Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 35-minute talk, Geshe Sonam Rinchen takes students through the foundational Buddhist analysis of suffering that motivates genuine practice. He begins by articulating what makes cyclic existence unbearable: the relentless cycle of contaminated rebirth; the infinite regress of mothers, showing we cannot locate a beginning; the oscillation between fortunate and unfortunate states; and the stark isolation of dying alone, unable to rely on others even those closest to us. He identifies three main categories of suffering and moves progressively toward liberation, explaining how negative emotions rooted in misconceptions about the self perpetuate this cycle. The core path emerges: ethics, concentration, and wisdom through understanding emptiness. Geshe Sonam concludes with the reassurance that full enlightenment is achievable in one lifetime and uses Milarepa as proof that transformation depends entirely on conviction and perseverance, not on circumstances. Suitable for practitioners beginning serious study of the Lamrim.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 CtM.mp3
UUID: f60cbd3c-59ae-4fc1-8413-588a9551bf28
Teacher: Geshe Sonam Rinchen
Collection: Calming of the Mind (Geshe Sonam Rinchen)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 35.6 minutes
Words: ~3,088
It’s a very exhausting process and we should now think that we want to do something about that. This time, this time, we don’t want to waste what we have. We don’t want to waste this life and this body and mind that we have now, that we’re going to do something positive with it. And that we’ll use what we have now to break this continuum of having to take contaminated births. We’ll use what we have now to break this continuum of contaminated births both for ourselves and others so we try and help others also to get free from that vicious circle.
So best is to think that we want to develop an attitude which cherishes others, which puts others first and cultivate the altruistic attitude, the altruistic mind of enlightenment. Birth after another, but then we also have the suffering of being conceived over and over again. The actual process of conception over and over again. If you think of your mother, then there’s your grandmother and your great grandmother and your great great grandmother and then you stop being able to sort of relate to it really because there is such a number of mothers going back there. Yeah.
So you can’t find the first one in that line. We can’t find the first mother there, right? Because all those mothers, one after another, they recede infinitely. In that way, cyclic existence, we can’t pinpoint a beginning. So we can’t find a point where we were first conceived, right?
There’s no point that we can say, Oh, this was the first time. In each of those births, each of those births we’ve been assailed by so many difficulties, so many problems and suffering. That’s why we talk about cyclic existence being like an ocean of suffering. All we’ve been doing is going from one lot of suffering to the next. Each time we are conceived, enter the next lot and so we’ve just been swimming around in this ocean of suffering.
If we don’t like that situation, if we don’t enjoy swimming around in a sea of suffering, then we must do something. We must do something now so that that process can come to an end so that we can enjoy a different kind of existence. The thing is that this is not just to make you feel suicidal. It’s to make you feel that you are fed up. It’s to make you feel fed up, you know, because if you feel really fed up then you are going to look for a way out.
It’s not until you feel truly disgusted with it That you look for a way out. And the way out lies in the Dharma, lies in the teachings. The teachings present us with a way out. If you don’t feel fed up with it, if you don’t see it for what it is, if you don’t feel fed up then you’ll never look for a way out. You’ll never really sincerely try to find a way out of it and you’ll never try to acquire the means, you’ll never try to find the means which are going to free you.
And then also, again in cyclic existence, we’ve been in this position where sometimes we’ve been up, sometimes we’ve been in quite a fortunate state, sometimes we’ve been down. So we keep on revolving up and down. So we’ve been born in all the states within cyclic existence from the peak of existence which is a very high state of existence to very lowest state of existence as a hell being. We’ve been born in all these different states again and again and all of them are the result of contaminated actions and the emotions which cause those actions. As a result of contaminated wholesome action, right?
Wholesome action can be contaminated as well by certain underlying emotional attitudes. So it may be positive action but contaminated action. As a result of such action, we will have been born at times as beings like a god of the form realm. God in the form realm Brahma or as a god in the desire realm like Indra, so we may have taken rebirths of this kind as a result of wholesome contaminated action. And we no doubt have taken such rebirth many times and have enjoyed celestial pleasures and the possessions of such a celestial being.
And also in the past, we ourselves have been kings here in the world. We’ve been monarchs ruling over kingdoms, well acquiring great wealth, enjoying great wealth with a great retinue. We’ve done all these things. But then our positive potential, our positive potential, the momentum of positive actions which caused those kinds of rebirth has come to an end. And then imprints left by negative past actions have ripened, have matured and we’ve taken rebirth in unfortunate states.
We’ve been born in the hells. We’ve been born as slaves. We’ve been born in all sorts of unfortunate states. And so we’ve been going up and down right through these various positions within cyclic existence. We’ve experienced them all and even in this very life, we see how somebody rises to power, becomes very powerful and quite likely, I mean that person is going to get assassinated or thrown into jail or something like that will happen, you know.
So we can see how even that up and down can happen in one lifetime. So that’s another thing that we experience in cyclic existence, wandering up and down through the various states of existence. And then finally, there’s another kind of suffering that we endure, the suffering of being friendless. So when we take birth as a result of contaminated actions, then we have to experience whatever is our due as it were. Whatever ripens, whatever unfortunate situations occur, whatever suffering happens, whatever difficulties and problems arise, we are the ones that have to experience it.
It. We know that if we fall very ill, if we have a lot of pain for some reason, if we are experiencing the result of some past negative action which is fruiting in this way, nobody can actually take that pain away from us. People, no matter how much they love us, can’t actually take the pain away from us. We have to experience it ourselves. When we come into the world, we are born alone.
We enter the world alone. Birth process we have to go through alone. And when we die, we have to die and experience the death process alone. Although we may be very close to our relatives, to our parents, to our children, to our wives or husbands, although we may have a very close relationship, when it comes to the crunch, they can’t actually do anything for us. Finally, I mean they can’t do anything for you and what’s more because of our very very strong attachment, because of the exaggerated attachment attachment we have to them, we do all sorts of negative things.
Do all sorts of negative things. Those negative things, those negative actions are going to fruit in suffering, are going to fruit in problems and difficulties and there isn’t anybody but ourselves who will have to experience that. Nobody can share that with us. So we first talked about seven kinds of suffering,, and now about six kinds of suffering, the seven kinds of suffering which pertain to human beings, and six kinds of suffering or which apply to any kind of cyclic existence, which apply to cyclic existence in general to our condition in cyclic existence. So we should try to think of those again and again.
And the point of doing doing that is to try and feel fed up with this kind of existence. So that’s the aim of thinking about them. And all of those different kinds of problems and suffering can be summarized into three. So we can think that there are three main kinds of suffering. There’s gross suffering of suffering, that suffering of pain, that kind of suffering.
And then there’s suffering of change. There’s suffering of change, the fact that things are transitory and unstable. And then there’s pervasive suffering which is the mere fact of having this human body and mind act like a magnet as a basis for all kinds of problems. Yeah. So the thing is, whichever way we approach it, whichever way we think of them, we should realize our own position that we’re caught within this, that we’re caught within this and that we are not free.
Yeah. And if you realize that, if you come to a realization of that, then you want to get free. And there definitely is a way to get out of that. There is a way to get out of that if you’re prepared to train yourself in a certain way. Nāgārjuna said, What is liberation?
It means being liberated from bonds. So what are our bonds at present? Our bonds are contaminated actions and the negative emotions from which they spring. These bind us to suffering. They bind us to suffering.
So if we can break these bonds then we can become free. And nobody else can do it, and we have to do it ourselves. It depends entirely on our own effort. If we’re prepared to make sufficient effort, it’s possible. Nobody can free you in the sense that somebody leads you by the hand from point A to point B.
It’s not like that. How do you go about getting free? How do you go about trying to reach liberation from these bonds? The first thing that we need to do is to try and abide by a code of ethics to keep that. Then, we need to hear, to hear the instructions on how it’s done, to think about them, and to try and generate the insights for ourselves.
First of all you’ve got to hear a description of what the road is going to look like. Right? You have to be able to recognize the road, recognize the path. And then the next thing you have to do is think about what you’ve heard and make an effort to stabilize your mind, to make your mind more stable, to try and attain some degree of concentration. So you need to try to attain some mental stability and concentration and then with that you can examine the four truths and try to gain special insight into the four truths.
Some days ago we were talking about cyclic existence and its root and we said that the root of cyclic existence is action, contaminated action. And the contaminated action comes from the negative emotions and negative states of mind. And these negative emotions and negative states of mind root in the misconception regarding how things exist. It’s a misconception regarding reality. If there’s action, action without, if there’s Wait, wait.
If there are negative emotions and attitudes but no actions, then the potential for rebirth in cyclic existence is still there. If you have actions but no negative emotions, then those actions cannot lead to rebirth in cyclic existence. So it becomes clear that what we have to do is get rid of the negative emotions, negative mental attitudes. And in order to get rid of those negative emotions, we have to get rid of the misconception from which they spring. So we have to get rid of this conception of a self, of the self, a conception of the intrinsic existence or inherent existence of all phenomena.
Only through that can we combat this misconception only by an understanding of the lack of inherent existence or intrinsic existence of everything. Only through a proper understanding of reality can we rid of the misconception. Geshe-la said he was talking about that on the weekend. In order to attain special insight with regard to reality, it’s necessary to have calm abiding which is a form of concentration. It’s necessary to develop calm abiding with respect to reality.
So it’s a kind of mental stabilization with respect to reality. This is what Geshe-la was talking about on Sunday last. In order to have the calm abiding, the mental stability, this calm abiding, you need to have a sound ethical basis. In order to work from a sound ethical basis, you have to identify what ten unwholesome actions are. You have to realize what they are and then try to stop doing them.
It’s important when we’re doing that to be watchful, to be mindful and watchful and keep a watch on our three doors. In other words, body, speech and mind. Keep observing body, speech and mind to make sure that they don’t tend towards anything unwholesome. As soon as they veer in that direction, then we should take steps to stop any further development. And then if we do do something which is unwholesome either physical, verbally or mentally, then we shouldn’t just leave it at that.
We should take steps to counteract it. We should take steps to counteract it so it’s important to recognize what we’ve done, to recognize it for what it is and then to take steps to counteract it by way of the four opponent powers that were described. What I’ve been trying to do this evening is make you think about the nature of cyclic existence. If you are able to identify it properly, if you are able to recognize what it’s really like, then you want to be free of it. You want to be free of all the suffering it involves.
Then you have a spontaneous wish to be free from that kind of existence. And when we look to see what it is that creates this existence, we see that it’s contaminated actions and the negative emotions from which they spring. And the thing that really gets rid of those negative emotions and negative mental attitudes is the special insight which understands reality, in other words, the selflessness of all phenomena. And in order to reach that penetrative insight, that special understanding of reality, you need concentration, you need calm abiding, and in order to generate that, you need a sound ethical basis. So these depend on us whether we engage in the three kinds of training, in training in ethics, in concentration and in wisdom depends entirely on us.
We have the capacity to do it. We have the ability to do it. It just depends on our strength of perseverance, our enthusiasm to do it. It’s something that we must do for ourselves. Nobody else can lead us there.
So I’ve spent four evenings talking about the stages of the path and how you tame your mind, how you train yourself. And I’ve covered the small scope and the middling scope of practice. And during the weekend we did talk about the six perfections and the altruistic mind of enlightenment. So in that respect we covered the great scope of practice. During Geshe-la’s time here in Buddha House, he has to some extent been able to cover the three scopes, the three perspectives of practice.
Again, Rinpoche says we maybe stop now and if anybody has a pressing question they would like to ask. I think there are three minutes left, he said. So actually, I mean, it is possible to get out of cyclic existence to get out of this type of existence in this very life. I mean, one can actually do it. But you’re perfectly right.
It is extremely important to spend some effort on preparing oneself for death so as to die well. All these practices that we do such as recognizing the preciousness of life and taking refuge and so on actually help towards dying well. Yeah. So we’re constantly making plans for the future. Of course, we don’t know whether they’ll actually be fulfilled.
Those plans can be carried out and the thing that will stop us carrying them out is death. Yeah, so it is very important to decide now how one wants to try to die. You know, one should think now about how one wishes to die. If one begins now, it’s possible to die well. If we don’t do anything now, if we just hope for the best, it is possible that somebody says something when you die that may be of some help.
Actually, it’s really difficult when you’re faced with death to do anything constructive if you haven’t practiced a lot beforehand. So we know what it’s like with ordinary things, even something that we’ve already learnt but don’t practice daily, we tend to forget. And so if it’s something that we haven’t even thought about or learnt about, it’s impossible for us to learn it at the very last minute. Is that alright? Yeah.
What you say is true but then you shouldn’t be discouraged. You know, you shouldn’t feel discouraged. It is actually possible and the instructions for attaining Buddhahood, full Buddhahood in this very lifetime are available. I mean, Those instructions still exist. The only thing is it depends on us whether we have the strength and the ability to carry them out.
We can always look to Milarepa as an example because he started off rather like us and he killed a lot of people and had done a whole lot of really bad things. On a particular occasion when somebody he knew died, he suddenly got to thinking about impermanence and that his own life would come to an end. Then he met Marpa, the great translator Marpa and took instructions from him and then spent day and night meditating so he really went at it hard. There is no difference between Milarepa’s body and mind and our own. He was working with exactly the same stuff.
They are exactly the same kind of teachers like the one who taught Milarepa. Those sort of teachers still exist and they still have the same instructions. So all those things are present like the same working basis, the same teachers, the same information to communicate but the thing is do we have the same conviction? Do we have the same perseverance perseverance and drive? That’s the point.
If we have, then it’s possible for us to attain Buddhahood in this life, full enlightenment in this life and then of course if you can attain full enlightenment in this life, you can attain liberation from cyclic existence which is a lesser achievement.