Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute talk, Khensur Rinpoche takes up the fourth close placement of mindfulness — mindfulness of phenomena — as the gateway into the Fourth Noble Truth, true paths. He walks through all four Noble Truths using a vivid image: a water drip falling through a cracked ceiling, irritating enough that you trace its source and fix it. This maps onto recognising suffering, identifying its origins in karma and afflictive emotions, understanding that cessation is achievable, and locating the path as the method of repair. The main path, he explains, is wisdom directly realising selflessness, built on the foundation of ethics and meditative concentration. He also notes that each noble truth carries four defining properties that sharpen understanding. Suited to those following the close placements series.
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File: 09 CP of M 1997 06 09.mp3
UUID: cda2163c-e86a-4005-b030-ccfd167abbfb
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Close Placements of Mindfulness (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1997-06-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.6 minutes
Words: ~2,266
So we’ll begin by meditating for a few minutes cultivating as our motivation the awakened heart. Beginning by cultivating love and compassion expressed in the thoughts, may myself and all others be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. May myself and all others have happiness and the complete causes of happiness. And what is the method?
Other than dharma, there’s no way. Therefore, in order to lead all living beings to a state where they are free of suffering, where they have complete happiness, I myself must first remove all my various faults and bring to consummation of all my excellent qualities that I must achieve such a state for the sake of all sentient beings. Such an aspiration is the awakened heart. And actually, in order to practice what I have committed myself to, I am now going to listen to this teaching on the universal vehicle having listened to it, reflect upon it, cultivate it, and put it in the practice. Beginning with the the primary prayer, the first of which is verse number three.
In Heart of Wisdom on page eighteen. Thus I have heard, saying, very good, very good, oh son of good family. It is exactly like that. The profound wisdom gone beyond should we practice exactly as you have said. And then the will rejoice.
When the blessed one has been, the venerable Śāriputra, the noble Avalokiteśvara, the whole gathering in the world with his gods, men, demigods, and spirits, their hearts full of joy, praise, the words of the Blessed One. So ends the noble discourse on the essence of the wisdom gone beyond. And then the short mandala, is verse number five. according to a verse which is exhorting us to listen well. Is necessary to listen well. But this would also include the the studying of books would be included in that.
So having listened well, we will come to understand the nature of the Dharma. That is what is to be practiced, what is to be abandoned, what are our goals, what are the results of the various types of practices, what are the actual methods to achieve these goals. Likewise, we will know what’s going on in the world, the various situations which are arising in the world. And on the other hand, if we were not to listen to the news and we simply would not know what’s going on around us, and we would not know the situations which are arising in the world. And if we wanted to find out, we’d have to go to somebody who was familiar with what the world situation was and they could explain it to us.
Likewise, with listening to the Dharma, we have to know what is the nature of the Dharma, what is the methods of practice. If we listen to people who are familiar with the nature of Dharma and the methods of practice, then we can come to know them as well. So in dependence upon listening well, we will develop good wisdom. Our wisdom will be very good. And wisdom is like an eye.
Just as in the case when we look at others with our eyes or flesh, we know where to go and where not to go, and how to conduct ourselves appropriately. Likewise with the eye of wisdom we know what appropriate conduct and what inappropriate conduct, what will bring about positive ends and what will bring about negative ends, we will be able to practice our ethics. So, by practicing ethics well, we will be able to decrease the gross thoughts of our mind. Along with those gross faults, such faults as laxity and excitement will be pacified. And that we, having abandoned laxity and excitement, we will be able to go on to develop meditative concentrations, we will achieve calm abiding.
Through practicing ethics well, eliminate inappropriate activities. We eliminate inappropriate physical activity. By developing calm abiding, we begin to decrease and eliminate gross inappropriate activities of the mind. So in dependence upon ethics, go on to develop meditative concentrations. In dependence upon meditative concentrations, we can go on to develop wisdom, most especially with regard to wisdom understanding selflessness.
And it is by this wisdom that we are able to remove the most subtle thoughts of the mind, the most subtle inappropriate activities of the mind itself. And this is most essentially the conception of the self and truly existent self. And it’s by eliminating this most subtle fault of the mind that we are able to abandon cyclic existence and achieve liberation. So previously, we have gotten up to the point where we are discussing the reasons for meditating. And as was explained yesterday, in terms of meditating the close placements of mindfulness, that upon the body is in order to gain a recognition of the first noble truth, the truth of suffering, upon feelings in order to gain, understand the source of our suffering in terms of the second noble truth, origins of suffering, and develop an attitude which seeks to abandon these true origins of suffering.
And then we explain that by taking the mind as the object of observation, one understands the nature of the antidote for overcoming the origin of suffering. That is to say, it is the wisdom understanding selflessness which is able to vanquish ignorance. And by means of developing that wisdom, we attain a cessation, the third noble truth, the truth of cessation. Today, we will pick up with the fourth of these objects of observation, the close placement of the mindfulness that have the Dharma that are phenomena. So, as the text goes on to explain that the object of observation phenomena is taken as a means to enter into the Fourth Noble Truth, that of true paths.
In general, there are many types of phenomena. In understanding phenomena, we are able to understand what is to be practiced and what is to be abandoned. And moreover, that what is discordant with or what is contradicts or incompatible with the afflictive emotions which act as the basis of suffering. By understanding the true paths and the various stages of the path such as the path of accumulation, the path of preparation, etcetera, then one understands what the stages of practice are, and therefore what the various antidotes to the various afflictive emotions are to be generated. By generating a true path, it is the method whereby to overcome all the afflictive emotions.
So, object of meditating on the necessity for the reason for meditating, taking phenomena as the object of observation, a close placement of mindfulness is in order to actualize to cultivate two paths. So if we were to say all of that in a very brief way, By observing phenomena, we will come to understand what is to be abandoned, what is to be practiced and therefore how to implement the path. So, it is by taking each of these four objects of observation and that we realize the Four Noble Truths and this is the is the reason for meditating these four close contemplations, then we have to go on to understand, well, what do we gain by realizing the Four Noble Truths? So by coming to an understanding of the four noble truths, first we will come to an understanding of the first of these that is to say true sufferings and understanding that all, we will understand the nature of all of our undesired suffering. That is everything that we are unhappy with, everything that we don’t like, we will come to understand its nature as a true suffering.
By recognizing the first two, true sufferings, we will go on to question where does all of these undesired experiences of suffering come from. Don’t want it to occur in the future. How does it arise? Where does it come? What method can I use to ensure that it doesn’t arise in the future?
So, this will lead us into an understanding, an investigation of the causes of our suffering that from where the source of true sufferings arise, that is a true origin, the second noble truth, we will come to see that karma and the afflictive emotions are the true sources of our suffering. By way of analogy, suppose that we were sitting in a room and it was raining outside, but a drop kept falling on ourselves and this was terribly irritating. And we went, I wonder where this drop is where these drips are coming from. Due to our irritation, we will go on to investigate what is the source of these drops that are falling on me, and we will see that there’s a hole in the ceiling. And that we will, because of having investigated where the source of this irritation is coming from, where these drops are coming from, we will be moved to fix it up because every time it rains, you’re going to be dripped on.
So, you’ll be moved to block the source. Question from where does our suffering come from, and when we investigate, we come to understand that it comes, it arises from true origins of suffering, and understanding that we are moved to stop, to bring these true origins of suffering to a stop. If we can stop these true origins of suffering, eliminate them, then we can experience the happiness where there is no longer any suffering, but this requires that we investigate the source of our suffering. So what are the where what are the origins of our suffering? What are the sources of our suffering?
It is karma, the actions which are motivated by the afflictive emotions. So, it is both the actions and the afflictive emotions which motivate those actions. And if we can bring those to an end, those two origins, then we achieve a happiness which has eliminated the suffering. We achieve a cessation, a happiness which arises in dependence upon having abandoned the true origins of suffering. Achieve liberation from the suffering.
So these cessation which are the true cessation in the nature of happiness where there is no suffering. So we are liberated. So a cessation is a liberation from suffering and is experienced as happiness. So understanding that cessation are a state of liberation from suffering, we would go on to question, well, how do I actually achieve this cessation of my suffering? How I achieve this liberation?
What is the method? And just as in the case of our analogy, when you were being irritated by this dripping water on yourself and you thought to block it, stop it somehow. So now you question what’s the method? How can I stop that leak? Say, well, I’ll put some plaster on the ceiling.
That would be the method whereby you would bring a cessation through that drip. You would block the leak. And likewise with regard to our suffering, how do I bring about that cessation to our suffering? What is the method? How do I attain that cessation?
And the method for attaining that cessation are true paths, the fourth Noble Truth. So the way to actualize true cessation is by means of the path. The path is the method of achieving true cessation. So, a path is a road, just like a road, and by means of a road, we go from one place to another, to the place that we want to get to. And here, we want to get to liberation.
And so it is by means of practicing the path that we are able to get where we want to go to. So, what do we mean by a path? What is the method that we are to make use of in getting to where we want? That is to say liberation. That is the elimination of all of our suffering.
As we said, the origin of or the source of our suffering are the afflictive emotions emotions and actions of karma. And the root of all of that is self grasping or the conception of the truly person. That is the root, That conception is a wrong consciousness, a wrong conception. Therefore, it can be overcome by a correct conception. And this is the wisdom realizing selflessness.
So the main path by means of which we eliminate true origins, that is to say, we eliminate the fundamental source of our suffering, self grasping or conception of true existence of persons is the wisdom directly realizing selflessness. That is the main path. But as has been mentioned previously, that is developed in dependence upon meditative concentration which is developed in dependence upon ethics. But the root of the means of achieving, of actualizing a cessation, of achieving a liberation, the bliss of liberation where there is no suffering, is the wisdom directly realizing selflessness. So, it’s necessary that we understand the four noble truths and the Buddha taught as a means to come to this understanding that each of these noble truths have four properties. And we explain the four properties with regard to the first noble truth, true suffering, those four qualities.
But each of the four noble truths, such as two origins, also has four properties. And this is the method like to in order to come to an understanding of these four noble truths. So it is by means of understanding the Four Noble Truths well that we understand what is to be abandoned and what is to be practiced. And without understanding that well, there can be no liberation.