Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute teaching, Ven Margaret McAndrew explains the 12 Links of Dependent Origination, showing how karma ripens across lifetimes and sustains samsaric existence. She focuses on how feeling gives rise to craving—desire for pleasure and aversion to pain—and how this strengthens throughout life. The central insight is that craving and grasping, especially at the moment of death, activate karma and trigger rebirth; these two links are the “weak point” where the cycle can be interrupted. McAndrew covers the four limbs framework (precipitating, establishing, resultant precipitating, and resultant manifesting) and uses symbolic imagery to illustrate each link. She concludes with guided meditations moving through the 12 links both forward and backward, then previews next week’s discussion of the three higher trainings as the path to liberation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 W o L 1999 09 16.mp3
UUID: 470cd6b1-2736-4893-8e6e-84bed7f3083a
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: Evening with V M McAndrew (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1999-09-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.5 minutes
Words: ~4,028
From them. Similarly, with the unpleasant objects, we want to be separated from them. We don’t want to have to be in contact with those kinds of objects. So so in other words, feeling gives rise to craving. And as I mentioned before, craving is one of the important points at the time of death, and this is where this thing comes in.
So you might get confused if you think, oh, this is just one cycle of life. It’s actually taking you through a couple of cycles, in a sense, because now we’re actually looking at what happens at the time of death again. In actual fact, we have this grasping all through our life. We have craving. So craving is depicted by what is craving?
I think that’s another monkey, isn’t it? No. Craving’s somebody drinking rum. Yes. Oh, drinking drinking alcohol.
Yes. Good good example. So that must be there somewhere. I think anyway, craving because we have this craving during our lifetime, every time we experience craving towards something, it makes the craving stronger, so it’s constantly being reinforced. And, also, as our craving becomes very strong, it we grasp at the object.
So the craving is towards the object, such as in this case, alcohol. And so we then we desire that object, and we’ve come attached to it. And then there’s a sort of a hanging on to it, a clinging to it, which is the grasping. And so this is using it in relation to objects as a physical senses, but of course, it’s not only towards physical objects that we have this grasping. They can also be grasping at all kinds of things such as thoughts, ideas, conceptions, goals, ambitions, all sorts of things.
Memories we can grasp at just about anything that we can think of or anything we can either perceive or think of. All the objects of our six senses can be objects of our grasping in one way or another. So we’re constantly getting involved in this process. Because of this craving and grasping during our life then they can arise very, very strongly at the time of death. And when they arise at the time of death, it’s then that they actually become the links at the time of death.
So this craving and grasping then lead to activating the the karmic imprint imprint on it, which has been laid in the past on our consciousness. And so again, we have this karmic imprint being activated, bringing about another life. And so that’s the next link, and that’s rebirth, which is so so sorry. Grasping was indicated by somebody picking fruit or some in in this one, it’s a monkey. In this one, it’s a person.
So here, it’s another monkey. If you’ve seen monkeys going for anything, they really grasp at it. So then you’ve got the so you’ve got the the grasping leading to the becoming, which is indicated often by a woman giving birth. I think it’s up there. Is it at the right spot?
And then the so so that just indicates conception really. We’re conceived and that leads to being born. And then that leads to the last link which is aging and death. So aging begins from the very moment we’re born. We start growing up, we grow to maturity.
If we live to be that old, then we continue getting older and older until we’re old. It’s depicted sometimes as being an old person. And in actual fact, in this book, it’s depicted as being somebody a corpse being carried for burial. So, inevitably, having been born, we have to die. And so, essentially, we take our death when we take our birth.
So it’s like the the process really gets explained twice around and in different ways. So, anyway, looking at the twelve links, we can’t complete a set of twelve links in one life. In other words, the projecting we can’t obviously create a karma and be born from it in the same life. It has to go across at least two lifetimes. So what can happen is that it can happen across two lifetimes.
In other words, we create the karma, a projecting karma through our actions in a particular lifetime. At the end of that lifetime, the events surrounding our time of death will activate that karma and it will bring about the next life. Or it can happen across three lives. That means that in this life, you create an action that lays down a projecting karma. That projecting karma is carried on your consciousness.
At the end of so let’s say in this life, you’re very you you do some good actions. You observe moral conduct. At the end of this life, let’s say, you’re very attached to going to the horse races. So you at some time in your past, you’ve created some sort of non virtuous karma to be born as an animal. At the time of your death, you you think, oh, wouldn’t it be great to go to the horse races?
And you think of those magnificent horses. And the karma that gets activated at that time of your death is to be reborn as a horse. Right. So you get reborn as a horse. You’re still carrying on your consciousness this karma that you’ve created to be born as a human being, but it’s not activated at the end of this life.
So what happens then? You live that life as a horse, and then maybe at the end of that life as a horse, it gets activated, or maybe after that life as a horse, you get born in some other form and but this karma keeps on going. We’re not counting the lives that come in between in which nothing happens with this karma, but when we say it takes three lives, we’re only counting the three lives in which something is happening with these twelve links. So it could be a hundred lifetimes. It could be anything over three lives to any number of lifetimes.
But eventually, the karma that gets activated near the time of death will be this karma that you created from observing moral conduct to be born as a human being. And at the time of death, then that karma will be activated and you’ll go on in the next life to finish off the process by developing as an embryo and coming to birth as a human being. So that’s the process in very broad terms. So to explain it more technically, we have to look at how it’s explained as being in terms of sets of links. So this is page five hundred and thirty one.
So there are four four limbs, in other words. You can divide these twelve links into four limbs. So in actual fact, one of the limbs is divided into two halves, so it’s actually almost an extra limb. So there is these four limbs are called the precipitating limb, the establishing limb, and the resultant precipitating limb, and the resultant manifesting limb manifested limb. Okay.
So the precipitating limb has two and a half links in it. And these two and a half links are first of all ignorance, and then compositional factors, and then there’s consciousness at the time of cause. So, of course, we we constantly have consciousness. We always have consciousness. So this is specifically talking about the consciousness which is with us at the time of creating the cause, of creating the karma.
In other words, at the time that the karma is, imprinted on the consciousness. And that is half of the link of consciousness because the other half of the other half of the link of consciousness is the consciousness at the time of the result when we experience the the ripening of the karma. Well, that would be very much involved in the process. But it’s talking about our consciousness in general. We receive this karmic imprint through through our volition of course, through our motivated actions, then this karmic imprint is received on the consciousness.
And from then on, it’s carried as a karmic imprint. But the first half of the link is particularly concerned with this period of time during which the imprint is being received and at that time it acts as the first half of the link. In fact, our consciousness is an ongoing thing but it’s acting as the first half of the link during this time that the camera is being imprinted. Then later on when the karma is being, experienced then it acts as the, the second half of the link. So we’re talking about one particular karma here.
Of course, in between times, we’re continually having consciousness and it’s involved with many other different karmas, some of which will also be sets of twelve links of their own. So we’ve got dozens of hundreds of thousands of millions of sets of twelve links happening all the time with our consciousness. But we’re following a particular set of twelve links concerned with one particular karma through its whole cycle here. And as concerns this particular karma, then this is just this particular moment when the consciousness is acting as the first part of the third link. Oh, yes.
We we do. Where did you read that? Well, anyway, we certainly have infinite potential for making lots of these. We never have to worry about running out of karma. Is that sixty four mind moments?
They could have. Yes. I’m not sure if you’re sort of involved in one particular thought, such as wanting kill an animal or something. Say, for example, if you concentrate on that for five minutes, then it’s probably all the one karma. But it’s getting stronger and stronger with each moment because it’s being imprinted more and more.
So that that’s the way I understand it. Yes. Yeah. Right. Yes.
But anyway, a strong karma can produce more than one lifetime. It can produce a whole series of lifetimes. For instance, you know, if you kill that mosquito with a lot of anger, then you could be creating many, many lives in which you have to be a mosquito and have somebody slap you. Yeah. Yes.
Rangoon would be a pretty mosquito ish place. So, yes, anyway, we can, we we can as we’ve already looked at the, four opponent forces, we can use these to, not have to experience the results by purifying our negative karmas. So, anyway, so those are what they call the precipitating limb. And then and and these come about at the end of the life, and they ripen and bring about the next rebirth. So then the next limb is the establishing limb.
So when it comes about that this is being sorry. Yes. Those are the precipitating limbs. So they they come about at the at the time we’re actually creating the karma. And then at the end of the life, we’re going to experience the ripening of karmas through the process of the establishing limb, which is craving, grasping, and becoming.
That comes later. I didn’t say it was going to be easy. No. So we’re up to craving, which is that’s I think number one two three four five six seven eight. Number eight, grasping and becoming or rebirth with no.
I mean no. Sorry. Becoming. Yes. Sometimes it’s called existence, I think.
So so that’s age nine and ten. Then you’ve got so those those three are happening at the end of that life at the end of a lifetime. So it’s either the same lifetime in which you created the karma or it’s some other subsequent lifetime. But in the meantime, that karma has just been lying latent on the consciousness. And as I said before, doesn’t have to be experienced at the end of the same lifetime.
It can be carried for a number of lifetimes. So through craving and grasping, the karma is activated. And then it’s it’s like it’s like pouring water on a seed so that it starts to sprout. So then it’s being energized to bring about a result. And as you’re dying, then the result’s going to be brought about of another lifetime, some sort of rebirth.
So during the whole life, or during all our lives we’re continually increasing or strengthening our craving and grasping and so at the time of death our craving and grasping are very very powerful and they arise up very very strongly As we’re going through this extremely enormous change, having to leave our body, having to leave everything behind that we’re used to, having to go into the unknown and so on, this stimulates a tremendous amount of craving and grasping. You can be ready to grasp at just about anything, particularly you’re grasping at some sort of continuation of the things that you that you are attached to in this lifetime and grasping at avoiding the things that you are averse to in this lifetime. And so this activates the becoming link so that this sets in process the next rebirth. It it makes the it makes the karma become potent enough to actually throw us into a future rebirth. Any questions about this?
So then becoming having become activated, then we die and we go through the intermediate state. And then we have the resultant precipitated link, which is limb, which is four and a half links. This is where the other half comes in. So, we’ve got the the links of the, consciousness at the time of result, which is the other half of consciousness. Then you’ve got the name and form.
So as I said, the if this is if we’re talking about womb birth, then you’ve got the embryo developing. Also, with eggs, you’d have the same thing. So you’ve got the, the result and the the name and form developing. You’ve got the senses, then you’ve got the contact and the feeling. And then, also, you have the resultant manifested limb, which is rebirth, aging, and death.
So, in this book, actually, those those links, are just rolled together into one. But, you you can see that it’s really, in a sense, the same thing looked at from different angles. You’ve got the development of the body. You’ve got the the engaging in the different processes which are going to lead to the laying down of more karmas. And during the life that process goes on.
At the end of the life, then you die. In the meantime, the process continues. Another karma ripens, another rebirth takes place, and it keeps on going on and on. Any questions about that? Yes.
That’s right. Yes. So what can we do about it? So it’s said that we have to meditate on these twelve links so as to come to an understanding of this process. And in particular, also we should go backwards.
Because if we meditate backwards, then we can understand not just what’s going to happen, but how our present situation has come about from what’s happened in the past. So we can see how you’re starting by the risk starting at the result and working backwards towards through the processes towards the cause. So we also need to look at it from the point of view of the four limbs that I’ve just explained because that gives us a more subtle sort of insight into the process. So it gives us a clear understanding of what’s going on. So the two links that are particularly important here are craving and grasping.
They’re really crucial to the whole process because they’re the weak point in the whole process. And we’re particularly referring to the craving and grasping at the time of death, or just prior to death, because these are the things that bring about the ripening of the projecting karma for the next rebirth to be activated. And it’s this grasping at the time of death that leads to the next rebirth. And it’s the craving which brings about the grasping. And so the craving or strong desire is where we have to attack the process of the twelve links.
It’s the weak link that can be cut off and then if we can cut off this link of craving and cut off the grasping then we cut off the whole process. Can you see that? So, what happens is that the meditator, has to learn to how to overcome grasping and craving, particularly craving. So the the meditator has to work on diminishing, on abandoning this craving or desire in life in general. And then if we can manage to do that, then the craving at the time of death won’t be activated.
In fact, if we can manage at the time of death to to not let that craving be activated, then then we could actually cut off the the whole process and and achieve liberation. So next week, I’ll be talking about that about how the practitioner achieves the the goal of liberation through engaging in the three higher trainings. So I said that craving is the weak link, but in actual fact, ignorance is also the the weak link because ignorance is really what underlies the whole process. The ignorance of the the the basic the subtle ignorance of of selflessness, the ignorance which sees our self as having true existence. So if we can overcome that sort of ignorance, then it’s on that that the whole wheel is based, and if we can overcome that by cultivating the wisdom of selflessness, the wisdom that understands selflessness, then that is what actually enables us to to cut off the craving and grasping.
So, that’s why we’ll be having to look at the three higher trainings next week. So I’ll be, going through that. So maybe we might like to do a meditation. So if I’ve got time, we can go through it both ways. So first first of all, we can just, sit our mind.
Just watch the breath for a short time to, develop the concentration. So there are twelve links that keep us revolving in cyclic existence. And the first link is ignorance, which is the root of our revolving in saṃsāra. There are two forms of ignorance. Our ignorance of the absolute truth, which is like being blind, and so it’s depicted by a blind person.
There’s also the ignorance of cause and effect, which, causes us to create negative karmas and to be, there therefore continually suffering. Ignorance motivates the compositional factors. Factors. In other words, the creation of karma. Through the ignorance of the law of cause and effect, we create bad karma, cause of suffering.
Through, the ignorance of selflessness, we create all sorts of karma. These karmas will, bring about future rebirths. The next link is consciousness. The consciousness at the time of cause and at the time of the result. The consciousness acts to carry to receive the karmic imprint and to carry it until the time of activation.
So the fourth link, name and form, is represented by a boat. The, it represents the aggregates, the, development of the mental and physical aggregates of the, developing being. The boat being representing the body and the, the people in the boat representing the mental aspects. The next link is the six senses, the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, represented by by a house with empty windows. Until the six senses have, fully formed, there’s no, experience of the sense consciousness.
So these six senses enable consciousness to take place. The next link, the sixth sense is having developed. The next step is contact depicted by a couple kissing. The contact between the, sense organs and the sense consciousness takes place. And then there is a, a feeling, the next link, depicted by an arrow striking the eye of the person.
From contact there is feeling. Then from feeling there is craving illustrated by somebody drinking alcohol. Craving to be not separated from happy feelings and also wanting to be separated from suffering. Craving leads to grasping We so that we desire the object of our craving and become attached to it. At the end of life, craving and grasping activate the the karma for our next rebirth.
So this is, depicted by a monkey or a person picking fruit. And because it activates the karma for the next rebirth, it leads to the next link becoming, which shows is depicted by a pregnant woman. This leads to the eleventh link, rebirth, which is illustrated by a baby being born. This link leads to the twelfth link, aging and death, which leads which is depicted by a person, a corpse being buried. And this link, during the time create many karmas.
We engage in many activities which perpetuate our ignorance, which leads us again to the first link. And so working backwards, we experience aging and death. This arises because of our having taken rebirth. Because we took rebirth, we have to experience aging and death. Rebirth came about because of having had the link of becoming, of the activating of the karma for rebirth.
This karma was activated by grasping, particularly the grasping at the time of death. This was activated. This was, arose out of, the craving. Craving and grasping at the time of death arose from, having these feelings during our life, these attitudes during our life which arose arose from the feeling link. The feeling link arose from the condition of there being contact of the sense consciousness and its objects, giving rise to feelings of liking or disliking or feelings of liking or disliking or neutral.
And this contact, became possible. It arose because of the development of the six senses senses during our, time in the womb as an embryo. And that arose because of name and form. The, the first stage in the development of the, of the embryo, the conception of the fertilized egg, which had the potential to develop into the into the five aggregates. And this name and form took place because of the karmic propensities and the the aggregates being carried by the consciousness, like a monkey jumping from tree to tree.
The consciousness link takes place because of the compositional factors, the imprinting of the karmic propensities on the consciousness. And this took place because of ignorance, particularly the, the primal ignorance of, not understanding the, the true nature of existence. In other words, the, the ignorance not understanding selflessness. And so we’ll finish there with the thought that we need to carry out the practice to, to cut off this, continual cycle of twelve links. One set of twelve links leading to another set leading to another set, and, in particular we need to, cut off the underlying cause of ignorance.
So, that’s it. And, we can dedicate our merits for the attainment of enlightenment, page five. Before we do that, did anybody want to just ask any last questions or make any comments? Does anybody want to say? There’s no beginning to ignorance.
Yes. Once we end it, then it’ll never come back again. If we hadn’t had this beginningless ignorance, it would have never started. So if we were free from ignorance, we would be liberated beings. So we’ve obviously never put a stop to it because otherwise well, I can’t speak for other people.
We might all be liberated beings as far as I know, but, come here to help me do some practice. But any anyway, yes. It just it’s continually going on and on being perpetuated by this whole process. So, dedication, page five. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual teacher and lead each and every sentient being to that enlightened realms through these skillful actions.
May the supreme jewel, this awakening heart that has not arisen, arise and grow. And may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more and more. And then His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s prayer