Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 111-minute Tuesday evening class, Ven Thubten Dondrub teaches the second-to-last session of Discovering Buddhism’s unit on saṃsāra and nirvana. He opens with extended teaching on bodhicitta as the motivation for all spiritual practice, then shifts to the critical concept of renunciation—not world-denying asceticism but a clear-eyed recognition that attachment to samsaric pleasures causes suffering. He distinguishes between renouncing this lifetime and renouncing cyclic existence altogether, using the lotus metaphor to show how genuine renunciation frees the mind. The core teaching is the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination, the Buddha’s explanation of how ignorance drives us into repeated rebirth through karmic formations, consciousness, name-and-form, sense faculties, contact, feeling, craving, and grasping. Dondrub walks through each link with its wheel-of-life symbol, emphasizing how understanding this causal chain motivates the wish to eliminate ignorance itself. Includes personal stories about his teachers Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche and a memorable three-month retreat. Pitched at students new to Buddhist philosophy with foundational exposure to karma and the Four Noble Truths.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 05 28 DB Samsāra week6 Dondrub 280513.mp3
UUID: 0a616daa-6a85-4940-9910-89b94c3508bd
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Samsāra & Nirvāṇa (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-05-28
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 111.4 minutes
Words: ~13,168
It’s working? So welcome everyone to our Tuesday night discovering Buddhism class on saṃsāra nirvana. So this is our second to last class. So I’d just like to remind you again about the retreat, which is will be on next sun not this Sunday, Sunday week. So I really highly recommend for people to come along for that.
But please, if you’re planning to, please put your name down, register for it now because it’s really helpful to know how many people are actually coming. And we do encourage people to bring something to share, some vegetarian something vegetarian to share to eat for lunch. Okay. Alright. As you all know, it’s really important when we listen to the dharma for it to have the best effect on our mind that we try to listen with an open mind and but also trying to listen with the best motivate a really positive motivation, a virtuous, meaningful motivation.
And the best motivation from a Buddhist point of view that we can possibly have is the bodhicitta mind. Sorry. I I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but no one is allowed to sit in the third row. There shouldn’t be any third row of seats. Sorry.
We are going to be friendly. Yes, the best motivation we can possibly have is called bodhicitta. So this has two aspects. One aspect of bodhicitta is the mind that finds the suffering of others unbearable to the point that one is determined to oneself be responsible to free all beings from suffering its causes and to lead them to peerless everlasting happiness. That’s one aspect of bodhicitta.
The other aspect of bodhicitta is being determined to achieve enlightenment because the only way to accomplish the first thing is to achieve enlightenment because only a Buddha can accomplish freeing all beings from suffering leading them to enlightenment. So bodhicitta is that mind determined to achieve enlightenment in order to perfectly benefit all sentient beings. Why does that thought come? It it arises from on the basis of having some belief in the in the Buddhas and their perfect qualities, which leads us to develop some faith in our own Buddha nature. On the basis of that, bodhicitta arises from allowing ourselves to recognize more and more deeply our interconnection with every sentient being, how they’ve been immense, all of them have been immensely kind to us, especially every sentient being because of beginningless saṃsāra has been out there’s been time for every every being in saṃsāra to have been our mother, not just one time, but many times to have been our father many times, brother, sister, best friend, helper, doctor, teacher many many times.
Every sentient being has saved our life many many times. Every sentient being has sacrificed their life for us many many times in beginning with saṃsāra. And sadly and then one mixes that with the the deeper and deeper awareness that sentient beings are in saṃsāra. We are all in saṃsāra. We all have minds controlled by delusion and karma.
And because of that, we are experiencing various sufferings. But the vast majority of beings right now are experiencing far greater suffering than anything that we’ve ever experienced or will experience as a human being. And while they’re enduring that suffering, all these kind mother sentient beings don’t understand, really understand why it’s happening. They don’t understand how to significantly modify that suffering, transform it, or eliminate it. And because of that confusion, they in fact, most of the time, are creating the cause to perpetuate their own saṃsāra, to perpetuate their suffering.
So by thinking about these two things on the basis of having faith in the Buddhas and our own Buddha nature, we can generate this bodhicitta mind. So to help us do that, we try and think of the Buddha in front of us as the very embodiment of all perfect qualities, thinking the Buddha is appearing there in front of us to remind us of our Buddha potential and to inspire us, encourage us to to realize it. And we try and think of all sentient beings surrounding us to remind us of their plight and how if we work on our mind, not only will we reach a point where we don’t cause harm to others, but we’ll be able to benefit them. And if we perfect our mind, then well, our mind is perfect, but we have to perfect perfect the practice practice of getting rid of everything that is obscuring that perfect mind, if we complete that process, then we will not only be in a position where we don’t harm them, but we will only benefit them perfectly, completely, continuously. So there is no greater mindset than bodhicitta, and even having admiration for it, trying to direct one’s mind in that path is so immensely beneficial.
So please try and generate that motivation or something like it as we say the prayer if you wish to join in the prayer, which is on page nine. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through teaching the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So thinking the Buddha is pleased with us, we imagine that the Buddha now comes to the crown of our head, dissolves into light, and that blissful light pours down into us, blessing our mind in such a way that we’re able to really understand the Buddha’s teachings in the way they’re meant to be understood, blessing our mind to be able to practice them the way they’re meant to be practiced, blessing our mind to be able to eventually gain the authentic, undeceiving, transformative realizations. Okay.
Thank you very much. So once again, we have lots to cover tonight. So I’ll try to cover the things that I plan to. So okay. Yes.
Yes. That’s why it’s there. It’s not just for decoration. Don’t worry. So So the first Noble Truth is that cyclic existence, which we all experience, is in its very nature suffering.
So this is a very difficult thing to listen to and to really try to absorb and it can be depressing and some people say, well why emphasize suffering when there’s all sorts of good things in the world and people doing good things? Shouldn’t we focus on that? No. Because, yes, of course, there’s good things about the world, but, even those good things what what the Buddha discovered is even those good things aren’t so terrific, aren’t so terrific. They are nothing compared to what we could experience.
Right? And and our craving for even those pleasant things, good things leads out the results of that lead to very unpleasant things. So the the Buddha came to this world to tell us, to try and show us through his own, you know, existence that we have Buddha nature. You know, we’re not just incapable of having, you know, a pleasant time, a fun time, and sort of whatever. We are capable of the state of enlightenment that only benefits all sentient beings.
And nothing in saṃsāra matches that. Not you know? All the beauty and every the teachings aren’t denying that there’s, you know, pleasant aspects of saṃsāra. There’s all sorts of beautiful things and pleasant things, and there’s a certain kind of happiness. But none of it none of it compares to what one what one can experience with a mind that is not in saṃsāra, when the mind is not deluded.
And while the mind remains deluded, even though there are all these pleasant things, we eventually create the causes not to be able to see them, not to be able to experience them, but to experience things far, far worse. So that’s why the Buddha emphasizes to to to experience this this bliss and joy and and benefit that is far far greater than anything we’ve ever imagined. We first have to realize, you know, that we are in this desperate situation and to develop compassion for ourselves, but eventually to develop compassion for others. This will cause us to this will lead us to look for the causes, to realize that the causes of our suffering are within us, and then we can realize that we can eliminate those causes and there is a method to do so. So, anyway, what what I wanna talk about tonight before talking about this, the twelve links, is because it all leads in is what what the purpose of thinking about suffering, the reason to think about suffering is to develop a state of mind called renunciation, which in sans I don’t know the Sanskrit word.
Should? The Tibetan word is which literally means something like definite emergence, meaning to bring the mind out definitely from from cyclic existence. To to definitely emerge from cyclic existence. So it’s the mind that wants to do that. So that’s what renunciation is.
So it it had word this word has a very bad reputation in our culture, and I I think it’s associated with people think of it as renouncing all the good things of life and particularly kind of sort of beating your, you know, certain people in a certain religion, you know, used to beat them or maybe no. Actually, they still do with whips and things and hair coats and all sorts of stuff like that. You know, Saint Francis used to wear a hair I’ve seen it, in fact, in Saint in Assisi. He used to wear a hair coat, which would the whole purpose of what which is to it should make your skin itchy, so, you know, life was miserable. So, yes.
So that’s not, this is not what is understood by renunciation in Buddhism. Renunciation doesn’t mean giving up happiness. It means giving up suffering. And more profoundly, you know, it means giving up the causes of suffering because what we need to realize is that we are actually attached in some way to suffering. In one level, of course, we don’t want it And when it’s obviously obvious suffering, we we we’re not attached to it.
But unfortunately, we are in a sense attached to the causes. We find it very difficult to let go of creating the causes of suffering. And, of course, at a deeper level, renunciation means not just giving up obvious suffering and its causes, but even yes. This gets tricky. It does mean giving up happiness.
But only when we realize that the happiness that we’re attached to isn’t happiness. It really is just the suffering of change. His Holiness often makes the point that because of our Buddha nature, our the intrinsic purity of the mind, the the the wish to achieve happiness, genuine, pure, perfect, lasting happiness is something natural. It is not possible for a sentient being not to want to be happy. Unfortunately, word happy is a very unfortunate word, and there’s some scholar going around who’s just written a book, who’s being interviewed on radio a lot, who’s saying, you know, this this whole idea to be happy is ridiculous and dangerous.
And and in some senses, that’s word that’s true when you think that if you associate happiness with all sorts of super stuff and demanding everything go one’s own way. But here, we in happiness, what we’re really talking about is a state of mind of great peace and clarity where there is no suffering. And that, you know, that is a natural wish. And that so and what goes with it is the natural wish to not to to the natural not to suffer. The no being wants to experience suffering.
Right? So when our obscured mind sees, you know, his two things. So it’s you know, when when the obscured mind sees this as happiness and that as suffering, it will want this and not want that. Right? This looks good.
I want that. This looks bad. I don’t want that. But, if if we investigate more and we start to realize that this looks good, but, actually, it’s not so good at all. It’s actually a subtle kind of suffering.
We won’t want that either. We will renounce our craving. We will let go of our attachment and craving for it. Alright? Because that’s natural.
Doesn’t it’s not quite as easy as that in the symbol, but that’s part of the process. Yeah? So we have to let our mind do that. We have to listen to the teaching. Like the Buddha said, you know, what did he say?
Anyway, don’t just blindly believe me just because I said it. Of course, this makes a lot of sense when the Buddha was there in this incredible body radiating light and looking in because just no time to talk is there to elaborate things. But if you read the descriptions of what the Buddha looked I mean, there is according to the Tibetan tradition, it’s very hard to believe that the Buddha actually looked like the descriptions, you know, with actual golden bod skin and all the thirty two signs. At least the average person couldn’t see the Buddha like that. But people did see the Buddha when he was on the earth as, you know, somehow spectacularly beautiful and something extraordinary.
Just just seeing him was something an extraordinary experience. So so, of course, you would tend to believe anyone, you know, anything such a person said. Of course, we can’t see a Buddha. We just hear the words in his books and whatever. So it’s very easy not not to be so, you know, caught up with his words.
But even so, the Buddha said, don’t believe what I said just because I say it. Check up yourself. Because if you if one checks checks up, then the the the experience, the conviction will be so much more deeper and profound and transformative. But so the anyway, the Buddha is encouraging us to do that, to really look into this, not reject it because it doesn’t fit with one’s view, because we want to think that life is okay and I’ll be able to make everything okay. And really, there’s all sorts of really nice things in the world.
Actually, it’s just, you know, being very half empty cup stuff, looking at all the negative stuff. But the Buddha is saying, you know, with my unobscured mind, all I can see in saṃsāra is suffering. So you check up. And it’s again, it’s in the context that there is something vastly better to experience. If there was nothing better to experience, it’s you know, ignorance is bliss to not know how bad it really is.
But the Buddha is saying, you know, there’s something far, far, far inconceivably better that we could experience. But the only way to experience it is you have to give up. We have to renounce being attached to all this stuff and be being caught up in all of it. No. Sorry?
Yeah. Yeah. What was the Yes. Of course, we have to avoid of hatred of especially of people. Here we yeah.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, what we have to what be more concerned about is not having aversion to suffering, which is what you know, that comes easily.
But because of our negative aversion to it, you know, that leads, you know well, that is a negative state of mind that, you know, that leads to, well, anger and resentment and blah blah blah. And, you know, that is a suffering state of mind itself. That’s why the Buddha taught karma not just to because it’s true he taught, but to say how to avoid having aversion for your suffering is to understand you created the cause for it, not other people or God or the government or the weather. You created it. So don’t have a version for it.
Yeah? So yeah. But but the the other aspect is that even when we have a version for for suffering, we still we don’t have a version for the causes. We still create the causes. As the Lama Zopa Rinpoche once said so amazingly, what is the difference between a bodhisattva and ourselves is that we are very afraid of suffering, but we’re not afraid of creating the causes.
Whereas a bodhisattva is someone who has this immense ability to to bear suffering. They have this immense courage to be able to bear suffering, but they are terrified of creating the causes of it. Not for their own sake, but because by creating the causes of suffering, it prevents them benefiting others. Whereas we’re very brave in creating the causes of suffering, our own suffering. We do it blindly.
We’re only brave because it’s blind. It’s stupid bravery because we we don’t actually know what we’re doing, but we charge into it all again and again and again. Actually, even as Buddhists, when we we know we know at one level this is a cause of suffering, we still do it Because there’s that deep attachment, that deep habit, and that that’s the hard thing to break even when we know it. But first, we have to know, yeah, is that it’s it’s knowing that’s going to free us. Right?
And the deeper we know, you know, when we really feel it, not just as, you know, as in when it’s intellectual, there’s not much feeling associated, but but when you know it very deep in your guts, metaphorically speaking, you know, then there is some power to renounce, to let go of the causes of suffering, to stop creating them. That’s renunciation. So there are two stages. Firstly, we have to renounce our attachment to this life. You know?
And this life means not this life, but oh, this it does mean this life we’re in now, but every life we’re in. And, again, it doesn’t mean not liking life, not enjoying things and whatever. Because if you see the lamas don’t don’t take me as an ignorant. I’m just a miserable old sod. But the if you look at the Lamas, people who genuinely renounced cyclic existence, this at at least this life.
But, you know, if you look at people like his holiness and Lamas of Rinpochei, they they are people who, at the very least, can say, have renounced saṃsāra. These people, they are having a terrific time. Everything is enjoyable. Yeah? They you know, every the simplest thing is is enjoyed totally for what it is.
Yeah. It’s actually when we are renounced that we can enjoy things more even even in this world, you know, apart from having high high realizations of renunciation, experiencing the bliss of emptiness, Even however much we’re able to renounce things, there is a freedom, a space in the mind to enjoy it for what it is. Because when we experience things with attachment, there is always expectation of how it should be, you know, and never and things never somehow quite match up with how we want them to be. You know, if I have this boyfriend, girlfriend, and this kind of relation, it will be like that. And I will be like this, you know, and I will live happily ever after like this.
And it’s never like that. But always there’s the expect attachment is always in the past. You all we’re always living in the past of that’s why I had that experience. Now I desire to get it. So it’s it’s gotta be like that.
We don’t experience it for a person or a thing or a situation for what it actually is now. I I I think I’ve already told this story once here. It’s very, very embarrassing. But many, many, many years ago, I did a a seven no. A three month Vajrasattva retreat.
And during that retreat, I discovered I had a huge attachment to food. And there was just three of three peep three of us doing this retreat in a very quiet isolated place in South in New South Wales near Barrow somewhere in this anyway, in quite rough conditions. And someone very kindly donated three months of their time just to cook for us so they would bring the food. You know, they never talked to us. It was all the retreat was all done in silence.
We never spoke to each other. And during the retreat, there was Christmas, and the the cook before Christmas day wrote a note saying, I’m gonna make a really special Christmas lunch for you. So my mind went berserk expecting this terrific Christmas lunch. I my mind went totally insane waiting for this super special lunch, and it turned out to be one of the worst meals of the lot. It was cold.
I’m very attached to hot food, And it was kind of, you know, lukewarm. The baked potatoes were were burnt. It was a total, total disappointment. Except as I was eating it, I realized and when I got through being depressed about how it wasn’t what I expected and everything, I realized I was eating it without attachment because there was nothing to be attached to. And I was enjoying it because the attachment of all the previous meals just wasn’t there.
And, actually, the burnt potatoes were okay. And that’s my only experience of renunciation so far in thirty six years being a monk. But at least I can say I’ve had one experience, and it does work. When you when there’s when the mind is not sort of like that, there is so much more, you know, relaxation. There’s there’s a space to enjoy something for simply what it is.
And I don’t mean in some highly realized way. You know, just with a very ordinary mind, even when there’s less attachment, there’s more enjoyment. There’s more space to just, yeah, enjoy things, but no attachment is incredible bliss. So they say. So so what’s the point of renouncing this life?
You know? The point is in order the the minimal point, the basic point is to get a better one. Yeah? Because if we’re attached to this life and the things of this life, we will engage in negative actions which will create the cause not to have a good life but a suffering one. So the point of renouncing this life is not to be miserable in this life and in the next life, but to be able to be have more pleasure, more happiness.
Yeah. A more greater reason to renounce this life is in order to get out of saṃsāra because in order to get out of saṃsāra, it’s gonna take time and it’s gonna you know, with all honesty folks, we’re probably not gonna do it in this life. It’s gonna take many lives to get out of cyclic existence. Right? So to get out of cyclic existence, we need a good rebirth and then another one and another one.
But the the ultimate reason to renounce this life is to achieve enlightenment. Because to achieve enlightenment, we have that’s gonna take many, many lives. We have to get out of saṃsāra. And even when out of saṃsāra, one’s not enlightened, which I will get around to talking to which is next week. There is a difference between nirvana and enlightenment.
So that’s the reason. Or to put it very simply, the reason to renounce this life, to let go of attachments, is to have more peace, more happiness, more real inner contentment. It’s it’s not about making oneself miserable at all. And the point about genuine renunciation, there’s something that Tibetans call hasty renunciation, which is where people hear the dharma and, sorry, they think they you everyone gets very excited and think, oh, I have to renounce everything. I have to become a monk.
So they cut off their hair, run off to the mountains, and then freak out because they can’t cope, because there isn’t any real renunciation. It’s just superficial cutting off the hair and and everything. Yeah. Because you can pretend to do that for a while and and reject things because renunciation is not necessarily giving up stuff and relationships as such. It’s about giving up one’s attachment to all of these things and all that goes with that attachment and craving the expectation and the fear and the worry and the pride and jealousy and blah blah blah blah blah.
Of course, if you actually give up the the people and things, it’s much easier as well, but doesn’t necessarily involve that. Yeah. I think I’ve lost my point now. Oh, you hasty renunciation. Yeah.
So so real renunciation is not renunciation is not about forcing yourself to let go of things when deep down there is that craving and attachment for it. Real renunciation occurs because naturally because you you see, you start to see, oh, this is suffering. It’s not. You know? It it only brings me suffering.
It’s not and so there’s a natural letting go of it. That’s the kind of mind we’re trying to develop, what the Buddha wants us to develop, what the Buddha the Dharma is about. This mind that lets go of things when it actually understands not just intellectually, but in a deeper way that this, you know, is suffering. You know? Like like when you if you give up, you know, I, you know, used to smoke, what was it, fifty cigarettes a day at one point before I met the Dharma or just around the time I met the Dharma.
But, you know, I realized, I had some realization that this was suffering and the cause of suffering. You know? It wasn’t you know? So you you and when when you really get the message, then you and especially, I’d met the dharma, so there was something else to replace it with. So then there’s some energy to let go.
And that’s the that also is an essential part of genuine renunciation. You’re not letting go of something in order to have a kind of a nothing to you know, where nothing replaces it. You’re renouncing something in order to get something better as I’ve been giving the pathetic example for thirty six years now because I you know, it’s a natural thing anyway. You know, it sounds like some kind of very big deal, but it’s not at one level. Because, like, for example, if a little kid has got an ice cream cone, you know, a single ice cream cone, and then another kid goes by with a double ice cream cone, they will want the two.
Chuck this one, get the two. Of course, if you can keep this one and the two, you’ll take all three. But the if if the only way to get a double cone is to let go of this one, you let go of this one, and then we’ll get two. That’s renunciation. It’s just realizing that we are in saṃsāra, and we could be in nirvana.
Yeah. And you can’t have both. You can’t be in saṃsāra and nirvana. What are we gonna be in? saṃsāra or nirvana?
It’s a no brainer, actually. I wish I’d yes. Anyway yeah. So real renunciation comes, you know, as it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s a relief. It’s giving it’s giving up stuff.
I realized I don’t want this crap. Excuse me. No. I just don’t want it anymore. Fed up.
Don’t want it. Don’t want to do this anymore. I’m not going to do it anymore because it doesn’t work. It just doesn’t really work. Yes.
So one can still operate in this world with being renounced. In fact, one can operate better, one can have better relationships, enjoy stuff better, operate better if one actually is renounced. In the Buddhist tradition, there is this beautiful analogy of the lotus, you know, because the lotus in India was considered the most beautiful perfect flower, and that was one thing. But the the amazing thing about this most beautiful perfect flower is that lotuses grow out of really disgusting disgusting, dirty, muddy water. Yeah.
And but they grow actual lotuses have very in the long stalks, so they grow up above the they grow they start out in the mud, but they grow out. And then there’s this incredibly beautiful, perfect flower. That and that is used as a symbol of renunciation that we can be born in saṃsāra. We can be surrounded by samsaric stuff. But when the mind is renounced, it it you know, it’s untouched.
It’s untouched by all this rubbish and nonsense and negativity and pettiness and blah blah blah. Yeah. That’s what we’re trying to achieve. And basically the ways to do it is by understanding that everything that we are attached to and that bothers us is impermanent, it’s not gonna last. To understand that, to understand, yeah, to understand the law of cause and effect, that we ourselves are going to die.
So when the more we understand these things and also that the things are, you know yeah. That are yeah. These actually, there’s all sorts of stuff. But these are some of the basic things that help us let go of our attachment to this life. Then the second level of renunciation, the most important, is having developed that level of renunciation, then we need to develop the mind that is able to renounce all of cyclic existence.
Yeah. Because one could renounce this life and so yes. So the maybe just to make it clear, the reason to develop renunciation is to get a better life and that comes from, of course, putting less effort into just the things of this life and more effort into the practice of Dharma. Meaning, in a very simple way, what is Dharma? It is the practice of taking care of the mind.
Avoiding the negativities, cultivating virtue, positive actions of body, speech, mind. Alright? But even if we have that level of renunciation, which is a wonderful state to achieve, which very few people in any life, very few people in this world have it, still one can then be attached to being reborn as a human being again and again or attached to the idea of being born in the various kinds of god realms. You know, there are there are the desire realm gods realms. There’s the realms of the formless realm sorry, the form realm and the formless realm where these amazingly blissful experiences can go on and on and on and on for an immense period of time.
So one could be very attached to all of those or just the idea of being reborn as a human being and coming back with a very beautiful body and having lots of money and blah blah blah blah blah. So what we have to realize is this, yeah, again, the first noble truth that actually even if we reborn in in as a human being again and again and again or as a god again and again and again, we don’t avoid suffering in the long run. Because there’s the six sufferings, the eight sufferings, and the three sufferings. Right? That even if you experience the bliss of the gods for an eon or a million eons, it comes to an end and you fall back as a human, as an animal in the hell realms.
So whether you’re you’re you’ve been a god for for a second or for an eon, when it’s finished, it’s finished. And then one is back to obvious pain and horror. So what’s the point? Yeah. And while we remain in saṃsāra, as I tried to explain with the eight sufferings and the six, saṃsāra, if it goes on, it can go on forever if we don’t do anything about it.
Which means, just like saṃsāra is beginningless, which means there’s been time for every sentient being to have been our mother and father and etcetera, etcetera, if if we don’t do anything about saṃsāra, it becomes endless, which means there is time to experience every kind of suffering, not just once, but over and over again. And what’s the point? Because we don’t have to experience it. Because there’s another possibility all the time. There is a statement somewhere, I think it was Saraha, this great tantric yogi, who once said something like saṃsāra and nirvana are the same and a lot of people have totally misunderstood that the sense of, oh that means I can just have a good time and that’s nirvana.
But they what he what he meant was that saṃsāra is a state of mind and nirvana is a state of mind. They’re both equal in being states of mind. They’re both equal in being potentials of our own mind. And right now we are experiencing this very ordinary potential of our mind which is saṃsāra, but all the time there is this potential within us to experience nirvana. But we have, you know, again, while we’re experiencing saṃsāra, we can’t experience nirvana.
And when we see if we allow ourselves to see how it is in the nature of suffering and even the happiness of it is a type of suffering, then we will let go of it. And again, why renounce saṃsāra? In order to have nirvana and more than that to achieve enlightenment. So how do we renounce saṃsāra altogether? Is to let out to reflect over and over again if we start to believe these things.
I mean, look, it all depends on having some belief in the mind, in its continuity, and that we actually can have different rebirths and that they do exist. Alright? But but but we have to reflect how we are subject to all these different kinds of suffering that and that there is no happiness, no real peace in cyclic existence. While the mind is controlled by delusion, karma, ignorance, There there’s no way. There’s no chance for real peace, lasting peace.
And it’s endless. saṃsāra is endless. And but also what what I I think I forgot to clarify. I was trying to make this point that in order to renounce this life, to renounce saṃsāra, it involves on the one hand realizing there is this, you know, this is not what I want. It’s, you know, it’s it’s an it’s it’s all illusory, but there is something better, that there really is something better.
So the more that we develop this understanding that nirvana is pos that there is this state, you know, I have the potential for it, then we will renounce. But if if we only think this is it, that I don’t believe in future lives, I don’t believe there’s something or even if we believe in future lives, I don’t think future lives will be vastly different than this, then why should I renounce this? You know? But if if we develop some understanding that there is this amazing potential within our mind, and if we can we can get that a little bit by seeing people like his holiness, the Dalai Lama. Yeah.
Yeah. That is why it is so important to really meet in some at some level these very special beings. Because it’s one thing to see them on television or to read their books and blah blah blah, but to be in the presence of these beings is something altogether different, I think. And the longer you can be in their presence, of course, the more powerful of it it is. I had the good fortune somehow, the good karma, that the first two lamas I ever met were Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who turned out to be absolutely extraordinary beings.
When I met them, I just can’t I I I don’t I wasn’t conscious of this, but I think I kind of assumed that when I met them that every Tibetan Lama was like them, and then I realized afterwards that they’re not, that I had met two of the most extraordinary beings on the entire planet. But I must say that for the first you know, Lama Zopa Rinpoche is now my main teacher, my root guru. But for the first three days, I was in his presence. I thought he was just I can’t say what I thought because it’s really pretty bad. But I stayed.
And so from then on, I started to slowly realize or actually fairly quickly realize from then on that I had just met the most amazing being in the entire what I you know, planet. One of the most amazing beings. And I didn’t even know I didn’t even have any concept that there were beings like this. No concept in my mind that there was something a person like this. You know?
So it’s really, really important to be able to meet some beings like this because then you start to because the point about these beings is and I because it was very sad. I I thought many people met Lama Lama Yeshe. Everyone thought Lama Yeshe was much more spectacular than Lama Zopa Rinpoche because Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught all the heavy stuff, and he wasn’t this big, extravagant, outgoing, cuddly bear type person, whereas Lama Yeshe was this very extravagant, obviously loving, made you know, dramatic, amazing, amazing being. And what am I trying to say? Oh, but many people made, I think, the mistake.
Maybe I’m arrogant in saying this, but somehow I think many people who became very devoted to him saw him as an exceptional being. And, of course, in one way, he was an exceptional being. But what I’m trying to say is that all these amazing beings, like his holiness Dalai Lama, is at one level a truly exceptional being, but in another way, he’s no different than any of us. He has just realized the potential that we have. Because if they were inherently significantly different from us, then we couldn’t be like them.
This is the whole point of meeting these beings. When you meet His Holiness, you’re meeting your future self. You we could be like that. We all have the potential to be the Dalai Lama, quite literally. I mean, his qualities.
You know, being the Dalai Lama doesn’t mean that’s nothing. That’s, you know, just worldly stuff. I mean, in one sense, if know what I mean. It’s just a position and blah blah blah. But the qualities he has, these are not something that are unique to him.
They are we have those qualities in us, and he is demonstrating them. Yeah. And it’s so important to meet people like that because you’re meeting your your true self, and you’re meeting someone who wants you to be your true self, and you’re meeting someone who is showing you how to be your true self. Oh, so then then it becomes real. That’s the point.
All of this stuff, the pop all this other stuff that seems so abstract is real. Yeah? Why? I have some faith in the dharma. I have some intellectual reasons for it, but I think deep down the main reason is because I met the lamas.
That they’re it. All all all sorts of clever people can say, oh, blah blah blah about them, but then you you you’re with them. And I had the good fortune to for three years to be Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s attendant. There is no way he is an ordinary being or, you know, there’s nothing ordinary about Lama Zopa Rinpoche at all. Or you could say, as one person once said, that all real Lamas are extraordinary in their ordinariness.
They’re extraordinarily ordinary because they don’t flash lights and things. Lama has ever been when I was with him for three years, flashed lights, did spectacular things in a way. But his whole existence is is unbelievable. It’s unbelievable. And and people can say all sorts of clever things about you know, scientific materialists can say all sorts of clever things, but then you meet someone like that, and they’re they’re in a different reality.
It just makes nonsense of all these clever arguments when you you know, these people and their quality, what they are. So that’s that’s very, very, very important to have that experience somehow. Because then that, you know, then then you see, oh, all these famous people and all that’s admired and blah blah blah. And then you look at them and you look at the lamas. There’s no there’s no choice.
It’s just it’s just a joke. I’m I’m sorry. Now I’m getting up. You know? I was listening to Philip Adams who I really like, but he really depresses me with his anti religion and there’s not nothing beyond this life.
And he was quoting various people. He was listing all these great people who, you know, saw the light and, you know, knew that there was only this life. And his list of people, and I thought, my god, oh my Buddha. What a list. I wouldn’t want to be any of them, you know, depressing people.
You know? Gosh. Was that yeah. It’s not a great advertisement. Because if that if that’s what it is and that’s what you become, blah.
It’s really that’s really depressing. That is totally depressing. But then you look at his holiness and Lama Zopa Rinpoche and other great lamas like that and what they are saying and how they are and how they experience their life and how they bring amazing joy to so many people in so many ways. You know, I’ve seen, you know, these tough policemen in France who were guarding his holiness that they just turned into blubbering babies in his presence. They weren’t Buddhists.
You know? They’re just you know, he just turns into people into marshmallow because there’s nothing like him. Questions? I’ve done it again. I haven’t got onto the main topic, which is very difficult.
Questions? No questions. Okay. Tea break. A little bit of nirvana.
So in front of you you have an outline drawing of what is called the wheel of life so it has a very long tradition and according to the Tibetan tradition this drawing originated with Śākyamūni Buddha himself where just very briefly one king of India of one of the Indian states gave a present to one of the kings of another Indian state And so the the king who received the present wanted to give something equally beneficial. So he asked the Buddha what could he give. And the Buddha said, make this drawing, and I’ll and I’ll explain what to do because this is the very best present you could have. So this so, actually, what is the wheel of life? What are you looking at?
You are looking at your mind or our mind. This is our mind or the potential of our mind. So this this this this ugly looking character here symbolizes impermanence and death, and this this all is saṃsāra, the the wheel of cyclic existence, which is always held by impermanence and death. Everything changes. Everything is constantly changing.
And at the center are these three animals, which is a pig, which represents ignorance, the snake which represents hatred and something which sometimes is well it’s a bird but it actually should be a pigeon which symbolizes craving and attachment, desire and attachment. Right? So these are the three things that keep us spinning in cyclic existence. Ignorance, anger and attachment. Right?
And here depicted the realms of cyclic existence. So here is the the this is symbolizes the god realms. Then I can’t see exactly very well. So this is symbolizes the god realms. This is the human realm.
This is the realm of the hungry ghosts. This is the hell realm, the different kinds of hell realms, the cold ones, and the different hot ones. This is the the animal realm. This is the asuras who are fighting with the gods. So these are the six realms of cyclic existence.
Okay? And here in the in the that second ring around the three animals, you have the beings falling into the lower realms and then those rising into the higher realms and so on, which are depicted as monks, which which is basically symbolizing that to, you know, to have good rebirths in saṃsāra, one needs to practice morality. So then around on the edges are the twelve links of dependent origination. There are these twelve images that symbolize what are called the twelve links of dependent origination. Starting up here with the blind a blind man leaning on a cane which symbolizes ignorance so the twelve links of dependent origination is an extremely important fundamental teaching of the Buddha and this particular teaching about the twelve links is specifically explaining how we take rebirth in cyclic existence Both good rebirths and bad rebirths.
The explanation is the same. It all depends on these twelve links. And it it to actually go into this topic, it it is very, very complicated. It would take a very very long time so I just want to give and I don’t have much time just a very brief idea of the twelve links. But the reason they were taught and is to meditate on them in in in order to develop this renunciation, to develop renunciation of cyclic existence by realizing that by following ignorance but basically the argument is that because of ignorance this leads to the second link that leads to the third, the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and the twelfth link is well the eleventh link is birth and then because of the eleventh link this leads to aging and death.
So once there is ignorance you have the second link, once you have the second link you have the third and so on. So one starts to see this kind of grinding wheel of cyclic existence and how kind of kind of horrible and frightening it is that once we follow ignorance, we are inevitably led to fall into cyclic existence over and over again. So by reflecting on this, understanding this more and more, we will develop the mind that renounces cyclic existence in order to achieve nirvana. And what that mind of renunciation is determined to do is follow the path that will lead to the development of the wisdom that destroys ignorance. Ignorance which is the very root of cyclic existence.
So remember just briefly again, what is ignorance? It is this mental factor that obscures the mind so that we experience ourself and all things in a false way that they appear to exist from their own side under their own power with their own characteristics. And it’s only because of that ignorance obscuring our mind that we we then have desire for what appears to be inherently beautiful things out there existing from their own side under their own power, and we have aversion to things which appear because of ignorance to be from their own side bad and evil and terrible, existing like that from their own side under their own power with their own characteristics. And that’s I said because of those projections and only because of them that we have desire, aversion, pride, jealousy, all the different disturbing thoughts or kleshas, afflictive emotions, whatever you want to call them. And because of that, we act on them, you know, there’s then there’s karma, then there’s karmic imprints, and then there is suffering and a little bit of happiness, which is just the suffering of change.
Okay. So I I’m I am gonna give you a handout afterwards, but it is good to have make some notes but I’ll give you a little bit of a handout about the twelve links which explains them a bit teeny bit but ignorance is symbolized by a blind man because he on a who’s leaning on a walking stick. To to to emphasize that ignorance itself, although it’s kept us in cyclic existence since beginningless time, is itself something weak. It doesn’t have a foundation in valid cognition. It it it isn’t some that ignorance isn’t something valid, and so it can be eliminated.
And the the ignorance that is being referred to is not just some any kind of ignorance, but what is called innate ignorance, the ignorance that has always obscured our mind, not just in this life, but during beginningless time. It’s always been there. So, you know, it’s with us it’s with us all the time. As I said in one class, it’s you know, a tiny child has it. The the being in the womb has it.
It’s there obscuring the mind all the time. It’s not just an intellectual wrong view. It’s this instinctive, innate grasping at things or or what is the grasping of what is called inherent existence or true true existence, which is referring to this wrong view that things exist out there from their own side under their own power. Okay? So that’s the first link.
So every time we have that ignorance, then we set we we we things appear in a particular way as inherently existing, and then we grasp that that is that is true. As soon as we do that, then the first link is established. So the depressing thing is we do this all day. So we create many first links throughout each day. So the second second link, which is depicted by a potter throwing, you know, with making pots on a wheel with clay, is referring to what is called karmic formation.
So it’s the the potter, the wheel spinning clay shapes new forms just as actions bring different results. So the second link of karmic formations refers to that mental factor of intention which creates positive or negative karma. Remember, for those people who did the karma course, there are four factors that determine the potency of karma. Karmic imprints in general and especially throwing karmas — the main factor is intention. So karmic formations is referring to that mental factor of intention that creates positive or negative throwing karmas. So once you have ignorance you have the delusions and so you then have these this intention of following a particular delusion to achieve a particular purpose and so these karmic throwing karmas good and bad are created.
Because this the twelve links explains how we not only create the cause for good rebirths in saṃsāra but also bad rebirths in saṃsāra. It’s the same process. So then as soon as that link is established the third link of consciousness is established and this is depicted as a monkey in an empty house. So and what the consciousness here is referring to, it doesn’t mean that karmic formations creates consciousness, but what it does mean is that once once you have these karmic formations there is a consciousness, a primary mental consciousness which is now carrying that throwing karma. Before that throwing karma was created there was the consciousness there wasn’t a consciousness create you know carrying it it was free of it but now the mental consciousness it has is carrying this karmic imprint positive or negative.
Okay? So then once that is established once this consciousness is established, this ultimately will lead will lead to the next link, the fourth link, which is called name and form, which is depicted as four people in a boat. So name and form refers this is gonna take a while to explain. Name and form refers to another way of calling it is the five aggregates. So if you study Tibetan Buddhism or Buddhism in general or Mahāyāna Buddhism or all Buddhism, you have to know about the five aggregates.
So the five aggregates is basically talking about our body and mind. So an aggregate is a congreg like a collection of things, like an aggregation of things. So we have a body aggregate or a form aggregate. So the form aggregate is referring to our body, which itself is a collection of many different physical things. Right?
And which is changing day by day as well. So there are by using this term aggregate, it’s helping us to understand, to break, or no, to break this wrong understanding that things are permanent and solid and one thing, whereas our body is an aggregation of many things which which in turn are changing all the time. So there is the four so what we are depends on these five aggregates, the form aggregate, and then the other five aggregates sorry. The other four aggregates are all aspects of the mind. So the four people in the boat, the boat symbolizes the four the body, and the four people in the boat symbolize the mind.
And so in when we talk about name and form, form is referring to the form aggregate, and name is referring to the four mental aggregates, the four aspects of the mind, which are the aggregate of feelings. So we have both pleasant and unpleasant and neutral feelings, and we have oh, anyway, let’s keep it simple. Leave it like that. And then there’s discriminations. There is the aggregate of discriminations.
So this is referring to what discrimination here is referring to is it it doesn’t mean like discriminating like, you know, racial discrimination and things like that. It is referring to a very fundamental basic function of the mind to be able to distinguish one thing from something else, which is a vital ability of the mind to be able to distinguish, you know, or even, you know, that this petal is separate from that petal, that there are two different things or, you know, this is this is different from that and this is different from that and this is different that and this is different from that. Right? So we have this aggregation of billions of discriminations going on all the time enabling us to separate and distinguish different things. Right?
Right. Form. Feeling.. The the the next one is called compositional factors. We’ll just leave that for the time being. And the the the fifth aggregate is what are called the the the six primary consciousnesses.
The six so there is the the primary eye consciousness, the primary ear consciousness, nose, body, and the mental consciousness itself. Right? So we have six oh, hold on. Taste. Oh, yes.
Right. So there are the five sense consciousnesses, eye, ear, nose, taste and body consciousness, and then the most important primary consciousness, which is the mental consciousness which puts it all together. And they’re called primary consciousness because there are also what are called secondary consciousnesses. So the primary consciousness just very simply it is able to know something in a very very general way. Way that it’s often illustrated is and this is just a you know this is just to give as an analogy to give some idea is that for example the primary eye consciousness will will see and observe this whole object Yeah?
And then the secondary mental factors come in and distinguish all the different aspects of it. Right? That’s a very, you know, very, very rough idea. So going back to the compositional factors, which is the fourth aggregate. So what what that aggregate is aggregate refers to is every other aspect of the mind other than feelings, discriminations, and the six primary consciousnesses.
So that means it refers to all the secondary mental factors. So the virtuous states of mind such as love, compassion, generosity, etcetera, but all the the negative ones such as anger and craving and pride and jealousy, etcetera, etcetera. So it refers to all of those, but it refers to all our conceptions, all our perceptions, our dreams, all those other aspects of the mind which are not feelings, discriminations, and primary consciousnesses that are called compositional factors. So these are the five aggregates, which in the twelve links are called name and form. And it’s particularly referring to the development of a new being in, for example, if we were to be reborn as a human being that that name and form is referring to the the sperm and ovum coming together being fertilized by the mental consciousness.
So then you have a new five aggregates. The old, you know, when we die, this bunch of five aggregates comes to an end and we take a new set of five aggregates. And that that automatically leads to the next link the fifth link which is called the sixth sense powers. So this is referring to the five sense organs developing in the body the eye organ, ear, nose, tongue, body organs, and then there is the or or powers. And then there is the mental sense power, which is not which is not something physical, but it’s referring to a previous moment of consciousness, meaning from the past life.
No. It’s one of the six. It’s you’ve got the five sense organs of yeah. Yeah. And the powers of those organs.
And then you’ve got the the mental sense power, which is not a physical organ, but referring to a previous moment of consciousness, which would be from the past life. Okay? Don’t try to understand this too much. Quite complicated. It’s very complicated.
Excuse me? What? The fifth link is an empty house because it yes it’s an empty house which means that you know you’ve got this body you know there’s this little fetus for example with a human you’ve got a little fetus but the organs are just developing they’re just starting to develop they’re not really functioning properly yet Okay, so then because that the sixth that fifth link has started you’ve got the fifth link that automatically leads to the next link, which is contact, the sixth link. And this is depicted as a man and woman having sex because that’s a pretty important kind of contact. So what is contact?
This is a very interesting thing. What contact is is actually because we think of contact as, you know, two physical things coming together. But what it’s actually referring to is a mental factor. A mental factor which lasts for the period during which the object, the sense power and the consciousness come together. Because to see a flower, there has to be the object, and there has to be the eye organ, the eye sense power, which is not just the eye organ, but it’s something operating in the physical eye organ.
And and then there is the eye consciousness. So there is a mental factor that lasts that comes into existence because there is the meeting of the object, the eye sense power, and the eye consciousness. So that is what is meant by contact. Some parts of the Buddhadharma are very easy to understand. Some parts are very difficult.
I’m just giving a very simple introduction, and remember, this is just the start. Don’t don’t give me those looks like this is really difficult and boring. No. You’re all giving me these looks. I know.
But I’m I’m not worrying for myself. You know, it’s just it’s it’s this mind saying, this is too difficult. Oh, this is boring. I don’t wanna know about this. You know, with time, it starts to make some sense.
One has to put effort into thinking about them. One, two. Often they they they mix up the the because the six realms includes the the asuras. Sometimes they put the the gods and the asuras actually here it’s all the the gods and the asuras are oh, no. No.
That’s god six. Oh yeah okay yes yes So in the in the one you’ve got the the image on your right looking at it is the human beings and the one on the left is at the top part is the gods and they’re shooting arrows down at the Asuras who are shooting arrows upwards to them. Yeah. So they’re actually two different realms, really. Yeah.
That’s that’s meant to depict human beings, that that right section, that right bit of the pie is human beings. And then the next one are the pretas, you know, who are hungry and starving with their huge bellies. Yes. I was. No one else was.
Yes. So now we’ve got yes. Contact. So this leads to the next super important one which is feeling and that’s depicted by having an arrow in your eye because that’s that’s really pretty a lot of feeling going on because the eye is very very sensitive right so what is feeling that well there you have physical and mental feelings and there are pleasant unpleasant and neutral feelings so you can have pleasant unpleasant and neutral physical feelings pleasant neutral and unpleasant mental feelings. Of course we have to understand that even physical feelings are in fact mental.
But why they’re called physical is that they are directly related to this body. Right? Yes. Okay. So what what is really interesting, is about feelings, is that is that this is the feelings that we experience on contact with something is actually the way our karma ripens.
Yeah. Depending on our karma, we contact something and it’s pleasant. Depending on some other contact some other karma when we contact something, it’s unpleasant. And depending some some other karma ripening when we contact something it’s a neutral experience. And that leads automatically once that that’s depicted by the arrow in the eye.
So then that leads to the once that’s established, this leads to the next link, the eighth link, which is craving. Which is craving, which is just another term here really is for desire and attachment. And this is depicted by a person drinking wine because one is never satisfied. You keep doing it no matter what happens. You know?
Alright. So there are three kinds of craving. There’s the craving I mean, the obvious one of not of of not wanting to be separated from pleasant feelings. There’s the craving to be to be separated from unpleasant feelings. And there’s the craving, a subtle craving, for the non-reduction of neutral feelings.
Yeah. You don’t want the neutral feeling to stop and turn into suffering. Let’s not fight about these things. There’s not enough time. You can have a big discussion next week about all of this.
Uh-huh. But but the point to understand about remember these twelve links are talking specifically about how we take rebirth so this link of craving is particularly referring not to craving that occurs throughout our life you know when you have a cup of tea or whatever or eating something, it’s talking about the craving that arise is arising at the time of death. Yeah. It’s not just any craving. And it’s related to the feeling pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feeling that is arising as we are dying.
And then this leads once that is established it leads to the the ninth link which is which is grasping, which is depicted as a monkey picking fruit. You know, he’s you know, they just the monkey will pick more and more and more fruit no matter how much it gets it once more. So this is basically just an intensified form of craving. And this is occurring at the time at the time of death. And not just some some people, you know, maybe dying over many days or so on.
This is really referring to the last moments of this life. I I can’t I don’t know, you know, you can’t quantify this, but it’s really referring to that very last period of of the death process. And what is happening is that this craving and grasping are nourishing in a sense the link number two which is the karmic formation link which is referring to the throwing karma, positive or negative, that has been generated due to link number one, ignorance. So at the time of death a particular throwing karma becomes dominant and what starts to just like a you know a seed in the ground or you know if you’ve as a school kid you used to put these bits of wheat in wet wet cotton wool and stuff And then, you know, there’s a point when the seed is is is just about to sprout, germinate, sprout, germinate, Maybe germinate is even better. Then this craving and grasping these two factors of craving and grasping are germinating or nourishing that imprint.
No. No. I just said no. This is not when you’re having potatoes for dinner. You’re not having potatoes for dinner.
Meaning you start craving for the food. To be honest I don’t know It gets very complicated because this explanation is according to Sūtra. Then there is a tantric explanation of the death process, which is different. And how the two things actually mesh, I don’t know. And I’ve never heard any Lama explain how the two actually go together.
Right? Because there is a point in the death process according to the tantric tradition where you’ve you you you well, one of the first parts is you you you you lose awareness of the external world, and you are not able to recognize, like, your close family and friends. And then a a little further on in the death death process, you can’t hear anything. Your ear consciousness stops altogether. And all you can hear is this very subtle buzzing in the ear.
And then at the one of the final parts of the death process is even that stops. So you wouldn’t hear someone talking about their potatoes. So I’m not sure according to that tantric explanation where this link is before that part or around you know, after or what? I’m not really sure. And also sorry.
If the one also has to understand that this teaching and, like, the the the tantric explanation of the death process are general ideas. They’re not absolutely concrete. That that always happens exactly like this. You know, because in the death process according to the Tantric tradition, can also reverse a little bit and then start again kind of many things can happen. Yeah.
Sorry. Yeah. This one I don’t know. I mean this one I’m not sure. The Tantric one I would say would happen but very quickly.
Yeah I’m again I haven’t if you do the death and dying discovering Buddhism we will go through the tantric explanation of death which is extremely interesting. It’s more than interesting. It’s extremely helpful to know. This is very I like this. Where am I?
Sorry. I distracted myself. That’s very bad. Oh, yes. The in the the tantric one what what we have to understand about the tantric explanation of the death process is that it applies to a very particular kind of death process where one dies of natural causes, not of not of, like, heavy sickness or being run over or shot or anything like that.
It it’s talking about the it’s like the perfect death process for someone who’s led a very good life, very and is dying of old age basically. Just the body wearing out. And I I I would assume from this process that the Buddha is also talking about how it would you know, again, it’s like the the the perfect process for someone who was dying basically in a natural Yeah. Naturally. Yeah.
Yeah. Not someone who’s being run over by a steamroller or something like that, but but yeah. So that what you know like yeah. Yeah. So one one can get an idea of what generally happens.
Of course, there are so many many, you know, factors. You know? It it it would become impossible if you so this is to get a a general idea of what happens. Right? Yeah.
I don’t think we should ever lose sight of that. The that these are all of the teachings are kind of guidelines and to give us an idea of things. Yes. Where are we? Okay.
So grasping. We’ve got to grasping. So then this leads to link number ten, which is called existence saṃsāra which is depicted by symbolized by a pregnant woman about to give birth So in the in the teaching on the four noble truths when the Buddha says existence is suffering, it is actually referring to this link in a sense. That is coming into saṃsāra again and again because this link is referring to that well, I’ll just quote, it is the potency established by link two when thoroughly nourished by craving and grasping. So it’s referring to that moment just before the seed sprouts.
Just before. In other words, just before the throwing karma is about to ripen. It’s just before. Grasping. So then that automatically leads to link eleven which is birth or maybe should be better called rebirth and it’s just depicted by a woman actually giving birth But this link isn’t actually referring to when, for example, a human being comes out of the womb, it’s referring to the moment of conception.
The first moment of conception. It’s so when the new the the the beginning, the very beginning of the new five aggregates. So there’s a lot of similarity. I don’t know. You know, you’d have to ask a Geshe or a Lama to explain completely, but link number four and number eleven are very similar.
Name and form and rebirth. And then of course once link eleven of rebirth or has is established you have to have, you can’t avoid link twelve which is aging and death. So aging refers to the second moment of conception. Aging starts in the second moment after conception. And so then you have the the the fetus, for example, with a human growing in the womb.
Then because you’re born, then you have to experience the six sufferings, the eight sufferings, the three sufferings, and death. And then it all starts again. So there’s a whole lot Maybe, can a couple of people just take these and hand them out? Quickly. Thanks.
Yeah. Couple. Yeah. Sorry. We’re almost running out of time.
You’re gonna have lots of questions for me next week about this. Thanks. So once we’ve developed a little bit of understanding of what each of the links refers to, then a simple but quite effective way to meditate on them is in section two where you just reflect how due to ignorance, you know, because of link number one, this link automatically leads to link number two to karma. And then due to the condition of karma, consciousness arises. And due to the condition of consciousness, name and form arise.
Due to the condition of name and form, the sixth sense powers arise. And due to the arising of the sixth sense powers, contact occurs. Because of contact, feeling arises. Because feeling arises, craving arises. Because craving arises, grasping arises.
Because of grasping, existence occurs and because existence occurs rebirth occurs and because rebirth occurs aging and death occur. Yeah, it’s inevitable. So then you think aging and death are due to birth. Birth is produced by existence. Existence is due to grasping.
Grasping is due to craving. Craving is due to feeling, feeling is due to the sixth sense powers and the sixth sense powers exist because of name and form, name and form has come into existence because of consciousness, consciousness has come into existence because of karmic formations karmic formations has come into existence because of ignorance and then you reflect if ignorance ceases karma will cease if karma ceases then the consciousness carrying that karmic imprint will cease if that ceases name and form won’t come about will cease if name and form ceases then the sixth sense powers will cease. If they cease, contact won’t occur. If contact doesn’t occur, feeling won’t occur. If feeling doesn’t occur, craving won’t occur.
If craving doesn’t occur, grasping won’t occur. If grasping doesn’t occur, then existence won’t occur, if existence doesn’t occur, birth won’t occur, and if birth doesn’t occur, then all suffering, aging and death won’t occur. And then you think the cessation of aging and death depends on the cessation of birth, the cessation of birth depends on the cessation of becoming, The cessation of becoming depends on the cessation of grasping. That depends on the cessation of craving. That depends on the cessation of feeling.
That depends on the cessation of contact. That depends on the cessation of the sixth sense powers, that depends on the cessation of name and form, that depends on the cessation of consciousness, which depends on the cessation of karma, which depends on the cessation of ignorance. So then if we think about that again and again, we will finally get the message that I’ve got if I want to stop every kind of suffering, I have to eliminate ignorance. My ignorance. So there’s another section which is part of your homework which explains how the twelve links exist over several lifetimes.
So if you read it there, you it might you might make sense of it, but I’ll try to explain it next week if you get if you get confused. Any questions? Sorry. I at least I finished it. We we shot through it.
Yes. Now the consciousness well, it’s it’s it’s just simply referring to the fact that once you’ve you know, because of ignorance, that leads to the creation of a throwing karma. And once you’ve got the throwing karma, you have a a a a consciousness that is carrying that mental that throwing karma. I mean, the consciousness has always existed, but now yeah. It’s it’s it is seems a little bit strange in a way.
I I must admit, I find this teaching very complicated and, actually the more you go into it, it gets more confusing for my tiny mind. But, yeah. But I think it’s just simply pointing out that before that particular throwing karma existed, say for example, it’s a really nasty throwing karma that could throw you into the hell realms, before that your mind didn’t have that karmic imprint in it, but now it has. So it’s a different mind. Right?
It’s a slightly different mind. It’s a mind that is polluted by this very nasty throwing karma. I think it’s just emphasizing that fact. Before, yeah, that the consciousness didn’t have that imprint, but now it has. And now it’s got it, that leads to name and form.
And then that leads, you know, Yeah. No. No. Well, I mean, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other because but but this is particularly remember, this is particularly referring to when we’re dying. So when we die and and especially at the very last moments, it’s the last feeling we have, which can be you know, for example, they explain in the in the in the tantric explanation that I hope I’ve got this right, that one of the things that can occur is just simply the experience of heat or cold.
And we may crave that that that warmth. Oh, no. No. We may be feeling cold, and we crave experiencing warmth. And, yeah, that is not a good thing to do.
But, anyway, I actually didn’t clarify that properly. But because of that, you there there may be this experience of cold, and we we associate unpleasant feeling. So we crave being free of that, and we crave the opposite. And so that starts nurturing that imprint. So there’s the feeling, and then because of that feeling, whatever it is, there’s a craving that goes with it either to increase it or to, you know, reduce it.
You know? So it’s particularly referring at the at the very last moments of the of the consciousness of this life. The gross consciousness of this life. Oh, it’s a dead body being carried on the back of someone which is Tibetan custom that they would carry the body up to a remote place where it would be chopped up, wrapped up in in tsampa flour and fed to the vultures. Yeah.
For your niche, it’s all chopped up and what do you call that? Yeah. Sky burial. Yeah. Yeah.
On that happy note, we’ll finish and we can sorry if tonight was a little bit of, like, total bombardment. There’s just too much material to go through. That’s my excuse anyway. So if you’d like to join in, we can dedicate the the merit, the positive imprints we’ve put into our consciousness. We have we’ve created a complete, we may have created or started to create twelve good links tonight, at least to have a good rebirth, you see.
Because, you know, we could create a whole throwing karma tonight because we’ve got if we really did have the right motivation, the bodhicitta motivation, and we’ve got the perfect object which is the listening to the holy dharma or the the dharma is the holy object. Then the third factor is the way we listen. If we listen really well with a happy mind, then this is a respectful mind, etcetera, etcetera. Then the fourth factor is we we we stayed here. We completed the act, and we’re happy that we completed it.
Right? Very, very happy that we stayed and put up with it all. So that makes a complete positive imprint, a throwing karma. Yeah. Number two, which can lead to either this one or that one.
But we don’t want just an ordinary human rebirth, and we certainly don’t want to go into the god realms. That’s why we dedicate that that this this imprint becomes connected with the whole process of getting out of saṃsāra and more than that, you know, getting out of all of that and achieving enlightenment so that we can get everyone out. So we can dedicate if you’d like to join in. Where is the prayer? I’ve lost it.
Page nine. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious bodhimind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore. Okay.