Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A leaky ceiling that keeps dripping on you becomes the central analogy in this 51-minute session, as Khensur Rinpoche completes his series on the four close placements of mindfulness. Having covered body, feeling, and mind in earlier sessions, he turns to the fourth object — phenomena — explaining how meditating on it serves as the entry point into the fourth noble truth, true paths. He then walks through the logic linking all four noble truths: recognising true suffering prompts investigation of its causes (karma and afflictive emotions), which points toward cessation, which in turn demands a path. That path, he argues, is the wisdom directly realising selflessness — the root antidote to self-grasping, built on the foundation of ethics and meditative concentration. Suited to practitioners following the retreat in sequence.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 IR 1997-06-09.mp3
UUID: d0c7872b-90c7-4efb-a765-63b2eacba562
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Insight Retreat (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1997-06-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 51.0 minutes
Words: ~2,038
So we’ll begin by meditating for a few minutes, cultivating as our motivation, the awakened heart. In order to actually bring this about in fact, we must implement a method. And what is myself must serve to remove all my various faults and bring the consummation, all my excellent qualities that I must achieve such a state for the sake of all sentient beings, such an aspiration, and awakened heart. And actually, in order to practice. When the Blessed One has said, the venerable Śāriputra to the noble Avalokiteśvara, that whole gathering in the world with gods, men, anti-gods, and spirits, their hearts full of joy and praise, the words of the Blessed One.
So in the noble discourse, in 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. It’s necessary to listen well. 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.
In the world. On the other hand, if we were not to listen to the news, we simply would not know what’s going on around us, 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 practice. If we listen to people who are familiar with the nature of Dharma and that’s the practice, then we can come to know them as well.
What the name? That in dependence upon listening well, we will develop good wisdom. Wisdom will be very good. Wisdom is like an eye. It says in the case of when we look at our eyes of the 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 is appropriate conduct and what is inappropriate conduct, what will bring about a positive end and what will bring about a negative end. We will be able to practice. So by practicing ethics well, we will be able to decrease the gross faults of our mind such, and along with those gross faults, such faults as laxity and excitement will be pacified. Having abandoned laxity and excitement, we will be able to go on to develop meditative concentration. We will achieve calm abiding. Through practicing ethics well, we eliminate inappropriate physical activity.
By developing calm abiding, we begin to decrease and eliminate gross inappropriate activities of the mind. With concentration, we can go on to develop wisdom, 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. This is most essentially the conception of the self, a truly existing self, and it’s by eliminating this most subtle fault of the mind that we are able to abandon cyclic existence and achieve liberation. 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 feeling in order to gain understanding of the source of our suffering, in terms of the second noble truth, the truth of origins of suffering, and develop an attitude which seeks to abandon these true origins of suffering.
And then we explained 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 of understanding selflessness which is able to overcome 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 in the close placement of mindfulness, that of the Dharma. As the text goes on to explain, 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 what is discordant with, or what contradicts or is incompatible with, the afflictive emotions which act as the basis of suffering. 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 particular emotions are to be generated.
By generating a true path, it is the method whereby to overcome all the afflictive emotions. So the object of meditating, the reason for meditating, taking phenomena as the object of observation of close placement of mindfulness, is in order to actualize, to cultivate. 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 that we realize the four noble truths and this 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? By coming to an understanding of the four noble truths, first, we will come to an understanding of the first, at least, that is to say true suffering, an understanding that 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 an understanding of its nature as a true suffering.
By recognizing the first truth, true suffering, we will go on to question, well, where does all of this undesired experience of suffering come from? I 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 and investigation of the causes of our suffering, where the source of true sufferings arises, that is to say 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. I wonder where this drop is coming from, where these drips are coming from. Due to our irritation, we will go on to investigate what the source of these drops falling on me is, and we will see that there is a hole in the ceiling, and 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 to be dripped on. So you’ll be moved to block the source.
So likewise, in terms of our present discussion, when we question where our suffering comes from and when we investigate, we come to understand that 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. We can stop these true origins of suffering, eliminate them, then we can experience the happiness where there is no longer suffering. But this requires that we investigate the source of our suffering. So, what are the origins of our suffering? What are the sources of our suffering?
It is karma, that is, the actions which are motivated by the afflictive emotions. It is both the actions and the afflictive emotions which motivate those actions. If we can bring those to an end, those two origins, then we achieve happiness, which is great, which no longer has those sufferings. We achieve cessation, a happiness which arises in dependence upon having abandoned the true origins of suffering. We achieve a liberation from suffering.
So these cessations, which are true cessations, are in the nature of happiness where there is no suffering. So we are liberated. So a cessation is liberation from suffering and is experienced as happiness. So understanding that cessations 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 do 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? Said, well, I’ll put some plaster on the ceiling. That would be the method whereby one would bring a cessation to that drip.
That 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? The method for attaining that cessation are true paths. 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. 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. 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 or the source of our suffering are the afflictive emotions and actions, the karma. And the root of all of that is self-grasping or the conception of a truly existent 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 upon ethics. But the root means of achieving, of actualizing a cessation, of achieving a liberation, a bliss of liberation where there is no suffering, is the wisdom directly realizing selflessness. So it’s very 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 explained the four properties with regard to the first noble truth, true suffering, those four qualities. But each of the four noble truths, such as true origins, also has four properties.
And this is the method 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 come to understand what is to be abandoned, what is to be practiced, and without understanding that well, there can be no liberation.