Lama Zopa Rinpoche walking during a puja break at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, November 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his video teachings on thought transformation from Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Here is a summary of the most recent teaching:

Lama Zopa Rinpoche begins this teaching reminding us that the real meaning of life is to not harm and to only benefit the numberless sentient beings. The best way to benefit them is to free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to full enlightenment by yourself alone. But to do that, you need to achieve the state of omniscience. To achieve that, you need to actualize the lamrim, the stages of the path to enlightenment. Therefore, with this motivation, you listen to the teachings.

Rinpoche then continues to debate with Ven. Tenzin Gache in a lively, humorous, and illuminating exchange! We highly encourage students to watch this video to receive the benefits of the entire discussion.

Subjects debated between Rinpoche and Ven. Gache throughout this teaching include:

• What makes a table a table?
• What makes a house a house?
• If a table or house is broken, is it still a table or house?
• Is a broken table a table as long as it can support something?
• Is it a house if it doesn’t have a door, a roof, or a certain number of walls?
• Can a chair or sentient being be a table?
• Does whether something is a table or not depend on individual concept?
• Since the parts of a chariot are not a chariot, nor are the pieces assembled together a chariot, how can the parts of a table be a table?

Rinpoche then continues translating and teaching on Phabongkha Rinpoche’s commentary on The Three Principal Aspects of the Path, beginning with a discussion on how things come into existence. For a thing to exist, Rinpoche explains, it must have a valid base and a valid mind labeling it.

If the existence of something can be harmed by another conventional valid mind, it does not exist. As an example, Phabongkha Rinpoche uses a pile of stones in the distance that someone mistakes for a person. Although the person believes it is a human being, if another person who has actually ascertained it to be a pile of stones says, “That is a pile of stones,” the previous apprehension of the pile of stones as a human being will completely fade away. This is a sign that it was not a valid base to be labeled a human being.

Then, using the example of a “rabbit with horns,” Phabongkha Rinpoche shows that in addition to a conventional valid mind labeling something, a valid base must exist for that thing to exist. Because there is no valid base for a rabbit with horns, a rabbit with horns does not exist.

Because things exist in dependence on the collection of their parts, they do not exist from their own side. As an example, Rinpoche explains that if an American president existed from their own side, they wouldn’t need to depend on the collection of parts that form a valid base to be labeled “president.” But in actuality, in order for a person to be president, they must be a valid base, in the sense of possessing the qualities that make them worthy of being a leader and then getting the most votes [in the US from the electoral college]. Only then can they be labeled “American president.”

Further, the I does not exist from the side of the body and mind. There is just the appearance of I that comes about by being merely imputed by sound and concept on the collection of parts that is the valid base to be labeled—one’s own mind.

Phabongkha Rinpoche then shows us how all phenomena come into existence in the same way, which is to say they all come into existence when they are labeled by name and concept. For example, when a house is built with three identical empty rooms, at first the rooms do not exist as the bedroom, kitchen, and so forth. Only after the owner of the house labels them “bedroom,” “kitchen,” and so forth, do we think, “This is the bedroom,” and it comes into existence. Hence, it is not enough for the base to be labeled—the collection of three rooms—to exist. For the bedroom and other rooms to come into existence they need to be labeled by name and concept.

Like the bedroom as an example, any phenomenon whatsoever is the labeled phenomenon, not the base to be labeled. Likewise, the conventional I is also merely labeled by concept. However, to us the I appears to exist from its own side as the one experiencing happiness, suffering, and so forth. The mind that holds the I to exist from its own side is the innate true grasping or the innate view of the perishable collection. The I that is held to exist from its own side is the self that is the object to be refuted.

Phabongkha Rinpoche then provides a useful summary of the points he has made, saying: (1) things are imputed by concept; (2) they necessarily depend on a base to be labeled and that which labels; (3) they arise in dependence on other conditions; (4) they do not exist from their own side.

Following this Rinpoche discusses the I that is the conceived object, which is the object to be refuted. This is the I that is not merely imputed in dependence on the body and mind, and instead exists from its own side on the body and mind. Likewise, when we mistake a coiled rope for a snake at dusk, the conceived object that is held to exist as it appears is the object to be refuted. Therefore, we need to be sure to refute the I that exists from its own side, not the conventionally appearing I nor the I that appears to exist from its own side.

When the I that exists from its own side without depending on the body and mind becomes nonexistent for you, you have found the Madhyamaka Prasangika’s view and the path that pleases the buddhas.

We invite you to go deeper into the topics presented here, plus many others, by watching Rinpoche’s video and reading the full transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching.

Watch Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching “What Makes a Table a Table?“:
https://youtu.be/knfevmdH1WE

• Read the transcript of Rinpoche’s teaching
• For more from Rinpoche on the object to be refuted, please see Recognizing the False I
• Find Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, and Russian
• Dedication verses for COVID-19 Crisis Teachings

Watch more from the video series Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19 and find links to videos in transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/

Practice advice from our teachers, Dharma study-from-home opportunities, and more can be found on the page “Resources for the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.