Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 32-minute teaching, Ven Jampa Ignyen opens with a direct observation: hatred is unreliable because it fixates only on an object’s faults while denying its positive qualities. Attachment goes the opposite extreme, seeing only what attracts us, then flipping to hatred when flaws appear. He contrasts both with love—a valid, enduring wish for others’ happiness that persists even when we see their limitations. The core instruction explores ignorance as the root of saṃsāra, specifically our habitual grasping at a self separate from the five aggregates: body, feeling, perception, intention, and consciousness. Through Q&A, he clarifies how understanding the “I” as merely a conventional label—not an independent entity—dissolves this root grasping. Suited to practitioners with some familiarity with Buddhist concepts.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 Mindful Life 1996 05 19.mp3
UUID: f3083bb6-8278-469c-9f69-de11bf38a1d5
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Living the Mindful Life (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 1996-05-19
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 32.3 minutes
Words: ~2,668
So it’s unreliable. We can’t rely on hatred. We can’t rely on aversion, or we can’t rely on spite and all these other attitudes that are that follow from it, followed from a wrong assessment of underestimating the value of an object. For instance, if it’s a person, if we’re, if we hate a person, that hatred is only looking at the negative side of the object, looking at all their faults. Because that person has some good qualities, everyone has something.
Everyone has some good quality. Not that we think about it. We know that hatred can’t be correct because it’s only looking at the negative. It’s looking at that object that has positive positive good qualities, but it’s denying that side of the object. Therefore, it’s a false assessment.
Therefore, it’s unreliable. We can’t trust hatred. It’d be like having a friend with us telling us, oh, you know, the negative faults of everything all the time. That’s no good. And that’s no good.
After a while we’d realize that, that sort of advice is no use to us. We couldn’t rely on such an assessment. We can’t rely on that sort of advice. But hatred is something that, you know, we hold very dear to ourselves as if it’s our protector. You know, it’s the one thing that’s gonna you know, when all else fails, we can take refuge in our hatreds or we can rely on our hatred, you know, to protect us.
But this is a false assessment. Because the hatred itself is lopsided. Also with attachment, attachment goes to the other extreme. Looks at an object as being, you know, only possessing good qualities, attractive qualities. So we become very attracted, attached.
Only for that attachment then to be destroyed when we see, we acknowledge the faults, and then it turns to hatred. So we tend to go from one extreme to the other. We get very attached to something, and then even that turns to hatred. And then we become repulsed by it when we see the faults of it. Unfortunately, our love and attachment, for instance, are very close together.
Love is not attachment because the attitude of love is not a wrong assessment. All that the attitude of love is, is the wish that other beings be happy. So that’s a correct assessment. It’s a correct attitude. It’s a valid attitude.
Attachment isn’t. Attachment is just looking at the attractive part of something. Completely neglecting the faults of something and only looking at the attractive. But love and attachment often go together almost inseparably. They’re very difficult to differentiate.
But love is much stronger, or at least love is love is not fickle, because love will endure even when it understands the faults of something. Whereas attachment, greed, and so on only survives as long as the positive part of that object is observed. So love, therefore, is not an affliction. Love is, in fact, a positive state of mind, a virtuous state of mind, whereas attachment is a negative state of mind. It’s negative for the fact that it’s a wrong assessment.
Negative for the fact that it brings unhappiness. It’s a non virtuous state. So fundamentally, these three three different ways that the afflictive states grasp their object. Either they just don’t know the object, ignorant of the object, or they’re overestimating the object or underestimating the object. Those three functions sum up the action of the afflictions.
Now, the karma and the afflictions form the cause of the prison of Samsāra. The root cause is ignorance, the cause supporting everything else. And it’s ignorance of something in particular. It’s really ignorance of the self, of the nature of the self, the fact that itself as we conceive it doesn’t exist. And here, means, like, ego or the this means, like, the the I that we relate to in our everyday activity.
We have a certain view of how this I exists. And based on that, we we live our lives and so on. Misunderstanding the nature of this I, we engage in karma, karmic activity, in developing intention, and also in experiencing all the different afflictions, afflictive states. The root of all these states is the grasping at an I, grasping at itself. Specifically, it’s grasping at an I which is separate from the five aggregates.
Alright. Just leave it there if anyone has any questions. It’s more or less the same thing, I think. It is slightly different, though. I’m just trying to trying to think.
In Tibetan, it’s for intention, and motivation is actually. Yeah. From means mind. Sem means mind. Semjung sempa means intention. There is a slight difference.
I can’t remember. Exactly. It’s a form of pride. Yeah. The I-grasping is often regarded as pride.
It’s looking at the five aggregates, which is the basis of designation of the eye. Like the I that we experience, that we label ourselves with, that is synonymous with ourselves, that’s imputed upon a basis of five aggregates: physical body, feelings, intention, discrimination and consciousness. And the eye is the label we give to that continuum. The I-grasping is looking at those five aggregates, and inflating what is actually there. It’s thinking that there’s an I separate from the five aggregates, for instance.
That the I possesses a greater status, an inflated status to what is actually there, or is separate from the five aggregates. Like, we had the idea that there’s a permanent soul that would be a form of pride in regard to the self, in regard to the I. So actually, the I-grasping is often referred to as a type of pride. Overestimation. It’s an afflictive state that overestimates what is actually there.
But that’s not to say that there isn’t an I either. There is a mere I that, that does exist, which is the mere label I upon the five aggregates. That functions. That is reality who we are. But by inflating the opinion of the I, We come to think of ourselves as being substantially different from the aggregates.
We’re an independent, self arisen existence, or we’re permanent, or we’re the controller of the aggregates, and so on. There’s many different ways that we can look at the status of the eye. All of these are if they inflate the value of the I above what is actually there, then it’s grasping at it ourselves, ego grasping. And that’s our situation. We habitually grasp ourselves to be more than what we actually are.
Just this very strong habit we have, indestructibly strong, that, overestimates, you know, the value of the I. Sorry. Five aggregates are form, feeling, discrimination, intention, and consciousness. Now, the reason those five are chosen is simply because those five things are commonly attributed to the I. We, our physical body, we almost attribute to the I.
When we think of ourselves, we often think of the physical our physical body. Also, our feelings, which are very central to our identity. Our feelings are very important. And also our discrimination, how we recognize things, label things, and so on. This is also an essential element of the makeup of an individual.
And the intention and motivation, how we act. These we also refer to as I. And our consciousness itself also we think of in terms of I. Either I or mine. My feelings, my body.
Like with the body, you know, someone, someone, if we cut our foot, we say, I’m cut. I’m bleeding. I’m bleeding. But the eye is not really bleeding, it’s the leg that’s bleeding. We so closely associate the physical body with the self that it’s even identified to be the self.
I’m bleeding. Or I hurt. I’m unhappy. Really, it’s the feelings which register unhappiness. You know, the feelings are also associated with the self, so strongly associated with the individual self.
So we say I’m unhappy. I am unhappiness. That type of thing. The feelings are really, like, associated or identified as the self. So these five aggregates, they’re just five different things which we commonly identify as the self.
That, as far as it goes, is fine. But, however, if we attribute the I to be something more than that, then it’s an inflated attitude, and that leads to some ongoing problems. It’s a problematic state. Yes. However well, in fact, I think that’s how we do regard it or how it is related to.
In fact, some people say that if the consciousness is not the I, then there’s no way of relating one life to the next life. Like the actions you do in one life are imprinted upon the consciousness. That consciousness continues into another life. If that’s not the self, then how can the karma ripen on the same individual who previously committed those actions? So, yeah, are some schools that say that consciousness is the I.
In fact, it’s the Cittamātra, a very high view, hold that position. Sems tsam pa’i rnam par shes pa, they call it, is the example of the person, which is the mental consciousness, is the I. Because that continuum passes from one life on through to the next life and so on. Even though that consciousness goes through the death process, goes from grosser to subtle levels and then reemerges in another life again, a grosser level. But the highest school does not accept that as being the self.
In fact, the self, the I, is merely the label I, upon the continuum of these five things or four things. But, yes, the is the antidote is the wisdom, which just understands the the bottom line. It just looks at what’s there and sees what’s there. It eliminates this inflated attitude of the eye. It sees the inflated attitude of I-grasping has no basis.
All that’s there are the five aggregates. That it oh, well, it’s an antidote to grasping of the body. Yeah. And it helps to to understand or it you know, it’s an approach to understanding selflessness as well. But it’s not that’s right.
It’s on the level of the body just to overcome attachment to the body. But the sorry. I was just gonna say that this pride itself, though, is an inflated attitude, just like greed is for an external object. You know, we see more in the object than is actually there. And the pride tends to inflate the value.
And it inflates the value of our own appreciation of ourselves. It doesn’t mean to say we’re nonexistent. It just means to say that the I as we see it doesn’t exist. There is an I there, but we’ve inflated the value. That inflated value is wrong.
If we examine it carefully, we can’t find that in actuality. It’s just a false opinion of who we are. Meditation is basically aimed at coming to an understanding of the nature of the I. Well, I mean, there’s many types of meditation as well. But the primary ignorance is concerning the nature of the I.
That ignorance is the source of saṃsāra, the root of saṃsāra, the engine of saṃsāra. And once that ignorance is understood, or once the I-grasping, the self grasping is a type of mind, it has a focal object. The object of I-grasping is the I itself. In fact, are two objects there: a focal object and a referent object. The focal object is the mere I.
The referent object is the inflated value of the I. When that inflated value is understood to be non existent, and all that is there is the mere I, then one understands selflessness. And put very roughly. But, it is the I, it’s the ego that really is the very center of our being. The center of our assessment of things, ourselves, also influences the way we relate to others.
It’s the basis of aversion and attachment. What we’re attached to relates very to how we think about ourselves. Very good. And, also, what we hate, what we dislike also relates to that. And the fundamental ignorance holding us, or supporting aversion and attachment, is grasping at an And that grasping at an I isn’t a state of ignorance because it doesn’t understand its object.
It’s much it’s very, very subtle. It’s really at the very root of our thinking about things, the eye, this grasping at an I. So it’s very difficult to perceive. We are aware of the result of it. But because it’s the very center of our being, it’s not easy to understand.
Very, very difficult to understand. And the mind itself is so rapid, so quick, so effortless, effortless in the way it functions. You know, it’s very difficult to grasp the function of this, type of ignorance. But really, it comes down to simply discerning the function of it and, realizing whether it’s, correct or not, whether it’s a correct assessment. If the I actually exists in that way, in a way we habitually hold the I to exist, then fine.
There’s nothing more to be said. If however it’s a misconception, it’s a misapprehension then, When we understand that mind to be incorrect, then that alone will eliminate it. It’s like, you know, thinking that, you know, in the dark there’s someone standing over there. And we think, Oh, I’m not going to go there. There could be someone there.
There could be someone there standing with a knife or something. And so, you know, for that period we have some fear. We’re not sure. We don’t know. We turn the light on, instantly that fear disappears.
Yeah. . Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That’s yeah. That’s right. Yeah. It doesn’t mean to say that a person stops functioning if they develop the wisdom of selflessness either. All it means is that they’ve they’re no longer producing karma on that level because they’ve eliminated the root of saṃsāra.
But they’re not acting from that basis of ignorance. It’s a stage. A to getting there. Yeah. A significant stage.
But that can occur quite early on. And after that, it becomes purification. Then you’re using that understanding to purify, to start to eliminate the habits and the habits of negative thought that are so strong. But the antidote to the negative thinking, and even, you know, as we understand it when we meditate on the breath, the antidote to all those negative patterns and habits, is the wisdom of selflessness. But it takes then a long time to get rid of those habits as well.
But that is seen to be the means to do it. Yes, that’s the meaning of dependent arising. The self, the I itself, is a dependent arising. It’s not an independent entity. We tend to regard ourselves, the I, as being independent, not dependent even on the aggregates, something that exists in and of itself, self arisen, self generated.
But, really, this is not the case. The eye, you know, is a product. It’s dependent on other things. It’s a dependent arising. It can’t stand by itself, which is the same for every phenomenon anywhere.
Every phenomenon is a dependent arising just as the self, the I. But for us, we tend to think that the I is self-arisen. It exists from its own side, independent of causes, independent of conditions, independent of parts. Parts. And then because of having that view, give it a false status to the eye.
Giving it a false inflated status to the I. Then we develop pride in regards to it. Well, that is fact of pride. And then because of that, the whole host of other negative attitudes of attraction and repulsion, being repulsed by certain objects and being attracted to certain objects, arises. We tend to be repulsed by those things that don’t affirm that view of the eye that we have or don’t assist in preserving that image.
That’s right. Then that feeds back on the karma, on the intention.