©2024 The Ringu Tulku Archive
In these verses we are looking at the result of examining the experience of feeling and the impossibility of a sensation resulting simultaneous to a meeting of the sense and the sense object.
It has been previously explained through analysis that an event is only ever cognized after it has happened, resulting in the event – that is, the meeting of subject, object and response – is only ever recollected as a memory, of a moment to moment, linear series of actions, which we impute to be happening at the same time because it happens so quickly: so there is always a moment of cognition that precedes conscious engagement, followed by a judgement.
As well as this, it has already been explained in previous verses that there is no subject, no object, and nothing we can call sensation, meaning that all experience is illusory and so every feeling or response that follows is also illusory.
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.
The previous verses, 89-92, looked at the nature of feeling, and the role of imputation in our interpretation of what is experienced. The next four verses here summarised and discussed by Ringu Tulku look into the cause of feeling: here again using mindful analysis he breaks down in detail the habit of constructing a feeling sensation into something solid. Shantideva’s line of thinking examines three aspects––a sense organ, an object, and consciousness––that are said to come together to create feeling or sensation, and he discusses the widely held belief in part-less particles that philosophers purport to be the basis of the meeting of a sense and an object.
Shantideva dismisses the argument that the sense perception and its object can come together to form something else, and arrives at the conclusion that in truth it is not possible for that to happen. He explains that feeling is a mental construct, rather than an actual event, and it is this habit we have of continually forming constructs and judgements that perpetuate samsaric existence.
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.
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.
Continuing on the topic of the Four Mindfulnesses, of the body, feeling, mind, and all phenomena, the next verses examine mindfulness of feeling and describe how our thoughts will override a feeling through imputation. For example, Rinpoche says the quality of a sad thought can change when a joyful event is experienced, and he asks where the sad thought gone to? Is it still there? And when the joy diminishes, why does the sadness return? Any feelings of joy, sadness, suffering are a mental response to circumstances, thoughts or occurrences; they are not solid because they subside and change as the outer or inner experience changes.
The antidote to living at the mercy of ones’ feelings is through meditation and analysis; by examining the thought process that creates feelings and makes them solid, we can train the mind to change the dynamic.
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 18th July. 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.
Continuing the verses on the Four Mindfulnesses, Ringu Tulku revisits mindfulness of the body, impressing upon us the importance of seeing the way we habitually experience the body and other material objects as relatively real and solid, and they show how through analysis we can see it is dependent on so many influences. Through analysis we come to recognise that it is not a solid entity, but an interdependent and ever changing flow of causes and conditions. Our analysis will reveal the true nature of reality. This experiential understanding is the basis of wisdom.
The second mindfulness practice is the mindful analysis of feeling. If we examine feelings of suffering, pain and pleasure using the same method as before, examining the causes that lead to the felt experience of joy or sadness, we can see that it is not a fixed, permanent experience and that it changes all the time. Gaining this insight into the nature of feeling is also a factor in developing wisdom.
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 18th July. 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 last session, Ringu Tulku delivered the verses refuting a solid self––including an instruction on the necessity for developing compassion, which were essentially the subject of the first teaching of the Buddha. Once we have understood the importance of understanding the selflessness of what we call “I”, in parallel with developing a compassionate outlook, we can then extend that to examining the emptiness of all phenomena. We do this through what are called The Four Mindfulnesses: mindfulness of body, feeling, mind, and all phenomena. The practice can help alleviate fear and is a form of analytic vipassyana.
The next 10 verses show how we do this through examining the physical body in such a way that the component parts can be broken down to the extent that in the final analysis there is nothing to be identified with; we are shown that what we call “body” is simply the sum of its parts, an interdependent entity. This is intellectually not so difficult to understand, however it is important to really truly investigate through meditation in order to have some experience––and when we have that experience, even gender has no solid basis.
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 18th July. 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.
On the basis of previous discussions and refutations on the non-existence of a solid self, we come to the next logical debate, which broaches the question of why there is any need for compassion when nothing is real? Who or what becomes enlightened if there is no self, and no other? This leads us into another conundrum: we have previously been told that compassion for others and the wish to relieve them from suffering is the way to go, but conversely here, Shantideva says that any goal or wish to bring other beings to enlightenment is in itself wrong view and should be abandoned. – So where does that leave us?
Ultimately, enlightenment doesn’t exist, any more than samsara does, but because of the deluded belief that it does, those who believe in the existence of a self will suffer in their striving to be happy. Compassion is therefore necessary because through it we can show that by practising meditation and following the path beings may develop a profound understanding of the illusory nature of phenomena.
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 18th July. 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.
The text continues to examine self as truly existing using various metaphors to illustrate the workings of karma. In these verses we learn how causes and conditions create karma and why action and result cannot arise simultaneously. Rinpoche uses the metaphor of a flower always manifesting from a seed which blossoms and then produces more seeds, there is always a sequential element. Using a similar metaphor to explain karma ripening in a future life even when the body, speech and mind that created the action has died, it is said the result can only be experienced in the same continuum – in the same way a seed sown in one place will only grow in that place – it cannot blossom elsewhere.
When we can see that atma or self is not a single solid entity we can free ourselves of the karma that perpetuates samsaric existence. The continuum will now take the form of wisdom.
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 4th July. 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 two verses provide a very short overview of the Vaisheshika Philosophy, one of the six dominant vedic systems of thought that have informed aspects of Hinduism over millennia. Rinpoche explains that it has been an important school of thought and here gives us an example of the Vaisheshika approach to establishing what the essence of consciousness or atma is, while at the same time we are given Shantideva’s refutation which argues for something beyond consciousness and the existence of the two truths, the relative and ultimate, and he makes clear the impossibility of a permanent unchanging state of consciousness.
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 4th July. 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 chapter 9 verses 62-67 Shantideva is returning to a form of dialogue to examine consciousness, asking if it can be a permanent singular entity. Is hearing consciousness active only when there is a sound? Or does hearing consciousness exist even when there is no sound? He asks if the same consciousness that hears a sound is also the same as the consciousness that sees an object, and presents the examples of a father, who is also a son, and asks can he be both at the same time? Or an actor who plays the role of one person then later changes roles. He points to the continuous flow of activity that is always changing, and that in essence the person of the actor remains constant.
The point here is that sense consciousness is constant and continuously responding to stimuli, so it is not a permanent, fixed thing.
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 4th July. 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.
A new hypothetical conversation is now begun between Shantideva and an adherent of Samkhya, an important Philosophical School in India who believe in the continuum of consciousness and of Atman, or self existence. In these next two verses Shantideva sets forth to demonstrate that the reasoning used to promote this philosophical stance cannot hold, because perception of a sound or feeling is always in response to an object appearing, causing awareness of sound to arise. Awareness is constantly changing and responding and can even be aware of many objects as they appear moment by moment, this illustrates that there is constant change, not continuum.
If the relationship between conscious awareness and a sense object were a continuum, sound would be heard until the cause and condition––the sense object––disappears, when awareness would also cease. For this reason, Buddhists argue that conscious awareness cannot be a continuum dependent on causes and conditions.
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 4th July. 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.
The dialogues have now ended, and an examination of the source of “I” begins. Here Rinpoche explains how we can explore the emptiness of self, which we habitually view as independent, demonstrating how this way of thinking is the root of all suffering. We are, in these following verses, required to examine our physical body and investigate whether or not it truly can be called “I” or “me.” When I hold my body or my body parts as solid, I feel protective and fearful of their being damaged, I become anxious at losing them and my energy is spent trying to keep them safe, and so “I” retain the sense of “myself.” But this is a mistake and will not free us from suffering, because this fearful holding on is actually the source of our suffering.
This, Rinpoche tells us, might be easy to understand intellectually, but experientially it is harder. If someone berates or demeans us we cut that person off and isolate ourselves, nursing our bruised ego, but this behaviour is not the path to freedom. The path to freedom is first recognising that there is no self to feel harm, be angry or anxious about, so we begin the journey by investigating the notion of “I.”
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 20th June. 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 the Shravakayana argument points to the difference between the Pali sutras which are held to be the perfect words of the Buddha, and the Mahayana path which they say strays from his original teachings, and have no foundation in the sutras. It is explained in this way: the Buddha taught directly to those who sat in front of him, according to their capacities. Some received simple instruction and others more elaborated lessons, but there was never a contradiction, one set of teachings was built on the previous ones.
The Mahayana schools evolved through more complex understandings and therefore include and elaborate on the Shravakayana teachings, nothing is lost, but the terminology used and the explanations given bring a fuller understanding of emptiness not only of self, but of all phenomena. Thus when the Mahayana teachings which explain the way of the bodhisattva become integrated, the kleshas are set free; true compassion naturally arises as a result of fully realising the nature of self and all phenomena as 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 20th June. 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.
©2024 The Ringu Tulku Archive