Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 48-minute talk, Khensur Rinpoche opens with a deceptively simple image: sitting beside a heater feels blissful at first, then becomes burning — a concrete illustration of how ordinary happiness carries the seeds of suffering. He uses this to anchor a careful walk through the Four Noble Truths, explaining each through its nature, its corresponding activity (recognize suffering, abandon its sources, actualize cessation, cultivate the path), and the agent performing that activity. A medical analogy — you must first admit you are sick before you search for a cure — frames why recognizing true suffering is the essential starting point. He also touches briefly on a Bodhisattva story of compassion involving a starving tiger and her cubs. Accessible to practitioners encountering the Four Noble Truths for the first time.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 4 NT 1990 07 26.mp3
UUID: 5cadcbf3-0019-4bfc-bda0-abec51408e04
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: 4 Noble Truths (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1990-07-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.3 minutes
Words: ~1,018
You’re doing meditation adjustment on motivation? a turning of the wheel, a middle turning, and a final turning. The explaining the. Is explained by means of a threefold categorization in terms of entity or nature, in terms of its activity, in terms of agent. The With respect to the first two, it’s it’s entity is true suffering.
It’s action that is the activity within which is connected with this first truth is that true sufferings are to be recognized or to be understood. What are we to do with respect to true sufferings? We are to recognize or understand With respect to the first truth, the true sufferings are the factor of a result. And with respect to the second truth, true sources, true sources are the are the causes of suffering. And action which is connected with true sources is that true sources are to be abandoned.
What are we to do? What is the activity with which we are to in connection with true sources? We are to abandon true sources. The third with respect to the third truth truths true cessation, the we are to obtain obtain true cessation. So the activity or the action with respect which is connected with true cessation is the activity of actualization.
True cessation are to be actualized. So here, the the cessation is cessation of suffering, and there therefore, it is it means to attain liberation. So liberations are to be attained. What is the method to attain liberation? And this is the fourth noble truth, true paths.
And the activity which is connected with true paths is that paths are to be cultivated. There or in other words, meditate. I think cultivated paths are to be cultivated. With respect to the first level of truth truth of suffering through, again and again, we said that sufferings were to be understood or recognized. And by again and again taking suffering as an object of one’s understanding, from true suffering we move to true sources.
And we said true sources were to be abandoned. That is the action. And the abandon and have the abandonment of true sources implies the agent for that. That is the person who’s just abandoning In a previous life, a Bodhisattva came upon a mother tiger who was dying of hunger along with five of her cubs. And she had she was extremely skinny with no food.
She had no milk to feed her her her her starving cubs. She couldn’t move. And the Bodhisattva, out of his great compassion, So with respect to the in general, within the Dharma, there are the three categorizations of that which is to be abandoned, that which is to be practiced, and that which is neither of these. So we have these three categories So within the categorization of of abandonment, the two truths of true sufferings and true sources of suffering are included. And, again, with respect to the categorization of that which is to be practiced, it is the two truths of true cessation and true paths are included.
Two categorizations. The the categorization of practices and abandonments or the cultivations and rejections. But because the true cessation and two paths are included within practices. And true suffering and true sources are included in. And this is an extremely vast and profound presentation to all practices, and this is, like, the the great container practices.
Mhmm. There is there is a cause and a result. By practicing by this abandonment, will attain this result. And by practicing this by practicing this, you will achieve this result. So with each of these, there’s a two fold explanation in terms of cause and result.
Mhmm. Initially, it’s necessary that we we recognize the fact that we are sick. That is the and this is recognized through understanding our suffering. And we begin by experiencing our suffering, and we we we want we want to be we want to be with it. We want to eliminate it.
We eliminate it. And we begin to search around for a method. Before we can search around for a method, in searching around for a method, we have to understand, well, where is this sickness coming from? Why am I so ill? Why am I suffering so much?
From where did it come? Is it the food I ate? Is it eliminate this suffering. How what means can I make use of to eliminate my suffering? And thinking of this way, you’re going to strive, make some effort toward gaining regaining your happiness, just your sense of well-being when So in explaining the meaning of that analogy, one must begin by recognizing one’s suffering.
If one doesn’t recognize that one is suffering, they will not make effort in seeking a cure. One must say, come to the understanding I am suffering. What does it mean to recognize suffering? The way ‘re talking about suffering in terms of truth. True.
True. True. Sufferings. Within the context of the four noble truths, the true sufferings is one’s contaminated aggregates. The aggregates that we have appropriated are true suffering.
Nature of suffering that upon examination, that it has the quality of suffering about. Mhmm. Physical dissatisfaction that we experience with suffering simply a headache, toothache, eye ache. But these are all examples of suffering. When it’s cold and so we experience coldness.
We experience cold. And we we go inside, and we stand next to a heater. And stay next to the heater, at first, it feels very very blissful. Right? Because the heater is very hot, and then we feel good.
But after we stay there for a little while, it starts to become hot. And in fact, it becomes rather burning if you stay next to the next to the the heater. And and that happiness that we will experience that lift begins to change and change its nature, finally, into suffering. So that happiness that we initially experienced is dissatisfactory. And in fact, because it’s not stable, it has the potential to transform be transformed into suffering.
That’s example of suffering.