Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute meditation instruction, Venerable Thubten Dondrub guides students through a practical four-point analysis of emptiness and selflessness, the antidote to the ignorance that underlies all suffering. He begins by establishing strong mindfulness and establishing the foundational reasoning: that we habitually grasp at ourselves and all phenomena as truly existing from their own side, independent and unchanging. He then walks through concrete analysis—checking whether the self is one or many things, fixed or changing—and systematically examines whether the I could be the body alone, the mind alone, both combined, or something separate. Each logical elimination brings the meditator to see that no truly independent I can be found; the self exists only nominally, dependently arising moment by moment on the body and mind, like a rainbow that appears but cannot be grasped. The instruction concludes with a dedications that embeds this insight into all phenomena and the merit itself. Suited for practitioners with some familiarity with Buddhist teachings on emptiness seeking experiential grounding.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 17b. Day 5 Meditation Emptiness.mp3
UUID: e1c397e7-dd83-4d00-93b3-aec3cbd8a4f8
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Meditations DTL (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2006 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.6 minutes
Words: ~2,447
So one of the many methods of sorry. Firstly, make a strong determination to keep really mindful throughout the rest of the session within the borders of just thinking on this subject of the selfless nature, one is who I am. I exist but don’t truly exist. I try to understand this. So we have to be very mindful, to catch the mind becoming dull, sleepy, bored, dispirited by the practice or being distracted, agitated by external sounds, pain or other sensations in the body and the thoughts.
So make a strong determination, be very mindful to immediately let go of any of these things. If necessary, apply the antidote, such as remembering impermanence and death. Remember one’s bodhicitta and motivation, recall the guru at the crown of one’s head. So there are many ways of meditating on emptiness and selflessness. So we’ll do a very simple version of the four point analysis.
So, of course, for this to be very effective and powerful, we have to have studied the teachings in great detail and have a correct understanding. But everything arises step by step so we can begin to become familiar with the analysis and create some imprints now. So firstly, we can think in general how the Buddha taught that the very root of suffering is ignorance. Without ignorance, attachment, anger, all the other delusions simply would not exist. And without following the delusions, negative karma wouldn’t exist.
And therefore, without negative karma means the effect of suffering wouldn’t exist. So this ignorance is a mind that a mistaken mind that hasn’t seen the reality of things but misunderstands and creates the illusion that oneself all phenomena truly exist. They are really out there separate from me, somehow existing inherently truly from their own side. What we eventually have to do is be able to understand what those words are really implying. Right now, we are seeing everything as truly existing.
Not just existing, but completely existing from their own side, self supporting, not needing anything. Everything is really the way it appears to our ignorance. And we grasp that as completely true, without a doubt. Just reflect that if things really did exist, if I existed, if all other phenomena existed the way I experienced them, the way I believe they are, it would mean that they were independent, that they did not depend on a single thing. In any way, even for a moment, If something were truly existing from its own side, it would mean it was totally, completely, utterly independent.
Just simply when we look at something attractive, just to take a simple example of a beautiful flower, When we when we look at the beautiful flower, we believe, we experience the beauty of the flower that’s really there from its own side. It is really beautiful from its own side. The beauty is just there in the flower inherently. It has absolutely nothing to do with me. I’m just we believe our ignorance functions as though our mind were a pure mirror reflecting reality as it is.
I’m just seeing what is there. But if the flower is truly beautiful from its own side, Everyone, every every sentient being with mind would have to see it as beautiful in the same way that I do. So right now existing within us is this instinctive thought of I, grasping at I as real, truly existing. It’s it’s this that, is the source of all our suffering, this wrong view, this false experience of ‘I’ that we have. So just reflect that if the ‘I’ that we grasp that as being me, truly exists.
If it truly existed the way we believe, the way we experience it, it would either have to be completely inseparable oneness with my body, or my five aggregates, the combination of my body and mind. Would I would I have to either be inseparable with the five aggregates, or it would have to be something completely different. It couldn’t be anything else. There’s no other possibility of how I, the truly existing I, could exist. It’s either oneness with my body and mind, or it’s something completely separate from my body and mind.
There’s no third alternative. So with that understanding in mind, we can now try to experience this sense of self that we have more clearly, more strongly. The traditional way of doing this is, for example, remembering an incident in the past, either the recent past, distant past, perhaps when one is very angry or very afraid, very excited. In those situations, the sense of the eye becomes much more stronger than just in most situations. And it is more easy to identify.
But what we can do right now along similar lines is just simply we are sitting here meditating And just try and catch a sense of who you think or how you’re experiencing this I that is sitting here right now. Just try to get the sense of this I that is sitting here. Just even one can think, you know, I am sitting here. I am sitting here. So what is this I?
How do you not how one’s supposed to believe according to the dharma, but how do you actually experience this I? What is this I that is sitting You can try to analyze, does this eye that we’re grasping onto right now, does it appear to be one thing or many things? Again, not how you’re supposed to believe according to the Buddha’s teachings, but how you’re actually experiencing yourself? What you’re grasping at is me. Is it one many things or just one thing, one phenomenon?
Right at this moment, is it something that’s changing or fixed? To help us get a little sense of the actual eye we’re grasping at, we can sometimes believe, oh, yesterday I was like that, but today I’m like this. Tomorrow I might be like that. But even though superficially we can agree I change, somehow still we grasp that there is this essential me. There’s an essential me, a fixed me, who changes.
It’s contradictory, but that’s how we grasp because ignorance is contradictory and stupid. But somehow we grasp that there’s this essential me. We apologize to people for doing something foolish because I’m not really like that. Which means we’re grasping that there’s this essential, permanent, fixed me, the real me. What is this real me?
So then check whether it seems that this me who is sitting here, is it the body? Is this me sitting here just the body? But if you check, our body is not one thing. It has many parts, and the parts are made of different things, skin and bone, blood, hair, flesh. So do I feel like I’m made up of many parts of different things?
Is this what I really believe is me right now? What does it seem like I’m one part of the body? Which part? If I was my body, even though I may have been appearing on my body since the body decays, that means I become totally nonexistent. It means there was no past lives, no future lives.
It means there was no karma, no liberation, no nirvana. And reflect just in your own mind, say the words, my body. When we say those words, there is a definite experience that there is ‘me’ that has a body, which means I’m not my body. We are really grasping that there is a me, a real me, that has a body. So what is this real me that has a body?
So is it my mind? It’s I am my mind that has a body. But again, we analyze our mind, our mind is what is labeled on many aspects of knowing and experiencing. There’s our eye consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, mental consciousness. All a little bit different.
So which which one part of the mind am I? Maybe it feels like I’m my feelings. That’s the real me. But I have many feelings. So which one is the real me?
And what the real me is my happy feelings. So when I’m unhappy, that’s not me at all. That’s someone completely different. It just doesn’t make sense. And my feelings are constantly changing.
So how can constantly changing feelings be this real essential me? Again, if we keep grasping that, oh, I I must be the whole of my mind. Not just a bit of it, but I’m the whole of it. Somehow, I’m the whole of my mind. But then, again, think the words to yourself.
My mind’. If I was identical with my mind, we would say mind is mine. But we say and we experience my mind’. There is a me we believe, we feel, we grasp at, that has a mind. So there’s this me who’s got a body, and it’s got a mind.
So who is this real me? So then we can grasp that, oh, I’m a combination of my body and mind. I’m both my body and mind. That’s me. But this is like saying, we’ve already said, I’m not my body, I’m not my mind.’ So this is like saying, ‘I’ve got nothing to do with blackness, I have nothing to do with whiteness, but I am a combination of black and white.
So that’s impossible. So then we grasp that I I’m I’m something completely separate from my body and mind. There’s this real me existing independent of the body and mind. So if there were three animals, a dog, a cat, and a mouse, and you never knew what a mouse was, never seen one, and someone points out to you and says, this is a dog and that is the cat, ‘ then you would know the other animal must be the mouse. If you eliminate that one is the dog, that one is the cat, this one is the mouse.
So if we set aside our body, leave that aside, it’s not me. Set aside the mind, that’s not me. I’m not anything physical like the body. I’m not consciousness. What is this truly existing I?
How does it exist? Where is it? If it really existed, we should be able to find it. If we if we check honesty, we think there is an I that has got a body, something different from the body. We think I am something different from the mind.
But if we check, the only way we can relate to I is in dependence on the body or the mind. We can never find an I that is independent, somehow completely separate from the body or mind. When you say, I am sitting here, We can only say that when our body is sitting here. We can never say and believe I am sitting here if our body isn’t sitting here. The only time we can say I’m meditating is when our mind is meditating.
We can never find an I, a truly existing I that is meditating when the mind is not meditating. So this shows that there is an I that is existing. It’s not truly existing. But there is an I that does exist, and it can only exist merely by depending, by arising dependently on the body and the mind. It’s not the body, it’s not the mind, it’s not both.
But it arises depending on them. And it arises depending on the mind conceiving the thought, I. It’s only because the body is sitting here and the mind is meditating. Because of that, there is a merely labelled I that merely exists by thought, depending on the body and mind sitting here. Merely labelled I is like a rainbow.
It is merely arising momentarily depending on many factors coming together. But completely, it appears, but it’s ungraspable. There appears to be a rainbow in the sky, but you can’t find a truly existing rainbow in the sky. It’s appearing but only depending on many things coming together. There’s just the mere appearance of an I arising moment by moment, depending on the body and mind, on the basis of the body and mind.
And depending on what the basis is doing, then the mind can say can conceive the thought, I. If the body is sitting, you can say, I am sitting. That merely labeled I is just like an illusion. It is completely empty of true existence. So we can bring our meditation to a conclusion by being determined to try to be more and more mindfulness, being more and more mindful in our daily life.
Although all things are appearing, self is appearing, phenomena appearing, they don’t truly exist from their own side. They are simply arising moment by moment depending on many factors, causes and conditions, parts, and especially our labeling mind, our conceptual mind. That’s the only way things can exist. They can’t exist independently. I can’t exist independently of the body.
Nothing can exist that way. They appear that way, but they those appearances are false. Like the appearance of water in a mirage. So we recall the illusion-like Buddha on the crown of our head. Imagine the Buddha is dependently arising and pleased with us, and because of that, Buddha’s holy body dissolves into golden light.
And that light, which is like a rainbow existing but not truly from its own side, comes down into us, pervades our whole being, which does exist but not the way we think it does. And blesses our mind, which does exist but not truly from its own side. Blesses our mind to gain a complete, stable, authentic experience of the empty nature of oneself and all phenomena. So then we can dedicate the merit which exists but not truly from its own side, to achieve enlightenment which exists but not truly from its own side, for the sake of all sentient beings who exist but not truly from their own side. And the prayer itself exists, but it doesn’t truly exist from its own side.
It depends on a whole lot of words. None of the words is the prayer. The prayer is what is labeled on all those words. And just one word of the prayer is made up of many sounds. And none of those sounds is the word.
The word depends on the sounds and the letters. And the letters of the words are made up of many strokes. None of of the strokes of the letter are the letter. The letter arises depending on those strokes. Nothing truly exists from its own side.