Twelve Links of Dependent Arising

The next three links – eight, nine, and ten – are the causal links that actualize (bsgrub-byed-kyi yan-lag). They are what activate the karmic aftermath of throwing karma in the moments preceding death so that the karmic results will actualize. Thus, they serve as the...

Review True Sufferings We began our discussion with how the cognition of voidness liberates us from uncontrollably recurring rebirth, samsara. To understand that, we need to understand what actually the true sufferings are that we want to become liberated from. Why is it that...

Review of the Five Aggregates of Experience We have been going through the text of the Heart Sutra, which is presenting in a condensed fashion the teachings on Prajnaparamita, the “far-reaching discriminating awareness of voidness.” Inspired by the Buddha, who is sitting in...

Review of the Lam-rim Initial Scope Teachings We’ve been discussing how to develop the self in a healthy way through the lam-rim graded stages. We have determined that there is a conventional self, and that it exists, moment to moment, as an imputational...

At this point in the twelve links we have the mental continuum, referred to by its main component, consciousness – individual subjective mental activity – loaded with karmic aftermath and going on into a future lifetime. We have reached the second half of this third link, the...

Review of the First Link: Unawareness  We have started our discussion of these 12 links, and we saw that they describe the mechanism for how we generate our uncontrollably recurring aggregates – the body and mind and so on – of each lifetime, and specifically our tainted...

Feelings as Having the Four Aspects of True Suffering As we have seen, the four aspects of true suffering also apply to feelings. All feelings – happiness, unhappiness and neutral – are nonstatic, miserable, devoid of a coarse “me” experiencing them and lack a subtle “me”...

The next set of three links concern activation of the karmic tendencies at the time of death. The eighth and ninth links, thirsting and an obtainer attitude, activate the karmic tendencies, while the tenth link, further existence, refers to the activated tendencies themselves....

Review Yesterday, we spoke about the meaning of tantra, a stream of continuity that goes on forever. There is a basis level – our mental continuum with the Buddha-nature factors. These include our networks of positive force and deep awareness, and the relative and deepest...

We’ve gone through a general explanation of the twelve links of dependent arising. We need to develop more and more familiarity with this system in order to be able to actually work with it. Therefore, it is a very worthwhile topic to study and to contemplate over and again....