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.
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.
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.
If you would like to make an offering for translations, please click the links below:
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.
Staying with the Samkhya philosophical stance, that both cause and result co-exist as fixed entities within everything, the example given here is that sand cannot produce oil, because unless oil is already present in the sand, there is no process within the sand particles that will cause oil to appear if it is not already there. Shantideva once again refutes that view giving an example: if someone is eating delicious food, is the result––excrement––already in the food as a fixed, permanent thing? The food undergoes a series of processes as it is digested, which means that while excrement is not truly existing in the original mouthful taken, it is the act of eating that will always produce excrement. Thus it is dependent on other interrelated things and is not truly evidentially there in the food as it is eaten.
Rinpoche reminds us of the chicken and egg scenario, which comes first? This question cannot be definitively answered, because we can never see the fully grown chicken at the same time we first observe the egg which produces it, but we do know that the causes and conditions resulting in a chicken are within the egg, and that the hen is the cause of an egg.
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 5th 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.
We are continuing to look at the Samkhya philosophy which argues for the source of all manifestation arising as phenomena coming from one indivisible permanent molecule that has three qualities. These qualities or constituents are pain, pleasure, and neutrality. The Buddhist scholars however will argue that if an object has three aspects, it cannot be primary, permanent and unchanging. If an object does manifest three qualities that are not stable, it is mutable and therefore cannot be a primary or permanent cause of pleasure, pain or neutral sensation.
Here cloth is given as an example of a primal cause, which Samkhya philosophers maintain holds a quality of pleasure that is experienced through contact with it. However, it has already been imputed here that an object or a result arising out of causes and conditions can only have arisen from previous causes and conditions and do not rest solely with an independent entity. There is always an interactive agency. Nothing can manifest from a static permanent object. A sensation of pleasure, pain or otherwise from touching a cloth can only be a response, designated by the predisposition of what or who is making contact.
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 5th 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.
If you would like to make an offering for translations, please click the links below:
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.
Here we are introduced briefly to another ancient Indian school of philosophy, that of the Mimamsakhya. This non-theistic school, which shares some aspects of the Buddhist understandings leads, as Rinpoche says, to rigorous debates between adherents of the two schools. The Samkhya School believes everything is created from an infinitesimal particle that cannot be divided, but adherents also believe this primary particle it has three qualities. The Samkhya view is that when the three qualities – pleasure, pain and neutrality – become imbalanced, they interact create new life forms.
With his usual acuity, Shantideva breaks down the Samkhya argument with a systematic logic, showing that a primal substance cannot have more than one aspect and a particle––no matter how infinitesimal it is––having three aspects cannot be identified as a single primary unit.
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 after a summer pause on 29th August. 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.
Through a superior use of logic in the previous verses Shantideva has shown without doubt that nothing, no phenomena, arises without interrelated causes and conditions. Here he continues to challenge the Ishvara philosophical system that believes in an Omnipotent God who can choose to create––or not create, at will and without any interdependent cause or resulting effect.
Here he continues the argument against a permanent eternal and single cause for the existence of anything, material or otherwise, clearly exposing the Ishwara theistic philosophy that construes things as having no basis in causes and conditions, as being without substance.
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 after a summer pause on 29th August. 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 continues to debate the doctrine of emptiness. The previous verses revoked using spontaneous arising and a lack of permanence as a philosophical stance to justify a selfish attitude with no thought for others. In these next verses we are presented with the theistic view, held by Abrahamic religions, that emptiness is a permanent unchanging state that has been created by an Omniscient unchanging God. Again, these two arguments: of an impermanent cause and a permanent cause, are challenged and quashed by using the diamond splitter argument in a rigorous appraisal of causal potential and possibilities arising because of certain conditions.
Rinpoche reads from a commentary by Khenpo Kunpal to explain that phenomena arise out of a meeting of dynamic causes and conditions––the five elements–– and are not the result of a single external creator.
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 after a summer pause on 29th August. 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 are studying how the doctrine of emptiness can be established, using three types of reasoning or analysis: the cause of phenomena, the nature of phenomena and the resulting phenomena.
In the next two verses, Rinpoche gives an overview of the diamond splinter argument, also known as the vajra splinter, which destroys any illusion that phenomena doesn’t have a cause. It is logic that cuts through the hedonistic view of some early Indian philosophers that believed everything arose of its own volition with no cause; that the only goal in life should be one of selfish pleasure with no thought for others, somewhat akin to some current prevalent materialistic attitudes in the West.
The diamond splinter argument provides undeniable evidence that everything, all phenomena, has causes and conditions; here we return to the example of how a seed becomes a flower due to the power of preceding causes, elaborating on the explanations given in the previous verses.
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 after a summer pause on 29th August. 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 these next two verses, we continue the discussion on the truth of interdependent arising, returning once more to examining the interplay of causes, conditions and their result to establish that no phenomena and therefore consciousness––exists independent of ‘other,’ because if that were the case, all phenomena would be in stasis, nothing would change or evolve.
The text uses the example of a seed becoming a flower, and points out that without analysis there is no evidence of the flower’s causation––a seed––in its fruition, because if examined without that evidence, it appears to be an independent entity. However we can test the truth of cause, result and interdependence by planting a seed which in the right conditions grows into a plant that bears no evidence of its origins.
Rinpoche goes on to briefly describe the three ways of reasoning which examine the cause, the object and the result which together uphold the doctrine of emptiness and interdependence, as explained in the Madyamika treatises.
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 after a summer pause on 29th August. 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.
These stanzas begin the section on establishing the view of emptiness and refutation of the true existence of everything.
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 after a summer pause on 29th August. 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.
Next debate is on whether analysis and reasoning make any sense if both the analyzing mind and the object of that analysis are not truly existing.
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 after a summer pause on 29th August. 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.
Now we come to the investigation through debates, or questions and answers, on the view of selflessness discussed in the previous stanzas. First, if there is no birth, no existence etc. then what are the two truths for? If there is no relative truth, how can there be ultimate truth, which is said to be based on the relative truth?
Although absolutely there is no relative truth, nor even the absolute truth, or any concept whatsoever, yet as long as there are samsaric beings with their relative experience, the approach of the two truths is very useful and can help us understand more clearly how things really are. The two truths are not two different things. Everything is there only relatively but not in the absolute sense. It’s like having a dream at night and waking up and knowing the dream wasn’t really true.
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 after a summer pause on 29th August. 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.
Here we investigate the unborn nature of the mind, as well as all the phenomena. Although it seems like there is cause and result and thereby everything arises, remains for a time and then ceases, in the truest sense all this doesn’t really exist, it does not really happen. Everything is like that — like an illusion, like a rainbow, like a dream.
With these two stanzas, we’ve finished the section on the four mindfulnesses from the point of view of vipashyana or insight.
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 after a summer pause on 29th August. 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.
After finishing the section on the mindfulness of feeling in the last session, we now come to the third mindfulness, mindfulness of the mind, as we continue our investigation on the selflessness of the phenomena through analytical kind of insight meditation and reasoning.
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 after a summer pause on 29th August. 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.