time that that can happen. Now, the other possibility is a scenario. So in that, in the first life, we have ignorance, intention and then consciousness.
Then in a second life, could be at any time, we have craving, grasping and existence which mature that karmic seed laid down in a previous lifetime. That craving, grasping and attachment then awaken that seed which then establishes rebirth for the subsequent life to that. So therefore there are three lives in which those twelve links are completed. In general we can say it’s either two lives or three lives. Right.
Now, for instance, in this lifetime, for instance, we have karma that’s been collected in our previous lifetimes, or karmic imprints that exist within our mental continuum. In our mental continuum we have infinite numbers of karmic seeds. Now, to our actions in this lifetime, specifically our craving and grasping, and the craving here is really craving for positive feeling, we can awaken in accordance with that craving karmic seeds that have been laid down in a previous lifetime. Say a lifetime we had, you know, a thousand years ago. And then by awakening that seed and bringing it to the point of awakening, we pass away and are reborn in accordance with that karma.
Would it go something like, you say in this lifetime we accumulate a lot of merit, like prostrations, but we give money to sick people and blah blah blah and maybe do a little bit of study. If you say that in the next my next life then I will be craving and grasping for that aspiration and I would have laid the causes so perhaps I can become that? Does it work like that or is it too gross? Well, depends on craving and grasping as to what seed is actually awakened. They’re the factors that are awakening the karmic seeds that we already have in our continuum.
It depends also on the habits of our thinking because if we have a strong intention, we develop that to be a doctor, that can act as a completing karma as well. And that’s why our current karma is said to be movable or not fixed, because our karma can either be generated as projecting karma or, for instance, as completing karma. So, in order to be a doctor we need at least a human rebirth. So that needs a basis of merit in order to achieve that. human rebirth?
The ten virtuous actions. The ten virtuous actions the means by which practicing the ten virtuous actions is the means by which we attain a human rebirth. Sorry? What’s that again? Ten virtuous actions are the three virtuous actions of body, four of speech, three of mind.
Basically, are the seven actions of body and speech. That is not killing, not stealing, not engaging in sexual misconduct. Basically, it’s harming others through our sexual activity. Then the four of speech: not lying, not using harsh words, not using slander, and not engaging in gossip. And then the three of mind are the three at the center of the wheel.
Which ones were they? It’s actually also they can be described as wrong view or afflictive view, avarice and ill will or harmful intent. But that’s right. Attachment? Really it comes down to hatred, attachment and ignorance.
Because When does the first moment of the life occur on the twelve links? Name and form and? Birth. They are the first moment of this life, aren’t they? What precedes them in the twelve links?
What must precede those to generate those? In the twelve links? Within the twelve links, what must go before name and form? Consciousness must go before. When does that consciousness occur?
When? Yeah, that’s right. Well, no, here it’s the previous life, isn’t it? And that intention is in a previous life, that ignorance is in a previous life. So there must be at least two lifetimes there because this life begins with number four.
Oh, we can experience all twelve, but not of the same round of twelve links. Right? Oh, well, we need to. Yeah. Because here we’re talking about a causal cycle.
A cycle that’s related itself causally. Definitely, in this lifetime we have ignorance that’s ongoing. And that ignorance is generating or is conditioning our intention. And that intention is imprinting seeds on our consciousness. We’re doing it day by day.
We’re imprinting all these seeds in the morning, midday, in the evening, and we’re just setting them down in our mental continuum. Then, once they’re imprinted, then our attachment is ripening them, or potentially ripening them. And we can ripen any of those. Those seeds that are ripened are therefore in a causal sequence, the attachment or the craving and the grasping. When they do ripen a particular karmic seed, they are conditions for ripening that seed.
There is a causal relationship then between those, and they establish a particular result which is a result of those six causes. So those six causes and results occur in a round of twelve, which is internally causally related. Even on the course of a day we can have craving, attachment, ignorance, intention they’re not necessarily of the same causal or the same complete round of links. Well, it’s in order to show us how what we experience, or how rebirth actually occurs in one complete round of links. But then for us to then extrapolate that to understanding that even in one lifetime one can generate many different karmic seeds, one can also experience many different types of craving and grasping, and so forth.
But these are not necessarily in the same complete round of links. But we need to understand fully at least one complete round of links, and then we can apply that to the causes, whatever causes we’re generating. It’s said that in some circumstances, if it’s extremely negative or extremely positive karma, it may even ripen in one lifetime, but it’s not very common. Generally it’s going to take two lives. Well, this is supposedly interpreting just the process of rebirth.
That it’s not a it’s just noted that these events occur a complete round of links does occur over at least two lifetimes. It is said that, you know, one can have an instantaneous presentation of the twelve links and just look, you know, in our current continuum we have consciousness, we have intention, we have ignorance, and we already have, you know, a body with sixth sense powers and so forth. You know, at any one moment we have all of these, but they’re not necessarily causally related in one round of links. But here what we’re trying to see is how in fact we come about in a causal sequence, starting with ignorance, then moving to intention. But this does take a lot of contemplation.
Certainly, it’s not easy. And often these topics weren’t taught in great depth because really of the difficulty of, you know, understanding just the causal process as it is. One life, one body. Yeah, that needs some interpretation. But that’s a tantric process.
That doesn’t contradict the twelve links. Oh, absolutely. Everything that occurs to us occurs through a cause. And our affinity with things, our liking for things, doesn’t arise without a fundamental cause for that to occur. If we like something, it’s generally an indication that, you know, we have liked that thing in the past.
We’ve generated an attraction in the past. Yeah, well, much of this is dependent on our mental habits. We experience various things, relationships and so on, but our mental habits are what tend to determine what’s happening to us at present. If we have strong attachment, a strong tendency to anger or hatred or whatever, that would tend to determine what karmic seeds we’re awakening. So pretty much our motivation in the present moment is determining what we experience on the level of completing karma and also on the level of projecting karma.
Providing we’re not changing very much ourselves, our experience will tend to be the same. It will tend to be ripening or awakening those types of karmic seeds. For instance, a negative state of mind will tend to awaken negative karmic seeds. So if we in a relationship and we are used to getting angry and disliking the other person, we’ll tend to have negative feelings. Even if they were to pass away and our mind is still continuing in those habits, no matter where we go, we’ll tend to be awakening internally those types of seeds that will produce an appropriate type of experience, or an experience that conforms with those seeds.
But then if we change our thinking around Ah, then. Positive one. Exactly. If we positively, then it’s not going to act as a condition for the awakening of negative karmic seeds. It’s going to minimize, and so one will tend to be happier by developing a positive outlook because we’re minimizing then the negative seeds, karmic seeds that we’re awakening.
Absolutely. Yeah. We don’t really ourselves lose those seeds, they just lay dormant. They lay dormant, yeah. We’ll have to deal with them at some time though.
It depends. We can stop the process. The whole point of this is stopping this process. Well, we can either do it either we eliminate the ignorance, which is the root of the process, or we do things like starting to minimize our attachment. Because attachment, which is the eighth and the ninth link, they are the ones that are really the ones that awaken our karma.
Craving and grasping. And this is often the approach taken in, say, the Theravāda, where we really develop detachment, which is really targeting ignorance but also targeting lessening our attachment. So by doing the work, learning the lessons, we can change the karma? Well, we’re changing our current karma. By learning the lessons, we’re improving our current intention that we have to do.
Because we want to lay down positive imprints for the future, also we want to lessen or minimise the negative imprints that we’re awakening in the present. Protect ourselves. We need protection from our negative imprints. That’s why we take refuge. We take refuge not from the outside, We take refuge from our black karmic imprints.
They’re going to awaken as suffering. That’s why we take refuge in the Buddha. But as a current strategy that we can employ is to limit the conditions that will awaken these negative karmic imprints. Yes, yes. And it’s also possible to destroy the karmic seeds.
The seeds are impermanent. They’re impermanent. How do we destroy those karmic seeds? What’s the process? The four opponent powers.
Sorry? The four opponent powers? No, these are the four antidotes. The four opponent powers. What do you think they might be?
Regret is definitely one of them. Refuge. Taking refuge. That one is so important. That one is really a recognition that we have these negative imprints that at any time could be manifested, especially at the point of death and throw us into hell, for instance.
So we take refuge. That’s why it’s important to take refuge. Why am I saying it. Then first one really refuge. Hold on, does refuge mean belonging to an established doctrine?
Externally it may have that appearance. Here, refuge is simply taking refuge in an actual abode of refuge which is beyond saṃsāra. Which is more like a church or a Which is really the awakened mind, fully awakened mind. Oh, so contact with the fully in that awakened mind? Or at least to well, one is taking refuge in that state which is beyond saṃsāra.
So that state is really the Three Jewels. So, the Three Jewels are really the state of nirvana. We put it that way. State of nirvana. nirvana is the state in which all suffering is ceased.
Understanding emptiness is like taking refuge, yes. Yeah. Understanding emptiness. Really, emptiness is a refuge. The wisdom understanding emptiness is refuge.
On a grosser level, virtue is a refuge, but it’s a relative type refuge. And really, in a sense, what we’re taking refuge in is the virtue in our mental continuum. Hopefully there’s some there. Then there’s probably nothing left in our mental continuum to take refuge in if we get angry. Not responding with anger, but responding with compassion.
Oh, absolutely. Then it’s useful for that person, very useful for ourselves because we can take refuge in that compassion. Even though it’s not ultimate refuge, it is a factor compatible with the path. So in a sense, what we’re taking refuge in at present is what virtue there is in our continuum. So the first opponent, the first antidote of the four is taking refuge.
And the second one? Regret. Regret. Sorry? Regret, that is the power of the tongue.
Oh, absolutely. The power of regret. So, that’s regretting our past negative. Sorry? It is actually there, the power of regret is called the strength of repudiation.
Why it’s called the strength of repudiation is because it’s repudiating our past negative actions. It’s looking inside at all those negative actions that we’ve committed and repudiating them, criticizing them, seeing the fault in them. By seeing the fault, then we regret them. It could be guilt. I don’t have any depends what you mean by guilt.
If guilt is a type of regret, no problem. But if guilt sounds a little bit like it’s got the wrong connotations, then we don’t need to use that at all. Here it’s basically regret. We regret any negative actions. Why do we regret them?
Why are they at fault? Here we’re finding fault with them. Why is there fault with them? They cause suffering? That’s right.
They cause suffering for ourselves and others. Right. They are what throw us into hell. They’re what generate all the negative feelings we have day by day by day. All the faults.
That. If possible, yeah. Find out those people that we’ve committed negative actions towards and apologise. Oh, we tell them. Oh, then don’t tell them.
Don’t tell them, absolutely. So the regret still has power even though the honesty is not? Oh, you’re still being honest but if you know that by telling that person that thing it will harm them more than not telling them, then better not to tell them. But we still have regret, absolutely regret. Hello?
That’s right. That’s right. That would be a selfless act. Oh, regret. Oh, regret is very important.
It’s the second of the four opponents. Okay, so we have those two. Refuge. Refuge is also called the strength of the basis, the basis itself. Then we have regret, which is the strength of repudiation.
Then we have the intention not to commit the action again, which is the third opponent power. Sorry? Repeat. Oh, repeat. No repeat.
Recidivist. No recidivist.. Recidivist, yes. Okay. And then Yeah, that’s very important. This very strong determination never to commit that action again.
But what else do you do? Then you have to then go back to square one and go to one, two and three. You go back to a greater. Yeah, yep. This we’ll have to do hundreds, thousands of times over, of course, because we keep on making mistakes.
And what we decide not to do in the morning, do it midday and so on. So then we have to recall and go back and repudiate the action, then make a commitment, I’m not going to commit it again. But we sort of suspect that we might do it again, but still we make as firm a commitment as possible. Don’t we make a commitment for a certain time as well? Oh, we can if that If you know the term you get angry again Oh, that’s right.
We can do it for one day or One minute. One minute. Yep. And then the fourth opponent power. What’s the fourth opponent power?
Restitution. Restitution. Right. The fourth opponent power. The third one is the power of the resolve not to repeat.
Fourth one is always practicing the antidote. Fourth opponent power. So then we engage in practicing a positive action as a means of generating virtue. Ah, right. So the opponent or the strength of always practicing the opponent?
See, the opponent there is practicing those things that oppose negative actions. Yes. Absolutely. Within that, often the recitation of the hundred syllable mantra is recommended as one of the most effective ways of always practicing the opponent or the antidote, which is the fourth. That’s the Vajrasattva.
And then you practice the full purification. It’s like having a concrete kind of action. Yeah, we can. There’s many things we can do. Reciting the one hundred syllable mantra, doing, say, a fire puja, like that which is burning mustard seeds, which represent our negative karmic imprints, destroying them.
Prostrating to thirty-five Buddhas? Thirty five Buddhas also is excellent. Prostrations is excellent. Seven Limb prayer is very good. Giving and taking is very good.
Tonglen very, very effective. And so on. So it’s really those four, they need to go together. We’d really need also the earlier strengths as well. Regret is very If we don’t regret the action, then it means that we’re not seeing a fault in the action.
So it means then that we’re going to repeat the action. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.