Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 59-minute teaching, Ven Thubten Dondrub walks through a detailed analysis of selflessness from Togmey Zangpo’s commentary, focusing on how to understand that phenomena cannot exist as independent, partless entities. He begins by establishing motivation through the bodhisattva wish and visualization practices, then moves into the core philosophical argument: that the concept of indivisible particles is logically impossible, since without parts, objects could never combine to form larger wholes. From there, he systematically applies the reasoning to all composite things—bodies, jars, clocks, flowers—showing that nothing can be either inherently identical with or entirely separate from its parts if it truly exists. The teaching culminates in understanding dependent arising as the primary reasoning for realizing emptiness, distinguishing between intellectual grasp and the direct perception that eventually dissolves grasping at inherent existence. Practical for serious practitioners with some Buddhist philosophical background.
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File: 2014 04 10 Mind Training .mp3 HIGHLY DISTORTED.mp3
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Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Mind Training (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2014-04-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 58.7 minutes
Words: ~5,370
By the teachings of the three supreme jewels possessing the power of truth, may all our outer hindrances be transformed. May they be dispersed. May they be pacified. May they be completely pacified. May all negative forces of past karma be completely pacified.
May the 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 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.
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 Mañjuśrī, O loving one, the brilliance of your wisdom, illuminate the darkness enclosing my mind enlighten my intelligence and wisdom so that I gain insight into Buddha’s words and the texts that explain them. So then visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us, we offer a mandala of the whole universe. So then To make this time as meaningful as possible, it really depends on, from our side, having the right motivation. We should try to really check our motivation, try and get rid of any kind of negative motivation or just lack of motivation and try to really cultivate the best motivation possible for being here which is to the bodhicitta wish to achieve enlightenment, recognizing the great kindness of sentient beings, how we are totally dependent on them, interrelated with every single one of them.
They’ve all been our mothers and fathers and yet sadly they’re all trapped helplessly in Samsāra. So now we’ve found the precious human rebirth, the optimum chance to free ourselves from saṃsāra and achieve enlightenment. Think no matter what, I must achieve enlightenment because only as a Buddha can I perfectly repay mother sentient beings by helping free them from all suffering, helping them achieve peerless, everlasting happiness? So to achieve enlightenment I have to cultivate the two bodhicittas, the conventional bodhicitta seeking enlightenment, being determined to achieve it, and the ultimate, the wisdom realizing emptiness. Our text, The Rays of the Sun, is about these two subjects.
So for the sake of all mother sentient beings, I will study this text with the aim of putting it into practice as much as possible. Visualize all sentient beings surrounding us as much as we can as we think of the Buddha in front of us. So our parents on either side, family, friends, helpers behind us, those who harm us in front, then all the different beings of cyclic existence. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, the supreme assembly By the merits I create through teaching the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So then we think the Buddha now approaches us directly above the crown of our head, and when above our crown we imagine the Buddha dissolving into the light so that that blissful light can pour down into us, blessing our minds in such a way that we can understand the teachings, practice them, and gain the unmistaken realizations.
Then reinforcing that positive state of mind by briefly doing the nine round breathing exercise as a way to create a calmer, clearer, more concentrated mind so that we can use that level of mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Thank you. No matter what, I’ll finish this text tonight. We’ll have to skip through some parts but cover the essence. We’re up to the second paragraph of the section called How to determine the selflessness of phenomena.
So the way to determine selflessness by means of the reasoning that phenomena, such as the aggregates, are free from truly being one or many, which is the same method as determining that the Self is free of being one or many, is to discard the notion that existence as we understand it is partless. So our author Togmey Zangpo is saying that one of the main ways to help us understand the selflessness of phenomena is to understand that or to give up the wrong view that phenomena are composed of parts. We all know according to Western science that physical phenomena are made up of atoms, right? And that atoms which are very, very tiny, which we can’t see. But these very tiny phenomena coming together connecting together create this apparently solid physical world, right?
But then it was that and it was thought that atoms were the smallest object, but then it was discovered that atoms were made up of parts. But nevertheless, we tend to think, as ordinary people, that there is something that is the smallest part, that you break these atoms down into the particles and whatever, but then you must come to something which is the smallest thing, the smallest thing which things can’t be broken down to anymore. Yeah? And that is the concept of a partless atom or a partless particle. Certainly the Vaibhāṣikas argue that such a phenomena exists, world is made up of partless particles.
So our author being a Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka like we are all trying to be is saying this view is completely wrong. The view of partless particles is complete nonsense and I think modern Western science has come to this view with the study of quantum physics and all of that business. The ordinary person probably tends to think that everything is made up of these very small bits that you can’t break down any further. The Mādhyamika can say this is not true. There is no such thing as a smallest particle.
And the point is if there was such a thing as a small the smallest particle that you couldn’t divide any further, what it means is that such a thing that would make up the universe is partless. Because if you could divide it further it would have parts. If there’s the idea that there’s something that can’t be divided anymore because it’s the absolute smallest thing, it would have no parts. And the Prasangikas are saying that such a phenomena is totally impossible. There cannot be such a thing as a partless particle, especially to make up the universe because if there were such things, and what the Prasangikas do with all their arguments, they show the consequences of the illogical false consequences of people who argue that there are partless particles.
Right? So the Prāsaṇgika point out if there were such things as partless particles you would never be able to amalgamate all of these particles to make something bigger. Why? Because with an ordinary thing, you have two ordinary sized big particles, you can make them join together because this part contacts that part and because of that you now have a bigger object. But if these were two partless particles they wouldn’t have parts that could touch.
So you wouldn’t make a bigger thing. You couldn’t construct a bigger thing from partless particles because these two things wouldn’t be able to contact each other. Or what it would mean is that since this is a partless particle with no parts, nothing smaller, and this is a partless particle when they joined they wouldn’t grow, they’d just merge together and even if there were ten billion partless particles if you put them all together they wouldn’t be any bigger because they’d all Right? No you can’t say anything has one part. It’s just one thing with no parts and so because of that they wouldn’t if they contacted they would merge because there wouldn’t be one part touching the other part the whole thing would contact the other thing so they’d be the same.
The thing would never grow even however many more of these particles you put there it would be the same size. You don’t get that? Does anyone get it? No. It’s okay if you get it.
If you don’t get it, that’s a problem. All I can say is you’ve got very wrong views. Alright. So this thing has parts, you know, just very roughly we can say there’s these four parts, four sides, and this has got four sides. If you put in it and just imagine that we’re the same size, you know, same size when you put them they can contact each other because a part can touch another part and because just one part touches another one part you now have something bigger.
But if this had no parts whatsoever and this had no parts whatsoever then the two things would be the same. You put this together they would merge and be exactly the same. They wouldn’t get bigger. Parts a section a part yeah a part right Right. Well if you were trying to imagine a partless particle which you can’t because it’s impossible to have a partless thing because actually a partless thing would have no dimensions.
Because you can talk about this part and that part because they’re separated, but something that has no parts would have no separation. There would be no distance or anything between the top, the bottom, the sides. You couldn’t talk about the top and bottom of a partless particle because a top and a bottom are parts. You couldn’t talk about the sides, you couldn’t talk about the directions of a partless particle because they would be in yeah? It wouldn’t!
That’s the point Jan, it can’t exist! So yeah, right? You lost the point, that’s good. We’ll go back to the point. The point is well I’m going move but the point is that that’s what we tend to think is that as an ordinary person maybe less now than in the past but actually the average person down the street doesn’t know any well you know I don’t even know anything about quantum physics either if I’m honest but most people probably haven’t even heard of quantum physics let alone what it says and probably people think that the physical stuff everyone knows about atoms, that it’s made up of atoms and they tend to think that an atom is the smallest thing.
Actually atoms are made of smaller bits and people can understand that. But then there’s the idea that there must be that even these tiny things are made up of something tinier that can’t be divided any further and that is the idea of a partless particle. In other words, the whole idea that the solid world is really out there comes down to believing whether you the logic of that is that if the world is like it appears as this solid physical stuff out there, it must be made up of partless particles. But partless particles are impossible to exist. I think that’s what it’s saying.
That’s the point. Yeah, we got it? Yeah! Okay, so it goes on to say: When we have established through reasoning and now we have almost a little bit that an existing phenomena has parts. Existing phenomena do exist if you check, of course they do have parts.
One would have established through reasoning that an existent phenomena has parts and analyzed that the parts and the possessor of parts, for instance the body and its limbs, are naturally of the same or different natures in terms of existing by way of their own characteristics then for them to be inherently of one nature goes on, that means they may exist as one without any distinction whatsoever. So what this is saying is, So we take the body which is a phenomena, right? So when we understand through reasoning that this existent phenomena that is the body has parts and this applies to everything this jug, no what is it, bottle, this glass, this clock, this whatever it is, this vase, you know everything has parts and we analyze that the parts and the possessor of the parts so the body is made of parts you know the legs, the torso, the head, neck, arms and so on and the body we can say is the possessor of the parts. The body possesses the parts. We’re doing this analysis remember of things being either one or many inherently one with the thing or separate.
So if the body truly inherently existed from its own side it has to be the same as the parts that make it up because we’ve analyzed it does have parts or the body has to be if it truly inherently existed it would have to be something completely different from the parts. If the body inherently existed as Oneness with its parts it would mean that there was no distinction whatsoever so that our arm is our body or our neck is our body or our nose is the body but they’re not, right? I mean the body that does exist arises depending on the parts but it isn’t so it depends you know there is that relationship between the parts and the body that it arises you have the parts which constitute the basis on which you conceive body or you have the parts of a clock which is the basis on which you can label clock. But the clock and the parts are not inherently the same thing. Can’t be.
If they were with you know your finger could be your hand, finger could be your body. If they’re inherently the if inherently one. Okay we got that? Yep. Good.
We’ll finish very quickly. If they are different in nature we must reject any relationship between them such as between the aggregates and the person. So just like before when we’re looking at the selflessness of the person and if we say that the person is something completely separate from the aggregates that’s ridiculous because then you could talk about a person sitting here when their five aggregates are somewhere else. So in the same way if the phenomena is a phenomena, whatever it is, a body, a bottle, a clock, a flower is something inherently different, separate from its parts, then that becomes completely absurd. Yeah?
How could something exist that is something completely different from its and has no connection with its parts? That you could have a flower that doesn’t need petals. Alright. So that’s impossible. So this shows that an inherently existing phenomena can’t exist.
Something that is existing you know as one with its parts separate from its parts. Such a thing just cannot exist. These methods for determining the lack of inherent existence by establishing that things can exist neither as inherently the same nor as inherently different are like those presented in the course of explaining the selflessness of persons. They should be understood by replacing the subject or phenomena accordingly. So you do the same analysis, just as we analyze the self and the five aggregates to understand the selflessness of the person.
We do it with jar and the parts of the jar, clock and the parts of the clock, you know, flower and the parts of the flower. Very nice. I won’t pull that apart. Wow. That’s really nice.
You know, body and the parts of the body. Any a car and the parts of a car, table and the parts of a table, rug in the parts of a rug, anything you know and you can discover yes it exists, is a rug that exists but there’s no inherently existing rug existing that is somehow exactly the same as the threads that make it up or something completely different from the threads. It is something that arises merely by being labeled on the base which depends on the parts which depends on causes and conditions. Going back and back and back without any beginning. So then goes on to just summarize by saying: The manner in which the lack of inherent existence is determined by employing the reason of the existence of the opposite of inherent existence which is dependent arising, is as follows: It is easy to ascertain that all relationships, internal and external, such as those between the mental and physical aggregates, arise in dependence upon something else.
Right? This is the big argument of the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka that everything arises depending on something else. This is what Khensur Rinpoche was also emphasizing a lot in her talks, in her teachings that everything depends on something. If you check, whatever state of mind we’re in, it depends on things. It’s just not there concretely from its own side.
A particular state of mind, a particular thought, a particular feeling, everything arises depending on something else. And that depends on something else. And that all depends on something else. Togmey Zangpo says that’s easy to ascertain that if we really check we can see that and it’s true if we check we can see that things do if we check honestly without all sorts of hang ups and preconceptions and holding on to philosophies and religions and whatever we can see that things depend on something. So the way to refute a common basis between such relationships that is between things that depend on something and inherent existence is as follows.
In other what what we’re trying to refute that the the ordinary mind right now is grasping at inherent existence whether we know this or not, but this is what the Buddha is telling us that our why we’re suffering is because in every moment our mind, each of our minds is grasping at inherent existence that things really exist out there from their own side. But also, we we’ve all nodded our heads and agreed that it’s easy to see that actually things depend on something else. So we’re we’re holding these two things as common, having a common basis that inherently we see this as inherently existing and yet we also understand if we think about it that it arises dependently. So we seem to think there’s a common basis between things arising dependently and being inherently existing. But of course there isn’t.
It’s complete rubbish. So the way to refute this common basis is as follows. It is contradictory for anything to exist inherently and be in contact with something else. If something inherently exists, meaning it does not depend on anything whatsoever other than itself, then it cannot in any way have a relationship with anything else because it can’t contact anything. Not it doesn’t necessarily mean just physically contact, but contact relate in any way because soon as soon as you have a a contact, a relationship with something, those two things well let’s keep it simple.
As soon as a thing has a contact, a relationship with something else, that thing is different in some way. It may be a very very tiny way but it is different. But if that thing was inherently existing not depending on anything it couldn’t become different because to become different something has made it different. Right? It would it would depend on something making it different But if it was an independent thing it couldn’t depend on something making it different.
Right? So an inherently existing phenomena could have no relationship of any kind with anything else. Including, as I say, you know, if you bought a brand new shiny inherently existing car, you would never have to polish it or wash it because it would never get dirty. It would be impossible. Because the only way a shiny new clean car can become dusty would be to depend on something, some dust landing on this shiny car but an independent car couldn’t depend on dust coming on it.
Not possible because a dusty car is different from a non dusty car. And a dusty car depends on dust. You can’t have a dusty car without depending on dust. But an independent car, an independently existing car, if it was to maintain its status as a totally independent phenomena couldn’t have dust on it. So it goes on to say: And whatever exists in dependence on causes and conditions must be in contact with something else.
By very definition something that is depending on causes and conditions. This thing, for example this flower, for it to remain, for want of a better word, alive and nice and fresh. Depends on being in some water. Depends on that. So what am I talking about?
So we recognize that I mean that’s why we put in a cut flowers in vases of water because we understand it does depend to stay alive and fresh. It does depend on causes and conditions and and the condition is something other than the flower that is the water. It’s depending on something other than itself. So where there exists independence must be in contact with something which it isn’t. Right?
For instance a reflection in a mirror they must give much more complicated examples I don’t know why but anyway for instance a reflection in a mirror must arise in dependence on many causes and conditions such as the mirrors being clean, the position of the reflected object, the perceiver and so forth. If it its nature to be able to stand under its own power it must appear undistortedly to the perceiving mind to which it appears and if that is so, the way in which it appears there and the reflection’s actual mode of subsistence should be consistent. If something inherently exists, the way it exists and the way it appears has to be the same. There can’t be any difference. Right?
Why? Because if the way it appears was different from the way it exists that would mean the way it appears depends on something. But something that inherently exists can’t depend you know if such a thing existed it wouldn’t depend on anything so the way it existed would be the way it appeared or the way it appeared would be the way it existed. It wouldn’t depend on our mind, our state of mind, it wouldn’t depend on the lighting, the weather, anything. The thing would always appear exactly the way existed all the time because it wouldn’t depend on anything outside.
Because inconsistency is proved by our reality, by ordinary reality that thing in ordinary situations what this is saying is that in ordinary situations we discover that the way things appear and the way they exist aren’t consistent. So because inconsistency is proved by reality we see that finding a common basis between inherent existence and dependent arising based on the example of a reflection is contradictory. In other words, things that arise dependently can’t inherently exist. The reflection in the mirror arises dependently so it cannot inherently exist. The reflection of a face in the mirror appears to be a face for this appearance to you know to comply with the actual mode of subsistence in other words for this image of a face in the mirror to be the existing the way it appears the reflection should be a face in the mirror because the appearance of a face this is getting complicated.
When you look in the mirror there is the appearance of a face. So if that appearance truly existed, the appearance and the reality would have to be the same. So there would have to be an actual face in the mirror. But there isn’t an actual face in the mirror. There is just the appearance of a face in the mirror.
The appearance of an actual face which isn’t in the mirror, but the person standing in front of it. Alright? Alright. That was easy. Easy peasy.
So because it is not, in other words because it isn’t a face in the mirror but just the appearance of a face in the mirror, the perception is distorted with regard to the object that appears to it. When we realized that dependent arising is empty of inherent existence So in other words when we understand that things are dependent arising it means that whatever object is arising dependently which is actually everything but if we just take this example when we realize that this clock is arising dependently we can understand that it is empty of inherent existence. It cannot be. Yeah. So when we when you have realized that dependent arising is empty of inherent existence, apply your understanding to all phenomena.
Because it’s the same. It’s exactly the same for all phenomena. To go back maybe to restate the obvious but everyone here is nodding their heads in agreement. We all understand this and hopefully we do. But of course our understanding is just very thin, superficial understanding.
Some people make the mistake that because they get emptiness or they think they’ve got it because they’ve got an intellectual grasp of it, that that’s it. But that’s not it at all. There is a huge difference between having So what we’re trying to get now is what is called an inferential understanding. It’s conceptual understanding of something. But that is vastly different from my direct perception.
We can get an inferential understanding of emptiness and we have to get that properly first and actually we don’t have it completely, but we’re just starting maybe making the first steps. But that eventually will enable us to be able to directly perceive emptiness. When we purify our mind, our mind becomes very concentrated, very clear and our understanding of the Prāsaṇgika logic is really, you know, really strong. It’s it’s correct, and it’s we’ve really got it. We can put all the arguments and counter arguments together, we’ve really got it, we’re able to, you know, step by step reduce the strength of the grasping that this at inherent existence.
The logic weakens that grasping more and more until eventually that grasping that inherent existence is there is true just collapses. And then one has a direct experience of emptiness. So it goes on to say, there is scope for two kinds of mistake in realizing the pure view of selflessness. So these are the two mistakes of the views of eternalism, thinking that things are really really there, and the view of nihilism, that things don’t exist at all. So those are the two mistakes that we can make grasping that yeah.
Think eternalism, you know, if something really exists then it’s kind of eternal, it’s permanent. And the but the main mistake in trying to understand the Prāsaṇgika view is actually to fall into nihilism thinking that the Prasangikas are saying that things don’t exist at all but all they’re saying is that things don’t inherently exist but they do exist. So how do we counteract this? When all internal and external phenomena are validly established as dependent arisings all nihilistic views will be driven away. Why?
Because when we when we really understand hold on. I have to get this right. When we understand emptiness through the argument of dependent arising, when we understand this correctly, then we won’t fall into the wrong view that things don’t exist. We will understand that they do have a conventional existence because they are arising dependently. We’re not refuting the things that things don’t exist at all, we’re refuting the fact that things can exist without arising dependently.
But we are establishing that things do arise dependently. There are things existing because they arise dependently but there isn’t anything that exists without arising dependently. And so yeah. And when the meaning of the assertion of the lack of inherent existence is validly established through seeing the contradiction of not finding a common factor between dependent arising and inherent existence, all eternalistic views will be left far behind. No.
I’m lost. Bring me. Is Valarie upset? Yes. So similarly, when we realize that there is no common factor between dependent arising and inherent existence that these two things refute each other, then we won’t fall into the eternalist view that things are permanently existing because we understand that they are that they lack inherent existence.
They are existing but they lack existing independently. They lack existing independently, so they are not permanent. Right? Okay. So it goes on to say In praise of dependent arising, the King of reasoning, the questions of Anavatapta, the King of Nagas Sūtra says, Anything produced from conditions lacks production for it is not born from its own entity.
So that sounds a little strange and contradictory but but what it’s saying anything produced from conditions lacks inherent production. Right? That’s what it means. So anything produced from conditions lacks inherent production because it is not born from its own entity. You know, jars don’t come into existence from their, you know, from their own entity, from the jar isn’t born of itself, which would be inherent production.
It is produced not from its its from itself, but from conditions. Whatever depends on conditions is explained as empty. It exists but it’s empty of inherent existence. Whoever understands emptiness is at ease. Yeah.
No problems. No problems. Completely relaxed, chilled out. That’s why they say nirvana is peace. nirvana is when one’s realized emptiness completely destroyed ignorance, so one is at peace, completely at ease, nothing to worry about.
The mind is completely relaxed, free. Yeah. No problems at all. Also the supplement which is referring to Candrakīrti’s text that is the commentary on Nāgārjuna’s treatise on emptiness. So this text says by virtue of the reasoning that things arise in dependence upon each other, it is impossible to impute such conceptions of production from self, other and so forth.
Therefore by using the reasoning of dependent arising the net of all wrong views is severed. So this is as it says is said to be the king of reasonings. The best way to understand emptiness, to realize emptiness, is to understand dependent arising. In the teachings there are other arguments, other ways of understanding emptiness, but the main way, the easiest way, the king of reasonings is to understand dependent arising. Because inherent existence implies independent existence, but when we understand dependent arising, that everything we look at, everything we check out arises dependently from that we can also start to understand that’s the only way things can exist.
There’s no other way things could exist other than arising dependently. Once we really get that, then that completely undermines the grasping at inherent existence which implies independent existence. Right? Because just to make this point again, something that Lama Zopa Rinpoche said many years ago which I found very helpful is that when we right now as we I always have the thing for flowers but anyway it’s everything Whenever we look at or experience something we experience it as inherently existing. We don’t actually think of it as being independent but the Prāsaṇgika point out that if things inherently existed from their own side, it logically means that they are independent.
Then if we can logically understand that nothing, there is no thing that exists independently and there is no thing that not only can you not find anything that exists independently, you can we can understand through logic there is no way anything could possibly exist independently. So when we understand that, that undermines the grasping at inherent existence. One quick easy question before we take a break.