Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche opens this 48-minute session by confronting critics — Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike — who dismiss Buddhist practice as mere belief unsupported by reasoning. Drawing on the Indian logicians Dignāgā and Dharmakīrti, he establishes the logical basis for rebirth, arguing that without accepting past and future lives, Dharma practice loses its essential purpose. He then walks through the Four Noble Truths as taught in three modes: by nature, by function, and by method. A table analogy illustrates why the human body is classed as true suffering; he then unpacks the origin of suffering, cessation, and true path, showing how the four truths form two interlocking cause-and-effect pairs — one mapping entrapment in cyclic existence, the other the route to liberation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 4NT 1999 04 02.mp3
UUID: b15da934-88fa-43ec-ba24-a6059204b936
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: 4 Noble Truths Retreat (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1999-04-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.3 minutes
Words: ~2,406
Yeah. I mean, Talking and. So the topic of teaching here today is the Four Noble Truths. And when so it was taught at it was taught by Buddha Śākyamūni during his first teaching at Banaras or Varanasi. So the the Buddha Śākyamūni is the valid person or incontrovertible, incontrovertible, unmistaken, perfect teacher.
And he he first at the at the place called he had done the six years deep meditation and undergone through great hardship and written during his meditation period. He generated generated great love and compassion focused on the sentient focused to free all those sentient beings from the suffering. And and and he also developed the wisdom realizing selflessness. And through developing both those two, he achieved the final attainment. And through gaining those two, developing great compassion compassion and love and wisdom gaining wisdom realizing emptiness.
And both using those two as a method and the wisdom, he meditated for many years and then overcomes, perceives all the eliminates all the disturbing emotions and overcome all the negative all the false or negativities and acquire those great compassion, exalted wisdoms, and great powers. And finally, he achieved the he has complete achievement for both for both himself and others. You stated that Buddha Śākyamūni has developed a great compassion for many years and developed the great compassion in many ailments. But there are some kind of people in all the days of India as well as in the west that they don’t agree with, agree that he has, don’t agree that he has developed good compassion for many young because they said the former and the rebirth are not exist. And likewise, there have been many non-Buddhist in the old days that the Buddhist teachings are being done through mere belief or conviction, and they don’t have any philosophical proofs or reasoning about the teaching.
And as well as, you know, and others, there are other menace also who agree that Buddhist teachings are being followed with the conviction or just mere conviction or faith. So as there have been many non-Buddhist people or as well as others, they simply said that Buddhist teaching is being done just by simple belief or mere conviction. And as to avoid that, the great masters, Indian masters like Dignāgā and the Dharmakīrti has set forth many teachings which are mainly about the reasoning or logic, teachings of logic. So for that, to prove the to to prove the existence of the former and the later births and the logic of approving the like just like someone who just took birth from the moment they birth is logical proving that is the best logic to prove that that there is the former birth exists because without preceding continuum, there is no birth. And as to prove the later births or rebirths, existence of later birth or rebirths, then it stated that mind, the consciousness or mind at the last moment of death is the best reason to prove that there is the later or next rebirth exist because because the mind at the last moment of death, which is which is which is aware or which is aware with the with disturbing emotions and aware with the contaminated or the disturbing emotion.
And due to that, it is definite want to have a result of those disturbing emotions. So practicing the teaching through having believed in the law of law or believing or accepting that there is a former and that rebirth is very important. So it is because it is because because main purpose of practicing teaching or Dharma is to have benefits, to the benefits, to have benefits or help in the next lifetimes or next rebirths. And so without accepting those former and rebirths, then if one does the practice without accepting those, then the practice or the teaching or Dharma, which they practice wouldn’t become a proper teaching or Dharma. And the Dharma is not only used to achieve the happiness and evolve to achieve happiness and avoid suffering of this present life.
So to acquire only the happiness and avoid the suffering in this present lifetime, lifetime, one does not need to practice Dharma because by involving in the mundane, or the worldly activities one can achieve the happiness in this lifetime and avoid this suffering of this life, only this lifetime. There are many, many reasonings or proof to establish that there are there is the former and later rebirths. But today, I will stop with these reasons now. And the purpose The purpose of Buddha Śākyamūni attaining the enlightenment is to is for this for this for the sentient beings that he attain enlightenment to alleviate or to eliminate all the sufferings of sentient beings and bring them all the happiness. And to accomplish the wishes of the sentient beings, there are two types of wishes that one is temporary, which a temporary wish, which is to attain higher rebirths and the ultimate wish, which is the definite goodness.
So to to to accomplish the to accomplish both the wishes, both the temporary and ultimate wishes of the sentient beings. First Buddha Śākyamūni has taught the teachings of the Four Noble Truths accompanied by great compassion. So so he gave the teaching of Four Truths. And about the way of teaching, he has given the he had taught the Four Noble Truth in different ways, in taught in three different ways in three different ways to make the disciple understand or realize well about four noble truths. The three ways or he he had taught the way in its nature nature of four noble truths and by their function and through and through how they, through by nature with their function and how they are performed or how they function.
And the first way of its function, by its nature, shows or he identified that this is the teaching of, this is the suffering or true suffering, and true and true path go on and and cessations are the true suffering of true origin origin of the suffering and the cessation and the the two parts. So he discussed the nature of the Four Noble Truths and says that, and it is, it is or this is the true suffering, which means this or it refers to one’s own So as our body, our body is a result, and there should be a cause for this particular body to burn. And so the cause of this particular body, the result, is all the karma or action and disturbing emotion. And our body has been gained or birthed through the influence or through the cause of action, karma, and disturbing emotion. Due to because it is the result of the action, karma, and the disturbing emotion, it is called suffering.
It is suffering. Literally, it is said that the it is the it is the true suffering of the Supreme. It is the suffering of the Supreme too. So Supreme here refers to the reason why it’s said Supreme is referred to Supreme beings who are who realizes emptiness or apprehends the emptiness directly, and such a person sees this present body is suffering. Due to that, the person, the supreme being who realizes emptiness directly sees this body is a suffering.
Is fact that this body itself is a suffering. So, for example, the example we can give here is like the table. We can say this is table because everyone sees, we all know that this is the table. Due to the understanding of all the table that is the table, we can say directly that this is So because of that, that the this our body is our body is suffering, I mean, is suffering because the supreme beings have understand or realized that sees this body is suffering, and due to that, we can say that this is the, body itself is the suffering because the supreme beings have seen or understand this is the suffering. And the second one is, this is said that this is the true origin of the suffering, and which which are the suffering, and which are the causes of suffering.
Causes of suffering is called the true origin of the suffering, which are the causes are the action and disturbing emotion because it gives birth to our present body. And it is called origin of the origin origin of suffering because it gives birth again and again to the suffering due to that it’s called origin of suffering. So the and the rest are same like the before one that the origin of suffering because the supreme is referred to the supreme beings, and who sees that the disturbing emotion and the karma or action is, are the true origin of the suffering because it give birth to this present human body, which is the suffering. By seeing the supreme beings, they’ve seen this disturbing emotion and the actions are the cause of these sufferings, and this is how is called the origin of the suffering. true origin of the suffering.
And the third one is this is or it is the cessation the cessation of the supreme, let us say, the And this or it here refers to the state or liberation liberation which sees or abandons all the suffering. And so this refers to that state which is free or the liberation which has abandoned all or sees all the suffering. Suffering. So, and as the supreme being, and as the supreme being sees that particular liberation stage, which is called the cessation because it ceases or it abandons all the sufferings and never bring all the sufferings and never let the sufferings to come back. And so by seeing, by knowing these five different beings, it is called the true cessation because it stops all the disturbing emotions.
So, and the fourth one said this is the true path of the supreme beings. And which it is said that because as for the true cessation, true cessation is a state which stops all the abandons abandon all the suffering. And so the true path here, the true path refers to the method that how the cessation, how one abandons all these sufferings and attained cessation. And so to show the method achieving that cessation, which is free from suffering, and it shows the says that this is the true path. This here refers to the wisdom realizing selflessness, realizing wisdom directly realizes the selflessness of a person, and such wisdom is called the path here.
It’s the method to achieve that cessation. So it is said that the person who is this, afraid of the sufferings and wish to free from the suffering and start start hard to have the ultimate happiness. And to such person, so to to accomplish the wish of such person, the understanding of this four noble, excuse, four noble truth is very important. And as we who strive for the liberation, to free from the sufferings, to understand that one to one wishes the happiness, and to overcome that, needs to understand then understand that as one doesn’t wish the suffering, then one has to. It’s important for one to understand which is the cause of suffering, which is the cause of suffering.
And so for that, the understanding or for that to understand such thing, the origin of true suffering has been taught. And the third and the fourth, true cessation and the true path, which shows that as we wish the ultimate happiness, as we wish all the ultimate happiness, for that, the true cessation is taught, which is the source of all the happiness. And to attain that cessation, the true path, the fourth one is being taught, achieve the cessation. So the purpose of setting two sets of cause and effect. And the first one is the true cessation and the true origin of the suffering excuse me, true suffering and the origin of the origin of the suffering.
And it is the first set has been taught because the first one, the true suffering, is one which one we, everyone, we do not want it and which is the object of of the abandonment. And to abandon that, one has to understand, one needs to know the know the origin the truth, the origin of the suffering, which is second number two. Because the origin, true origin of the suffering is the one which brings the true suffering. And and so one to to to overcome all the suffering, overcome all the suffering, abandon all the suffering, one needs to understand the understand the two true origin of the suffering. And if one cannot understand the two one cannot understand the true origin of the suffering and abandon the true origin of the suffering without stopping, without understanding the true origin of the suffering, then one cannot cease or eliminate all the suffering, Just cannot overcome all the suffering just by mere prayers or or mere wishes.
Mere wish. So briefly speaking then, the purpose of teaching two sets of cause and effect is because the first one is teaching how one is the teaching or to make one understand that how one circles in the cyclic existence. And the second set talked about how one attains the liberation, which is free or shows the method of how to free oneself from this cyclic existence or become liberated. To say all this. Yeah.
These teachings comes from the teaching by showing the nature of through the nature of four noble truths. And the second one is taught, the four noble truth, by the function. And as for the first one, it says that one one the the function first first one is one should understand the nature or one should understand the nature or function of true suffering. And the second function, it shows that if one does not wish or want or like the suffering, then then one should abandon the the the causes of the suffering, which is which means the abandon the origin of the suffering, no, true origin of suffering. And the third function is if one No.
Third one. Number three. And if one want happiness, then to have ultimate happiness, then one should attain or achieve the cessation because the cessation is the state of ultimate happiness.