Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session, Ven Jampa Ignyen explores a crucial distinction that Buddhist schools debate differently: the relationship between ignorance and the “view of the transient collection.” He clarifies the six root afflictions and focuses on how we habitually grasp at a solid, permanent self within the five aggregates. Using the example of mistaking a coiled rope for a snake in dim light, he explains how ignorance—mere unknowing—conditions the active misinterpretation of how we exist. He addresses whether ignorance and afflictive view are the same or different, examines their roles in the twelve links of dependent arising, and explains why the highest Buddhist schools, particularly the Consequentialist school, consider the view of the transient collection the root of all delusion.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 2001 05 31 LR.mp3
UUID: cc8740c2-847f-48c6-a366-ae4a3d9f4620
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Lam Rim 2001 Month 04-06 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-05-31
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~4,541
This is a very important section. So here we’re talking about the afflictions or the delusions. And here, in fact, the six root delusions or the six root afflictions, here either term is okay. What the term is in Tibetan is nyon mong. And in fact, they’re our root afflictions.
We have all of them, not always manifest, but for the most part, exist within our mental continuum. And of course, does everyone know what the six are? It’s important to know these six, ignorance, anger, attachment, pride, doubt, and sorry? No. Is one of the five poisons.
Wrong view or afflictive view. Wrong view is one of the five. Does anyone know the five views? The the five afflictive views. View of the transient collection.
Yes. Extreme view. Extreme view. Wrong view. Wrong view.
Holding those views supreme. Yep. And holding ethics and disciplines as supreme. Those five. Here in the text, it’s perishable is a term we’re also using in English or we’re calling in English transient.
Perishable transient. And that refers to our current mind and body. It’s transient. It’s perishable. It is destroyed in each moment.
And that is the the transient collection, these five aggregates. Everyone knows the five aggregates. Can anyone list the five aggregates? Yes. Those five.
Form, physical body, feeling, discrimination, composition or formation, and consciousness, the fifth. They’re the five categories that we tend to label as I, aren’t they? In fact, our physical body, tend to think of as I, don’t we? We do, don’t we? These five categories are just the immediate things we label I or me.
Like, my physical body is me, isn’t it? It’s I. True? It’s true. You know, when we cut ourselves, we say, I am bleeding.
It’s actually, we mean my body is bleeding. But we so closely identify with our physical body, we we label this body I. True? There’s many things like that. I am hurt.
I am cold. Actually, only physical things get cold or hot. And we know we’re not physical, but still we identify so closely with this body that we say, I am hot, I’m cold, I’m tired, and so on. So we are always using I to refer to this physical body. Similarly, with feeling, I’m happy, I am happy, I’m sad, and so on.
So even our feelings, we tend to label as I. Whatever feeling we have, we label that as I. That’s me. I’m not feeling too good today. I don’t feel like doing this.
I don’t feel like doing that. All we have is a feeling there in the middle of our the center of our being, in our mental continuum. And we tend to label that feeling as me, as I. So these five aggregates were so chosen by the Buddha because they are the central objects that are labeled I or imputed as I. And from that, we have this the view of the transient collection.
We look at the transient collection, which is the five aggregates, and we hold there to be an eye. Actually, separate from the five five aggregates is the view of the transient collection. Now, anyway, the view of the transient collection is very important. It’s absolutely central to our existence. And this is what Pabongka Rinpoche here mentions, that in fact, the six root afflictions, etcetera.
And in fact, all the afflictions, all the delusions, all the afflictions are actually derived from self grasping and the view of the transient collection. So all the afflictions, no matter what afflictions we have, they’re all coming from this grasping at a self, grasping at eye. And they’re also coming from this view of the transient collection. The fact that we’re labeling the five aggregates as eye or as an I or that there is an I there which is substantially separate from the five aggregates controlling them and so on. But in here, the the author goes on to say that and in fact, our suffering, whatever suffering we have and whatever karma and afflictions we have, the root of them all is actually transient view, and also it is ignorance.
Now they are different, aren’t they? Ignorance and transient view are different, aren’t they? Or are they the same? View view of the transient collection. Just a view of the perishable collection.
They’re different, aren’t they? They’re different in that ignorance involves phenomena as well as are. Yes. So but also jig tsog or this view of the transient collection is actually separated out from ignorance, isn’t it? Here in just just in terms of holding to the eye.
In fact, there’s ten categories given, aren’t there? There’s six root afflictions. True? And of the six root afflictions, what’s the first? Ignorance is generally given as the first one.
And we go through those five. Ignorance, those six. Ignorance, attachment, anger, pride, doubt, and afflictive view is a sixth. An afflictive view itself is then expanded into a further five. And what’s the first of those five?
It’s the view of the transient collection. And in fact, those ten, first five plus the second five making ten, are called the ten subsidiary and extensive states. trak in Tibetan. Trak chu. In in fact, the view of the transient collection is different from ignorance.
Now here the author goes on to say that there are those that assert that the view of the transient collection and ignorance are actually the same thing. And then in that case, then all of these if they’re said to be the same, then all the afflictions that arise, all the contaminated states that arise that we experience, like at at present, we have contaminated states, don’t we? Is there any part of our experience that’s uncontaminated? Everything we experience is contaminated at present, said to be contaminated. All the objects we see are contaminated.
We’re contaminated. Everything that we look at is contaminated. Everything we hear. Why are they contaminated? Because just by looking at them, our afflictions tend to increase.
No matter what we look at, our attachment increases or our hatred of or dislike of the object increases, our attraction to the object increases and so on. No matter what we look at. So for this reason, it’s all contaminated. In fact, there’s two ways that things are contaminated, either by observing them, affliction increases, or by being concordant with them, affliction increases. For instance, even our mental continuum, have ignorance, then all the other states of awareness that exist, because they’re in a sense mixed with that ignorance, they become contaminated.
The uncontaminated is completely unmixed with the contaminated. But as yet, we haven’t experienced that state. So whatever we experience at present is contaminated. And the root of all of our experience really comes down to these six six afflictions, and the root of them is really ignorance. However, right in the beginning of this section of the text, it said, that there are some that assert that the that ignorance and the view of the transient collection are the same.
Some assert they’re different. Is this a major issue? Isn’t the view of the transient collection a type of ignorance? No. It’s not ignorance.
If it’s a if it’s a mistake in you, isn’t that a kind of ignorance? No. So by ignorance, you mean merely not knowing? Merely not knowing. Exactly.
Ignorance is equated with darkness. Just being in the dark over something, that’s ignorance. These types of afflicted view are actually actively interpreting something. They’re an interpretation of something, so there’s a difference there. Otherwise, the views would all be all the afflicted view would be included within ignorance.
There would be five roots and not six. So it’s important if for us to begin to differentiate ignorance. Oh, that would be if it’s a mistaken view or an afflictive view, then it’s not really ignorance. In fact, what afflictive view is said to be is afflictive wisdom. Like the view of the transient collection, which is our interpretation of the five aggregates, our mind body continuum, is said to be afflictive wisdom.
Said to be wisdom because it’s interpreting. It’s differentiating. What? The mind body continuum into its parts and then labeling I there. It’s interpreting the five aggregates to be I, or it’s interpreting there to be an I separate from the five aggregates.
Whereas ignorance is just not knowing. It’s just, you know, when someone comes up and asks us and we say we just don’t know. Not a clue. Never even thought of that. No opinion.
I’m in the dark completely. Well, if you could tell me anything on that subject and I believe you, I don’t have any opinion. I don’t know, etcetera. This is ignorance. Yeah.
Well, there’s different types of rigpa or knowing. Some types of knowing understand emptiness, but there’s many other types of rigpa or knowing. And in fact, this term rigpa also has many different interpretations, especially in the the Dzogchen presentation. Rigpa has a very profound meaning. That’s a term in Tibetan, rikpa.
Ma rigpa is the opposite opposite of that, and that’s termed ignorance. But here, ignorance just means not knowing. So in the beginning of the text, in this section, the author is talking about some assert that ignorance and the view of the transient collection are the same.
That’s same. Now here it’s the in fact, ignorance and wrong view, or ignorance and any of the five views are differentiated. They actually have a different function. Ignorance is just not knowing, but afflictive view is interpreting what is there in a certain way. It’s an like an active, what, take on what is there.
It’s interpreting it. Whereas ignorance is just not knowing. It said it was said a little bit earlier in the text that the relationship can be understood to be like, you know, the darkness in a like, I think the example was given of the coming across the coiled rope and seeing a snake. Like, if we in if the conditions are right, if it’s quite dim and dark, and we’re walking along a path or down a corridor or whatever, and we see a coiled rope, if it’s of the right color and size and so forth, We can think it’s a snake and get quite a shock. We and we stop and we turn around and run the other way, move back as quickly as we can.
Now the ignorance there is a condition for the arrival of the wrong view that that is a snake. So thinking it’s a snake is a wrong view. The darkness, the just not knowing initially what that is through the various conditions is like the condition of ignorance that allows us to interpret that rope as a snake or to hold it as a snake. So in a sense, two go together, ignorance and the view holding the transient collection to be a self. And in fact, that’s what it is at present because of ignorance within our mental continuum.
I mean, when we look inside, it’s it’s a bit unclear as to exactly where everything is or what the five aggregates are. What’s feeling? Where’s feeling? Discrimination? Where is that?
What about the fourth aggregate? Composition. That contains intention as the main one, and there’s another forty nine mental factors thrown in there as well into that fourth aggregate. What are they? And what about consciousness itself?
How can I differentiate consciousness from the second, third, and fourth aggregate? In fact, when we look inside, we realize there’s a degree of ignorance about how we actually exist. It’s true, isn’t it? It’s not as if we look inside and then we can say, oh, god. There’s feeling there and everything is said out nice and clearly and it’s open and very easily understood by us.
It’s not quite like that. In fact, we have a certain degree of ignorance about the basis of our designation or the basis of designation of our eye. Yeah. It’s pretty it’s just a bit unclear for us. That’s ignorance there.
Based on this ignorance, then we interpret what’s there to exist in a certain way. We interpret the I to exist in a certain way because of that ignorance. Not necessarily because there are different levels of afflicted view that we have, and there’s different levels of ignorance. And we need to overcome our ignorance over a long period, but not only from the manifest level, from the unmanifest level, from the seed level, and even from the level of latencies, which are progressively more subtle. But even when we are able to eliminate from the root the grossest levels of ignorance as a being does on the path of seeing, still under in a sense under that, there is still ignorance that needs to be eliminated.
So at present, our ignorance is quite manifest. But it’s hard to it’s hard to discern because, you know, it’s doesn’t put its hand up and say, here I am. Here I am ignorance. You know? Oh, here I am.
It doesn’t do that at all. In fact, unless we’re told unless we read about these things and investigate them and think about them, it just doesn’t occur to us. That’s really an indication that there’s ignorance there. As Rinpoche said, these these matters are not normally comprehended or not naturally comprehended by persons of of this earth or really beings born of born in this world. In other words, he’s saying that we don’t we’re not just born with an understanding of these things.
We have to develop an understanding through coming to an understanding of what our ignorance is and then beginning to apply the opponents to it. And at present, it’s our ignorance that’s really stopping us from understanding how we actually exist. If when we try and understand ourselves, we notice that we get to a certain point and we just don’t not able to understand much beyond that, then that’s our ignorance there. Now there’s one view or there’s one assertion that says they’re the same thing, that the view of the transient collection and ignorance are the same, or in fact that the view of the transient collection is the root. These are very important issues, actually, because we know we have the twelve links of dependent arising.
And what’s the first link? Ignorance. It’s ignorance, isn’t it? But that ignorance there is also implying the view of the transient collection. And then there are those systems that assert that ignorance and afflictive view are not not the same.
And for those types of assertion or system, then ignorance is the root. For the others that assert that they’re the same, they’re not asserting them to be the same in the sense that they’re absolutely the one thing, But that, actually, we can call the root either one or the other. So in fact, those that are asserting them the same assert that the root of the afflictions is in fact the view of the transient collection. The Consequentialist school asserts that the view of the transient collection is the root. That’s, in fact, the root.
So they are looking more to this interpretive quality of the mind and interpreting mind body basis to exist in a certain way as the root of saṃsāra. But, of course, that is in a sense, it’s based on ignorance. Like, it goes hand in hand with ignorance. Yep. Yes.
Okay. In Tibetan, it’s Okay. Sorry? This is probably good to to learn. Now what does that mean?
Tawa means view. Jig is transient or destroyed, destructible, perishable. Like, we might have heard of. Destructible. Destructible.
Destroyable. Transient. And sog is what we do regularly. We all go to tsog. Right?
Everyone know the word tsog? Sog means puja. You know when you go to the lama the Guru Puja? Offering. Offering?
That’s called tsog. Tsog means coming together, like mass coming together. So the transient mass or the transient collection is jig tsog tawa. Means view of the transient collection. What is the transient collection?
The aggregates. They are a collection because aggregate really means collection, and they’re impermanent, aren’t they? So the view of the transient collection is the view of the five aggregates. So it’s when we say we talk about view of the transient collection, it means that type of afflictive wisdom viewing the five aggregates and as the the focal object of that view and holding there to be within the field, the reference field of that view, within the focal field of that view, there to be an eye, which is substantially distinct from the five aggregates. Well, that view, the view of the transient collection is not just holding that the eye exists.
It’s holding It’s holding the eye to exist in a way it doesn’t exist. That’s a very, very important question because that’s then talking about the relationship between the first link and the second link. Because the second link is the link of what? Karmic formation, isn’t it? karma.
It’s the link of karma. So it’s based on ignorance we act, in other words. Without ignorance, we don’t act in certain ways. When we have ignorance, we act in certain ways. It’s true, isn’t it?
Even when we look at what we do in the world, if we don’t know the road road laws, we get out there in a car and we drive on the wrong side, know, with speed, we we can do all sorts of things. And we act in ways that would get us locked up, had us imprisoned. But when we’re aware of the road rules, we don’t act generally, we don’t act in that way. And therefore, we don’t suffer the consequences of in India, they have a different set of rules than anywhere else. Oh, they have the rules.
Can start following the rules. Well, it’s really the rule of the biggest. If you got if you got a truck, you got more horns, you got more noise than anyone else. I need this. All you gotta do is just keep your hand on the horn and drive on.
It’s a little bit like that. Because we’re ignorant, we engage in actions that produce saṃsāra. Without that ignorance, we don’t engage in actions that produce saṃsāra. Now just how that comes about is is a very is a very subtle question. Well, it’s a process.
It is at the root of a process. And in a way, serves both as the root of the process and it and as an ongoing condition for the process to continue. But then it could be the sign of ignorance. The view of the no. They’re not the same.
They’re not the same, but here there’s some difference of opinion about which is the root of everything. View and ignorance can never be the same. They’re similar. It’s not as if they’re contradictory or that there needs to be a vast difference between them, but they have a slightly different function. And it’s like previously in the text here where it says that, you know, the ignorance or darkness is a condition by which we can grasp to be a a rope to be a snake.
Similarly, through ignorance, we grasp the eye to be something which it’s not. And in dependence on that, we generate saṃsāra. When we say we generate saṃsāra, all we mean is we’re generating the continuation of our current existence Because our current mind body, as it evolves or unfolds, is just what saṃsāra is. This is based on ignorance and based on the transient view. Yes.
Oh, all the time we’re generating the causes because we’re generating ignorance all the time. Ignorance is maintained within us. Ignorance is the ground from which we our existence is supported. On the other hand, we tend to think that actually we’re quite aware of of how things are and who we are and so forth. But actually, when we investigate, there is an unknowing, in a sense, at the very center of our being, and that’s the ignorance.
But here, it’s not just any ignorance. It’s ignorance about the nature of the I that exists. Whenever we think I, here’s the ignorance in relation to that eye, just the darkness that doesn’t allow us to see the very nature of the eye itself. That is the the root of saṃsāra. But based on that darkness, that not knowing about the eye, then we have an active wrong interpretation of what the eye is.
And that’s also called the root of saṃsāra or the root of So the active interpretation is holding the transient collection. Yes. The view of the transient collection. It’s different depends on ignorance because ignorance because it’s actually active. It’s sort of yeah.
We have to be a little bit careful there in talking about active because the view of the transient collection has both an imputed and an innate level. Has two levels. And the view of the transient collection, all beings, all ordinary beings such as ourselves have an innate level of this type of interpretation of of how we are. And there’s an imputed level or an intellectually acquired level that we can generate through developing a philosophic view about how things are. Like, if we think there’s a permanent soul and that soul will exist for all eternity and and so on, then that becomes like an imputed view of the transient collection, an actively constructed, formulated, intellectually acquired interpretation of the eye in this life.
Now, having accepted Buddhist view, then one should that type of view should fall away because we accept the I to be or the person to be selfless. The eye is separate again. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
Yes. Oh, absolutely. At present, we we don’t really investigate how we habitually use the I or the the term I or the label I. And we apply it in so many different ways that, you know, really, when we look at it, know, it hardly makes sense. You know, sometimes we think the eye is this, and other times we think the eye is that, and so on.
But it’s true. Here, is a sense that the eye is a controlling being behind the five aggregates, possessing the five aggregates as well. That in fact, the I is a substantially existent, self-arisen type of I. It arises in and of itself without independent of the five aggregates, but it’s there and it’s controlling the five aggregates. This is really this view of the transient collection.
That’s right. It’s a bit of a contradiction, isn’t it? It’s a you know, to think that the eye is thinking about the eye in a sense. It is a bit of a contradiction. Right.
When we put my there, that’s also okay because the view of the transient collection can also be developed in terms of my, I or my. Both, in a sense, are focal objects here of the view of the transient collection. But the view of the transient collection is really this sense of I that we have. And what we’re focusing on to generate that view is the five aggregates. The view of the the view of the transient collection really means we’re taking as our focal object the five aggregates and then holding there to be an eye there, which is really substantially distinct from the five aggregates, substantially distinct, you know, from the body, the feelings, and so forth that actually controls.
But it’s these five heaps of things which are central to the way we posit the I. And we can see these groups, like the physical body as being the I or possessed by the I, or absolutely central to the identity of the I. Anyway yep. Yep. Yeah.
That in fact, all the afflictions that arise are generated in terms of the some say they’re generated in terms of ignorance. Others say, the view of the transient collection. Some assert that actually they’re talking that ignorance and the view of the transient collection are taken to be one in terms of being the root. Some say that they’re not to be taken as one, but actually ignorance is the root, or the view of the transient collection is the root. In a sense, it doesn’t matter.
The highest school, what I call the Consequentialist school, they assert that the view of the transient collection is the root of the afflictions. They see that to be the root. But that’s okay. It just means that, of course, they also assert there’s ignorance there. Well, this we generally take the consequence school to be the highest view.
And so we would tend to accept that the view of the transient collection is the the root. But as long as we understand how the view of the transient collection is related to ignorance, then there’s no problem. Because the the view of the transient collection is only arises through ignorance. Well, you have to ask it. Otherwise, we won’t know what it is.
All those cravings and so forth come from, really, the ignorance. Because you have ignorance to begin with, or we have ignorance to begin with, that all the afflictive states arise. Well, it’s really the ignorance is just the that unknowing state, really about the nature of the eye. And based on that, we develop a particular interpretation of how the eye is. And so one is really ignorance of the eye, the other one is a view of the eye, view of the way the self exists.
And then they both look at the same process. Oh, they condition each other. Yep. We have to overcome both. Right.
So then it goes on to say that So that there are two, there’s a A kun tak level means that there’s an imputed level, an intellectually acquired level, an actively thought through mode of interpreting the I that occurs amongst philosophers and so forth. There’s that imputed level. And there’s also an innate level of, say, the view of the transient collection that we have. Now every being, animals, hell beings, so forth, all have this innate level, provided they haven’t attained the path of seeing. Once you attain the path of seeing, you overcome this innate level, at least one level of it.
So animals have it. Animals have this innate sense of I that we have. We have an innate sense of I. No matter whether we think about philosophical issues, about how we exist or not, we still have this sense of I. In everything we do, we have a sense of I.
And that’s really being supported by our ignorance, this darkness within about the way we actually exist. And then there is I and mine, which is also grasped. There’s this view of the transient collection also grasps I and grasps mine, both. And they’re both called the transient the view of the transient collection grasping eye.