Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The image of a teacup of good tea ruined by a single drop of poison anchors Khensur Rinpoche’s central argument, in this 48-minute session, that the body constitutes true suffering not because it is inherently bad but because good karma is accompanied by disturbing emotion. He distinguishes gross impermanence (the visible changes of aging and decay) from subtle impermanence, drawing on Vasubandhu’s analysis that a finger-snap divides into sixty-five minimal units to show that things begin disintegrating from the very moment of birth. Building toward wisdom realizing emptiness, he covers Śāntideva’s two accumulations (merit and wisdom), the preparatory role of ethical discipline, patience, and effort among the six perfections, and the five logical investigations into selflessness. He closes with the third attribute of true suffering: the self as merely imputed on the mental and physical aggregates, not primordially existing. Suited to practitioners with some background in Buddhist philosophy.
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File: 08 4NT 1999 04 05.mp3
UUID: 60557761-96c7-4e7f-8df7-e5a4283e3a7f
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: 4 Noble Truths Retreat (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1999-04-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.5 minutes
Words: ~2,693
So it says that not really ethical discipline or actually says the the doing or taking the improper actions, doing improper or negative negativities, it comes due to the to due to the ignorance which due to the ignorance which grasping self existence. And through that, one generates that the because of the accepting true true self is truly existent, then one self grasping, then one cultivates that one one involves in the engaging in the not not a sincere or not in the bad actions. And through by doing that, one cultivates the action here, the karma. And so to to overcome that karma, one has to to that karma or to overcome that karma is to training in the or cultivating the understanding of emptiness. And so the the Four Noble Truth is classified into two, the central four noble truth and the and the coarse four noble truth.
And the the as for this coarse subtle four noble truth has been ascertained or or ascertained by the schools of Vaibhāṣika system and then the Sautrāntika, Sautrāntika and then the Cittamātra and the the for one school of one school of middle way, one school of which is the the autonomous school. And the the subtle four noble truths taught — the subtle four noble truths — those taught in the schools of constituents, the Prāsaṇgika schools of mid school of mid middle way, and which is taught in the text called the treatise of treatise of Nāgārjuna Nāgārjuna’s in the Middle Way School. So but but all agrees that the ignorance is the root is the root and ignorance is the root of all and all agrees that ignorance is the root of or root of all. And to avoid or to abandon or eliminate eliminate this ignorance, one has to cultivate the wisdom, realizing emptiness through meditation. So there are two different ways of method of cultivating the wisdom realizing emptiness and one method is come one method comes from the greater vehicles and one one method taught in the lesser vehicles.
So and the method of cultivating the wisdom realized in emptiness according to the greater vehicle, here the great master Śāntideva stated that to cultivate the wisdom realizing emptiness one has to cultivate the two accumulations which are the accumulation of merit and accumulation of wisdom. And so to generate gain the wisdom realizing emptiness first one has to train in or cultivate the training of ethical discipline and training of giving patience and training of effort. These are from the four of the six perfections. So we we all earlier we had stated that you need to cultivate, generate that wisdom, realizing emptiness. One needs to cultivate the two accumulations which is the accumulation of merit and accumulation of wisdom.
As for the accumulation of merit, one has to train or practice pursuit of this training of of ethics and then giving patience effort. As for the cultivation of wisdom, accumulation of wisdom, one has to acquire the to generate the five reasons five reasons, five investigations. And here, the reason is like the reason like, the logic actually, through logic, one has one investigates in the domain one one investigates in So through the through the five logic of that that the phenomena are not one by each entity or not one or not. The phenomenon is the logic of is not one with self and one and not. Excuse me.
The the the the logic of thing that the that the self is not truly existent its own or or or the the self is not one and not or not not two, which means it’s not inherently exist by its own, not not inherent at this depending on others, something like that. Due to that and the logic of one and also one one applied to cultivate that the reason realized and one applied the logic of interdependent. And, yep. So so far these two these two logics I mentioned here. And then by through the and by doing the analytical meditation and and and later on, after the analytical one do the analytical meditation on emptiness and then later on one do the replacement meditation.
And through these logics and meditation, one one can cultivate cultivate accumulation of wisdom. So now and what what what we are teaching here is we are teaching which which is the general teaching. It’s a common in both the which accepts in both the both both the vehicles, lower and lesser and the greater vehicles. And here the so which is taught in general that the great master Dharmakīrti has taught in his logics saying that to cultivate or to gain the wisdom realizing emptiness, one needs to realize. That’s what the method of gaining wisdom realizing emptiness one accords the wisdom realizing selflessness.
And such a method of cultivating wisdom, realizing emptiness is more related to towards the teaching of Four Noble Truths. So in a sense, we say that this method of cultivating wisdom realizing emptiness is more it’s very has close relate relation or related to a teaching of Four Noble Truth? It is because that the Four Noble Truth, each Four Noble Truth has four attributes. And as for the true suffering, its four attributes are the impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and selflessness. So, it has that sort of method of weighting it has strong relation.
Because, for example, have talked that our present body is the main which is the result of the certain emotion and the action which we have dealt earlier. And so our body has recognized true suffering in earlier classes. For that, so to attain, to cultivate wisdom realizing emptiness and the selflessness, realizing realizing selflessness, first one has to realize that this present body is impermanent. And to realize this present body is impermanent, and there are two types of impermanence, the gross impermanence and gross and the subtle impermanence. And to First first one has to realize the the apprehend the gross impermanence.
No? It is the the coarse impermanence is very it’s easier or it’s easy to apprehend or realize. Gross impermanence is easier to realize or apprehend, it is because for example, know, at the time of we were, we were already the child or we are, we were very fragile, very small. And then from the second moment of its birth, it’s it keeps changing and in moment by moment, and later it becomes more and more like, the child grows up. And then later on, after a month and years and years, then it gets older and older and at then it dies.
So we can see all these changes and this impermanent, these are called the gross impermanent So those rapid change in our forms are the gross impermanence. And for example, like the flower, it’s very beautiful today and next day and it starts drying the leaves or the flowers dries and it’s not as good as not as beautiful as yesterday. Then so seeing the changes of these flowers and then seeing the change, for example, like burning house and then glass broke. So all these impermanence, those changes are the gross impermanence. And the subtle subtle impermanent is it’s it’s very it’s not easy or it’s very hard for us to realize or and apprehend.
So the the subtle the subtle impermanent is is very, very hard to apprehend or realize because so here, the subtle subtle impermanence is like we know that we are, the beings are changing all the time, but the beings changes moment by moment but we always grab that person remains same. I mean, for example, he is okay. I mean, he’s same as yesterday and then the next and the month. So by moment by moment, there’s slight changes going, and that is the subtle impermanence, but we don’t realize that impermanence and always it is because of our mind, which is the mind realizing or grasping grasping beings or things as permanence, and such mind obscures the mind which realizes the momentary changes. So due to that, we apprehend or we grasp that beings are permanent.
They are not changing. There is not changing moment by moment. No. So that one is the subtle impermanent. Second.
Second. So for example, take a watch and one hour has sixty minutes. Sixty minutes. And so clock never stays at one. It moves from one minute to the next.
And then so likewise, our spent and our body itself changes. It never stays permanent. It never stays at one. It changes moment by moment like a minute changes from one minute to the next. So our lifespan and the body is not like it’s same like the clock, which which never stays one.
It changes moment by moment. No. So we yes. We show that the duration of one minute is very, very short. Second.
So so the a one minute has sixty seconds. And so Rinpoche says the one finger snap, isn’t it? And the ones duration of one single this and the and the second is same same same duration. And we, in our context then, we divided this duration of this into it can be divided the duration of this can be divided into sixty five. Yeah.
Into sixty five now. So likewise, a minute has sixty seconds and we do in our. So we also divide fingernail into sixty five durations and long. So so so this is so it it can be divide it can be divided into sixty five. And so each of that sixty five is we have established the shortest duration.
Alright? So and so human beings changes, and it it never stays even the duration of the apart of this. So if one realizes that our body changes moment to moment, it doesn’t stays even a length of a part of this one of the sixty five. So such person realizes the the subtle impermanence. Yep.
So in our context, we had, as I said, three ends. It’s end of the time duration or time and end of the body and of the name. So a single part of this is this is like a No. No. Body, end of the body.
Yeah. Of the name. And the end of the tongue. And and great master Vasubandhu has classified that a first division of this finger snap is the end of the the end of the time. It’s it’s and it cannot be divided into other times.
Collection of that piece of the sixty five as one second. And then goes like sixty seconds is one minute in how we cultivate. And then the twelve and and twelve hours is a half day. She’s doing it. Twelve hours.
So this is how we cultivate. And then and then the two of two two twelve is twenty four hours one day, and then we count the days and then months and years. So and as for the end of the end of the name, he literally said name, and with Tibetan, it starts from the letter first alphabet, which is ka. Everybody just says, in English, we can start it from the letter a. And the end of the end of the which asset the body injection, it’s substances or a form, you can say.
The slightest form is at the end of the form we consider here is the smallest, tiniest substance or particle is the end of the substances substances or a form. So so this is how then the all the greater forms or figures formed by by the collections of the tiniest at tiniest particles. So the the logic here says is our water is impermanent because it is growing. Which grow are the impermanence. So like flowers, tables, and so any things which which grows or which are growing or which grows are called impermanence.
What So there are different people. Some some they establish the cause of the birth and cause of the changes like separately or differently. But it not true that it is not true statement to establish true cause for the changes of the cause and to give birth cause are are not not not not individual, not separate. It’s one. So, yeah.
So the cause of the changes in the both are the one are the one cause. It’s not different from each other. So some scholars or some schools of Vaibhāṣika system, they said three things that they are three times duration of birth and then abidance and the and the the or, like, the disintegration. And so in the sense, had they had established three, the time of birth and then time of abiding with states, and then later comes the time or time of disintegration, but it is not true. So so but but we established that the cause of the birth is the same cause which which caused the degeneration or changes or disintegration.
So to say disintegration, it is because the because from the second moment of the second moment of the birth, things keep and things start changing from the second moment of the death and there is no time or time to form another cause. So this is the reason that the cause which give birth is also a cause of disintegration as well. So among the four of the four features of the the true suffering, first one is impermanence. And so it proves that the true suffering is impermanent because it because it is because it is growing or it keeps birth. By realizing that the impermanent, because of the true self is impermanent, then it stops this seeing.
It it it contact or it it stops seeing that. It stops impermanent, the wisdom seeing or recognizing the true self as a permanent. Body is pleasurable or gives happiness, sees happy or happiness. But to avoid or to eliminate such a misconception, One that it proves that the body, the true suffering or this body is the suffering because it is suffering because it is established or it is giving birth by true influence of the disturbing emotion and the action or karma. So the this our body is suffering, and it is suffering because it comes under the influence of disturbing emotion and the karma.
And due to that, it has connection or mixed with disturbing emotion. And disturbing emotion is the suffering. And due to that, we can call this body is the suffering. For example, that if one if one has a good cup of tea and very tasteful, delicious tea, but if someone acts or pour some poison in that delicious or taste taste that delicious cup of tea, then the the taste of this the taste of this cup of tea has been destroyed. Oh, no.
So the people said, oh, it it doesn’t taste good, and they just pour it out. So so we our body has a good karma to give birth to this body. So we actually have a good karma, but the karma has been accompanied or conjoined with the disturbing emotion, and due to that our body becomes suffering. And then the third, so that was the second attribute of the first true suffering, and the third attribute is emptiness. So so the so we have our body and our self or eye.
And eye is imputed on this. The eye doesn’t exist primordially, but it is something new that imputed to the collections of mental and physical aggregates. And likewise, the table, when the first table was established, there was no no name of the table itself. But and then later on, someone made the table and give the name, included the name label, labeled to label as a table, and then table, the name of table is being formed. Likewise, at the time of Anthony’s birth, Anthony was named Anthony, just after his birth.
And the name of Anthony has been designated or labeled to to his mental and physical physical aggregates.