Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 130-minute session, Ven Thubten Dondrub teaches the mind-training text on bodhicitta and emptiness, working through core doctrinal material on the emptiness of the self. The heart of the teaching is a rigorous philosophical analysis showing that the person cannot logically exist as either identical to or separate from the five aggregates. Dondrub walks students through the four-point method of analysis, using classical Buddhist reasoning from Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti, and illustrates the subtlety with concrete examples: a rainbow, a clock, and a barren woman’s son. The teaching then moves to the emptiness of phenomena and practical application to daily life. Dondrub repeatedly emphasizes checking causes and conditions, analyzing the mind’s projections onto enemies and commodities, and recognizing how dependent arising defuses attachment. The tone is direct and conversational, with frequent audience questions. Pitched at serious practitioners familiar with foundational Buddhist terms.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2014 04 03 Mind Training .mp3 HIGHLY DISTORTED.mp3
UUID: e9f02380-645b-40b9-80d7-b251f0ac6a41
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Mind Training (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2014-04-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 130.6 minutes
Words: ~10,709
Welcome hearty band. If this gets more popular we will have to cancel I think. I am not sure if it is possible, but I will try and finish the text tonight because I am not sure if there is really enough for two classes. There may actually be enough for three, but who knows the way I go. But try and finish tonight.
Probably won’t be able to. Anyway, so since the topic of this text is bodhicitta, then especially it is important that we try and generate the right motivation for listening and studying. So trying to cultivate at least what Lama Zopa Rinpoche calls the effort for bodhicitta which can arise temporarily if we really put our hearts into it by thinking in the right way. The main things is to reflect on our Buddha nature and how we have the precious human rebirth, the optimum chance to realize our Buddha nature, that we can achieve enlightenment and we can develop that deep wish to do so realizing that only as an enlightened being will I be able to really, genuinely, completely, perfectly be able to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings. Why should I repay their kindness?
Because they are my mothers. They have been every sentient being has been my mother and father. Countless times in in beginningless Samsāra has shown me every kind of possible kindness over and over again. And yet, sadly, all these mother sentient beings are suffering in Sam sara helplessly. And so if if I don’t help them, if the child doesn’t help their parents, who is going to?
Only I can repay the kindness that I have received from each sentient being. So no matter what, I must use this in all future lives to eliminate every trace of self-cherishing from my mind, awaken every positive quality fully in order to achieve that enlightened state. So to achieve that enlightened state oh, I’ve done it again. Done the motivation before, the preliminary prayers, it doesn’t matter. So to achieve that enlightened state I have to follow the path and that path is entered by generating bodhicitta and then developing one’s bodhicitta more and more, and particularly developing the ultimate bodhicitta, the wisdom realizing emptiness.
So since this topic, this book is about both of these subjects, then for the sake of all sentient beings I will study this text as much as possible in order to put it into practice as much as possible. But for our study to be as effective as possible then firstly we try to eliminate obstacles and prepare our mind as much as we can. For this reason we do the lion-faced dakini prayer, page five. I prostrate to the gathering of dakinis and the three places who abide in the holy yoga of using space. By your powers of clairvoyance and magical emanation, look after practitioners like a mother, her child.
May the teachings of the three supreme jewels possessing the power of truth, may inner and outer 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 they 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 symbolic of his seeing all things as they are, whose understanding shines forth as the sun, unclouded by defilements or traces of ignorance, who teaches in sixty ways with the patient love 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. You whose dragon thunder proclamation of the dharma arouses us from the stoop 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, a 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 Mañjuśrī, oh loving one, with the brilliance of your wisdom, illuminate the darkness in closing my mind, enlighten my intelligence and wisdom so that I may gain insight into Buddha’s words and the texts that explain them. Visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us, we offer a mandal of the universe to request the teachings and by wishing to be free of attachment to all the things of saṃsāra this helps us to reduce the obstacles to understanding and practicing the Dharma by offering the universe to the triple gem. We create the merit that helps us to be able to understand more fully the teachings and be able to more wholeheartedly and effectively engage in their practice. Visualising all sentient beings surrounding us, starting with our parents on either side, then we try and generate that mind of refuge and and bodhicitta as we say the prayer.
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. We can then think the Buddha is very pleased with our motivation and shows this by coming to the crown of our head. We are directly above our crown. The Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light and that pours into us, blessing our mind in such a way that we can understand the teachings correctly, blessing our minds so that we can put them into practice properly, blessing our minds so that we will be able to gain at some point the unmistaken realizations, especially of the two bodhicittas, the conventional and ultimate bodhicittas.
Then just for a short time doing the nine round breathing exercise to enhance that positive state of mind and enabling it to become more calm, clear, concentrated so that we can use that mind to listen to and think about the Buddhist teachings tonight. Okay. Thank you. So I think we are on the bottom of page one hundred and twenty. It just disappeared.
Oh, great. Right. But where the program is? How many people have actually got the text? One, two.
Right. We are going through cultivating the ultimate awakening mind, the ultimate bodhicitta, which is the wisdom realizing emptiness, because this is the direct antidote to the source of our suffering ignorance. While we have ignorance, we remain in saṃsāra. To get out of saṃsāra we have to get rid of ignorance so we need to develop that wisdom. But even if we destroy that ignorance and get out of saṃsāra, we’re still not enlightened.
We need to eliminate the subtle obscurations that still exist in the mind due to the imprints of ignorance and delusion, so we have to cultivate our wisdom even more. Page one hundred and twenty six, we are down the bottom. We have to realise the selflessness or the emptiness of the person and once we’ve done that we can realise the emptiness of phenomena. We’re on the very last part of how to realise the selflessness or emptiness of the person. We were particularly thinking about the consequences of the self being created that if the self was the same as the aggregates then there would be the consequence of the self being created and destroyed so this becomes something impossible.
As it says towards the bottom of page twenty six, going, Keep like more, more, more, more, more, much more. Keep going. Oh, keep going. Oh, wait. Wait.
What was that? Yeah. Keep going. Keep going. More.
More. More. More. Oh, no. No.
You’ve gone past. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Back. Back.
Back. Oh, no. No. No. Sorry.
No. No. No. Keep going. Oh, Keep going, please.
Oh, yes. A little bit bit more So it’s saying that if the person was not of the same continuity, since the aggregates come only into existence in this life and end with this life, then there wouldn’t be any continuity of the person. And if that was the case, karma doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Yet this is the fundamental teaching well, there are many fundamental teachings of the Buddha. Suppose Emptiness is at the very heart of the Buddha’s teachings, that’s why we have the Heart Sūtra, but in a sense the very foundation of all the Buddha’s teachings is the teaching on the law of cause and effect.
All the other teachings about renunciation, bodhicitta and wisdom are all intimately connected with understanding the law of cause and effect as being the fundamental way things work. If the person was the same as the aggregates, and if the mind just came into existence, finished in this life, there would be no way to explain what cause and effect wouldn’t work. There wouldn’t be past and future lives. Or if there was, there would be no way to explain how cause and effect works. If oneself creates the cause oneself creates, or the continuum of oneself is who experiences the result.
Otherwise someone could create a cause in this life or in a past life and oneself could experience the result, but that’s impossible. Or if that happened, there would be no way to achieve liberation or enlightenment. But it’s because we experience results of our actions, because of that we can achieve enlightenment. Because of that we experience suffering and happiness within saṃsāra, because of that we have particular rebirths, but also because there is this direct relationship between cause and effect, we can get out of saṃsāra and we can achieve enlightenment. If there wasn’t, then nothing is impossible.
Thus, having sought through the path of logical reasoning to ascertain the fallacies of the person and the aggregates existing by way of their own characteristics while being of the same nature, According to our own tradition, we must accept that the person and the aggregates are nominally or conventionally of the same entity. We talked about this last week, if you remember, we did cover this bit. They are of the same entity, in other words, are completely connected. The person and the aggregates are related, but they are not inherently the same, but they are nominally the same entity. This will make a bit more sense if it doesn’t make any sense now when we go along a little bit more, or if we hear these things over and over again.
Candrakīrti points out that understanding that the person and the aggregates are nominally of the same entity is something extremely subtle and very difficult to understand. If the person and aggregates existing by way of their own characteristics were of different nature, Nāgārjuna points out in the Fundamental Treatise called Wisdom that if the self is different from the aggregates, the aggregates will have no characteristics. If the self was fundamentally different from aggregates, then the aggregates would lack the three characteristics of creation, abiding and destruction, which make them composite phenomena. They would be like a horse and an ox, which, being of different entities, do not share each other’s characteristics. If that were the case, that the aggregates and the person existed inherently differently, like a horse and an ox, it would not be possible for them to form a composite phenomena.
In that case they would not be an object mode of apprehension or its aspect of the innate misconception of the self of persons, like for example space and the state beyond sorrow. I’m not quite sure what that last bit is referring to but if the self and the aggregates were inherently different, they wouldn’t be able to form a composite phenomena. If that were the case, as we said before, the aggregates could be sitting here and the eye could be somewhere else. When you put your body in front of a mirror you wouldn’t be able to see yourself. Conventionally, when the body stands in front of a mirror, you look there and you say, That’s me.
Because there is a relationship, a nominal relationship, between the aggregates and the self. They do make a composite phenomena. They’re not the same but they’re not completely different. If they were completely inherently different, like an ox and a horse, when you stood in front of the mirror you’d think, oh, where am I? I can’t see myself anywhere!’ Because when you put an ox in front of a mirror you wouldn’t see a horse.
But when you put a certain body in front of a mirror, you see the person. It’s the only way you can see the person, even though the person isn’t the body. But there is a relationship, they are conventionally, nominally the same entity. But here it’s saying if they were completely different, then there’d be no relationship. Moreover, if the person and the aggregates are of different entities in terms of existing by way of their own characteristics.
Even if there were no aggregates at all as a basis, an uncontrived thought of an ‘I’ should arise without them. In other words, if there’s absolutely no relationship between the aggregates themselves that they’re inherently different because each is existing by way of its own characteristics, the aggregates are existing by way of their characteristics and the self is existing by way of its characteristics, if that was the case, then you wouldn’t need to be there as the basis to label to think I’, so you wouldn’t need the aggregates sitting to think I am sitting or to see someone sitting. These explanations that are given are very interesting, but anyway, it goes on to explain that. For instance, a vase as being of a different entity from a piece of cloth, which they are, means that even when there is no vase as a basis we can produce the thought that this is a piece of cloth. Here’s a vase, and here’s a piece of cloth.
So they are different, and because they are different, If they were the same, you’d have to have the vase here to think oh, cloth!’ But because they actually are different, you can see a cloth without having to see a vase. Right? Because they are different. There’s a cloth. This is a vase.
You don’t need the two together to be able to distinguish them because they are different. On the other hand, instance, a vase being of a different meaning means that even when there is no vase as a basis, we can produce the thought that this is a piece of cloth. On the other hand, if there were no cloth as a basis, we would still be able to generate the thought that this is a vase without making it up. But in the case of the aggregates and the person, when the aggregates aren’t there, you can’t generate the thought ‘I’. And the only time you can generate the thought ‘I’ is when the aggregates are there.
This is showing that these two things, the aggregates and the ‘I’, are not existing separately by way of their own characteristics. But these two things, a cloth and a vase, these are two different things. So they can exist separately. You don’t have to have this to see a piece of cloth and you don’t have to have a piece of cloth to see a vase because they are different things. But because there is this relationship between the aggregates and the self, to think of one, you have to think of the other.
They’re not the same, but they’re not completely different. They’re nominally the same, but not identical. In Nāgārjuna’s text called Wisdom, it says: It is not at all acceptable for the self to be other than the contaminated aggregates. For without the contaminated aggregates, even if you think there’s something to be apprehended, there isn’t. If you take, for example, you just imagine it’s just symbolically, this is the five aggregates.
If the five aggregates aren’t there, even if you think there’s something to be apprehended there, a person, there isn’t, because the aggregates aren’t there. Because the aggregates are here, you can apprehend a person there. Where the aggregates aren’t, even if you can say, Oh, Napoleon is here, this is Napoleon or this is Christ or this is the Queen of England, but there aren’t any suitable aggregates there, so you can’t apprehend a person there. Right? Wish someone would look as though they’re understanding.
Nod, you know, just nod, you know, wisely. I don’t. I know if you do. Does this make any sense? Sometimes, yes, they do, I think, or maybe my explanation of them.
Sorry? No, the self isn’t made of the aggregates. It depends on them. It depends on them. Sorry to interrupt.
But if we go oh, no. Go on. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
Please. Yes. Yes. Finish. Well, it’s tricky.
It’s not simple. I wish it was. Because actually, good question anyway, because it’s really important to understand that we five aggregates in this life. We have the mind sorry, the body and the mind, is broken up into the four aggregates of feeling, discrimination, blah blah blah. So at death, of course, the form aggregate finishes, and the gross mind ceases.
Right? The gross five aggregates cease, you could say. And because of that, the I, which only exists, the merely labeled I that does validly exist, ceases as well. The I of this life at death completely comes to an end. But because there’s a continuity of the five aggregates, because even though the gross physical form ceases, there’s the very subtle physical energy, the life pervading wind goes on, and although the gross and the subtle mind cease, continuity of the very subtle mind goes on to form the basis of a new set of aggregates which are different from next life’s five aggregates are not the five aggregates of this life, but there’s a continuity, there’s a relationship between them, right?
And so because in the next life there’s a new set of five aggregates, there’s also a new eye. On the basis of those aggregates there is the merely labelled ‘I’. And that merely labelled ‘I’ of the next life is different from the mere ‘I’ of this life but not completely, not inherently different because there’s a continuity. The form is different and the aggregates are different but there is a continuity. In the same way that the five aggregates of today are slightly different from the five aggregates of yesterday, so the ‘I’ of today is different from the ‘I’ of yesterday or even the ‘I’ right now is different from what it was two or three hours ago or even technically one minute ago or one second ago.
The eye is arising momentarily. The very subtle mind, can’t that is also changing moment by moment. Its nature is the same, but it’s arising moment by moment. Right? Yeah.
The same what? Same Reward twice. Yeah. It’s okay. Right.
I was trying to say all of that in relation to trying to make something clear about your previous question, but now I can’t remember what the the the point was. What was your question? Yeah? Right. Yeah.
Just to go back in case people are confused or go home and start thinking about this, which would be good. But in the case of saying that if the person was the same as the five aggregates, that was the case, then when the five aggregates ceased at the end of their life, I would cease and there would be no relationship at all and karma wouldn’t work. That’s only in the case when you talk about inherently existing five aggregates and an inherently existing I existing by way of its own characteristics. If that was the case, there would be an I that existed in this life existing by way of its own characteristics, and there would be an I in the previous life existing by way of its own characteristics. So there would be no relationship between the I of the past life and the ‘I’ of this life and the ‘I’ of the future life.
But when you talk about a merely labelled, dependently arising ‘I’ that doesn’t exist by way of its own characteristics but is just arising dependently, there is a relationship between the past life I and the future life I, and karma works. This is what we need to try to understand. One thing I was trying to point out, maybe this helps, maybe it doesn’t, in talking because you said something like that the ‘I’ is made up of the aggregates but it’s not made up of them, it depends on them. And to get this sense that the I don’t know if it helps that the ‘I’ and the aggregates are the same entity but they’re still different. How is that possible?
And one way I think helps to understand this is I’ve already given this example but just to repeat is a rainbow. A rainbow arises depending on air particles and having a certain amount of moisture with them and a certain amount of sunshine in a particular angle and then you have to have someone looking, observing at that in a particular way. So depending on all of those things, there is a rainbow in the sky or the appearance of a rainbow in the sky. So that rainbow isn’t made up of air and water. If it was, you’d be able to kind of feel it.
It’s not made up of air and sun, it’s not made up of sunshine water bubbles and stuff like that. But depending on those things it exists. There’s something there. Is arising, existing, depending and again depending on, but not depending on in the sense that there’s a rainbow on top of the water, on top of the air, on top of the sunshine, but depending on those things coming together in a particular way you have this thing which we call a rainbow, which is not any one of those things. In talking about the self, it’s not any one of the five aggregates, but it’s not all of the five so the rainbow is not all of those things put together, but when all those things come together, you have a rainbow.
And you can only have a rainbow. You can’t have a rainbow separate from those things, but it’s not those things. Does that make some sense? Does that sort of help to clarify? So we say that I am sitting here, and we can only say that because the body is sitting here, which is connected to the four mental aggregates as well.
Roughly speaking we say the five aggregates are sitting here, so you can say I am sitting here, but the I am that is sitting here, you can’t take the five aggregates away and there will be an I sitting here. It’s not something separate from those five aggregates sitting here, but it’s not exactly the same as the five aggregates sitting here. Because as I think as we’ve all mentioned, it’s a bit of a strange example in a way, but when you look at a living person, a body that’s alive, you see a person. This is so and so. But when person, when death comes, when the mind leaves that body, some point, maybe some people don’t, but at some point you see, well, that’s a body.
That’s a dead body. It’s not a person anymore. Okay. So the supplement, which is referring to Candrakīrti’s text, so we’re at the very bottom, the supplement, that’s the Madhyamakāvatāra composed by the great Bodhisattva Candrakīrti, which is a commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Treatise called Wisdom. So in the supplement it says, therefore, there is there is no self apart from the aggregates because that self cannot be conceived without depending on the aggregates.
Thus, the person does not exist by way of its own characteristics because it depends on the aggregates. If the person existed by way of its own characteristics, in other words if it truly existed, inherently existed, it wouldn’t need the five aggregates because it exists by way of its own characteristics. Not some five other things but its own characteristics. But nothing can exist that way actually when we investigate. Nothing does exist by way of its own characteristics.
Nothing can exist that way. Everything exists arising dependently. And that’s the only way anything can exist. The only way a rainbow can exist is dependently. You can’t have a rainbow any other way.
And that applies to everything. When we look at this, this looks very concrete, but it exists the same way a rainbow does, believe it or not. It’s very hard to believe, but it’s arising dependently. Because alright. Okay.
So I was I was gonna finish this tonight, but I’m raving with going nowhere. But, you know, am I holding a clock? Don’t get caught in cute and clever. Am I holding a clock or not? Would you say I’m holding a clock?
Yeah? Yeah. Generally, conventionally, we would all say I’m holding a clock. But actually, from a Buddhist point of view, I’m not. I’m not holding a clock.
I’m just holding. In fact, maybe what I’m trying to say is, you know, say, Is this thing a clock? Yeah. Am I touching a clock? Proof that this is a clock?
I’m touching it. Right? But actually this touch, you can’t touch a clock. The experience you can’t experience technically from a Buddhist point of view touching a clock because when you touch something, all you’re experiencing is I don’t remember all the details now. Anyway, soft and smooth.
No. Soft and, you know, soft and rough. Soft and hard. Smooth and rough. I think there’s about six or eight things that the sense of touch can experience.
So you can’t touch a clock. You can’t have the experience of touching a clock or you can I’m touching something hard and quite smooth. Not a clock. And but oh, but but look. You can see it.
You know there’s a clock there because you can see the clock. But actually all you can see is shapes and colors. You can see square shapes, black and white, although black is not a color, technically. Anyway, white isn’t even a color. Anyway, you know, yeah.
Right? So you can’t even see technically actually see a clock. You can’t touch one. The the clock that exists is what is merely labeled by the mind on the basis. The basis you can you know, there’s some, you know, see, touch, blah blah blah, but you can’t see or touch a clock because it’s what is merely labeled by the mind.
Like conventionally, in a very conventionally we can say we touch a clock, we see a clock, etc, etc. Just nominally we say that. But still, there is a clock. Even though you can’t see it or touch it, there is one. A merely labeled clock.
Because the clock is what is conceived by the mind, dependent on this thing, the base. So the clock doesn’t exist by way of its own characteristics at all. Nothing can. So it goes on to say, Accordingly, when you’ve properly seen the invalidity of the person and aggregates being one or different in nature by way of their own characteristics, they are established as neither inherently one nor different. So if you can see that they’re not one or different by way of their own characteristics, that means that they’re not inherently the same and or they’re not inherently different.
Through the reasoning which negates the pervasion of inherent existence, once the pervasive factor of being inherently one or inherently many has been negated, valid cognition properly ascertaining the lack of inherent existence of the person is established. These two words have been left out in the the printing, in the text. Right? Where are we? Yeah.
Can oh, no. If you put your finger on the thing, does that show up? No. It doesn’t. Does it?
No. Oh, you put the pointer at that sentence? The person? The second last line of that middle paragraph. One below, it could go existence of the person.
Right? So that sentence so after that word person, there should be is established. Right? So the sentence goes, through the reasoning which negates the pervasion of inherent existence, once the pervasive fact of being inherently one or inherently many has been negated, valid cognition properly ascertaining the lack of inherent existence of the person is established. In other words, you’ve realized emptiness.
This ascertainment should be nurtured through mindfulness and alertness. So once we understand that the person and the aggregate, the person can’t be inherently the same as the aggregates. You know? Can’t it can’t these two things, if they exist from their own from their own what is it? By way of their own characteristics, They can’t be the same, can’t be different.
One starts to understand that nothing could exist that way. An eye that has its exists from its own characteristics can’t be the same as the aggregates, can’t be different from them. Therefore such a thing can’t exist at all. That the person that does exist is completely empty of existing that way. So then it goes on to say: Whilst we have validly ascertained that the self of the person has no inherent existence for the reason that it is neither one nor many, relying on the force of that very reason, we shall come to realize that mine also is devoid of inherent existence.
Anything that is mine, you know, my clock, my glass, you know, my my mala, also is devoid of inherent existence. For having validly understood that a barren woman has no son, we need go no further in order to understand that he does not have a pale or a radiant complexion. So in Buddhist philosophy, one of the standard examples given of something non existent is the son of a barren woman. So a woman who cannot conceive children can’t have a son, can’t have a daughter, can’t have a child. So the son of a barren woman doesn’t exist by definition.
Right? Yes. Yeah. Christina? No.
Don’t get that. No. A lady who is not able to have children doesn’t have children. Right? She may not have adopted children, but we’re talking yeah.
So the son of a a a barren woman is referring to a woman who can’t have children, so the son of a barren woman doesn’t exist. The child of a a of a childless woman doesn’t exist. Right? So if understand that the child of a childless woman doesn’t exist, you also know that this child can’t have either a good or a bad complexion because that child doesn’t exist. Only a child that exists can have a good complexion or a bad complexion.
So once you understand that the person doesn’t inherently exist, you can also understand that the things that I own, possess, don’t inherently exist either. Alright? Not just to understand like in a superficial way, but you really know that, you experience that completely. The fundamental treatise called Wisdom, which is Nāgārjuna’s text, says: If the self does not exist, how will mine exist? Candrakīrti’s supplement says: Because the agent does not exist inherently, his actions do not exist inherently.
Therefore, mine has no self existence. Thus, the Yogi who meditates on the view that the self and mine are empty of inherent existence will be released from cyclic existence. We should familiarise ourselves accordingly with the understanding that all persons, whether they’re exalted so all persons, exalted and ordinary beings, who are of a different continuum from ourselves, lack an inherently existing self. So exalted persons refers to those who have realized emptiness. So all persons, whether they’re holy beings who have realized emptiness or ordinary people like ourselves, all beings lack inherent existence.
So, arhats lack inherent existence, Bodhisattvas lack inherent existence, Buddhas lack inherent existence, beings in hell lack inherent existence, human beings lack inherent existence, rabbits lack inherent existence, cockroaches also. All sentient beings lack inherent existence, but they do exist. Because only something that can that exists can lack inherent existence. So the condensed Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra, one of the Prajnaparamitas says, Just as the Self is empty of inherent existence, understand every sentient being similarly. Just as every sentient being is empty of inherent existence, understand all phenomena similarly.
So once we’ve understood that oneself is empty of inherent existence, we can understand, we can really know that all other sentient beings lack inherent existence and we can then understand that actually everything, everything lacks inherent existence. So this concludes the explanation of the methods for ascertaining the selflessness of the person involving the four points of analysis. This is the four point analysis which is: the first point is ascertaining the object to be refuted. The second point is understanding that an inherently existing self either has to be one or separate from the aggregates. That’s the only two possibilities.
Then the third point is to ascertain whether the Self is Oneness with the five aggregates and the fourth point is to ascertain whether an inherently existing Self, the object to be refuted is something completely separate from the five aggregates. So if we do this, if we study all the teachings properly from qualified teachers and we do the meditations, we will come to the understanding that an inherently existing ‘I’ can’t be the same as the five aggregates. One also starts will realize it can’t be different then one realizes or then it can’t exist. If it’s not this, if it’s not this and it’s not that that these are the only two ways it could exist and it can’t exist this way, it can’t exist that way, that means it don’t exist at all! Tea break or if there’s a question.
The aggregates, yes. Previous continuum, for example. Of course, your body depends on things. It depends on food, air, water, also your mind. Each moment of consciousness depends on a previous moment.
If you want to get into more details, each moment of consciousness depends on three things which I don’t think I can remember what they are. I wish I had. It’s very embarrassing me sitting up here, especially after Kundrol Lhamo sat here. It’s like a little monkey sitting up here chattering away. Like, for the consciousness to see blue, there has to be blue.
Your consciousness can’t you know, your eye consciousness to see blue, there has to be blue color. Your eye consciousness can’t see blue, experience blue without there being depending on something blue. It depends on that. And then for your eye consciousness experiencing blue to arise, there not only has to be something blue but also there has to be a previous moment of the eye consciousness. And then there’s one other condition which, depending on my dumbness, I forgot what it is.
Yes, also the eye sense organ, yes. The immediately preceding condition, there’s the object condition, and well, let’s say it’s that. The actual subtle eye sense power that has to be functioning. Another way you can say the four mental aggregates are talking about the gross mind, but that gross mind depends on the subtle mind, and the subtle mind depends on the very subtle mind. Any moment of the very subtle mind depends on a previous moment of the very subtle mind.
But just also in the same way that our gross mind depends on this gross body, the subtle mind depends on the subtle winds within the body, and the very subtle mind depends on the most subtle of those subtle wind energies, which I think is called the all pervading life wind. I think that’s the name. Anyway, this is the one that arises at the time of death, the last moment, yeah, in the heart chakra. When all the winds absorb into the heart chakra, you finally have all that’s left is this yeah, what’s it called? The All Pervading Wind.
No, I don’t think that’s what it’s called. Anyway, there is this very subtle wind energy which is the most subtle physical energy which arises. What does that depend on? The previous moment of the same thing and the very subtle mind partially depends on that and the previous moment of its own continuity. Going back and back and back.
But we also depend on cups of tea and coffee, so we should get one. Coffee. Do you like coffee tonight instead of tea? Yeah, I might actually. Yeah.
Christina’s probably rushed out and made half a mala and quick. But you’re quick. So I’m not going to finish tonight. I have to finish next week, although I’m not sure if there’s enough material for a whole class next week. Anyway but sorry?
No. Oh, there is Easter. Yeah. So that oh, okay. So there will be next Thursday, and then there’s Easter.
Is that what you’re saying? Anyway, just while I think of the plan for next the next course is I’m gonna give a little commentary on the praises to the Twenty-One Taras. I don’t know if people are interested in that. Not according to my calendar. Anyway, I am finishing.
I can start again, but I can’t draw it out too much longer. I am not trying to draw it out. Am trying to finish. You may. Do you have any more questions right now before we continue?
Don’t be shy. Rapidly moving along then. Okay, so we now go into the, just briefly, remember, actually the author makes this point a little bit somewhere soon, that this section is really just a very condensed summary of the whole process of meditating on emptiness. It’s it’s really just, yeah, a very condensed summary. To do the practice in reality one has to spend much more time, like in the teachings there are many, many arguments establishing all these points about how the the the eye, an inherently existing eye, can’t be inherently the same as the five aggregates.
There’s many many you know arguments and so on. Here it’s just you know done it very very given an overview of the whole thing. And similarly, when it talks about the selflessness selflessness of phenomena. Anyway, it says, the techniques for determining the selflessness of phenomena actually, before going on, realizing the selflessness of phenomena is really exactly the same. The arguments are exactly the same as for the person is just applied to phenomena.
That’s all, really. But anyway, the techniques for determining the selflessness of phenomena involve taking the mental and physical aggregates, the spheres of sensory cognition and the bases of the cognitive faculties as indicative of phenomena. What does that mean? We talk about persons and phenomena, so everything which is not a person goes into the category of phenomena. That’s broken up here into three things.
So that is referring to the five aggregates, the physical and mental aggregates, right? So the mind, the body, and the four mental aggregates. These all come under the category of phenomena. Then the spheres of sensory cognition is referring to the objects of the five senses. So our eye consciousness, you know, sees shapes and colors that make up the external world.
So and hears sounds and we smell oh, yeah. Our olfactory sense experiences, smells and so on. All of those things, the objects of the external world and the cognitive faculties. These are referring to the senses themselves. All of these things make up phenomena.
Actually there’s more to phenomena than that because all the things I just mentioned there, those three things, the five aggregates, the objects of the senses, and the senses themselves, these make up impermanent phenomena. Phenomena is also made up of permanent things as well. It doesn’t talk about them so much here, but we don’t have to worry. Permanent phenomena and impermanent phenomena, they’re all phenomena. They’re all actually empty of inherent existence.
So it goes on to say, any questions there? Did that make any sense at all? No. No. But they’re all they’re all oh, I hope I didn’t say that.
No. They’re they’re all they’re all in same in being non inherently existent. And, yeah, the emptiness of them is realized in the same way. No. Phenomena.
Are all non inherently existing. They’re empty. They’re all empty. They’re all non inherently existing. You tell me.
Yes, yes. Yes, emptiness. Emptiness is actually permanent. There are a few other things, but I can never remember. What What’s an example?
Well, actually, there’s a whole list of things, but basically kind of very abstract things. Gosh. Do what? Yes. Got you there.
Right. Thought? Space is permanent. It doesn’t change in any way. Every moment every moment space is just space.
It doesn’t depend on causes and conditions. It is still a dependent arising because space depends on parts, directional parts, and temporal parts because today’s space depends on yesterday’s space. It also depends on the labeling mind. Emptiness is also completely permanent. Emptiness is emptiness.
It doesn’t change in any way. It doesn’t depend on causes and conditions. Yes, it depends on the object. The emptiness of a cup depends on the cup, but while the cup is existing, the cup is impermanent. But but while the cup is existing, the emptiness of the cup is permanent.
It’s not changing moment by moment. The emptiness of the cup doesn’t last forever because a cup doesn’t last forever because you can’t have the emptiness of a cup without a cup. So once the cup is, you know, finished, the emptiness of the cup is finished. The emptiness of this particular cup is finished. But while the cup is existing, the emptiness of it, the mere lack of inherent exist yeah.
Yeah. The mere lack of I’m not. I don’t know how to put it anymore. God, this is hopeless. The the mere lack of inherent existence, that doesn’t change in any way.
That doesn’t depend on anything. It doesn’t depend on causes and conditions, so it doesn’t change. The emptiness of this cup is exactly the same moment by moment. It’s not changing in any way. Yes.
It’s the the lack. No. No. You can’t. If emptiness didn’t exist at all, this wouldn’t be empty, but it is empty.
But Empty about about this guided Yes. But that’s what emptiness is referring to. It’s true, emptiness doesn’t inherently exist. Emptiness only conventionally exists. That’s the only way anything exists, merely nominally.
Emptiness doesn’t truly exist. You have to think about it. But it does exist. It exists. So the only way things can exist is either they’re permanent or impermanent.
Existing phenomena that depend on causes and conditions are impermanent. Existing phenomena that don’t depend on causes and conditions are permanent and emptiness doesn’t depend on causes and conditions. You don’t create emptiness, in other words. This is a point that comes on a little bit later in this text that in realizing emptiness we’re not trying to point it I’m jumping the gun. Emptiness is there.
We’re not able to experience it now or perceive it, but it’s there. It’s not something that we have somehow that the Buddhist decided if you’re going to be a Buddhist, you have to think, believe everything’s empty. Know, impose this idea on things. The point is they actually are empty and we just have to discover that. It’s not like someone who’s realized emptiness has created a new way of looking at things or that’s how they actually are.
You don’t create emptiness. You create the causes to experience it, but you don’t create emptiness, and nothing did. When you create a cup, you don’t create the emptiness of it, but the emptiness is there. Right. Yes, yes.
But some things are permanent. Everything which is depending on causes and conditions. That’s the small print. Oh, no one always says there are permanent things. But you have to understand, it’s not everything is impermanent.
Maybe this is a mistake that often we say in our audience because that’s kind of a punch line, it’s kind of punchy to say everything is impermanent. If you say it very precisely that everything which depends on causes and conditions is impermanent, it’s not quite so grabby. It doesn’t wake you up so much. And the point is that it’s the things existing depending on causes and conditions that are the problems for us. They’re the things that we get attached to or have aversion to.
We don’t get attached to space or have aversion to space. We don’t get attached to emptiness because we can’t even see it. We can’t experience it. And once you do, you can’t get attached or have aversion to emptiness. So the things that are permanent are not a problem.
The things for us which are a problem are the impermanent phenomena. That’s why in general it says everything is impermanent. Everything that we’re involved with on a day to day basis is impermanent. It depends on cause and condition. But the four seals of the Buddha, one is that all compounded phenomena are impermanent.
It doesn’t say all things are impermanent, it says all compounded phenomena, meaning everything compounded by causes and conditions is impermanent. But one way to think of, to try and understand this, to go back is, you know, you create a cup. Cups are created depending on causes and conditions. Once that cup is existing, the emptiness of the cup is existing, but nothing has created the emptiness of it. It’s just the mere fact that it exists mean the only way it is the only way you can create a cup is because things are empty.
You couldn’t create a cup. You can’t create an inherently existing cup. The only kind of cup you can create is a non inherently existing one. You can’t create an inherently existing retreat center. You can only create one that doesn’t inherently exist.
Right. Yes. Space is also empty. It lacks inherent existence. And it always lacks the same inherent.
You know, you can’t have, you know, this cup isn’t sort of sometimes one hundred percent empty and another times ten percent empty or thirty five point seven percent empty. It’s always one hundred percent empty. Doesn’t change and that emptiness hasn’t been created. And space is something that does exist. So the only way it can exist is it’s empty of inherent existence.
Yes, in fact they have to because permanent phenomena exist. There are some phenomena which are permanent. The only way anything can exist is arising dependently. So impermanent phenomena depend on three things: causes and conditions, parts, and the labeling mind. Permanent phenomena depend only on two parts and the labeling mind.
They don’t depend on causes and conditions. But everything is a dependent arising and therefore empty. Dependent meaning not existing by way of their own characteristics. So it goes on to say: It is extremely important to recognize that the object to be negated, which in this case is what is apprehended by the innate conception of true existence projected onto those phenomena, is neither too extensive nor too narrow. Just like we can’t make that mistake with analysing the self, thinking that the self either exists forever or doesn’t exist at all, we also avoid these two extremes in relation to phenomena.
If we were to make the object to be negated too extensive, what we would be doing is saying that phenomena don’t exist at all. Right? But we’re not trying to negate the existence of things, we’re trying to negate the inherent existence of things. Or we’re trying to realize that there’s no such thing as an inherent existence of things. In negating inherent existence, we’re not negating that things don’t exist at all.
An inherently existing clock doesn’t exist, but clocks exist. Alright? We shouldn’t make the negation too extensive or too narrow, which would be a simple example of that would be to think that some things don’t inherently exist, but other things really do inherently exist. Like, we could think that oh, well, cups don’t inherently exist, but space, oh, that that seems to inherently exist, or emptiness inherently exists, or Buddhas inherently exist. Sentient beings don’t inherently exist, but Buddhas inherently exist.
So that’s not that’s making the negation too narrow because nothing inherently exists, actually. There’s no exception. Everything lacks inherent existence, but we can’t go to that other extreme saying that that means things don’t nothing exists at all. Things do exist. Suffering exists.
You can’t negate that suffering exists. Happiness exists. If suffering didn’t exist, we don’t have to worry about anything. We don’t have it. But it does exist conventionally, dependently.
If it inherently existed, we couldn’t get rid of it because it wouldn’t depend on anything. It wouldn’t depend on causes and conditions, so there’s no nothing we could do to stop it. Yeah. I think you could say the parts. Yeah.
Or the temporal parts. Yep. Yep. Yes. At least that.
Yeah, it could Well the parts make up the base. Because of the parts you have a base. Sorry? Also, yes, everything gets broken down. The parts altogether are a base.
Well, they exist by being labeled. Again, you take this flower, the the the the basis for the flower are all the parts. Right? Such as the petal. Right?
So this is a petal, right, which is a part of a flower and all the parts together are the basis on which the mind labels something flower. But then this thing, a petal, also arises dependently on parts, causes and conditions, and the mind. The mind labels this a petal and the basis for that petal is all the parts. That is what I think Geshe meant by parts can also be a base. You can go down, down, down.
The point about that is you can’t find anything that’s really there from its own side. But but so then you can fall into the stream of thinking, but so there’s nothing, but there is conventionally something there. Because although you can’t find an inherently existing can’t find anything If you can find something to clean up. Now where are we? So here is a flower, but then when you investigate, all you can find, you know, if you take this is the flower and then you’re investigating it, all you find are just petals.
But what we’re looking for, if you look for an inherently existing flower, you can’t find it. All you find are the parts. So you can’t find an inherently existing flower, but that doesn’t negate the fact that there is a flower. A flower that is existing depending on causes and conditions, parts, and the labelling mind. That is existing.
Like an illusion. Nothing concrete there by itself, but it is existing. They say it’s inherently existing. They don’t they they don’t say they say it it doesn’t truly exist but it inherently exists. Yeah.
Because they say for something to be labeled a particular thing, such as a flower, there has to be something really there. The base there from its own side to deserve that label. Think that is how it is explained very roughly. Very good question. Well, you try to apply all of this logic to all those things that, just in a simple way, that the enemy doesn’t inherently exist out there from their own side.
There is no such thing. The only way a sentient being you know, there is a sentient being there, and depending on causes and conditions, parts, and and one’s own mind, particularly one’s own mind, labeling that person enemy, it’s only because the mind labels the person enemy that that person appears back as an enemy. But the trouble is they appear back as an inherently existing enemy. So we have to try and be aware of that, that it’s my mind that is doing this. Yeah?
And it’s also and why is my mind doing this? It’s because I mean, conventionally, this person may be saying unpleasant things or doing unpleasant things, but this is also depending why are they doing it because there’s causes and conditions. You know? There’s all these parts, there’s all these facets to it, the situation, and particularly my own mind. I mean, a very good maybe I anyway.
I I think like a classic I always say this, but probably it’s not correct for me too, but anyway, when, you know, the these crazy people flew the planes into the Twin Towers and killed over a thousand people and whatever, you know, mister Bush declared these people, you know, evil terrorists And and but, anyway, the the whole reasoning was that these people did that because they’re you know, the the if you analyze how people are thinking about all that, is that these people are inherently bad people, and they are inherently evil. And so they do inherently evil things, meaning there is no reason why they did it. But, of course, they had many reasons, which is not to say that any of the reasons were valid or good or virtuous or anything. But the whole reason people go to war, not everything, but why people individuals fight with each other, people in countries go to war and everything is because, you know, one is believing this person is inherently wrong, inherently evil, inherently bad. There’s no, you know, there’s there’s no factors there why they’re saying this.
That it’s got you know, why this person is angry with me has got nothing to do with me. Nothing whatsoever. I am inherently fantastic. I always am inherently fantastic. I never do anything wrong, never have done anything wrong.
It’s all you. You are bad and terrible. Why why are you doing these bad things to me? Because you are just naturally bad and horrible. And this is rubbish.
It’s just rubbish. And this is what we have to be aware of. And, of course, when someone is negative towards us, we in this life, we may not have done anything. You know, we may be a nice person, a very good person, sweet, loving, and even kind to the enemy, blah blah blah, yet still, this is why the bigger Buddhist understanding is so helpful is to realize that this is my karma, that in a past life I did something now. So it’s not a cause and condition in this life, but I created the causes conditions in the past for something bad to happen.
Yeah? As as Lama Zopa Rinpoche, in a nutshell, says, the only reason there’s the outer enemy is the it because there’s the inner enemy of anger. If we didn’t have anger, we wouldn’t have enemies. There would still be people screaming and yelling at us, but it wouldn’t bother us. It wouldn’t upset us.
And it’s only because so there’s that aspect. There’s also the other aspect of the wrong view of self, grasping that there’s an inherently truly existing person that can be harmed. But the person that validly exists, exists, can’t be harmed. Now if you say to me, oh, you’re terrible. You’re a terrible person.
These are just words. You know? And and, actually, we’re all told when we were little kids, sticks and stones can break our bones, but names can never hurt us. But but we actually allow them to. We allow them to.
But, actually, they’re only words. And even beyond that, they’re just noises. And yet someone says boo, and we get so upset because of grasping that there’s this inherently existing me. So if we had some understanding of of the merely labeled I and how words and people’s opinions really can’t actually affect who I I actually am. And however much experience of all these things we had, that much more we would be protected, Even to the point if even someone was going to kill us, we were definitely going to be killed, it wouldn’t bother us because we would understand the continuity of consciousness, an I that I can never ultimately, you know, I will always exist.
Maybe not this I, but there’s the continuity, the continuity of mind. No big deal. But, of course, right now, you know, we you know, people just have to look at us a little bit, and we get upset and freaked out. Either we get angry with that person or, in a sense, we get angry with ourselves and, oh, he doesn’t like me. Oh, it’s because I’m weird and creepy.
Oh, know? Oh, you know? So I mean, really, if if we could be mindful of dependent arising, it would be incredible, especially, you know, that that what what is happening good and bad is depending on causes and conditions in my in relation to me and especially when we’re dealing with people. Right? That it it there are all these causes and conditions in this person’s life to help understand why this person is like that.
Yeah. And there’s all these causes and conditions in my life why I’m in this situation with this person. To particularly understand that it’s due to my mind labeling things in particular ways and holding on to those. In fact, it’s not even yeah. It’s it’s Rinpoche makes the point makes the point that the real problem is not so much as seeing things as inherently existing.
The real problem is grasping that that is the case. You know, holding onto that, of making it so real and concrete, and it’s definitely like that. So if we could have some space in our mind to try and let things become a little bit more flexible, yeah, and softer and not so concrete, it would it would, you know, help so much. I mean, dependent arising and understanding emptiness is I mean, it’s it’s ultimately to get rid of ignorance and, you know, get, you know, you know, huge project, but it’s it’s also very practical right now in our life if we could apply Stopping attachment, realizing it’s all just due to things look so beautiful because there’s so many causes and conditions. You know when you go shopping, know, in shops.
I mean, it’s just mind boggling. I was at the glorious Burnside Shopping Centre today doing a virtuous thing collecting the mail for Dorje Ling, and there’s these, you know, rows of shops, you know, with these big glass windows and all these things, mostly ladies’ clothes, You know? I don’t I don’t know if there’s one men’s shop in oh, yeah. There is in within the whole joint, but there’s hundreds of ladies’ shops and things. But everything is, like, all separate, and it’s hanging there, and it’s all the light.
So it looks it’s made to look like so fantastic, you know? Yeah. But of course, when you take it out of that environment, it’s just a lump of stuff. And of course, they have photographs of incredibly beautiful women and young guys with muscles and everything and all shiny. And you think that if I wear it, I’ll look like that.
Of course, you know at one level you won’t, but you want, of course, you know. But if we could be more aware like cooking magazines with food. Photographers are paid a fortune and they spend hours photographing one plate of food and it’s sprayed with stuff and there’s fourteen spotlights on it on one banana. So it, you know, you oh, you know, Oh, wow. How fantastic.
But it’s just light, mostly light. And the shiny paper, you know, the shine super shiny paper. And it’s also this whole thing that it’s in this expensive magazine that’s famous and it’s written by somebody famous, the famous cook who’s got a famous program and so this must be good. So the mind projects all this stuff and thinks, oh, if I do that or have that, I’ll be so there’s so much attachment, you know. So if we analyze these things, check them as, you know, Khensur Rinpoche said, check the causes and conditions of things.
Check. It was very interesting. She said that many times in the talks about checking the causes and conditions of things. Why do I feel like this? What’s going on?
It’s always because there’s causes and conditions. If we were more aware of the causes and conditions of things, of why my mind is like that, why am I thinking like that, why am I seeing this person like that, There are causes and conditions. There’s all these parts or factors and there’s my mind. My mind. My deluded mind.
Yeah? Stop there. Thank you very much. So we can dedicate the merit of it tonight. Positive imprints, some positive imprints hopefully.
Page eight. Through the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious body mind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore. The object of refuge of myself and of all transmigratory beings in all our lifetimes is the embodiment of the Three Jewels, the all encompassing three refuges in one, the Guru, the wish granting jewel, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, the master Padmasambhava, the Dharma kings Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen, the abbot Shāntarakshita and the numberless holy beings who preserved and spread the Buddhadharma in Tibet and the Tibetan people who practiced and served Buddhism so faithfully for a thousand years, as well as those who along with many others died sacrificing their lives for Tibet and His Holiness.
May all their positive wishes be fulfilled immediately. Due to their limitless kindness, the sun of Tibetan Buddhism has now risen in the West, which is a dark land. But now that I have met with the Dharma, I have received the perfect human body, enabling me to lead a meaningful life. Our refuge and savior, the supreme one, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan people have been so kind to us. Remembering this, we make the following dedication prayer.
May all his holiness, the Dalai Lama’s wishes be successful immediately. May the snow land of Tibet achieve pure freedom and develop the Buddhadharma even more than before in Tibet. And may all mother transmigratory beings achieve enlightenment quickly. Savior of the snow land teachings and transmigratory beings who makes extremely clear the path that is unification of emptiness and compassion to the lotus holder, Tenzin Gyatso, so I beseech, may all your holy wishes be spontaneously fulfilled. You who uphold the Subduer’s moral way, who serve as the bountiful bearer of all, sustaining, preserving, spreading Manjunatha’s victorious doctrine, who masterfully accomplished magnificent prayers honoring the Three Jewels, savior of myself and others, your disciples, please, please, live long.
Lord of Dharma, who in accordance with the various dispositions of those to be subdued, makes clear in the light of your well spoken advice, the sacred Ganden tradition, essence of Buddha’s teachings, O foremost and holy Lama, to you who are supreme. O Lama, please, please live long.