Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute Q&A, Ven Jampa Ignyen explores the distinction between love and attachment: love is a valid assessment that wishes beings happiness regardless of their qualities, while attachment blindly seizes positive qualities and easily flips to hatred. He shows how genuine love is stable and reliable, whereas mixed love-and-attachment oscillates between attraction and aversion as circumstances change. The discussion moves to compassion as wishing beings freedom from suffering, and the critical Buddhist practice of extending both love and compassion equally to all sentient beings. Jampa then addresses deeper questions about karmic formations—the second link of dependent arising—showing how positive and negative intentions produce the results we experience as feelings in the present. He concludes with an exploration of time and space: whether they are permanent or impermanent according to different Buddhist philosophical schools.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 DA 2001 06 10.mp3
UUID: 05598808-e834-4517-a063-2050544827d6
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: Dependant Arising (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-06-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~4,188
The second question here is what’s the difference between love and attachment? So love and attachment are two mental factors. They’re called mental factors or in Tibetan, they’re. So they’re they’re the same as being mental factors. They’re both mental factors.
Love, in fact, is a virtuous mental factor. Attachment, on the other hand, is an afflictive mental, so it’s a it’s called an afflictive mental factor. So in fact, they’re quite different in how they function. Quite different. There is some difference in the way they function.
But for us, they appear to be almost the same in how they function. Love is a type of awareness that’s focusing on other beings and wishing their happiness or aspiring for their happiness. So in fact so love, we can generate we do generate from time to time, either focused on one person or two or more people, animals, sentient beings in general. Sometimes it’s said that we can even focus on inanimate objects. We can love inanimate objects.
But here, that’s more attachment. I love my cupboard. I love my car. I love my TV. On the other hand, attachment is another type of mental factor.
Mental factors are the elements of awareness that we have that do all the work. They’re the busy states of mind that we have. Or the states of mind that we have that are actually doing the work. So attachment, what is it doing? It’s focusing on an object and it’s being attracted to that object because it’s focusing just on the positive qualities or the positive attributes of that object.
So attachment, it might have as its focal object this vase. And our attachment is that type of awareness that’s just looking at this vase and is attracted to it, but is only holding the good qualities of it. Because it’s only holding the good qualities, the attractive qualities, it therefore is attachment. It’s said to be attachment. Even though this vase possesses some probably some bad qualities or not so attractive qualities, the attachment focusing upon it does not register those at all.
It’s blind to the bad qualities. Our attachment to things is blind to their negative qualities. So when we’re attached to our car, for instance, that attachment is although it’s observing the entire car, it’s only holding the positive, the shine, the shape, the numbers on the side, the upholstery, whatever. Whatever is a good quality there, that’s what our attachment is holding. Even though the attachment itself is focusing on the entire car with all of all of its qualities and negative attributes, that attachment’s only looking at the positive one.
It’s only attracted Attachment is attracted just to the positive, which is in a way obvious. On the other hand now also attachment towards people is doing the same thing. If we’re attached to someone else, we’re focused on that person, and we’re just seeing the good qualities, the attractive qualities, whatever they are. And therefore attachment, you know, where it’s a a one-sided, it’s a blind type of awareness because it’s just focusing on the positive. Now it’s actually focused the focal object there is the entire person, but it’s only holding the positive attributes.
Love, on the other hand, is focused on the same person. Focal object of love and attachment are the same. But love the function of love is to wish that person person happiness in spite of their positive or negative qualities. It’s not the function of love is not to just be attracted to the positive qualities. The function of love there is wishing that being be happy, focused on the same being and wishing their happiness.
May they be happy. Whereas the attachment is looking at just the same person and is just holding their positive qualities. So for us, often, when we look at a person or we think of a person, mainly it’s to do with thinking. It’s really all to do with thinking. Love, attachment, they’re conceptual for us.
When we look at another person, our eye awareness doesn’t generate love. Our eye awareness is not love. It’s our mental awareness. But focused on on that one being, we can have love and attachment. Now what’s the difference between these two?
Because the attachment is blind to the negative qualities, it’s one-sided. It therefore is not a valid assessment of the being, of that person. Being since it’s not a valid assessment, it’s actually a wrong assessment. It’s a wrong awareness, Unreliable. Attachment, therefore, is unreliable.
Why is it unreliable? Because it’s just looking at the attractive qualities, the positive qualities. On the other hand, love looks at a focuses on another being, and whatever their positive or negative qualities, it’s just wishing them to be happy. So in fact, love is a valid type of awareness. It’s a reliable assessment.
Generally for us, though, our love and attachment tend to be mixed somewhat. And generating a thought of love for someone else can be influenced by our attachment to them. But with attachment, there is a great there is some danger with attachment. Because attachment itself is unreliable, because it’s a blind type of awareness, it’s a one-sided awareness, just looking at a person and seeing the attractive. It easily is destroyed.
It’s not stable. It is like something standing on three legs. Our attachment in general is just not very stable. Initially, we’re attracted to someone else, and that attachment is just looking at their positive qualities. When we see their negative qualities, then we develop hatred towards the person.
Hatred is the opposite of love. Hatred is looking, focusing on the same person, but just seeing their negative qualities. So very easy for us to first have attachment. And then as soon as we see a negative quality, then we develop hatred because we then develop a type of awareness focused on that being which is just observing their negative qualities. Hatred, again, is an invalid type of assessment because it’s a one-sided assessment Because it’s only looking at one aspect of a person of that person.
So also hatred is not very stable. Because as soon as we start thinking about the positive qualities of that person, then the hatred tends to subside, and we start to develop attachment again to the person. So for us, we’re often going from wobbling between one and the other. We start off with attachment, then it goes to hatred, then back to attachment. We go from one extreme to another.
We either see all their faults or all their good qualities. But if we generate love to that being, then whether that love is aware of positive or negative qualities, it’s still aspiring for the happiness of that being. So it’s much more stable, reliable. And in fact, it’s a valid assessment of that being because the love focused on another being is not, well, is not affected by the positive or negative qualities. If it is, and this for us is often the case, we have a certain degree of love for other beings which is mixed with attachment.
We do aspire that they’re happy while we’re seeing their positive qualities. When we start seeing their negative qualities, our love also for that being disappears. Then we develop hatred, strong hatred towards them. This often you see in, you know, divorce courts, though. Because the love that those people had was also, you know, very much mixed with attachment, then there’s a great danger for the love because once that attachment or at least once the faults of the other being recognized because attachment does tend to blind one to the faults of another being because that’s its function.
It’s only looking at the positive. Then when we stand back and have a look, oh, they have this fault, that fault, then dislike of the person, hatred of the person arises. And that can then affect the love that a person has for the other. That person hasn’t really changed. They hadn’t seen it more or less those faults to begin with.
But because of attachment, we can be blinded. We are blinded to the faults of others. And then because of hatred, we’re blinded to the good qualities of others. Love? Oh, absolutely. We can get sick of the terms.
We hear them once too many times. Absolutely. No. It’s true. And in fact, if the words have too many connotations for us, we throw them out.
We can use new words. But here, the way love is defined, say, the Tibetan texts, is that it’s the mental factor which is wishing either one or many other beings to be happy. That’s just a simple definition. Yeah. Also, our love is pretty much tied in with I I I as well.
But because it’s valid, because love is a valid awareness or it’s but it’s actually a correct assessment of another being. Even though it’s mixed with the sense of I, it’s still correct. No. It doesn’t. Yeah.
Having that developing love doesn’t create problems. Exactly. It’s not afflicted in the sense that the others are. Attachment and hatred afflict us. They’re they’re wrong assessments to begin with.
So there’s really nothing that nothing good comes of them. If something is a wrong assessment to begin with, then all the way down the line, it’s gonna be trouble. Yes. Absolutely. Compassion is similar to love.
Compassion is focused on other beings and wishing them be free of suffering. Love is wishing they be happy. Compassion is wishing they be free of suffering. So focal object is the same. They they’re distinguishable, but they tend to go together.
But they don’t necessarily go together. No. They’re distinct. Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. I think it’s possible. Yeah. Love itself is not compassion. But they often go as, you know, like two sides of the one coin.
Yeah. They often do go together. But in definition, they’re different. What they actually are is different. We can look at it with this, we all we should examine.
If we can look at some another being and just have a wish for them to be happy, separate from a wish for them to be free of suffering. There’s that implication as well. But That’s right. There is a is a distinction that can be made. But it’s of course, a sense, with our practice, we can put them together, you know, and and develop them together.
Because there’s not there’s not a great deal of difference between one and the other in the way that we practice them. But in their definition, they’re distinct. We can separate them out. But also compassion is a valid it’s a correct assessment of another being because it’s not differentiating their good qualities and bad qualities as such. It’s just aspiring that they be free of suffering.
Whether we see their good qualities or bad qualities, it doesn’t compassion is not that concerned with whether it’s seeing the good or the bad qualities of someone in itself. But if it’s mixed with attachment, then our compassion is weakened to that degree. And often that’s the case for us. We develop a bit of compassion towards someone else. You know, we pass a dog in the street and we see that suffering and we develop some compassion.
It turns around and bites us in the ankle and that compassion is gone. Or we develop compassion to other beings, and if they start criticizing us, oh, then. When our wish for them to be free of suffering also declines rapid. In fact, can wish for the opposite. May they suffer.
They criticize me. May they suffer. Oh, that’s right. People that actually do have compassion can appear very wrathful, a mother who’s grabs their child by the scruff of the neck to pull them away from the stove before they grab that pot full of hot water. Looks very wrathful, but actually she’s very compassionate.
Yeah. Compassion can look very wrathful. In fact, a lot of the wrathful deities that one sees depicted in Tibetan Thangkas are actually externally wrathful, internally. In a way, it’s a wrathful expression of compassion. So there is a difference between love and attachment.
But for us, they’re pretty much mixed together. It’s hard for us to separate them out. And in fact, we should have if possible, we should develop love for all sentient beings. The resistance to doing that is really coming from our self-cherishing, but that love for all sentient beings is a correct correct assessment. Being a correct assessment, it’s reliable and trustworthy.
Same with compassion. Oh, that’s yeah. We’re one of the objects that can be taken for love and compassion. So we should have love and compassion for ourselves. Well, of course, we do.
We wish we’re free of suffering. We wish we’re happy, don’t we? So we do love ourselves. We are compassionate towards ourselves. There’s not many people that go around wishing, may I be unhappy.
May I suffer? Although there are, actually. Yeah. And there are even those that, you know yeah. They whip themselves because of the view that that may burn up past negative actions and so forth.
Yeah. That’s said to be, of course, a wrong view. That’s not the path to liberation. Yeah. This that’s right.
There are karmic imprints and also wrong view or view they have a particular view on how liberation is attained, which may not be correct. Although one has to be careful on how one talks about these issues. Right. So actually, we already have love and compassion towards ourselves. So in a sense, we’re extending this to other beings.
Just as the I that I focus upon when I think that I should be happy and free of suffering, everyone else has a similar type I to mine. And in fact, there’s not much difference, really. It’s just circumstance that separates beings out in the present moment. All that separates beings at the present in a sense is the different actions of our past lives. That and we’ve awakened certain karmic predispositions in the past to be here.
And otherwise, beings are actually quite equal in the sense that everyone has an I, a sense of I. And it’s just almost circumstantial that we are different. Sort of circumstantial causes that create differences. So we should extend the this love for the I to the that we have to other beings who are just the same as ourselves. We shouldn’t be biased with just the eye that we have in our own mental continuum.
That’s the the important one. The eyes that other people have in their mental continuum are not important. And there’s another question also. Please explain more about the karmic formations or the on the Khorlo, on the Wheel? Are these karmic threads, imprints, etcetera?
So we’re we’re gonna discuss this in more depth this afternoon. So karmic formations is really the second link. And karmic formation or composition is just the intention we have in the present. And specifically, it’s not the neutral intention we have. It’s either the positive or the negative intention.
That positive or negative intention will produce a result. It’s potent. The neutral intention is not so potent. It sort of is not gonna produce a karmic result. And that karmic result that is projected by intention, we’re even experiencing in the present moment.
What we experience now, the feeling that we experience is the maturational result of past intention. So if in the present moment we have a positive feeling, then that’s an indication that it came from a positive intention that we generated at some time in the past. If at present we have a negative experience, negative mental, physical feeling, then this is coming from a negative intention of a past lifetime. Maybe it’s coming from our previous lifetime. We did something in our previous life that’s creating our current feeling.
Or it may may be the life before that or ten lifetimes ago. It could be a million lifetimes ago. It’s hard for us to determine. But we know that whatever our feeling is in the present, this is a result of something. It’s impermanent, so therefore it’s a result.
It’s true, isn’t it? Anything that’s impermanent is a result. Is that true? So all of our impermanent feelings are the results of something. It’s also the result of the previous moment.
Absolutely. Our present intention to a degree is conditioned by the previous mode of intention. It’s also potentially conditioned by karmic seeds that awaken in the previous moment. Anyway, with this we will discuss because here awareness can either be coming from previous moments of awareness or from seeds of awareness that are not actually awareness. Right.
Anyway, we’ll cover this question in more more depth this afternoon and tomorrow. We’ve got a note from the kitchen saying that we can continue the discussion beyond quarter to twelve. Jampa, yesterday you gave an example Yeah. Somebody at the back was causing trouble about time. And one of we were having a discussion as to whether time was a permanent dependent arising or not.
Lot of people were saying because it’s the past and it’s the future, it wasn’t. But we were looking at space would beginning with, basically. In in in that sort of time would the time and space generated at the same time? Or so is is time permanent? Or Yeah.
Here, the space this permanent type space that’s asserted to exist in Buddhism is perhaps not the same as the space in the space time that’s asserted in science. This permanent space, all it is is this lack of obstruction that never was created. It’s just always existed that there’s been the fact of there being a lack of obstruction in our existing. Time, on the other hand, is impermanent. Time does change moment to moment because the present is always changing into the past.
The future is always changing into the present. So there’s a like a stream. This moment is always the present. When this moment is past, then it’s past time. Well, time itself does exist, doesn’t it?
Well, it may be unending and beginningless, but it’s still impermanent. Doesn’t that space change when you put the object in it? No. That space still remains lack of obstruction even when it’s there’s an object there. What’s obstructing us is not the space, it’s the object.
That’s actually quite problem. Because that’s why we’re having the problem of an object in it. Didn’t that didn’t that change the space? Doesn’t change the space at all. That lack of obstruction still exists there, but there’s a physical object that’s that’s obstructing us.
I’d say that time is a type of substance or energy because it’s impermanent. Everything everything that’s impermanent is said to be a type of substance. What what is substance then? Yeah. Well, here, it just means that it’s impermanent.
It changes. It’s momentary. Time itself is momentary. It has a cause, has a result. Well, not necessarily.
We just mean that we have a cause, but the cause doesn’t exist any longer. And in fact, there’s a school one school does assert that, that it anything impermanent which exists is present, exists only in the present. The past and the future don’t even exist. Because if if they don’t exist in the present, they don’t exist. There’s one school that asserts that.
And there’s some, you know, some, what, merit in that in that sort of view. Because actually, you know, once the sprout has sprouted, where’s the seed? Seed is destroyed. It doesn’t exist any longer. Where’s yesterday?
In our mind. Complex. Is it in our mind? The memory of it maybe, but does that mean to say The imputation’s there. Just the fact that we impute something or we’re we conceive of something doesn’t mean to say it exists, though, does it?
Really in a sense. But that conceiving mind, when does it exist? In the present. So one school does assert that the future and the past did not exist at all. Only the present exists.
Phenomena, impermanence, everything that’s impermanent only exists in the present moment. Now another school asserts the past and the future are permanent, but the present is impermanent. Sorry? Well, it becomes impermanent. Yeah.
It becomes it when the future is present, it’s impermanent. But because here, they say because it’s beyond change, the past can’t be changed. The future can’t be changed. Therefore, it’s unchanging. Therefore, permanent.
But it exists. That is it. Okay. Okay. So this now the highest school, what do they say?
The past and future are phenomena. They’re impermanent. But to understand that particular view is not easy. The consequence. Sorry?
Oh, the highest school. That’s the That’s the Prāsaṇgika school. Prāsaṇgika. The Prāsaṇgika school, or also called the Consequence school, are regarded as the highest school, and their view is the highest view. That’s Mādhyamika. The Prasangikas are Madhyamaka school.
There’s two types of Mādhyamika school. Anyway, these terms are not necessary. It’s just that they’re different views on how time is. All Buddhist schools regard time as as being impermanent. Oh, because it doesn’t change.
Doesn’t change. Space, the lack of obstruction never changes. It’s not momentary. It’s outside of time. We’re exist in a sense within time.
Therefore, we’re impermanent. Time is the well, it’s the movement from the future to the present to the past. Yeah. So therefore, it reflects change. Yeah.
But we can even say it’s the change of our awareness. The change of the position of the hands of a clock. Sorry? No. I think it’s a noun, isn’t it?
Time? You can do time. Oh. Oh, right. Right.
Yeah. I think it is actually. Does anyone assert it’s permanent? Time is permanent. Yeah.
No. Change is impermanent. Nothing will stop changing. Everything impermanent always remains impermanent. But or where while it exists, it’s impermanent.
But we can’t say that change is permanent. Change itself is impermanent. That’s right. It’s doesn’t remain change doesn’t remain the same. But concept Conception.
Absolutely. All conception is impermanent. Oh, well, it remains. It continues to change. The fact of being changed is maintained, but it doesn’t mean to say that it’s permanent.
Well, space is a constant as well, and it doesn’t change. I did but that’s a good point. It’s yeah. Change continues, but also awareness continues as well. Our current awareness.
Like time. Time has no beginning, no end. Awareness has no beginning, no end. Other things, a vase, a stick has a beginning and an end. That’s right.
Well, in fact, if you go into the the atoms that compose this and so forth, you can establish a sort of continuum of matter here, even going down to a potential state and But not as But not as a stick. It’s labeled stick does require a certain number of qualities of the object. Yep. Absolutely. Yep.
Yep. Going back. Right. Well, yeah. Is there a place without consciousness?
It’s yeah. In one ways, consciousness is a little bit like space in its I don’t know. In in a way it exists. It sort of, you know, pervades consciousness tends to pervade. Also, is a bit like an ocean, like water, clear water.
Well, it’s your own. Our consciousness. Yeah. Our consciousness we carry around with us in our it only extends to the limit of our tactile awareness, doesn’t it? So our awareness, in a way, has some physical limits, but our awareness is not physical at all.
And then the question arises, do non physical things like consciousness, can they be described in terms of, say, inside, outside, and so on. Yep. Yep. That’s a very good question. Some say it does because they’re sentient beings throughout space.
There’s Buddhas throughout space. Out of space? No. We would well, we wouldn’t wanna get outside of space. Then.
No. No. Not possible. Not possible. Sorry.
That’s what? Beer? Yeah. Oh, beer? No.
It’s not possible. One can end one’s awareness. Well, it may not be all bad, so there may be some advantages to that. Is that why it’s a sin to suicide? It’s a transgression.
It is a transgression to commit suicide. It’s a negative act. Sorry? Oh, that was with Rigpa, was it? No.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. You saw that. Yeah. To commit suicide.
In fact, a few of them did commit suicide, didn’t they? Yeah. In the seventy four after the Dalai Lama sent a tape. Yeah. I saw it as well.
Was quite interesting. Yeah. Committing suicide there was not good. That’s a a something of great regret for the the Tibetans that that that they did jump into the river. Oh, it’s hard to say.
Could well be reborn as human. Yeah. But to commit suicide is not not a positive thing.