In these verses Rinpoche continues to explicate Shantideva’s refuting of the Samkhya philosophy, through arguing the stance of the Buddhist Madhyamika school. The Samkhya suggest that all we name as phenomena has the result or fruit within the seed or cause. However if that theory is explored, if we decide that the result already exists in the cause, we must deduce that everything is static, immovable unchanging, as well as that, they say, only the most learned are able to detect the fruit truly existing within the seed. It is not visible to ordinary deluded mind which is why we cant see it.
This Samkhya view doesn’t correlate with the Madhyamika philosophical understandings which are that all phenomena are interdependent and therefore empty, that they are continually evolving and changing and created by many causes and conditions arising from the coming together of the five elements; earth water fire air and space. The Samkhya argument that the Madhyamika view is just another concept is one with which Buddhists concur, but they also point out through examples that their teachings provide the possibility for the mind to think differently and be open to the truth of emptiness, which the understanding of interdependence and causes and conditions provides.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 9 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 19th September. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
The last session was the final session in the section on the diamond splinter debates that looked at the causes of arising phenomena. We now move to the next reasoning, which is on the nature of that phenomena.
Here the last two lines of 142 are returned to as Rinpoche goes back over the previous verse that states that within everything that exists, there is a dependent and interdependent aspect. If we examine deeply, using this logic, we gain understanding of interdependence and find its nature is emptiness. The sutras describe eight familiar but ephemeral forms to illustrate emptiness, one being a mirage, another being the morning dew.
Nagarjuna says there is nothing which is not interdependent, that nothing exists on its own, and the following two verses (143-144) continue to investigate causes and conditions to describe emptiness and interdependence. Here the emphasis is on the insubstantiality of an object we hold to be relatively truly existing, noting the eight examples to illustrate its ultimate nature, which is what we call empty.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 9 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 19th September. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
The third system of analysis: in this session, Rinpoche elucidates on the final stage of examining the truth of the philosophical view on cause and result through the three doors of liberation, focusing here on the analysis of the result.
Staying with the metaphor of a dream, here he unpicks the reasoning of certain schools, which argue that entities do not need a cause in order to truly exist and asks us to consider how can things arise from nothing, pointing to non-existence as an equally valid state. Here the text reminds us that our reasoning logical mind attempts to comprehend the existence of phenomena by ascribing a cause and as an example Rinpoche points to our creation of a God and creator in order to help us give meaning. He or she had no cause, but in the Christian mind always existed, however we have ascribed to that God the power to create without a cause.
Understanding the way our mind constructs these arguments to make sense of experience will point us to an understanding of the concept of emptiness.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 9 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 19th September. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
Shantideva’s explanation of emptiness was the subject of the previous verses, so here we have a new focus for our study: understanding how the eight worldly concerns monopolise and give perpetuity to samsaric existence. When we are able to bring forth a deep understanding of interdependence we will be less driven by profit, loss, fame, insignificance, blame, praise, joy and pain. We will feel less separated from those who wish to cause us harm. What we have perceived as problems become insignificant when equanimity, fearlessness, compassion arise naturally and with this understanding of emptiness and interdependence we no longer grasp at people, feelings and objects with attachment.
We ourselves, along with our relatives and friends, are all in a process of change, so by cultivating caring and nurturing relationships with the understanding of impermanence, we create the capacity within ourselves to let go and move on when things naturally come to an end and this will bring peace of mind.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 9 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 19th September. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
This LIVE Question and Answer Session with Rinpoche took place on:
The recorded video of the live session is now above. For the audio only version, and all the audio translations, visit the Chapter 9 page.
The next LIVE Question and Answer Session with Rinpoche will be:
See the LIVE Teaching Events page for more details.
Please join us for these bi-monthly live sessions with Rinpoche and ask your question live or send them in advance using the comments areas or forms on any of the Bodhicharyavatara teaching posts.
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These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
Having gained some understanding of emptiness, Rinpoche tells us, we experience benefits, and in this session he demonstrates clearly and unambiguously how we keep ourselves frantically trying to stay afloat in a sea with no shore, which in turn becomes an ocean of suffering. In the last session we were told that peace, fearlessness, and equanimity are the first benefits of recognising emptiness. Here the 2nd benefit––that of real lived compassion, is ascribed to those bodhisattvas who truly understand emptiness and interdependence.
Rinpoche elaborates here in the next verses which attribute the everlasting nature of samsara to not recognising that the endless pursuit of pleasures of the senses will only cause endless suffering. If we follow our basic instinct to indulge in sensual pleasures without recourse to those beings who are negatively affected by our behaviours, the only possible outcome is further suffering. This he says can only cause conflict, even as we cycle through any momentary periods of relief brought by previous karma. If we don’t use that window of opportunity to change our behaviour, we will fall once again, because we are ignorant of the true nature of things.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 9 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 3rd October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
In the next verses Rinpoche goes into detail how we let life slip by with distractions, even pointing to what we give most importance to, family, friends, livelihoods as a way of distracting ourselves from living life well in terms of dharma practise, and he emphasises again the problem of taking it easy when times are good, relaxing the training, and letting ourselves slide down a slippery slope, or worse, fall off a cliff into the ocean of suffering––which perpetuates samsaric existence. Life is, he says, always up and down, and until our awareness is fully cognisant of interdependence and emptiness, it will continue to be so. This personal transformation may be at odds with our usual habits, and requires diligence in our practise.
A genuine teacher, someone who is not overtly interested in his or her own self image is crucial, as is an understanding of using the dharma path itself, in the development of wisdom and compassion. According to the text, the genuine compassion of a bodhisattva recognises at a very deep level that happiness comes from understanding the true nature of emptiness and interdependence, and a being thus motivated will dedicate their life to help as many beings as possible to reach that understanding.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 9 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 3rd October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
We have been looking at the suffering of those who, because they are unable to understand the nature of emptiness and interdependence, endlessly swim in the ocean of samsaric existence, and we have seen how attachment to the eight worldly concerns perpetuates that. This situation is so normal to us, we don’t even realise we are suffering; we enjoy the little pleasures afforded to us and fail to see how this temporal happiness could be vastly expanded if we truly understood the experience of emptiness and interdependence. However Shantideva tells us even that understanding is not enough.
In this final teaching on the Wisdom chapter, he guides the student back to the Bodhisattva ideal: the ultimate goal is not only to cultivate our understanding of emptiness and interdependence for ourselves. Now we must develop the skilful means of compassionate action. This brings true merit because it goes beyond short-lived acts of kindness alone; it focuses on accomplishing the two accumulations of wisdom and compassion. The ultimate goal of a bodhisattva is to help all beings–regardless of their situation–to recognise that they have the power and means to free themselves from samsaric existence in a truly genuine and lasting way.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 9 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 3rd October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.