Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche unpacks the fourth through ninth links of the Wheel of Life, exploring how name and form, the sense faculties, contact, and feeling arise in dependent origination, then how craving and grasping drive rebirth. He illustrates each link with vivid imagery: fully constructed buildings, a man and woman embracing, an arrow piercing the head, a man feasting, a monkey reaching for fruit. A key insight emerges through a Prime Minister and President metaphor: while ignorance is the root cause of cyclic existence, craving and desire actually compel rebirth. The session closes with a Q&A on karmic rebirth, featuring striking examples of beings reborn as mortars, trees, and insects according to their actions. Pitched at practitioners already familiar with the Wheel of Life.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2B – 1991 Easter Retreat – KR.mp3
UUID: f820ce53-92a3-4448-af11-7bdb7c31fb6b
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Wheel of Life
Date: 1991 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~1,760
So the this fourth link of dependent origination, name and form, is the first of the results. Then the fifth link of dependent So name and form represents the aggregate of the union of the sperm and egg and the eventual five aggregates of the being. That combination, that collection of these elements is the sperm and egg from the parents and then that which will eventually, eventuate into the five aggregates, that combination is referred to as name and form. The first of the results. The second result is that once this has totally eventuated into the five aggregates that all the various faculties such as the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, bodily faculties are complete.
Then this is depicted by the buildings which have been completely erected. They’re solid, they’re concrete, and this is the second of the four results. The fifth dependent link is called the Sixth Sense Faculties. So there are six sense faculties. There is a sense that there is the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mental sense faculties.
Then the next link of dependent origination is the link of contact. So at the fifth link we developed the complete set of six sense faculties. Now, when for example, is the basic, using illustration the flower, eye sense faculty, and when these two come in conjunction with a consciousness, that is to say these three factors together, meet, that is the contact, an eye sense consciousness perceiving the flower arises. We have a consciousness, an eye sense faculty, and a flower. When these come together, then an eye sense consciousness perceiving the flower comes into existence.
If we didn’t have any of these three, then an eye sense consciousness perceiving the flower could not come into being. If we didn’t have a flower, or if we didn’t have an eye sense faculty, or if we didn’t have consciousness, then this could not arise. So, of the six each of the six sense faculties has their particular sensory object. For example, the eye sense faculty has as its object visual forms. Ear sense faculty sounds, the nose, odors, tongue, flavors, body, objects of touch, and the mental sense faculty phenomena.
Now, when these six sense faculties, either of these six sense faculties, there are six objects and a consciousness come into contact together, then a particular consciousness will arise. So they have to come in contact just like when we put the hand. We touch our cloth, we touch our leg, we make contact. These three factors come together, then a particular consciousness will arise. And this is why this sixth dependent link is called contact.
They are coming together of these three elements. And this is illustrated by a man and woman embracing, making contact. Even while the baby is in the womb, it experiences bodily feelings. If the mother were to drink hot tea, then the child feels a burning sensation. If the mother drinks cold water, for example, then the baby feels cold feelings.
So, even while it’s in the womb, the baby experiences bodily feelings. So, various feelings which arise from the there is a displeasurable feeling arises from the heat and cold, but there is a pleasurable feeling that arises when there is a comfortable temperature. These are all simply various examples of feelings of pleasure and pain, pleasure and displeasure. So the link of feelings, the seventh link is depicted, is illustrated by a man who has been shot in the head with an arrow which symbolizes the feeling of suffering. Seven.
Seven. So these last four links, fourth link, name and form, the fifth link, sixth sense faculties, the sixth link, contact, and the seventh link, feeling are the four results which occur during the present life? Present life. On the basis of the various types of feelings, the various types of afflictive emotions arise. On the basis of pleasant feelings, we develop attachment.
We seek to immediately gratify the gaining of that object which is associated with the present feelings. In dependence upon un displeasurable feelings, we develop aversion the afflictive emotions wishes to avoid that object. In dependence upon neutral feelings, we develop confusion. So, and then The seventh link was feelings. In dependence upon feelings, cravings, craving arises, the eighth link of dependent origination.
For example, when we have present feelings in connection with various sense objects such as form, sounds, taste, smells, objects of touch, then we develop desirous craving wishing to appropriate these objects. On the other hand, when there is a displeasurable feeling arises in connection with these, we wish to be separated, to break off contact with these objects, and we develop what is repulsion craving, craving to be separated. Repulsion craving. Craving which wishes to repulse. Repulsion craving.
To avoid. Craving to avoid. That’s good. Craving to avoid. Avoidance craving, craving to avoid.
And then there is a third type of craving, which is craving for, for self, for the self of persons and self of phenomena. So this eighth link is called the link of craving and it is the same as craving also means desire. So this link of craving is being illustrated by this man who is indulging himself in all types of sensuous objects. He’s drinking, he’s eating yogurt. He’s having a feast.
So with the link of craving we begin the first of the causes bringing about future rebirth. So, if we were to ask what is it that forces us into taking Rebirth? It is this link of craving that is to say, in general we would say desire. In Dharmakīrti, in his text, his Commentary to Dignāgā’s Compendium of Prime Cognition says that the, in trying to establish the reason why rebirth is taken, says that the death consciousness will definitely take rebirth because there exists within that consciousness a craving for embodiment. It is through the power of this craving, the power of desire that one is forced to re embody.
Though, in general, we say that, that as was mentioned, basic ignorance is the, is fundamental cause of cyclic existence. It is the root of cyclic existence, but it is not directly involved in the taking of rebirth, in the rebirth. That which actually is the factor which is functioning in the taking of rebirth is craving, or that is to say, desire. It is through the force of desire that one continually takes rebirth. Analogy of this relationship would be in recently, not too many years ago, there was the, you know, there is the President of India, and then there’s the Prime Minister of India.
And the President is just simply a figurehead. It is the prime minister who does all the work. So the president is like ignorance, a figurehead, but that which carries out all the various governmental functions is desire. So They’re there are going to be three causes for the taking rebirth. The first one of which, the first of these rebirth causes is craving, which is the eighth link.
The ninth link is the second cause and is the link of grasping. And, during the course of our life we experience various types of feeling, both pleasurable and displeasurable feeling. Out of this, various afflictive emotions arise of attachment and aversion which causes to create various types of actions of karma, both skillful and unskillful. But, these karma are very much like seeds. They by themselves will not develop.
It’s like planting a seed in a field. Just that seed by itself will not grow. It needs a cooperative condition or some kind of assistance in order to activate its potency such as water. And without the water, the seed has a potency, it’s never going to be activated and it will never flourish. So here at the ninth link of grasping, the craving acts as the condition for the, to assist in the development of the potency of karmic seeds.
And at the ninth link, it is, the seed has been empowered. Potency has increased to the point where it’s just ready to give forth its fruit. So the eighth link acts as the necessary condition to empower the karmic seed which is then referred to as grasping. Grasping represents fully developed potency of the karmic seed. It is referred to as grasping.
And what is it grasping at? It is grasping at a future rebirth. And it is illustrated by a monkey climbing in a tree reaching for fruits. And these fruits are future aggregates, aggregates of a future state. Grasping for this.
So we we exhausted the time, but if you have a question. So there are some, in general trees don’t have mind. There are some trees are sentient beings. Are some very strange kinds of sentient beings. There’s one sentient being.
There was a case of mortar, mortar and pestle. This one boy, he got very angry at his mother. He said, Mother is no good. He wanted to smash her just like they pound chilies in a mortar with a pestle. And through the force of that he took rebirth as a mortar.
And there was another case of someone who burned a forest where there was a spiritual community was residing. And out of the result of this, Karma, he took rebirth as a tree. Another case of someone who burned trees, wood in which there were insects and they took they took rebirth as insects. And this person who burnt down that forest took rebirth as a tree. And those used the fire from that forest, the wood from that forest, his family, they took rebirth as insects which bored holes in the tree. So due to the force of our karma that we take embodiment, and this body is made up of the four elements, but we do not arise from the four elements.
Due to the force of our karma, have a rebirth karma, we take re-embodiment, and this body is made up of four elements, but we do not arise out of those four elements. Whereas the tree arises out of the four elements of earth, water, fire, and energy and wind. So, a tree simply grows out of the four elements, but we ourselves take birth out of the force of Karma. The tree does not have Karma. If if if we did not have karma and we if we simply arose out of the four elements, then we would be just like trees.