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 establishes the definition of dependent arising—that which exists in dependence on its parts—and develops a philosophical framework with particular attention to refuting the idea that beings are created by a deity. He traces the Twelve Links from ignorance through old age and death, then unpacks the three conditions required to generate afflictive dependent arising: unmoved, impermanent, and potent. An extended Q&A clarifies what saṃsāra actually is: not the external world, but the contaminated mind-body continuum of ordinary beings. The session concludes by introducing ignorance as the first link, a mental factor that obscures emptiness.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 DA 2001 06 10.mp3
UUID: 026a789a-7a73-4e1c-9107-5f208588dd54
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: Dependant Arising (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-06-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~4,063
And then on page three of these other notes that we have. Now yesterday, we did this general we started with this general outline of dependent arising and the definition. So understanding that definition is very important. That which is reliant on its parts or that established in dependence on its parts is the definition of dependent arising. And so we had a number of different types of dependent arising discussed in the text.
Today, the main one that we’ll be we will be discussing and from now on is the afflictive dependent arising. So afflictive dependent arising are those types of dependent arising which generate afflictions, such as ignorance or anger and hatred and so forth. Now here in this text, about halfway down page three, we have this division into four of afflictive dependent arisings, where we have the system of asserting momentary dependent arising, occasional dependent arising, the system of asserting related dependent arising, and our system. So, basically, here, we will discuss our system. So our system is at the bottom of the page there.
So firstly, in discussing our system so this is the system of Jetsunpa. So there’s a further handout anyway just as notes for the course, as well. And these we’ll get to a little bit later. Oh, I’m I’m fine. If you wanna shut, that’s fine.
Right. So in discussing here, we’re talking about a rundown of our own system. And so here we’re talking about, what Jetsunpa himself, considers to be the essential meaning of, afflictive dependent arising. So this is basically talking about the twelve links. So today, we’re gonna just a brief handout on the twelve links.
And on the reverse page, there’s some a chart and a few other, things as well. So these are useful to contemplate. But before we get on to that particular text, at the bottom of page three, it states from a particular sūtra called the Sheaf of Rice Sūtra. So here the Buddha said, monks, whoever sees dependent arising sees Dharma. Whoever sees Dharma sees Buddha.
What is dependent arising? It is just this. By this existing, that occurs. Or because this is generated, that is generated. It is like this because by ignorance, there is composition.
So here he’s talking about the twelve, links themselves. So by ignorance, there is composition. By composition, there is consciousness. By consciousness, there is name and form. By name and form, there’s the six bases.
By the six bases, then there’s contact. By contact, feeling. By feeling, craving. By craving, grasping. By grasping existence, by existence birth, by birth, old age, death.
So these are the twelve links that occur. So by the condition then reading from the last sentence on page three. By the condition of sorry? By the condition of age and death, there is sorrow, misery, suffering, mental unease, agitation, etcetera. Thus, there is this great aggregate of suffering which occurs.
Just it occurs. So this great aggregate of suffering is another way of describing our current situation. What it means is that we have various our existence is somewhat problematic. That’s what it’s referring to. And this here, it’s more like either Buddha is likening it to a great aggregate, a great massive suffering.
Only that occurs from the twelve links. So from ignorance, composition, consciousness, so on. As we go around the twelve, they represent this great aggregate of suffering. By stopping ignorance, composition is stopped. By stopping composition, consciousness is stopped.
That’s not consciousness in general. It’s consciousness within the twelve links. By stopping consciousness, name and form is stopped. Name and form here is our mind, the body. By stopping name and form, the six bases are stopped.
By stopping the six bases, contact is stopped. By stopping contact, feeling is stopped. Actually, we could even use here the the diagrams that we have. You know, by stopping the the blind man, then the potter is stopped. By stopping the potter, the monkey is stopped and so forth.
That might be easier. Oh, maybe. That’s part of it. Yeah. And so on.
So by stopping ignorance, then the whole twelve, the remaining eleven are stopped. Because here we have two systems. We have a forward system and a reverse system or a system of engagement and a system of disengagement. At present, we’re involved in the forward system, the system of engagement in the twelve links. We can see it.
Already, we see we’ve had the link of birth in this life, and now we’re in we’re into old age and death. And so on. We’re actually going we’re in the forward system of the twelve links, the system of engaging the twelve links in order. What we need to do is disengage, stop the the forward process, establish the reverse process, stop by firstly stopping ignorance, which stops composition or karma, which stops consciousness, and so on. But we need to keep in mind that when we say we stop consciousness, it doesn’t mean to say that our consciousness stops.
Just a certain type of consciousness stops. So then Jetsunpa goes on to explain that meaning. So firstly, explaining the meaning of the words of Sūtra and then explaining in detail the afflictive dependent arising. So we’ll really go we’ll skip the meaning of the words of sūtra because it’s a little bit long and we don’t have huge amount of time. Although because that is very beneficial.
There’s many subdivisions of the second one explaining in detail afflictive dependent arising. And also here, we won’t have time to go into each of these. But here, this section here is dealing with the twelve links. But before we actually get into the twelve links, here the author gives the definition of afflictive dependent arising itself. Right.
So this is about halfway down page four, the general definition. Samsāra, which occurs as either the truth of suffering or origin, which is derived from the three conditions as its cause, is the definition of afflictive dependent arising. Afflictive dependent arising is really saṃsāra. Samsāra here is either the truth of suffering or the truth of origin. K?
Of the four noble truths. No? That will come underneath. Okay. So saṃsāra, which is either the truth of suffering or the truth of origin, which is generated by the three conditions.
What is saṃsāra? cyclic existence. What is cyclic existence? Sorry? Where does that occur?
Birth, old age, death? In relative world. In the relative world. Yes. What’s actually experiencing that?
The mind body continuum. Samsāra is in fact our current mind body continuum. This is Samsāra. Yes. The mind body continuum continuum, for instance, of a Buddha is not saṃsāra.
But for ordinary beings like ourselves, it is saṃsāra. What about the great yogis though, not naming them? Oh, great yogis are often their mind body continuum is not saṃsāra because they’ve eliminated the first link. Once we eliminate ignorance, we eliminate generating new saṃsāra. In fact, we’re generating saṃsāra all the time because of ignorance.
No. These external things are not actually saṃsāra. They’re contaminated, but they’re not saṃsāra. Really? That’s right.
The afflictive five aggregates are saṃsāra. Contaminated five aggregates, which we have. Five aggregates just refer to the mind body. So the contaminated mind body that we possess is saṃsāra. It’s not an external no.
The external it’s contaminated, but it’s not actually saṃsāra. The prison, they contaminated. Everybody is contaminated because the cause of it is contaminated. But it’s possible in time to generate an uncontaminated state of awareness. And by doing that, we also generate an uncontaminated body or a body that’s not quite the same as the one we have.
Right. Our mind and body at present are contaminated because they’re produced by afflictions and karma. They’re produced by ignorance. Therefore, they’re contaminated. Sorry?
How do you mean? Well, no. Not well, to a certain degree, we do. I mean, in the past, we to the extent that we’ve generated love for other beings, that has produces even in the present, a tendency to love others and so on. The the love that we’ve generated in the past does help us to gain a human rebirth, for instance.
But our cause at present is contaminated, contaminated love, contaminated states of awareness in the past. Is that true? Or By ignorance. And then ignorance generating various negative mental states. Absolutely.
They’re little bundles of saṃsāra. Yeah. Because we’re responsible for our ignorance. Yeah. It’s a bit like the karma police coming around and and telling us, you know, that we didn’t know the road rules.
It’s your fault. We should have learned the road rule. No. We don’t know. That’s we can’t have ignorance and knowledge of the same thing at the one time.
Right? You can’t be ignorant towards an object and then understand the object at the same time. Absolutely. Because we’ve generated ignorance in the past and have not eliminated it, and that ignorance has served as the the very fundamental cause of our current existence. When you say, it’s a life.
It wasn’t a new life. No. No. We were never Buddhas in the past. Yes.
Yep. Oh, in the past, from beginning this time, we’ve never overcome this ignorance. Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Well well, in a sense sorry? Well, the Buddhas have been trying to for a long time. When they point in one direction, we tend to look in the other. And it’s not really the fault of the Buddhas for not having been available to teach us. It’s just that through our ignorance, we and through a lack of trying to overcome our ignorance, we often just have not heeded the advice given to us in the past.
The fact that we’re ignorant is not the fault of the Buddha’s. It’s our responsibility from beginningless time. It is. It’s almost beyond conception. It’s true.
But it’s said to be that way because if we try and find a point at which we began, that type of scenario is even more difficult to establish. Right? If we go back into the past and think, well, I’ve you know, beings began on this date, first of June, then you say, well, what? How did they arise? What was their cause?
And in general, require a cause similar to the result. You can either say then that beings were created at that point. But then what created them? If it’s not a cause similar to the result, what could have been the cause? Then you may say, well, it was a creative being.
It was a being that created everything. So then the mechanism of how that could have occurred that does conform with the law of cause and effect has to be established. This is not so easy. It’s not easy that yeah. No.
It’s not easy. But probably to assert that we have existed from beginning this time without a first cause is easier. It’s easier to defend. Sorry? Not.
We’ve always been contaminated. Because being contaminated, we can be either good or bad, but we contaminated good or contaminated bad. We haven’t gotten beyond the contaminated state. Oh, that’s that’s right. We have lots of positive karmic imprints laid down in the past, but they’re all contaminated as well.
But they’re not to be abandoned. It doesn’t being contaminated doesn’t mean to say that we have to try and eliminate them. Those positive contaminated imprints are the are the basis of our current existence. We need them. But Yeah.
We’ve, basically, we need to get beyond contamination. Getting beyond contamination is really getting beyond the twelve links, and getting beyond the twelve links is getting beyond ignorance. So It is a desire realm. In some practices, though, we can see it to be, say, the mandala of a Buddha and so forth. But these are specific practices.
In general, it’s the desire realm and it’s contaminated. Absolutely. Yeah. We need to change the mind. How about transformation?
So that’s not on the cycle, is it on the transformation? Cycle. That transformation. That transformation, the Buddha is pointing in the top right hand corner to where we should be looking, which is the state of liberation outside of the circle. So nothing inside that circle is of much ultimate benefit to us.
One well, one needs to practice for some length of time. To be a wizard. Yeah. Well, whatever. Or the feminine form of wizard.
What’s that? A witch. A witch. Okay. Well, a positive one anyway.
Are we there’s not much that differs between our contamination and the contamination of others because the ignorance doesn’t differ much. It’s all fundamentally the same ignorance. No. It’s not like a shared consciousness. Everyone all ordinary beings have this type of ignorance.
But it’s not that that ignorance is therefore shared as like a communal ignorance. If it were, then if one person overcome it, then technically everyone should overcome it. So when the first Buddha attained enlightenment, we all should have gone. Well, Buddhas teach because they have perfect compassion. If they didn’t have that, they wouldn’t teach.
But they don’t do it for their own benefit. They do it for the benefit of others. A Buddha doesn’t have to teach in order to gain enlightenment. They’re already enlightened. They already have perfect bliss.
They only do it because they’ve generated this perfect compassion that makes makes them interested in the conditions of beings and spend a great deal of time helping beings. But wouldn’t it be that the more lonely one becomes, the more less contaminated? In a way, that’s true because from the path of seeing, one first generates the uncontaminated path. And with that level of realization, one overcomes a certain level of obscuration to be abandoned, but not all obscuration. So as one progresses from the path of seeing onto the path of meditation, there are many different levels as one progresses.
Absolutely. It is many different levels. Absolutely. Absolutely different levels. The path of seeing, is that that moment of smashing through the veils?
That’s right. That’s when the ignorance, which is the first link, is eliminated. That’s path of seeing. Just once. Yeah, it just happens once and that’s it.
Once we attain the path of seeing, we never lose the path of seeing. That in his lifetime? Yes. So how come they talk about truth? It’s possible on the tantric vehicle to attain the path of seeing in one life.
On the perfection vehicle, it takes a countless eon to progress through the path of accumulation and the path of preparation. Five aggregates are body, feelings, discrimination, composition, which is the second link, and consciousness. Right. So we have this definition of the contaminated or afflicted dependent arising. So that is Samsāra, which occurs as either the truth of suffering or origin, which is derived from the three conditions as its cause.
And for the components of this definition, there is need to mention saṃsāra because it is to eliminate the impure mundane environment and the form aggregate in a continuum of an arhat in nirvana with remainder as afflictive, dependent arising. So that actually answers one of the questions. Is the external world saṃsāra? No, it isn’t. Samsāra is used in the definition to eliminate the external world being an afflictive dependent arising.
Then he goes on to say, the first is established because if it is an afflictive dependent arising, it must be an internal dependent arising. To be an afflictive dependent arising, it cannot be external. It must be conjoined with awareness. So you understand that the external world is not Yes. They’re not saṃsāra.
They’re contaminated, probably. But they’re not saṃsāra. Well, trees will continue to exist as long as beings exist, I would think. Because trees exist in the pure realms and in the heavens and so on. What about what about the hell realm?
There is an external hell realm. Yeah. That’s that’s not saṃsāra. The beings who are there are Samsāra. But what we tend to do is give the name Samsāra to the environment in which beings live.
But Samsāra itself is really the beings. Yep. Yep. Right. So the first is established because if it is an afflictive dependent arising, it must be an internal dependent dependent arising.
The second is established because here it’s talking about it gave two instances in the previous paragraph. The second is established because that form aggregate so the form aggregate or the form the body, in other words, of a liberated being is not that because there is no afflicted dependent arising in the continuum of that being because they have abandoned that, because they have abandoned all twelve links. So it’s here, it’s saying that that form aggregate is not saṃsāra. Form aggregate of a liberated being, for instance, is not saṃsāra. Anyway, these are technical points that come up.
Now the main thing here is the three conditions. So to be an afflictive dependent arising, three conditions must exist. The first is the immovable or the unmoved condition. The second is the potent condition, and the third is the impermanent condition. So to be an afflictive dependent arising, those three conditions need to exist in order to generate it.
So therefore, the reason for mentioning the unmoved condition in the definition of afflictive dependent arising is to make known that the mundane environment and its inhabitants are not created by the prior movement of the thought of others, such as Īśvara, etcetera, but they are derived from the unmoved condition as their cause. So the reason the reason for stating here the unmoved condition is to establish that the is to establish, in fact, that there is no creative being that’s establishing sentient beings or even the external mundane environment. So here’s a Īśvara is is listed. Īśvara is a deity in India, is regarded as one of the creators of the universe. So what’s being said is that the universe, both the external universe and the inhabitants, are not actually created by the prior thought of such a being.
No. No. This is just saying that we’re not created by a creative being. That’s all that it’s saying here. In other words, it’s saying that we create ourselves.
That not actually saying that technically either. It’s just saying that we come in a continuum from the beginningless past. No. Yep. Yep.
Because dependent arising here afflictive dependent arising is generated from the unmoved condition. It’s said to be generated from the unmoved condition because it’s generated from conditions which exclude, for instance, the movement of the mind of Īśvara. In as a condition for establishing us or establishing the afflictive dependent arising. Okay. Then the second one.
The reason for mentioning the impermanent condition in the definition of afflictive dependent arising is to make known that the mundane environment and its inhabitants are not created by a permanent Īśvara. So also the for instance, ourselves, we’re not created by a permanent deity or not created by permanent suffering, but are derived from the condition of the impermanence. What gives rise to us is impermanent. It could never be permanent. Nothing permanent can never have a result.
So our current existence is completely generated by impermanent causes. Right. Then the reason for mentioning the potent condition in the definition of afflictive dependent arising is to make known that the mundane environment and its inhabitants are not only derived from the first two conditions as their causes, but compounded dependent arisings are derived from causes of compatible type to them with the potency to produce them. And that is done through negating the wrong conception that reflects or questions whether all results occur from all of those which are causes. Anyway, what’s being said here is that those causes which give rise to compounded dependent arisings are potent in being able to establish a similar type result to the cause.
So in other words, compounded dependent arisings are simply being produced by causes and conditions which are impermanent, which give rise to a result similar to the cause, and we’re not generated, for instance, by the prior thought of a creative being. Right. Some of it’s heavy going. I think we could take a break for a few minutes. No.
Oh, I know. Yeah. According to the great vehicle, he was enlightened eons before. So what was all those sitting about then? How long did you sit for?
Six years and then Under a tree. Under another tree for six years. Well what it does to a tree. Yeah. But, actually, when we all become Buddhas, we attain Buddhahood under a tree.
Yeah. Of course. This is the the Buddha was pro environment. No. Don’t chop them all down.
Isn’t it well? So the Buddha attained enlightenment under a fig tree. If you go to India, you see them everywhere. And there, they’re even called Ficus religiosa because of that. And that was a fig tree.
The next Buddha will attain Buddhahood under a dragon tree. Attain enlightenment under I had it pointed out to me once. They grow in India. They’re they’re trees that have got this funny bark. So it’s a bit pointed.
They grow yeah. They probably do. I didn’t will the next Buddha be Indian? Well, actually, probably this past Buddha was Nepali. No.
India didn’t exist as as we know it. Now it was all divided up into small states. And where he was born is now in Nepal. No. Now that’s for Maitreya.
That’s Maitreyas. I’ll go a little bit further in the text and see how we do. We can have another break a bit later. Now we’ll head off into ignorance. The first link, our old friend.
Ignorance, we haven’t been separated from from beginning this time. It’s interesting. If that’s really the case, you’d think that over an infinite number of years, one would become aware of something that exists within one’s mental continuum like ignorance. But it’s not easy to develop an awareness of something like ignorance. Right.
So here, in thinking about ignorance well, firstly, we’ve got a definition of the first link of ignorance on this new sheet that we’ve got. So some of these definitions are a little bit wordy, but anyway, it’s good to have a bit of a challenge too. So ignorance here is the first link. Of these are connected with the twelve links. So really the definition of the first is ignorance which is the first link, and there’s many other types of ignorance.
This is not a general definition of all ignorance, just the definition of ignorance which is the first link. And so it is a mental factor obscured to thatness, which motivates projecting karma in one complete round of links. So in brief, it what it is is it’s a mental factor. Now just we should have a little bit of an idea of what a mental factor is. In general, we have two types of awareness.
We have either minds or mental factors. The mental factors are what are doing all the work. The mind itself is just really sitting back and being led around by the mental factors. There’s six types of mind and there’s fifty one types of mental factor. Six types of mind and fifty one.
Five one. The mind is led around by the mental factors. So the mental factors are really states of awareness that are that represent a type of function. That represent the various functions of the mind. Now ignorance is a type of mental factor which affects the mind itself.
In a sense, if the mental factor of ignorance is manifest or exists, then the mind itself, we can say is ignorant because it’s affected in that way by the mental factor. Ignorance itself is in a neutral type of mental factor. It’s not negative. It’s not positive. It’s neutral.
Therefore, it can serve as the foundation for both positive and negative actions. And here it is. It is ignorance of thatness. So what thatness thatness refers to is suchness. Itness.
Thatness, suchness, which means emptiness. These are just terms that are completely interchangeable. Yep. Suchness, thatness, thusness.