Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. This 16-minute talk draws on a vivid analogy to explore how ignorance obscures our understanding of reality. Rinpoche begins with impermanence: all compounded phenomena are newly created moment by moment. He then turns to consciousness itself—beginningless and continuing without end through Buddhahood—and distinguishes faulty consciousnesses from pure ones. Ignorance sits at the center of his analysis: not created but eternally present, it prevents us from seeing emptiness, the true nature of objects. Through the analogy of darkness in a room, he shows how wisdom—arising from listening, reflecting, and meditating—acts as light that dispels ignorance. He closes with encouragement that Dharma seeds planted during retreat practice will illuminate all future study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 5A – 1991 Easter Retreat – KR.mp3
UUID: 174e1b92-c6e8-4a4c-926f-543f9fa10bd8
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Wheel of Life
Date: 1991 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~496
This transcript was generated using AI speech recognition and has been reviewed for Buddhist terminology accuracy. Some inaccuracies may remain. Please refer to the original audio recording as the authoritative source.
# Wheel of Life 5a 1991- Easter Retreat **Collection:** Rinpoche Recordings — Retreats and Workshops **Duration:** 16.0 minutes **Words:** 500 **Model:** Deepgram Nova-3 **Corrections applied:** 2 **Transcribed:** 2026-02-27 22:07 — Karma but under the force of compassion. All compounded phenomena are newly created. Houses, people, consciousnesses are all newly created. The house that was here at 01:00 at 02:00 is…
Read full transcript
# Wheel of Life 5a 1991- Easter Retreat
**Collection:** Rinpoche Recordings — Retreats and Workshops
**Duration:** 16.0 minutes
**Words:** 500
**Model:** Deepgram Nova-3
**Corrections applied:** 2
**Transcribed:** 2026-02-27 22:07
—
Karma but under the force of compassion. All compounded phenomena are newly created. Houses, people, consciousnesses are all newly created. The house that was here at 01:00 at 02:00 is no longer present. It’s a new house at 02:00.
The continuum of the consciousness. Is there a time when the continuum of the consciousness was first? So, there’s no beginning to the continuum of consciousness. But when you talk about the end of it, there are many ways of interpreting it. Kind of interpretation do you want to talk about?
In general there’s no end to the continuity. It just, you know, the continuum of the consciousness continues on tomorrow, the next day before we enter the path, having entered the path up to and through Buddhahood. It continues without end. So, you know, we can talk about two types of consciousness in general: the faulty types of consciousness and pure types of consciousnesses. And the, for example, the wisdom understanding emptiness is able to destroy the faulty type of consciousnesses and able to foster the pure consciousnesses which will continue on to Buddhahood.
The. Have you That’s the that’s the reason that ignorance exists. So ignorance acts as an obscuration which prevents us from seeing emptiness. By seeing emptiness, then the obscuration is removed. There’s no more ignorance.
Ignorance acts as an obscuration, a hindrance to seeing emptiness. When you see emptiness, the hindrance is removed. The ignorance is removed. So you’re saying is the so there’s no the ignorance within each of our mind is beginningless. Didn’t have a beginning.
What is Right. Explain explain to me what you mean. That’s right. I mean without ignorance there’s no enlightenment. So, without ignorance there’s no Buddha nature.
There’s no potential to achieve Buddhism. We were walking into a room and it was dark, and there was no light on. And we, due to this obscuration of darkness, we aren’t able to look around and see all the objects in the room. We don’t know what the situation of the room due to this obscuration of darkness. So, ignorance acts in the same way that we aren’t able to see the nature of objects, their final reality, their emptiness due to this obscuration of ignorance.
Prevents us from seeing the way things are. If we bring a we bring a light, if we carry a light into the room, then we can easily see all the objects in the room. And in this analogy that the light that we can bring into the room is the wisdom arising out of listening, reflecting, and meditating. And by this means that the darkness, the obscuration of ignorance which prevents us from seeing emptiness is eliminated. So, I appreciate very much the meditation weekend that you’ve spent and you’ve impressed a great deal of latencies of Dharma on your mind streams.
And when in the future when you listen to the Dharma again, everything will be illuminated for you.