Six sources

• How to think about each of the twelve links?
• Four great elements forming the body
• Feeling, discrimination, miscellaneous factors
• Contact, feeling, discrimination, intention and attention
• Object, cognitive faculty, consciousness and contact for cognition
• Contact and feeling in different instances
• Six internal sources including the mental source
• Six external sources including the phenomenal source
• How sentient beings are born in four ways
• Different views on do all twelve links present in rebirths in the three realms

Samsara, Nirvana, and Buddha Nature 49: Six Sources (download)

Contemplation points

1. What traditional image in the Tibetan tradition represents the fourth link name and form? Why do you think this picture has been depicted for this?
2. We have had many rebirths in different bodies with different shapes, colors, structures. What keeps you from having a strong conviction in this? How can you make your mind more flexible?
3. What is included in the six sources? How do the six sources relate to the sense and mental consciousnesses and objects of those consciousnesses?
4. His Holiness writes: “The six sources afflict transmigrating beings because they complete name and form, thereby creating the potential for awareness of objects to arise.” Why and how do the six sources complete name and form? Make examples of each of the six sources using examples from your own experience.