Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 100-minute session on Mind Training, Ven Thubten Dondrub guides practitioners through the philosophical foundations and meditative framework of emptiness according to the Mādhyamika Prāsaṇgika school. Drawing on Horton Namkha Pel’s text, itself based on Je Tsongkhapa’s commentary on the seven-point mind training, he explains how all phenomena exist only through mental designation, not by inherent nature, using analogies of a rope mistaken for a snake, a mirror reflection, and Teflon discovered but not yet named. He then identifies three common meditation errors: confusing single-pointed concentration with emptiness realization, mistaking a non-conceptual state for liberation, and meditating on a wrong understanding of selflessness. The crucial practical instruction is recognizing innate ignorance—the subtle misconception that the self exists independent of body, mind, and the label ‘I’—and eliminating it through correct reasoning applied with a qualified guru. Pitched at serious practitioners studying Gelugpa philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2014 03 13 Mind Training.mp3
UUID: 5dd881fe-a3d0-46b8-baaf-2bbb5299c778
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Mind Training (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2014-03-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 100.0 minutes
Words: ~10,623
By the teachings of the three supreme jewels possessing the power of truth, may all hindrances be transformed. May they be dispelled. May they be pacified. May they be completely pacified. May all negative forces opposed to dharma be completely pacified.
May a host of eighty thousand obstacles be pacified. May all we be separated from problems and harmful conditions to dharma. May all enjoyments be in accord with the dharma, and may there be auspiciousness and perfect happiness here right now. Obeisance to my guru and protector, Mañjuśrī, who holds to his heart a scriptural text, a sword of his saying all things as they are, whose understanding shines forth as the sun, unsullied by defilements or traces of ignorance, who teaches in sixty ways with the patience of a father for his only child. All creatures caught in the prison of saṃsāra, confused in the darkness of their ignorance, overwhelmed by their suffering.
Whose dragon thunder proclamation of the dharma arouses us from the stupor of our delusions and frees us from the iron chains of our karma, whose powerful sword of wisdom hews down suffering wherever its sprouts appear, clearing away the darkness of all ignorance. I entreat you, O Mañjuśrī, whose princely body is adorned with the one hundred and twelve marks of a Buddha, who has completed the ten stages achieving the highest perfection of a bodhisattva, who has been pure from the beginning. O loving one with the brilliance of your wisdom, eliminate the darkness enclosing my mind. Enlighten my intelligence and wisdom so that I may gain insight into Buddha’s words and the text that explain them. Visualizing the Buddha in front of us as our source of refuge, inspiration, guidance, the embodiment of all our perfect teachers of the past, present and future, we offer the mandala.
So then continue to think of the Buddha in front of us, especially we think now of all sentient beings surrounding us, starting with those that we are most closely connected to in this life, starting with our parents, and trying to have a sense of their living presence around us and how these beings are essentially only kind but also only suffering. So thinking of those things as strongly as possible how sentient beings have been kind life after life in countless ways, and we so much depend on that kindness, particularly the kindness of a mother, which we have received from every sentient being, And yet all these kind beings are suffering simply because they are in cyclic existence controlled by delusion and karma. Being controlled by delusion and karma, each sentient being these immensely kind mother sentient beings, is subject to every kind of suffering of cyclic existence. Has that potential. And most sentient beings mother sentient beings right now have absolutely no protection from all that suffering.
So thinking like this, can generate that thought that no matter what, I must use this and all future lives to free my mind of all obstacles, particularly the self-cherishing thought, awaken all positive qualities, especially the ability to cherish others more than self, and in order to follow the path that leads to enlightenment so that I am in a position to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings by helping each and every one of them without exception to be free of all causes of suffering and to help them follow the path that leads to Peerless everlasting happiness. So to achieve enlightenment I have to generate bodhicitta and train in the bodhisattva way of life the six perfections and particularly cultivate the ultimate bodhicitta the wisdom realizing emptiness. So this text, Mind Training Like the Rays of the Sun, is about these topics. So for this reason I’ll study this text tonight. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, and the supreme assembly.
By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So we can imagine the Buddha pleased with our motivation and showing his pleasure by approaching the crown of our head and when directly above our crown we imagine that the Buddha then dissolves into blissful golden light so that that light can then pour down into us, blessing our mind. And then we can further enhance that positive state of mind by just for a short time doing the nine round breathing exercise. Helping to establish a calmer, clearer, more concentrated mind so that we can use that level of mind to listen to, think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. K.
Thank you. So this text, the mind training, is about firstly, the first part of the text is about training the mind in the conventional bodhicitta of seeking enlightenment and particularly training the mind in transforming everything into the path to enlightenment so that we never give in to our self-cherishing thought but are able to train the mind in cherishing others more and more. And the second part of the text which is the briefer part is about training the mind in in the ultimate bodhicitta, which is developing the wisdom realizing emptiness because this is this wisdom is going to eliminate help us become free of cyclic existence by eliminating ignorance, but that wisdom combined with the conventional bodhicitta has the power to eliminate the subtle obscurations that prevent us achieving omniscience. So in our section about developing training the mind in wisdom to overcome ignorance firstly our author Horton Namkha Pel firstly talked about the the the just very briefly summarized the views of the the the lower schools of Buddhist philosophy, the Vaibhāṣikas, the Sautrantikas, and the Cittamātrins and the Mādhyamika Svatantrikas. Yeah.
So and and basically pointing out that they all in fact make what mistake do they make. Because this text is presented from the point of view of the Mādhyamika Prasangikas, the middle way consequentialists, and they pointed out and it points out that one has to avoid the two extremes of negating too much and the extreme of negating too little. So what mistake do the Prasangikas say all the other Buddha schools make? Right. Well said.
Well said. They don’t negate enough. Right. So so we’re on the very concluding part of that section. So so where it says, thus it explains that all phenomena so here here Horton Namkha Pel is presenting just in summary the the Mādhyamika Prāsaṇgika view, so from or from that point of view at least.
And so he says, thus it explains that all all phenomena are designated by the power of thought. That everything can only exist by the power of thought. And the sixty stanzas of reasoning also says: If the Buddha rationally taught that the world is conditioned by ignorance, why is it not appropriate to view the world as a misconception? In other words, ignorance itself is a misconception. So the whole you know, if the Buddha rationally taught that the world is conditioned by misconception, why is it not appropriate to view the world as a misconception?
That’s another way of putting it. Right? What this means is that worlds do not exist by their own nature, but by mere designation. This is the only way they can exist. They don’t they can’t exist by their own nature, from their own side, under their own power, but they they exist merely through the the power of our minds labeling things.
The four hundred verses also says, if there is no imputation by thought, even desire and so forth have no existence. So our delusions, desire, attachment, anger and so on, all these disturbing thoughts that give us all our lead to all our suffering, these themselves only exist merely designated by thought. That’s the only way they could exist. Because if they didn’t exist that way, it would mean that they were inherently existing. If they inherently existed, we wouldn’t be able to get rid of them.
We wouldn’t be able to change them. Sorry, we’re on page one sixteen if you’ve got the book. So if that’s the case, our delusions have no no existence in the sense they have no inherent existence or no true existence, they they simply exist imputed by thought, then who with intelligence would maintain that a real object is produced dependent on thought? In other words, if things can only depend come into existence and remain existing depending on thought, They depend on thought. If that’s the case, how could we then think that something that comes into existing depending on thoughts is real?
It couldn’t be. Real in the sense of inherently existing from its own side. It can’t. It’s impossible. So there’s no real objects out there existing from their own side.
If we start to understand that things are coming to existence merely labeled by thought. Even our delusions, even our ignorance is something merely labeled. It’s arising dependently. Now if that’s the case, how can you know, it’s just crazy to think, it’s totally illogical to think that something somehow really exists solidly from its own side, substantially, self sufficiently, under its own power, truly, inherently. I don’t know if this is one hundred percent accurate but I find this helpful.
But can I explain it? Just a simple way of looking at these things about how everything is dependent on thought, which which doesn’t mean that our thoughts just create everything, you know, instantly like that. That’s that By thinking something, it’s there. But we all know people who have died either personally or we know of people who we believe existed who have died. So for those people who have died, this world doesn’t exist anymore.
They have no experience of this world. Right? They are not experiencing this world in any way. And this is not just a Buddhist view that everyone believes this, that once you’re dead, you stop experiencing this world. Right?
Even who people who don’t believe in anything accept that, you know, when you die, you don’t experience this this world anymore. In fact, that’s what dying is. You stop experiencing this world. So when we die, we will stop experiencing this world. But it doesn’t mean the world will cease.
If I were to if I die tomorrow, then this this, you know, Buddha house ceases for me, but it won’t cease for you. Right? But that shows that my Buddha house depends on my mind. It can’t exist for me without my mind. As a human being, the only way I can experience this reality is depending on my mind.
Whether it’s here or not, the only way it can exist for me is depending on my mind. And the way it exists as good, bad, this or that depends on my mind. You know someone can say, Isn’t this beautiful? Or This is beautiful. But just because someone tells me that can’t make it beautiful for me.
It depends on my mind. Of course, if someone says this is beautiful, then I might think, oh, I better think this is beautiful. Otherwise people will think I’m weird. So I kind of force myself, but even so, all of that depends on my mind. Alright?
So the commentary adds it goes on to say, undoubtedly, those that exist those things that exist only through the existence of thought, which is actually everything, everything that exists, that’s the only way it exists, is through the existence of thought. And those that do not exist when there is no thought, in in other words, for something to exist, it depends on things being labeled. If they are not labeled, they don’t they can’t exist. So when there’s no thought labeling something, something doesn’t exist. I think I may have told you this before.
I I’m sure I did this story when I was at Nālānda monastery. Nālānda monastery has many legends already. Stories. This is not the old Nālānda monastery. This is in the land of monastery in France.
But, when the abbot, Geshe Tegchok, who has an amazing knowledge of emptiness or of the whole Buddhadharma, was teaching on this subject and talking about explaining I wasn’t there. I heard the story. This was before I arrived. But he was teaching on this subject about how everything came into existence being merely labeled. If you didn’t label things, they didn’t exist.
So one of the monks had this big argument with Geshe Tekchok where he was arguing he he gave this example that, at some point, some people in America were working in a laboratory and made this substance and mixed it up and went home. And when they came back the next day that stuff had become what we now call Teflon. But they hadn’t labeled it Teflon so this monk was arguing that that was Teflon. Back in the laboratory at night when no one saw it, no one had labeled it, there it was. That was Teflon.
But Geshe Tekchok apparently stuck to his guns and argued very, very strongly that there was no Teflon there. Something was there for sure in the laboratory on that frying pan. I don’t know if they had coated a frying pan with it or not because I’m not sure what they were trying to do but by accident I think they invented what we call Teflon. But Geshe-la was explaining that until you label it Teflon, it isn’t Teflon. You don’t experience it Teflon.
Sure something is there. It’s not as though nothing is there. It’s not that you just say the word Teflon in space and Teflon appears, but there was the base, but there wasn’t the label. So it can’t appear in a particular way until the label is there. So this is what this is, this is what this is also saying.
So things that don’t exist when there is no thought. So there are things that exist when there is the correct thought and things that don’t exist when there’s no thought are to be understood as not existing by way of their own entities, just as a snake is imputed on a coiled rope. So nothing can exist by way of its own entity. Teflon cannot exist by way of its own identity. Before it became named and produced, you couldn’t walk into that laboratory, look at that and say, Oh, that’s Teflon.
Just couldn’t. It doesn’t exist by way of its own entity. It has no way from its side to say I’m Teflon. But that’s how we experience the world. When we think about it, which we’re trying to do now, it seems obvious that this is the case.
But in reality, the way we experience the world, which is our big mistake, is we think that things exist by way of their own entity, that everything is telling me I am this. This is how I am. I am this and I am good. I am this and I am bad. I am this and I am beautiful.
I am that and I am ugly. And we think we’re just saying, yes. Yes. Yes. But it’s not like that.
It’s we are imputing that on our mind by our mind. Our mind is imputing those things, but then it appears back in another way. It appears back as though it’s really there. Just like a snake is imputed on a coiled rope, our mind imputes on a coiled rope. Our mind coiled rope.
So our mind imputes by by mistake because of various conditions our mind imputes snake and then it appears back. Snake. A real snake. Therefore, from a viewpoint of imputation by thought, although lacking existence by way of their own nature, attachment, and so forth are explained as being like a snake imputed to a coiled rope. There is not the slightest difference between the way phenomena such as persons like Devadatta and Yajnadatta I don’t know who Yangdatta is, I can’t remember I think you all know who Devadatta was the Buddha’s cousin who caused him a lot of grief, who tried to kill him, to ruin the Buddha’s reput he believed that the Buddha was a liar, wasn’t really enlightened and did all sorts of things too.
Cause the schism in the Sangha, did all sorts of very naughty things. Anyway but here it’s just being used as an example of a person. So there’s not the slightest difference between the way phenomena such as persons or things like vases and woolen cloth are imputed by thought. Yeah. It’s all the same.
People exist. You know, living beings exist by being imputed by thought. You know inanimate objects exist the same way by being imputed by thought. Same the way pebbles and sticks are designated as horses and elephants by a conjurer when he transforms them into such things. So magicians, you know, due to the according to this as the old beliefs, You know, due to them them power power of their mantras, they would say mantras over rocks, and then they would appear to as horses or elephants or something.
So it’s all merely imputed. In the same way a coiled rope at dusk is designated by thought as a snake. It is all arising depending on the mind. It doesn’t appear that way to the mind controlled by ignorance, but that’s actually what’s happening. The the rope mistaken for a snake is not only merely designated by the force of a mistaken mind, but in addition, you know, this the rope that, you know, that is mistakenly labeled as a as a as a a snake, that rope doesn’t have, where does it say?
Not the slightest fragment of a snake exists there. Not even one bit. It’s all rope. There’s not even one scale snake scale there. Not even in a part of it or the whole thing.
There’s not one bit of a snake there. And yet the mind, the mistaken mind here the mistake is due to darkness and blah blah blah which is an analogy for our mind, the mistaken mind of ignorance. The mind controlled by ignorance perceives something and but then the ignorance it appears back to ignorance as truly existing. It’s created by the mind, but the mind perceives it as being really there from its side under its own power. The same can be said of the conjurer’s pebbles and sticks, reflections in the mirror, and so on.
It then goes on to talk about an easier way of reading about this, but actually it doesn’t seem to be all that different. Oh, we’ve just lost everything at a crew. It’ll come back. We’ll just wait, shall we? What happened?
Oh, there it is. There it is. From its own side. Anyway, an easier way of reaching a conviction about the way the innate misconception of self within our mind stream gives rise to the misconception of the self of persons and phenomena is, as was explained before, that when a rope is mistaken for a snake, both the snake and the appearance of a snake in relation to the basis are merely projected by the force of a mistaken mind. So when it says both the snake and the appearance of the snake, because there isn’t a snake there, what this is referring to is In Buddhist philosophy, when they go in Buddhist what would you call it?
Not so much Buddhist philosophy. No, Buddhist cognitive theory, I suppose you would call it. They have many many terms, they distinguish many many ways of there is what is called the appearing object, the referent object, and so on. So for an object we have something appearing in an image of things appearing in our mind. This is called the appearing object.
Later on in this book it’s called the focal object which is not a very good translation. It’s normally called the appearing object but then that appearing object depends on so if you look at a flower you have an image appearing to your mind So so this is called the the referent object. That you have to have the referent object and and because of the referent object there is an appearing object in your mind. Right? So how in in the case of the the the rope being mistaken for a snake, there is a rope but the mind also creates the referent object of a snake.
And then because of that that that referent object, the rope, appears as a snake. And then because of that, there is the appearing object of a snake. Both are created by the mind, but anyway, that’s what it’s talking about. It says, but the snake and the appearance of the snake in relation to the basis are merely projected by the force of a mistaken mind. In other words, the mind projects snake onto that, and but also it appears to the mind as a snake.
And both of those are are due to mistaken mind. Besides this, from the point of view of the rope, there is not the slightest trace of the existence of such an a snake, which is merely projected by the mind. Suddenly, when a face appears to be inside a mirror, even a canny old man knows that the appearance actually not many canny old man do know this, I don’t think, but anyway, in theory, even a canny old man knows that the appearance in the mirror of both the eyes, nose and so forth and the reflection is merely a projection of a mistaken mind. Actually, you can ask your grandfather about that. Actually, I think most of us, when we look in the mirror, we think we’re looking at ourselves.
But here it’s kind of saying even an old man knows that when they look in the mirror, that’s not them, that that is a projection. Yeah. But, actually, much of the time, we we don’t remember it’s a projection. We think we’re really looking at ourselves. Anyway, that’s confusing issue.
So, anyway, here it’s saying that even an old man can see that that when when you look in the mirror, you’re not actually seeing a face. You’re seeing a projection of a face. So, really, what we have a Mādhyamika prasugika understands that when they look at something, they’re not looking at an inherently existing thing out there, existing from its own side. It is something really projected by the mind, just like looking at an image in a mirror or a moon in a in a lake. The you know, the moon actually is it looks like there’s a moon in the lake, but there isn’t a moon in the lake.
It’s just something projected. There isn’t the slightest trace of existence from the side of the object itself. Then it goes on to say, in general, there are three kinds of apprehension involved in conceiving the thought of an eye. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go on to explain what those three kinds of apprehension are, And I have to confess, I don’t remember what they are. Do you know, Denny?
But I think it’s I may not be one hundred percent I’m probably wrong, but I think it’s the three kinds of apprehension is related to the base, then conceiving the thought of ‘I’ conceiving the base, conceiving the thought of ‘I’, and then conceiving the thought of mine. I think it’s something to do with those three things, but I’ll try and check more on that. To apprehend means No. No. No.
No. No. No. No. No.
Anyway, he goes on to say, unlike the way a reflection appears to a canny old man, leave that bit, apprehending the object, the eye, as though it exists due to its being established from its own side is the innate misconception of a self of persons. Okay? The innate misconception of the self of persons is apprehending the object, the ‘I’, as though it exists due to being established from its own side. The object of such a mode of apprehension is the self of persons. Okay?
Are we making No? There’s like the object of such What it’s trying to say is, it’s just trying to clarify, you know, to get it very precise. When you apprehend the I as though it exists from its own side, that that process is the innate misconception of the self of persons. Right? And and the object of that misconception so that second sentence is saying the object of that misconception is the self of persons.
That’s all it’s saying. Then it goes on to say so that’s talking about self you know, the self of persons, which is to be refuted. Then then talking about phenomena, the mode of apprehension that derives from exaggerating all compounded, which is impermanent and uncompounded phenomena which are our impermanent phenomena from form up to the omniscient mind is the innate misconception of a self of phenomena. Okay? And the and the object of this mode of apprehension is the mark of true existence which is the object to be negated in establishing selflessness.
When it says, going back, the mode of apprehension that derives from exaggerating all compounded and and uncompounded phenomena from form up to omniscient mind. This phrase is is is used quite a bit from form up to omniscient mind. So it’s it’s basically saying everything, all phenomena includes form, everything that exists, validly exists, which is not the person, that is all phenomena, it is form up to the omniscient mind. All of those things. That is what is meant by phenomena.
There’s persons and phenomena. And phenomena is everything from form, every kind of physical form up to the omniscient mind. Everything, all of that. So so this false mode of apprehension includes anything considered to be existent by way of its own characteristics, existent through its own entity, ultimately existent, truly existent, existent as its own reality, and so forth. So these, according to the Prasangikas, are all synonyms.
So it goes on to say, when meditating on selflessness, you must clearly identify how the object of negation is apprehended by your your own innate misconception of self unalloyed with intellectually acquired conceptions. So remember there are two kinds of ignorance. There is intellectually acquired ignorance through coming to believe and study wrong philosophies, and then there is innate ignorance. So what we have to do is to clearly identify the object of negation which is apprehended by our innate ignorance, the innate misconception, not the the one that is influenced by philosophical wrong views. We have to get rid of all of that, you know, set those aside, drop all of those, and, you know, identify how our innate ignorance perceives, our self to be.
Well all ignorance is not knowing. What other one that the intellectually acquired? Ignance can mean, of course, not knowing something, but that is not the root of you can talk about there’s many ways of dividing up ignorance. There’s the ignorance of the law of cause and effect. Alright?
So causes a lot of suffering. Not knowing the law of cause and effect and not believing it and not acting on it. But not knowing the cause of the law of cause and effect, not understanding it is not the root of cyclic existence. Innate ignorance is referring to the very root cause of cyclic existence, which is this this ignorance, which is not a mere not knowing, but a mental factor that distorts the way things appear, which is what we because it creates the illusion of things existing from their own side. So that’s the innate ignorance, and that’s not something intellectually acquired.
It’s not it doesn’t come about by thinking. It’s something that, you know, has it is beginningless. It is innate. It’s inborn. It’s there all the time.
And it’s distorting the way it’s not simply not knowing how things exist. It is creating a false appearance. So it’s a little bit like a correct mirror. A well made mirror has the ability to reflect things correctly. If it’s covered in dust, it can’t do that.
You can’t see things. You can’t but ignorance isn’t like that. Ignorance is like one of those wobbly mirrors, you know, in in in what do you call them? Fun parlors, you know, make you look full fat and, you know, this and that. So the the one just covered in dust is like an ignorance, which is a not knowing, but our, you know, innate ignorance is not just like that.
It is actually distorting things in a It’s worse. Sorry? It sounds like it’s worse. Yes. It is.
Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yes. Yes.
Constantly. Yes. Yes. Yes. Like I said last week and the way before, I think, you know, every we take that into the Bardo state, you know, the moment we we were in, like as a human being, in the womb, you know, the the a one day old fetus has innate ignorance.
It doesn’t start. It has no beginning. Beginningless ignorance. Whereas the intellectually quiet, you know, they have a beginning. So just a very rough example of what this is saying is about how we have to, you know, apprehend our own innate misconcept misconception of self free of these intellectually acquired misconceptions.
I’ve given this example before, but anyway, just repeat it just to try and illustrate this point. Right now, you know, our ignorance generates, you know, many layers of wrong views, misconceptions about ourself. One gross level is that we have the conception that I am the body. Right? That is a very strong misconception that most human beings have that that we are our body and you could like liken that to a kind of intellectual and philosophical wrong view.
It’s not technically because it’s not a very fancy philosophy, but it’s a little bit like that. But that is not the innate ignorance. That’s just a grosser form of ignorance thinking I am the body. But if we train our mind, purify our mind, study the teachings, can come to understand that I am not the body. Right?
So we can get rid of that kind of wrong view, that superficial wrong view. And so step by step, we can eventually get to recognizing the innate ignorance, what that is, and how that is creating this particular, view of self, which is not a view of the self, is not the body, not the mind, but actually a view that there is a me, an I, that is something really there, separate. And the very root ignorance, the very subtle object to be refuted is, according to the Mādhyamika Prāsaṇgika, as Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains, is the view that there is an ‘I’ that is not only independent of the body and mind, but it doesn’t even need the label ‘I’ to exist. It’s because it’s really, really there. So that is the really sneaky, nasty, innate ignorance that we have to be able to identify to find.
And then you think, ah, that’s it. That’s what my ignorance is creating. It’s creating this illusion that that is always so real. That’s yeah. Then very interesting point.
This this it goes on to say, detailed like I said, in Horton Namkha Pel’s book, this text is really, a lot of, scholars say is in fact notes that Horton Namkha Pel took from teachings by Je Tsongkhapa on the seven point mind training. So this is basically Je Tsongkhapa teaching here, talking. So he so he says, detailed recognition of this, that is, the detailed recognition of the object to be negated, the wrong view of self, comes about through cultivating close relations with a spiritual friend, meaning the guru. Doesn’t mean any spiritual friend. Would you be my spiritual friend?
It doesn’t mean that. It means the the qualified guru of the great vehicle, you know, of the Mahāyāna, and pleasing him for a long time. Therefore, such a method must be thoroughly pursued just as the great being Haribhādra has said, the undistorted destruct instruction is to please the spiritual friend impeccably. And so what does please the spiritual friend mean? It doesn’t mean like, you know, the spiritual friend, the qualified guru who is going to help us realize emptiness.
That person is a highly realised being who has purified their mind and developed great insight. They themselves either are completely free of the wrong view of self or well on their way to eliminating that wrong view. So they are holy beings in the in the sense holy meaning that they are whole people. They are completely integrated beings free of all our hang ups and neurotic tendencies and ego ego hang ups and whatever. So for for us as ordinary deluded beings, you know, when people say, oh, you’re a nice person.
You’re good looking. You’re intelligent. You’re so funny. You’re so good. You’re so this.
That pleases us. So it doesn’t mean that kind of pleasing. It doesn’t go around. It doesn’t mean you please the guru by, you know, what’s the polite term? Flattering them, yes, and and just that kind of stuff.
It means pleasing the what what pleases the Guru is practicing the Dharma and practicing a Dharma as well as possible, as purely as possible, as strongly as possible, as continuously as possible, practicing it with the bodhicitta motivation. So in teachings it says when you actually please the Guru, that’s when the blessings of the gurus come, the blessings of the Buddha. And the blessings of the Buddha somehow transform one’s mind. They the mind, in a sense, Yeah. Actually, His Holiness the Dalai Lama explains blessings as just inspiration.
And what is inspiration? When you’re inspired, somehow the mind is lifted up. It go you know, even just when when you have an ordinary inspiration about, I don’t know, something, the the mind sort of somehow momentarily, breaks out of this stodgy way of being and thinking for a moment. And there’s some clarity and and, you know, light and lightness in every kind of way, and some kind of freshness in the mind to be able to see and do things. And so in the spiritual context the blessings of the Guru or the inspiration that comes transports the mind into a state whereby it is able to really penetrate into the meaning of the Dharma.
Actually experience the Dharma in a really authentic, direct, vivid way because the mind is it somehow breaks out of it of its its deluded state even even if it’s, momentarily or that inspiration, that blessing may help the mind break out of, its diluted state or a certain level of delusion not just momentarily but forever or for a very long time. But anyway, what what Horton Namkha Pel and Lama Tsongkhapa are telling us is that in order to, realize emptiness, We have to the key thing is to be able to identify the object to be refuted and as I’ve said before this is one of the most subtle difficult things to do in the Buddhadharma. And the key to doing it is to rely on the qualified guru, a truly, you know, qualified spiritual master of the of the Mahāyāna. And it’s just and pleasing that person for a long time, or at least be willing to please the Guru for a long time. Because maybe just pleasing the Guru for a short time might may work if one really pleases the Guru.
But it means, you know, following the the the teacher’s advice, the teachings and instructions of the Guru as perfectly as possible with, you know, purest view as possible, with a happy mind etc etc. As Milarepa did. I don’t know how many of you here have read the life story of Milarepa or read Milarepa’s the hundred thousand songs of Milarepa, but I’d highly recommend both. They’re incredibly inspiring. I I I we should have all of this in the library, the hundred thousand songs and his life story.
But it’s it’s very hard to believe, of course, because because he’s presented as this completely perfect being who had not the slightest doubts about his Guru, even though the Guru gave him hell all the time, made his life utterly miserable. But he never had the moments doubt that his Guru was the most amazing, perfect being in the entire universe and that everything he said and did was only for Milarepa’s benefit. And because of that he was able to purify his mind and achieve enlightenment in that lifetime. You know, I think you know all the story about how he built this tower and had to take it down and move it several times under the instructions of his Guru who told him, you know, you know, he built this this this stone tower. He had to dig up the stones himself all by himself.
Yeah. And then build this tower and, you know, he would he put it there because the Guru put told him to build it there. When it was finished, the guru went and saw it and said, I didn’t tell you to put it there. Take it down and put it over there. So he took it down and put it over there.
And when it was the second time it was finished, Miller Marpa told him, I didn’t tell you to put it there. I told you to put it over there. So I think he did this several times. Happily, no complaints. And of course, his back was a total wreck.
Know, it was just completely shredded of skin and everything. And he was permanently his whole back was permanently scarred as a result. And there’s a story that towards the end of his life, Milarepa, by then an enlightened being, but still manifesting this old body, this old human body full of scars. His chief his main dis well, he had two main disciples. One was Gampopa who became the founder of the Kagyu tradition, but his heart son was Rechungpa.
And Rechungpa was a slightly naughty disciple. He was, like, you know, a million times better than any of us. But he did not follow some advice of Milarepa and that’s why he didn’t get enlightened in that lifetime. But anyway, at one point I Milarepa was sending Rechungpa away to do retreat. And that was towards the very end of his life.
And I I think he said, this is my last teaching to you, my last most profound teaching I will ever give you. And he sort of pulled up his clothes and showed him his backside covered in scars. Meaning, follow the Guru perfectly. That’s the most profound thing. Before you have tea or coffee, I have to tell you one more story.
I have probably told you this before, Lama Zopa Rinpoche tells the story about how he and Lama Yeshe many many many many years ago went to take the eight Mahāyāna precepts from Serkong Rinpoche, Serkong Dorje Chang. This great Gelugpa lama, Serkong Dorje Chang, got on the throne, sat on the throne and instead of giving this long bodhicitta motivation we’re taking the Eight Mahāyāna precepts which is what normally is done because you’re supposed to take the eight Mahāyāna precepts with the bodhicitta motivation. So the lama or whoever giving it supposed to talk about bodhicitta. Serkong Dorje Chang, he was a very old lama at the time, a small lama. I never saw him, never met him.
Got on the throne, looked at everyone and said, in Tibetan, but translates roughly, ‘if your Guru tells you to eat hot shit, eat it’ straight away and then he got off the throne and left and that was his motivation for taking the Eight Mahi. And of course Lama Zopa Rinpoche then took him as a Guru because of that profound teaching. Hot shit. If he tells you to eat it, eat it. But of course you have to make sure that the Guru is telling you to eat hot shit is the real thing.
Otherwise, you are just going to get really sick. You are not going to benefit at all. That is why it is so important to check out who the Guru is. Okay, coffee time, tea time. In a very abstract way, how innate ignorance the conception of I and mine acts as the root of cyclic existence.
It says: When ‘I’ and ‘mine’ are apprehended as existing by way of their own characteristics that is inherently or truly attachment to self arises within and that generates craving for all kinds of happiness for ourselves. The happiness of the I is not found independently without reliance on the happiness which is mine. So in other words when we are holding onto this ‘I’ we start to realize that to be happy there has to be my things which make me happy. As a consequence craving for my happiness prevents us from seeing its faults. So we only see its good qualities.
And as a result of that, the concept of mine is accepted as a means for bringing about happiness for the I. In other words, whatever is mine is good. If it’s not mine, it’s not good. But as soon as it’s mine, it’s good. When I lived at Monastery in nineteen eighty two, Sera Monastery had hundreds of dogs there.
You’ll find that Buddhist monasteries, especially Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, seem to attract lots of dogs. I think the monks have this belief that actually the dogs at monasteries are the incarnations of bad monks, monks who broke their vows. So they get reborn in to live in a monastery, but not anyway, most of these dogs oh, when I was living there were you know, had mange and were horrible and disgusting and everything. And somehow some little monks because the monastery was full of little grubby little snotty monks when I lived there. Hundreds of them.
It was mostly little snotty little small monks. Really, although they were tough little characters and very dirty. I can’t remember how it happened, but I ended up with this really oh, there was for some time, there was this really ugly little white dog in the area where I lived, and I thought it was really ugly and disgusting. And then somehow it ended up mine. And I noticed after a few days of it being mine, this ugly, disgusting little dog started to look cute.
And I suddenly realized it’s because I think it’s mine. Before, it was just a dog, and it was ugly and and disgusting. But as soon as I thought of it as mine, I really thought you know, I stopped. You know, it was kind of still ugly, but I tried to cut you know? It’s very interesting, the mind.
Horton Namkha Pel knows what he’s talking about. The disturbing emotions thus generated give rise to compositional action and that which is another term here for karma, it’s referring to the second link and the twelve links of dependent origination if you’re familiar with those. The first link is ignorance that leads to karmic formations action. And that in turn propels us into birth in cyclic existence. Nāgārjuna’s Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness says: Actions are caused by disturbing emotions.
Karmic formations have a disturbed nature, and the body is caused by karmic actions. So all three are empty of their own entity. Train yourself until you have clearly ascertained this process of cyclic existence. So, again, this is the last sentence is is really very significant because it’s making the point that we’re we’re really not going to practice properly and thoroughly and consistently until we really get the message that ignorance is the source of our suffering and because of ignorance, we engage in karmic actions, and they lead to all these other consequences that that throws us to to be being born again and again in cyclic existence. So this is why the topic of the twelve links of dependent origination are studied.
So this is what Horton Namkha Pel is saying, we should study this topic over and over again until we get really get the message that, while we are controlled by ignorance, we remain in cyclic existence. The only way to get out of cyclic existence is to eliminate ignorance. When we really see that, when we really, really, really get it, not just having some kind of gen you know, ordinary hopefully everyone here intellectually agrees with this. They’ve heard these teachings. And so we say, oh, yes.
Yes. Yes. We get it. So we have some intellectual agreement, but it’s only very light. It hasn’t managed to really of stab us in the heart with realizing, This is it.
You know? No. We you know, if if we are told we have something like cancer, then we will spend the rest of our life focusing on getting rid of it because we understand, while I have this disease, I’m not gonna have any good health. I’m not gonna have any this this will interfere with any good thing in my life. You know, no matter how rich I am, you know, family, why I have this terrible disease, you know, I’m going to be miserable.
And so one one will, you know, put so much time and energy and money to get rid of it. But we haven’t got the message that we’ve got something far worse than cancer or AIDS or dementia or any of those horrible diseases. We’ve got the worst one, which is ignorance which gives us all the other diseases and every other problem. So then it goes on. Now we’re getting into the nitty gritty.
The way to eliminate ignorance completely is as follows. So here’s the recipe. How to get rid of ignorance? We have to eliminate it by familiarizing ourselves with the absence established through reasoning of the object of its mode of apprehension in relation to whatever object it focuses on. That’s it.
That’s the answer. What does that mean? We have to eliminate have to eliminate it ignorance by familiarizing ourselves with the absence of the mode of the object of its mode of apprehension, which is what is the object of its mode of apprehension? Of the the object of the mode of apprehension of ignorance is true existence or inherent existence. It’s just a very complicated way of saying it.
So we have to eliminate by familiarizing ourselves with the absence of true existence in relation to whatever object our ignorance focuses on. And our ignorance focuses on everything. Everything we focus on is focused through ignorance, which is telling us that this thing is inherently existing. So we have to familiarize ourselves with the fact that this thing is absent. There is there is a complete absence of inherent existence there, of true existence.
It is empty of inherent existence. It’s empty of existing from its own side. And, of course, it doesn’t mean we just tell ourselves that. It’s no good just telling ourselves that. Well, that that can help in our daily life a little bit to cut our grasping at a very, very superficial level, but we have to train our mind to really not just intellectually understand that, but it really experience it.
The great being Dharmakīrti has said in his text called the Commentary on Dignāgā’s Compendium of Valid Cognition. Without discarding this object, that is, the appearance of true existence, one is unable to eliminate it eliminate ignorance. Instead of doing that, if if we do the following things and it gives three examples of three things we could do, false things, false ways of understanding emptiness, then we’re not going to get rid of our ignorance. So the three big mistakes we can make are and these are traditional mistakes that Buddhist practitioners have made in the past, thinking they’re meditating on emptiness, thinking they’re eliminating ignorance, but in fact are completely wrong. So the first of these is merely familiarizing ourselves with collecting and stabilizing our thoughts, which is basically learning to develop single pointed concentration.
Of course developing single pointed concentration is very important, but some people argued that the the mere development of single pointed concentration where you stop thought or you collect your thoughts, and here it means, in a sense, stopping them, having no thought because your mind is single pointedly focused on one object, that that is the same as realizing emptiness. So that is a huge mistake. Anyway, it it would it goes on to that later on. Anyway, that’s that’s here he just lists the the mistakes and then explains why they’re mistakes. The second one is to acquaint ourselves with a non conceptual state in which thoughts about whether things are existent or non existent, whether they are or are not no longer arise.
Again this is a kind of a similar thing a similar state of mind as developing concentration. But here, you just don’t have these thoughts. Do things really exist? They don’t really exist. You stop all those thoughts.
So some people think if you don’t have those thoughts, you’ve you’ve got it. You’ve made it. And the third big mistake is if in meditation, following analysis on the general appearance of what is to of what is negated, our analytical understanding differs from the meaning intended. So this is basically referring to when one meditates with, you know, just a wrong understanding of emptiness. Our understanding differs from the meaning intended.
We think we’ve got some understanding of emptiness. You know, we think we’ve found the object of negation, and and we’re negating it with with our understanding of emptiness, but our understanding of emptiness is completely wrong. Or another aspect of that is we meditate merely on a non conceptual state, you know, state of no thought in which we do not recognize emptiness. So however long we prolong the meditation any of these kinds of meditation we will never be able to rid ourselves of the seed of the misconception of self. Then, Horton Namkha Pel explains what’s wrong with these three kinds of so called meditations on emptiness.
So with regard to the first one, about merely familiarizing ourselves with collecting and stabilizing our thoughts, even though the mind is not involved with the self to be negated, you know, because we’re we’re not having any thoughts, so we’re not, you know, so we’re not really reinforced consciously reinforcing the set the wrong view of self, that does not actually it does not actually apprehend the opposite of the way the misconception of self apprehends because it is not involved with selflessness. So just so what that that is saying is just because you don’t generate further wrong thoughts about the self, that is not sufficient to eliminate you’re not generating the antidote to the wrong view. Just not reinforcing the wrong view is not an antidote to the wrong view. Right? To put it in a gross way, if you have cancer, just because you’re not increasing your cancer doesn’t mean you’re making your cancer go away.
Right? It’s still there. You’re not making it worse, but it’s still there. So, you know, that’s not going to make it go away. It’s there.
Just not increasing it, you know, that’s okay. But it’s not it’s not actually not doing anything to decrease it. So we have to do something that will actually decrease the problem. Here in number one it says merely familiarizing ourselves with collecting and stabilizing our thoughts. It’s particularly referring to developing virtuous thoughts.
So in other words, it’s kind of saying that some people think that the way to realize emptiness is to focus just on good thoughts. If I just have good thoughts, that’s it. That’s the solution. And so the commentary on Dignāgā’s Compendium of Valid Cognition also states: Since love and so forth do not directly counter ignorance, they cannot eliminate that grave fault. No matter how much we develop love and compassion, that is not going to get us out of Samsāra.
Our love and compassion will make saṃsāra more bearable so on. Developing love and compassion for ourselves will help us motivate to get out of saṃsāra. And the more we develop love and compassion for others, that will motivate us to help others get out of saṃsāra. But love and saṃsāra love and compassion themselves not causes to be free of saṃsāra. They are not the direct antidote to ignorance.
If you have cancer and you take the medicine for curing constipation, that’s not going to get rid of your cancer because it’s not the appropriate antidote. We have to apply the exact antidote. And if we don’t do that, the problem doesn’t go away. It is that simple. This is what we need to understand.
And that’s why, of course, in the whole debate about avoiding the two extremes, if we don’t refute enough, we haven’t got rid of the problem. If we refute too much, in a sense, we get rid of the problem, but we get rid of all the good stuff as well. So that’s a disaster. You get rid of the cancer but you throw your heart out. Well, you can’t live if you haven’t got a heart.
So the second mistaken approach which is to acquaint ourselves with a non conceptual state in which thoughts about this and that don’t arise this is to confuse any and all the objects of any kind of conceptuality apprehending existence, non existence and so forth, with the object apprehended by the conception of true existence. That is to say, true existence, which is the object of negation established by the reasoning that determines selflessness. So what this is saying is that this second approach is to This is basically saying you’re mixing up wrong views with views that are correct. And this goes on to say, This is like rekindling the system of the Chinese Abbot Hashang for the object of negation is too extensive. So at the time when Buddhism was developing in India, in Tibet, there was this great debate at Samye monastery between this Indian master Kamalaśīla and this Chinese master called Lhasang.
And Lhasang, before the king of Tibet, because Lhasang who had this was very influential, argued that the way basically, in a nutshell, his argument was his view, which was very influential, was that the way to realize emptiness, to free yourself from suffering, and actually to achieve enlightenment was you stopped all thought. You developed single pointed Samādhi, and where no thoughts arose whatsoever, good or bad, no thoughts. And when you had achieved that state, you had achieved liberation from cyclic existence. And I think he even implied you had achieved enlightenment. Shāntarakshita said this was a load of rubbish, and he won.
Lhasang was thrown out of Tibet and his ideas also. But a lot of Buddhists have this view, you know, that all all thoughts are bad. You shouldn’t have thoughts. If you stop thoughts and the mind there’s just no thoughts in the mind, just clear space, that that space like experience is emptiness, and that’s liberation. And Tsongkhapa says, that’s rubbish.
He he says, this is just creating the this is not only nowhere near liberation, developing that state is just creating the cause to be born as a god in the form realm. Yeah. Cause there’s not a tremendous amount of thought going on in the mind of a god in the form realm. Yeah. That’s a little bit like maybe it’s simplifying it, but just to give some rough analogy it’s again like if you’ve got cancer and you just think, you know, you just go into it, you you just meditate and think, I don’t have cancer or and and space out.
Or, you know, you don’t even think that. You don’t you just stop thinking. You just go into meditation and don’t think. Well, that’s not gonna make your cancer go away. Because while you’re sitting there in meditation, your cancer is growing.
Just not thinking about it, about it, not thinking about it is not touching the problem. It’s got nothing to do with the problem. And see a lot of people, Buddhists, non Buddhists, think that, you know, many people are attracted to meditation because, you can experience bliss. You know, you know, you have this kind of I’ve never experienced this. Yes.
Thirty six years as a monk. Nothing. No total disaster. Just pain pain in the body, pain in the mind. But some people seem to bliss out and have all sorts of, you know, visions and blisses and things, And they think that’s it.
But again, no matter how much bliss you experience in meditation, that itself doesn’t touch the problem. That doesn’t eliminate ignorance. It’s just a fancy cover up. Just the bliss itself. Of course, in Buddhism there’s a whole good reason to develop bliss in tantra because that blissful mind can then be harnessed to meditate on emptiness.
But the just achieving bliss itself, a a mind where there’s, you know, there’s no agitation, it’s very peaceful and calm and then blissful, That itself doesn’t take you anywhere. It’s a nice it’s a nice experience. And when you come out of it, you can, you know, oh, I love everyone for a while, you know. Apparently that’s what I’ve again, like I’ve never experienced it, you know, but, but that itself isn’t really touching the problem. It’s just a very fancy, you know, aspirin.
Spiritual aspirin. Pseudo spiritual aspirin. The third mistaken approach is to establish something other than the view of selflessness through analytical awareness so that when we meditate, our meditation is misplaced. Yeah. So, again, this is another problem that people can meditate on a wrong understanding of emptiness.
They can make up their own ideas and meditate on those. Or you study the teachings and you get a completely wrong understanding of them, and you meditate on that completely wrong understanding and you have an experience and you think that’s it. Like, I recycle my stories so many times. But again many years ago when I was at Chenrezig Institute, this young guy came and he wanted to see the Geshe, our resident teacher, because he had just realised emptiness. So he wanted to check his emptiness with the emptiness of the Guru.
And he explained to me that he had been meditating And while he was meditating, he’d fallen into this kind of black space. And when he came out of it, he’d realized he was he’d realized emptiness, and he got on so much better with he got it was so easy to get girlfriends since then. So so but he he wasn’t he wasn’t being arrogant. He really thought that was it. You know?
I mean, of course, he hadn’t experienced anything. But there there are other people who think, you know, I can’t mention names, but there are some somewhat famous people who have huge followings around the world and websites and everything who claim to have realized emptiness, who are sadly, sadly way off the mark. For they have huge followings. Yeah. So, yeah.
So this is why the boring old wonderful Gelugpa tradition emphasizes that it is vital, vital, vital, vital to study the teachings from qualified people so that we end up with the right understanding. And then you meditate on that because if you get the wrong understanding see, if if we if one actually has the good fortune to have developed a really like, you’re a good meditator. You can really concentrate well. So that’s good. But if you apply that to concentrating on well, which is something wrong, what the effect will be is to deepen one’s wrong views because you concentrate on them.
So that’s a a double disaster. One is, you know, sincerely trying to practice the Dharma with a good heart. One’s developed some good concentration, and then you apply that with a good heart to a completely wrong understanding. So it’s a mess. So we have to have the right understanding.
So that’s why we that’s another reason why we need qualified teachers to rely on qualified teachers. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s why Lama Tsongkhapa emphasizes we have to study the teachings, you know, and yeah, and put a lot of effort into it to get the right under firstly, one gets this right conceptual understanding. And through relying on those correct meditating on those correct concepts, that leads to ultimately, finally, the non conceptual direct experience of emptiness.
You know, the concepts stop because you’ve reached the point. The concepts have destroyed the wrong view, and then you have that direct non conceptual insight. But that’s only going to happen by having the right concepts, not the wrong concepts. And that’s why Lhasang’s view and all these other people are wrong in saying, you should stop even good thoughts. Of course, we should stop negative thoughts.
But, so many Buddhists and other spiritual people say all thoughts are bad. You know? But actually, you know, Lama Tsongkhapa, especially the Gelugpa tradition emphasizes that thinking correctly is you know, this is one of the most precious, special features of being a human being. Our intelligence and our ability what the potential, we don’t use it all that much, but our potential to think correctly, rationally. And that doesn’t mean in a Buddhist context just sort of dead, cold rationality, but it’s a rationality that is imbued with bodhicitta or at least loving kindness and compassion.
It has, you know, not some dry, dead purpose, but something really, really wonderful. And what I’ll just conclude that paragraph, and then we’ll go. So it goes on to say, since this is, you know, having these meditating on the wrong view is unrelated to the right view, it is like being shown the racetrack yet running in the opposite direction. Moreover, since clinging onto any specific objective base is the basis for for what is apprehended, We must discern the factor that counteracts the manner in which we apprehend it. So we’re we’re apprehending things in one way, which happens to be the wrong way, so we have to discern the counter the factor that counteracts that to that counteracts this wrong way of of perceiving things, we perceive them in the right way.
To do otherwise is like trying to catch a thief but avoiding following his tracks or like making an appeasement offering at the western door to a spirit who has fled through the eastern door. Okay. So having done that, now now we’re moving into the section of of the actual way to determine the view of selflessness of persons according to the Gelugpa tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa. So we’ll do that and start that next week. Any questions?
Okay. We can dedicate the merit of this time. I hope there was something slightly intelligent said or something to get you thinking.