Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute talk from 1986, Ven Thubten Gyatso introduces karma and dependent arising as foundational concepts, establishing that all phenomena arise through causes and conditions rather than through external creation or arbitrary thought. He then walks through the structure and symbolism of the Wheel of Life diagram, explaining how the three central animals represent ignorance, hatred, and attachment—the root causes of cyclic existence. He details the intermediate or Bardo state that follows death, describing how consciousness carries karmic imprints into the next rebirth within one of six possible realms: human, animal, hungry ghost, hell, jealous god, and god realms. Throughout he emphasizes how virtuous and non-virtuous actions determine rebirth location, and illustrates how even a shift in mind at the moment of death can ripple karmic outcomes across lifetimes. Designed for practitioners building foundational understanding of Buddhist cosmology and ethical cause-and-effect.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 1986 03 15 Karma.mp3
UUID: 6c1068d0-758c-4df7-a9b3-a2dff29b09e9
Teacher: Ven Thubten Gyatso aka Adrian Feldman
Collection: Karma and the Wheel of Life (Ven Thubten Gyatso aka Adrian Feldman)
Date: 1986-03-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.0 minutes
Words: ~4,772
So I’ve gone into actually, I’ve it might sound confusing at this point because I have gone into detail quite quickly, but I will keep coming back to these states of mind, particularly these five ever present mental factors because they come up again within the twelve links themselves. We mentioned them and they’re very important in understanding karma, particularly this mental factor of intention, this impulse which arises in the mind to do something. So do you want to have a break at this point, I think? And it’s just for maybe five minutes. You can stretch your legs.
And then I thought we’d come back to all in the world that exists without depending upon something. Unfortunately, we have the inner feeling that there are things which exist without depending upon things. In fact, we think just about everything exists that way, especially our self. A strong conception of me, I am, and this self exists from its own side without without depending upon anything. That’s a mistake.
That’s a wrong conception that such a self is in that category of non existent phenomena. It just never has existed, but still we feel it does. Things do exist as dependent arising, and this is very profound. There are five qualities of dependent arising, four dependent arising, which make them profound, as our teacher explained in texts. The first quality then of dependent arisings which makes them profound is the quality of having a cause.
This means that by being dependent upon a cause or its previous cause is more profound than what some philosophers, some religions say that all things arise through God. There is a particular realm of existence called the Brahma realm. Brahma is said to be a god who believes that he has created the world, the universe. He thinks that the universe arose through his thought. This is those who follow Brahma.
By Brahma thinking something, then it arises. This is the cause for things to exist, to come into existence. That is refuted in this assertion, when one asserts dependent arising that things arise from their own causes, not the thought of another but from their own immediate causes, refutes that assertion by those people who believe in this creation by the thought or the will of Brahma or Shiva. Then, dependent arisings, their nature is very profound, this nature of being empty of true existence, empty of inherent existence. It’s it’s very profound because, as I said before, things don’t exist truly or of themselves in their own side, but they seem to.
We seem to exist truly and inherently from our own side. But this is just an apparent of an apparent way of existing. In reality, we’re empty of true existence. And this emptiness of true existence is very profound, very difficult to to realize, to understand. Now, some people say that things come from things have mixed causes.
Causes. I say, Alright, then trees will grow from there, seeds and things. But also, on top of this, there’s a thought, there’s some consciousness which will determine that trees grow. The trees need this thought, this mental activity to grow as well as the seed. So that dependent arising doesn’t have these mixed causes, so that a tree can grow in dependence upon the seed, of course the seed and also dependence upon the water and the nutrients in the soil and the soil itself.
But these sort of immediate things which give rise to the tree, there’s no need for an additional thought energy. So that’s actually refuting it. And it’s more profound And it’s refuting at another school of philosophy. Yeah, I think what the thought that they’re refuting here is the intention that a tree will grow. It’s like, let there be an oak tree or something.
There must be an oak tree. An oak tree, its growth depends upon that. They don’t say. They didn’t say which particular school. Some people say that things grow from a preceding thought.
karma is not like the intention, the thought, let it be like this. I don’t think actually, I don’t I’m not sure how all things come from karma. Anyway, that certainly needs more clarification. The next profound thing about dependent arising is their impermanence, the fact that they are changing moment by moment. That’s certain nuts.
That doesn’t cover all dependent arisings, but at least those ones with your body and mind, they change moment by moment. This is very profound because they don’t seem to change moment by moment. The cup doesn’t seem to change moment by moment. The mind, we’re not aware of this momentary change. So, let’s look at certain ways of dependent arising.
I mentioned the arising of a tree or a plant from the seed. That’s one way you can see it’s sort of fairly easy in that way. A tree is always dependent upon the seed or the cutting, whatever came before it and grew into that. It’s dependent in that way. Things can also be dependent upon each other by comparison.
Like, a shape which is long is only long in comparison to another shape which is short, isn’t it? We can only call this long because we’re comparing it with this one which is short. Because this long one can then be called short when we compare it with this one, which is long. Long and short are completely dependent upon each other by comparison. High and low, big and small, things like that.
So they’re dependent. Even the permanent things are dependent on arising, like space. Space is dependent upon its parts because the space is sort of all pervasive. We can also say that from this point of view, then there is the space in the east and the space in the north, space in the west and space in the south. It has different parts and it’s dependent upon those.
It’s even dependent upon the mind which labels space. And emptiness, another permanent phenomenon. The emptiness of the cup is dependent on the existence of the cup. If we break the cup, then the emptiness of the cup, this lack of inherent existence of the cup, sort of can’t talk about it because there’s no object anymore lacking inherent existence. So it’s it’s dependent in that way.
So, these are different ways of looking at dependent arising. And, We’re going to be talking about the wheel of life. I think there are probably copies for everybody to look dependent arising of the different realms of rebirth that we can be born into. There’s a lot of symbolism contained within this diagram. There’s a bigger one we have here, so we’ll go into that after lunch.
Is there anything that you want to talk about or or discuss? Yeah. This explanation, can do it generally to explain the meaning of each of the things and then we can go into it in greater detail. Apparently, during the time of the Buddha there were two disciples called Śāriputra and Maudgalyayāna or something, who were two of the Buddha’s favorite or best disciples. These two went through their psychic power, through their meditation they gained clairvoyant powers.
They were able to travel around the universe and perceive beings living in other realms that human beings are not normally aware of. They came back and they used to report what they’d seen to different people, to to the other monks and the nuns and people around. Somebody said to Buddha, Ānanda, who’s Buddha’s closest disciple, maybe a little bit jealous, Hey, have you heard what these guys are saying? He reported it to Buddha that they were saying all this. Buddha said, Well, that’s a very good thing.
They’re two highly skilled disciples and what they see is true and it should be illustrated and it should be made available to everybody. So, it was really from the Buddha’s instruction that the first wheel of life was drawn, was a depiction of these other realms of possible rebirth existence in order to elucidate for others just what it was all about. They did that, and then it became customary to draw this wheel of life on the temples of all the Buddhist temples. There There’s always this sort of depiction here would be on the doors. Buddha said it is good to have it there and it’s good to have a monk sitting nearby so that he can answer questions to pilgrims and to people would come and visit and they’d look at him and see him and he should explain it.
It has evolved now. I think the earliest record I don’t know much about history, but the earliest records of the wheel of life go back a long way back into before Buddhism, certainly before it even went to to Tibet. There were depictions of this sort of thing. And it was probably more simple then, and now it’s sort of a little bit more complicated. But it’s a very clear way of explaining the important points in the wheel of life.
Now, if we start in the center, you can see in the print that you have, there’s a pig and a snake and a rooster and they’re all sort of holding each other’s tails in their mouth making a circle. This is like the very hub of the wheel of life and they symbolize the three mental factors or states of mind called ignorance, hatred and attachment. The pig symbolizes ignorance. The snake, hatred or aggression. The rooster symbolizes attachment, grasping attachment, state of mind, longing desire, if you like.
According to Geshe Tegchok, the actual depiction should be the pig should be there in the middle and the tail of the snake and the tail of the rooster should be in his mouth. But here they’re sort of in a circle, but it shouldn’t be like that. Properly done. There’s the pig which represents ignorance and ignorance is the root, the very hub of our wheel of life. All of the whole universe as we know it has evolved out of ignorance and the minds of the sentient beings who live in it.
Ignorance is really the root. From ignorance, symbolized by the pig holding the tails of the snake and the rooster in his mouth, from ignorance arise hatred and attachment. Also, Geshe Tekchok says that it shouldn’t be a rooster, should be some type of pigeon. I’m not sure why. Our translator is notorious with animals and birds.
He just does not know Western names for animals and birds. It could be a pigeon, it could be anything, but it’s definitely not a male fowl. It’s drawn everywhere as a rooster. Anyway, it doesn’t matter so much. Ignorance is the ignorance.
There are different aspects to ignorance. There’s just the state of mind of not knowing, not being aware, this darkness, this foggy blankness of not being aware of reality. There’s also the state of mind sort of conceiving I, conceiving self, and grasping at this conception of me wrong conception of self because the self that’s conceived is inherently existing, so it’s mistaken. There’s also a grasping feeling at the conception of self, at me. So that also is termed ignorance.
There’s also ignorance which is the state of mind which denies cause and effect. It denies karma, denies rebirth, and it’s completely antagonistic towards the reality of reincarnation and the law of cause and effect. There are different aspects to ignorance just ranging from the very simple not knowing to wrong conceptions. So from those three, then all of our actions evolve. Actions, remember, are karma.
And so, when our actions are dominated by those three, then they create the karma to be reborn within the wheel of life. When we create actions which are so called non virtuous in as much as they bring about suffering and pain in the minds of others, or they are actions which destroy religious things, statues, texts, temples, stupas, are used in order to benefit others, then indirectly they’re harming others because they’re removing the chances for them to benefit their minds. So, from those non virtuous actions One creates karma for suffering, in a suffering realm called the three lower realms. There are six realms altogether. Three lower and three upper realms.
The so called three lower realms are realms of greater pain and misery. The three upper realms there is a predominance of happiness and pleasure. So with non virtue you are then reborn in the three lower realms. And with virtuous karma, which is actions performed you know, which are benevolent towards others and bring about others happiness, one creates karma, for rebirth in the three upper realms. So I’ll go into the types of karma more later on.
Just going in general. Now, the next ring out on the colored one you can see half of it’s black and half of it’s white. This symbolizes or shows the Bardo realm. Now, the Bardo realm is not really a realm of rebirth. There’s an intermediate state between this life and the next life.
And it’s when we die, our body sort of is left behind. It it decomposes and is left behind, but the mind continues. And the mind is like a stream of consciousness. It’s flowing. It leaves this body, and immediately it takes up an intermediate state body or a Bardo body, which is very This body is like subtle form.
It’s not gross form like the tables and the external objects. It’s more subtle like light. But it is a body and it has the five senses: eyes, ears, nose, touch and taste. And it’s aware of its environment through its senses. This Bardo being, according to the ripening of karma, it can either be a very terrifying existence or it can be more pleasant.
It sort of wanders in this in between state until it comes across the right situation if it takes its rebirth, according to its karma which has already been determined where it will be reborn. So, the dark side and the being sort of heading downwards or being pulled downwards by this wrathful being at the bottom, bottom. They have created non virtuous karma and they’re destined for rebirth in one of the three lower realms. On the other side, the white side, you can see the Bardo beings look more pleasant. They’re being led by a godlike person towards the upper realms, the three upper realms one of the three upper realms according to their karma.
If there are any questions as we go through them. Yeah. Yeah. There is definite link. Definitely.
Because the the karma which is going to throw us into the next life is the karma which is nourished and which ripens at the last moment of gross consciousness before we die. So that last moment of clear consciousness will will nourish a certain karma for rebirth. Then we die, and then we go into an intermediate state. Our rebirth is determined already. It can’t change.
The Bardo being is in the shape of its future life. If it’s to be human, it’s said that it’s going to be like a seven year old child, like the size of a seven year old child in human aspect. If it’s going be an animal, it’ll be like a small animal in the aspect of the animal. Now, that Bardo being can perceive other Bardo beings.
It can also perceive this environment. It can see the dead body that it came from and all the relatives crying and standing around saying, Don’t die. But because of this real great separation at death, although it ceases and it was only a few moments ago that it was in that body, there is a separation. It’s so that in general it doesn’t sort of recognize that that’s me and that’s my family. Depending, there can be some recognition and some feeling of wanting to go back and some sorrow, depending upon the karmic situation.
And then so this intermediate state being then different things happen to it according to its karma. If it’s sort of heavy karma, it’s like being caught in a very frightening world, and it’s like a nightmare. Very much like a nightmare. Strange events happen, like winds come up from nowhere and blow it uncontrollably blow it along, floods come and wash it away, it’s caught in fire. It can be very terrifying, it rushes seeking shelter.
Actually, energy of rushing to seek shelter is the energy which is going to take it out of the bardo into its next life. Yeah. Yeah. I would say if it’s bad if it’s a non virtuous kind of in the lower realms. Like, if it’s gonna be well, I’ll just If it’s going to be a high rebirth, can be like you see a beautiful house, beautiful mansion, and then you go up and you enter the door, have this beautiful mansion, it’s somewhere nice to go.
You go there with pleasure and it’s like entering the womb of your mother or being reborn as a god, as a new worldly god. There are some god realms where there’s no intermediate state where you go straight into it, We won’t worry about that. Right. Right. Those last few minutes can completely undo everything you’ve done in your life.
Well, not undo in as much as negate the things that have been done. Because all of the karmic seeds that we’ve collected are retained in the mind stream like as seeds. Now, they won’t be lost. We might have led a really bad life and created a whole lot of negative seeds, But they’re there in the mind stream. We’ve done some good acts.
If we die in a very positive state of mind, we have a lot of regret for having been negative. We really do have very positive attitude of loving kindness for others. That those attitudes of loving kindness are not grasping at the self and not not angry. That positive mind will allow a positive karmic seed to ripen. So even though you have a huge weight of negative karma, because at that critical moment of your positive mind, you will gain a positive like a rebirth in one of the three higher realms.
But still, you carry with you all of those negative seeds. You haven’t lost them, and they’re with your mind in the next life. So, the next time you die it might be different. Then you’ve got all of these negative seeds waiting to arrive and they’re very strong. It doesn’t negate it, it just suppresses it for a little while.
And the other way too, if you have accumulated you’ve led a very good life and accumulated a huge amount of positive karmic seeds, but you die in a very somehow you get angry, know, very upset and grasping at yourself. And when you die, then a negative state, you might have just a stormy, you know, that karma will ripen. So you have to experience a life in the lower until that seed is worn out. Then there’s a chance that you can come up out of the lower realm with the higher realm. Gives you the opportunity to this is how hell beings can really be born in, again, as humans or as gods.
We’ll we’ll get more of the picture. Oh, right. Right. Right. Right.
No. Through their clairvoyance they were able to perceive these other realms. They can also perceive Bardo beings but they’re not in the Bardo realm. Perceive them, yeah. Well, I think it is.
Yeah. Not just the Bardo beings. Maybe not the Bardo beings at all, but not just in that realm, but in the other realms. Yeah. Yeah.
No. I mean, if one can, I mean, I think it’d be terrific? If I really saw the sorts of sufferings that are explained, I think I would adjust my actions quite strongly. Yeah. But you have to attain single-pointed concentration, or you can do it, to be able to do that.
I think Yeah. To personally experience it is big. There are stories actually of the Buddha where One of his disciples, he’s a monk, he’d become a monk, but he’d been married before and he was incredibly attached to his wife and he kept running away from the monastery to go back to live with his wife. Buddha instructed one of his disciples through his clairvoyant power to show this monk to show him the god realms. He was shown the god realms and he saw how incredibly beautiful the women were in the god realm.
He completely lost all his attachment to his wife. He was motivated then to practice Dharma. Another one who was in the opposite way was shown the hell realms. They also, through incredible fear, were motivated to practice to avoid doing actions. The Bardo state is really interesting.
There are different experiences according to the different properties of karma. Well, there’s a maximum period of time. A maximum period of time is forty nine days. Within that forty nine days there’s periods of seven times seven, right? For seven days you sort of wander.
If you’ve come to the right karmic situation is there for you to be reborn, then you leave the Bardo realm, you sort of die from it, and you enter the womb of your mother, and the next life is begun. If it doesn’t happen after seven days, then the Bardo being sort of dies and is reborn again in the Bardo instantly. It is said in the text that after forty nine days, which is seven repetitions of this, one will definitely have found one’s next life. Yeah. Well, Tibetans do actually.
They do seven days after a person dies. Every seven days they do prayers and then on the forty ninth they do a big Well, that’s a good question because within the Wheel of Life there is the experience of the passage of time being very subjective. I think this particular description is the days we know, yeah, because it’s sort of days of our time. But definitely. Right.
Well, yeah, it’s true. I think it’s a valid point, very valid to make. When we talk about the other realms, there’s a great difference in the duration of time and days. I think this teaching was given by the Buddha when days were twenty four hours. It’s given for us to just understand what happens.
I think we can take it as being our time. The Bardo being, it’s not like there is the sun and the moon and the stars and the earth. It’s very much a dream. Very much like a dream. Whereas in dreams anything can happen.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that’s there and the intermediate. Then around are shown the six realms of possible rebirth, and there are six major realms where we can be reborn in.
Right? One of them is divided in two. Yeah, the one on the top between ten o’clock and twelve o’clock is actually two. And then there’s six. They do show only five, but that’s okay.
So, these are the six realms where we can be reborn and which we have been reborn in since the beginningless time in previous lives. There is never ever a first time when we began to take rebirth. Before this life was a previous life, before that life a previous one, and on and on and on, right back without ever there being a first time. So, each of us has experienced rebirth in each of these realms, countless times in the past. Everywhere we’ve been in the universe, we’ve been to the highest, most pleasurable places and the lowest, most painful places without beginning.
What are they then on the right? Let’s see, between twelve o’clock and two o’clock on this one depicted the human realm. You see there’s a man who’s plowing a field, whipping his oxen, and others are in houses where they’re studying and learning. There’s an old man with a stick during old age. On the right there’s somebody carrying a dead body wrapped up on the back, shows death.
I think one of those houses on the left shows a woman giving birth to a baby. Anyway, these are the things that humans experience: birth, growing up, working in the fields, growing old and dying. That’s sort of the human existence. And up above, I think, are monks. It’s a monastery and there are monks who are studying and debating.
That’s religious activities and form of monasticism is a very human thing. Then on the left, between eight and ten is the animal realm, the animals on the land and the animals in the ocean and the animals in the sky. That’s another realm, the possible rebirth. All the different types of animal, from small microscopic creatures in the water to birds, humans not humans, birds and things in the sky. There animals which we’re not normally aware of, such as garudas and nagas.
Nagas are like dragons or serpent like creatures who live or like mermaids, actually, and mermen who live in water. These are said to be real forms of existence on a more subtle plane than most animals and most humans. But they’re said to be there. So we can understand about humans and animals. We know we’re acquainted with them.
There are actually different types of human rebirth, but we won’t go into that. Like really different environments. Some humans are reborn in worlds where the lifespan is definite and where there’s very little unhappiness. There’s no need to cultivate the fields. All the food grows and trees and crops grow.
People just spend all their time pleasantly enjoying the forest that they live in and playing music. There is no possessiveness. Everything is shared. Even there is no mating. People want to cohabit.
They just go and sit under a tree. It says if the tree shades them, then they can indulge in intercourse. If the tree doesn’t shade them, then they just go away. But it’s all very peaceful and very blissful, and so there’s no wars. That’s one of the other types of human realm.
There are four main types of human realm. What does that do in other planets? In Buddhism, there’s life throughout the universe. There is human type existence on other planets, as well as like even on what we would think would life as planets like the moon and even the sun. There are life forms, but obviously very different to life as we know.
But there is a sentient existence there. We’re on the sort of segments in the middle now. The outer ring is the twelve links which is really what we’re building up to. You got them there? They’ve got the line in the middle and obviously Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
You can see the difference. They don’t have any kangaroos. There’s one Tibetan I don’t think he’s a lama, I think he’s a layperson. He’s highly renowned for his astrology and his ability to tell people about their previous lives. So a lot of Westerners go to check out, What was previous life.
Usually they were animals and there were always monkeys or elephants or horses or insects. One guy from Melbourne was very skeptical. There’s never any kangaroos or koala bears. So those realms we’re familiar with. On the right at three there’s all those beings with big bellies.
This is called the Hungry Ghost Realm. The animals is the first of the three lower realms. It’s considered a realm of suffering because in general animals suffer from extremes of heat and cold and from hunger and thirst. They suffer from killing each other and from being hunted and slaughtered by humans and subjected to work by humans. It’s generally not a very happy rebirth in the animals.
It’s the lightest of the three lower realms, but it is said to be a realm of suffering. Non virtuous karma leads to a rebirth in the animal realm. Now, ghost realm or hungry ghost realm on the other side is even more intensely suffering. That’s the second of the three realms. So these beings, they share our environment.
They’re actually sort of all around us, but karmically we’re not aware of most of