Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche opens this 92-minute Lamrim session with a precise and clarifying move: cyclic existence, he says, is not a place — not this room, not the world around us — but an internal condition, the contaminated aggregates appropriated again and again through rebirth under the force of karma and afflictive emotions. From that foundation he works through the Four Noble Truths in sequence: the appropriated body as true suffering, karma and afflictive emotions as its origins, the genuine possibility of cessation, and the path achieving it. He then establishes why the aggregates constitute suffering via four reasons — impermanence, arising from negative causes, the non-separate relationship between self and aggregates (contra certain non-Buddhist schools that held them wholly unrelated), and selflessness. A Q&A closes the session, handling two pointed objections: that ordinary life doesn’t feel like suffering, and that seeking personal liberation seems self-centered; Āryadeva is cited on the universality of suffering across all conditions of rebirth.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 LR 1991 06 22.mp3
UUID: 8f9fef92-42b6-4f1e-96f8-7ab35eaf349b
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1991-06-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 91.9 minutes
Words: ~4,331
Begin with adjusting your motivation, developing the precious awakening heart. Begin by appreciating this wonderful opportunity which has been afforded to you, having attained this human life which possesses the capacity whereby to eliminate one’s suffering and to achieve happiness. So this human life is difficult to find and it has a great meaning. And if we don’t, it’s necessary that we seek to achieve this meaningfulness of the human life because it’s not going to last forever. It’s impermanent, it’s going to disintegrate.
Before the impermanence of the body that’s passing away arises, then we, let’s say that we achieve a stable happiness, a happiness without any suffering both for ourselves and others. Seeking to achieve that end, let’s not say that we engage in vast activities. Vast activities come about through our motivation, those activities which are motivated with healthy attitudes. By having healthy attitudes, we will engage in the healthy conducts and we’ll achieve a vast result. And amongst the healthiest attitude, there is none which exceeds the kind hearted attitude of the awakening heart.
And this is exemplified through holding others more dear than oneself and seeking to lead all of them from suffering and into happiness, that one oneself has to begin to develop the complete practice of what is to be adopted and what is to be rejected. By cultivating for the next three minutes, the attitude of the awakening heart such that in order to lead all beings to the state of happiness, divorced of any suffering, it’s necessary that I listen to, reflect, and cultivate in my meditation the essence of the great vehicle that is the Lamrim, the graduated path, in order to be a benefit to all sentient beings. Quoting from Śāntideva, in which he said, We have this present human life in which we are able to experience great happinesses. Hold on, hold on. Is that the white button?
Quoting from Śāntideva in which he says that we have achieved in this life, a human life, a happy migration by which we experience great happinesses having many objects of enjoyment. And we have achieved this again and again in the past, having achieved the lives of human and celestial beings and experienced great happinesses again and again in the past. But we do not always take rebirth in a happy migration as a human or a celestial being. Upon death, during the intervals of these various rebirths and happy migrations, we have taken rebirths and bad migrations in which we had to experience suffering for long periods of time. So, we have had intervals of happy migrations where we experienced happiness and bad migrations where we experienced suffering.
And what we want is a type of, a state in which we experience continuous happiness and where there is no interval of suffering. Wishing to achieve a state of happiness completely divorced of any suffering, in order to achieve such a state, what is it that we necessarily must do? We must liberate ourselves from cyclic existence. If we are able to do this, then wherever we take rebirths, we will abide in only happiness without any suffering. So, in order to be liberated from cyclic existence, what do we have to do?
Initially it’s necessary that we develop the intention which strives to be liberated from cyclic existence. So it’s necessary to develop the intention to be liberated from cyclic existence. So, in order to develop this longing to be free from cyclic existence, it’s necessary for us to understand what cyclic existence is. cyclic existence is not a place, it’s not this room, for example. Not neither is it the things within the environment.
cyclic existence is an internal factor, something within our continuum. What is it within a continuum that constitutes cyclic existence? It is the aggregates which are taken again and again through the course of our rebirths. That we are not our aggregates, we are the objects which we take, which we abide within, just as we abide within a room. The person is not their aggregates, but they take upon themselves these aggregates.
They appropriate the aggregates, and this appropriation of the aggregates, and the aggregates are the cyclic existence. So, by aggregates, referring to the aggregate of forms, our body. And upon death, we will leave our body behind, but we will go on to reappropriate another body in the taking of rebirth. So upon death, our body will be left behind and our mind will continue on and will reappropriate a new embodiment. And this continual reappropriation or taking of embodiments again and again is what is meant by cyclic existence.
So, upon our death, this present embodiment will be left behind, But that is not the end of it. Due to the force of karma and afflictive emotions, we will be led to take another embodiment. And when that embodiment is exhausted, then again due to the force of karma and afflictive emotions, we will then take on another embodiment and this will enter into another embodiment again and again and that which is leading us on through this process is karma and afflictive emotions. So the embodiment is cyclic existence which is taken again and again in the course of rebirths and that which takes these embodiments, the taker of these embodiments is the person, that is the person revolving within cyclic existence. And having once taken rebirth, then it’s necessary that we abide within the state of that particular rebirth, and we experience various types of dissatisfactory states within that rebirth, such as the sufferings of hot and cold, thirst and hunger, etcetera.
So, it’s on the basis of taking rebirth that it’s necessary that we undergo suffering, so therefore it’s concluded that we must make effort in not taking rebirth. So considering once taking embodiment, it’s necessary that we undergo various experiences of suffering and understanding that the various faults in taking an embodiment in terms of its dissatisfactoriness and therefore developing the intention to be liberated from this process of having to again and again take an embodiment, and this is the intention to be free from cyclic existence. And as a method for developing this learning to be free from cyclic existence, the Buddha in his initial teaching of the Dharma in India, taught the four noble truths. And if we were to enumerate the four noble truths, they would be the first being the noble truth of dissatisfactoriness, the second being the noble truth of sources of dissatisfactoriness, the third being the noble truth of the cessation of this dissatisfactoriness, and the fourth being the noble truth of the paths leading to the cessation of these dissatisfactorinesses. And with respect to the first of these, the true dissatisfactoriness or true sufferings, as was explained above, it is the embodiment which is taken during the course of rebirth which is held to be cyclic existence.
So the embodiment itself is true suffering. What is the meaning of the term noble truths of suffering? We said that the aggregates and specifically the embodiment of the body is in the nature of suffering. That it is the taking of this embodiment which constitutes, which is dissatisfactory. But who is it that states that the aggregates are in the nature of suffering, the embodiment is in the nature of suffering?
This is the noble ones or more specifically the superiors. Superiors are individuals who have great qualities such as having direct realization of emptiness. They realize that the nature of the appropriated aggregates of the body is suffering and as they see and as they realize that the aggregates are in the nature of suffering, this is the way it is and therefore it is said to be true. Therefore, the superior truth of suffering. For example, if we look at a flower and we see the flower and it is a flower and therefore we say this is true, it actually is a flower.
So likewise, the superiors or noble beings, those who have direct insight into reality, see the aggregates or the body as in the nature of suffering and since it is in the nature of suffering, this is said to be true. Therefore, we then term this the superiors truth of suffering or noble truth of suffering. So, we as ordinary individuals look upon their body, for example, as being clean and pleasurable. And we naturally question, well, who is it that says that our body is in the nature of suffering? And who knows that?
Who can say that? And what is said is that the superiors or the aryas, those who have eliminated the various faults through direct realization of emptiness, understand that the body is in the nature of suffering and this is the way these beings see things is taken to be the actual way they exist. That is to say, it is true and therefore the body is termed a noble truth of suffering or a superior’s truth of suffering. Then with respect to the second of the four noble truths, the noble truth of sources of suffering, that we exhaust the body and we rid ourselves of it at death, but we’re led to take on a new embodiment. It is as if we are being led by a rope.
And what is the leader? What is it that’s dragging us by this rope to take a new embodiment? It is karma and afflictive emotions. So therefore, karma and afflictive emotions are seen to be the sources of suffering or termed the noble truth of sources. And likewise, we explain this term in the same manner as previously, that we have said that karma and afflictive emotions are sources of suffering, but who knows that?
It is said that this is the way in which the superiors or the noble beings look upon the sources that is the karma and afflictive emotions. They realize them to be sources of suffering and as they realize them, this is in fact the way they are. So, this is said to be true, and thus we term karma and afflictive emotions, the noble, the superiors, true source, truth of suffering, true sources of suffering. So in Tibetan, sources is, the Tibetan word for sources is kunjung and what this means is that due to the factors of karma and afflictive emotions, then the suffering aggregates arise. They are born out of afflictive emotions and karma.
Therefore, are said to be the origins or the sources from which arises these suffering aggregates. So these first two noble truths make a pair. That is, the second noble truth of origins or sources acts as a cause, giving rise to the result, the first noble truth, the noble truth of suffering. What is it that keeps us circling within cyclic existence? It is firstly by means of the force of the noble truths of sources, that is to say karma and afflictive emotions.
This is the cause and then the result of this cause is noble truths of suffering, That is to say, the appropriate aggregates that we take. So, again and again through this process of getting ourselves of aggregates, but then again being led to the force of karma and afflictive emotions to take on new aggregates and then this is the result and then again those wear out exhausted, again having to take on new aggregates. And so this is the driving force behind this continual circling within cyclic existence. So what we have described is the process by which we continue to circle within cyclic existence and thereby undergo continual suffering. But is there a possibility to be liberated from cyclic existence or more specifically, is it possible to be liberated from our suffering?
And this brings us to the second parable of Four Noble Truths which describes the process by which we are able to be liberated from this process of cyclic existence. That we can in fact destroy our suffering, we can eliminate our suffering, we can free ourselves from our suffering from cyclic existence and that freedom, this liberation from the suffering of cyclic existence is the third noble truth, the noble truth of cessation. So the third noble truth is the noble truth of cessation and this represents the cessation of suffering where suffering is completely eliminated, destroyed. So, we can bring about a cessation to our suffering. We can eliminate our suffering.
But who is it that realizes this possibility for the cessation of suffering? Again, it is referred to as superiors or nobles, those who have direct realization of emptiness and as this in fact exists, as they realize it, then this is referred to as true, and therefore this represents the noble truth of cessation of suffering. So, if in fact we can bring bodily cessation to our suffering, if we can be freed from our suffering, how are we to do this? What is the method? And this leads us to the fourth noble truth, the noble truth of the path.
So can we achieve this cessation which is the elimination of our suffering? And this is achieved in dependence upon the path, and therefore the fourth noble truth, the noble’s true paths was taught. Likewise, with the explanation as to the term of the fourth noble truth, Who is it that realizes that In dependence upon the path that we can be freed from our suffering? And this was the noble beings or the superiors, those who have direct realization and emptiness. This situation exists as it was realized, that is to say it is true, and therefore this fourth noble truth is referred to as the superiors or nobles truth of the path.
So, the Four Noble Truths are constituted of two pairs. One describes the process by which we continue to circle within cyclic existence, that they have a pair of cause and results which perpetuates cyclic existence. The latter two noble truths are the pair which describe the process whereby one frees oneself from cyclic existence, another pair of cause and results that leads one out of cyclic existence and achieves liberation. So, with respect to the first noble truth, the noble truth of suffering, the Buddha said that the noble truths of suffering are to be understood or recognized, that it’s necessary that we come to understand well and be able to identify the actual nature of suffering. So how are we to arrive at this understanding that the contaminated aggregates which are taken in the course of rebirth are in the nature of suffering?
What is the method? And it is taught that this is established in dependence upon four reasons. So, the first of these four reasons establishing the suffering nature of the aggregates is that it is impermanent, that our body is not permanent. It is moment by moment disintegrating. It’s not stable.
Why is it momentarily disintegrating? Because it was born through a process of the coming together of causes and conditions. Having arisen in dependence upon causes and conditions, then it is transitory, it is momentarily disintegrating moment by moment and therefore is unstable, it is impermanent. When we all can understand the nature of the birth of our body taking rebirth that we were born from the sperm and ovum of our parents at a time we were just small babies. So, from the moment of our birth, minute by minute, we have been undergoing change, that we have not remained static even for one moment, that our aggregates are continually disintegrating arising in another form.
We are unlike the person that we were when we were born, when we were small. We have grown old, we have constantly undergone change. So, we aren’t permanent. If we were permanent, then we would remain just as exactly when we were first born. We would remain that way, unchanging, but in fact that’s not the case.
Many of us have grown old, we’ve become bald, we grow beards, we become wrinkled. These are our sign that we’re degenerating. So, the suffering aggregates are impermanent because they’re undergoing this process of arising and disintegrating moment by moment, and they’re not stable, they’re not static, they have no essence to them. But not only are the aggregates impermanent, but the second reason is that they are in the nature of suffering. Now, why are the aggregates in the nature of suffering?
Because they arise in dependence upon karma and afflictive emotions. As we mentioned, the karma and afflictive emotions are true sources of suffering and the true sufferings are the aggregates. Therefore, it is the causes which bring about our embodiment are karma and afflictive emotions and these are extremely negative in their nature and therefore results are negative. Because the aggregates are in the nature of suffering, then they do not possess a nature of pleasurability nor cleanliness. The aggregates are always ready to undergo suffering and they do not possess a nature of being pleasurable nor pure.
So the thought behind this is that because causes of the aggregates are negative, then that which arises are also negative. That they’re in the nature of suffering and the aggregates do not have a nature of pleasurability or cleanliness. So then the third reason is set out as a as a means of refuting the assertions of certain non-Buddhist schools. And these non-Buddhist schools hold that the self is permanent but the aggregates are impermanent. And therefore, there would have to be necessarily no relationship between the self and the aggregates, that they would be unrelated.
But in fact, the self and the aggregates are empty of being other bases that the self and the aggregates do exist in relationship. So, is the thinking behind this assertion of the non-Buddhist schools? Way they see the situation is that upon death, aggregates are destroyed, that they disintegrate, but the self goes on to take rebirth. And therefore, this self must be permanent because it goes on, it is not destroyed at death. Holding that the self is permanent and the aggregates are impermanent, they then go on to assert that the self and the aggregates are unrelatedly other.
There is no relation that the self is other than the aggregates and they have no relationship between the two. But in fact, there does exist a relationship between the self and the aggregates that there is an emptiness of unrelatedness of other. Emptiness that the self and the aggregates are empty of unrelated other. Just as the aggregates are impermanent, the self likewise is impermanent. The self likewise as the aggregates are rising and disintegrating moment by moment.
What is the way in which the self does in fact exist? None of the individual aggregates are the self, but the self depends upon the aggregates. The self is imputed or designated to the aggregates. A self which did not rely upon the aggregates is what is meant by the self of person. But in fact the self does rely upon the aggregates.
The self isn’t permanent. It arises and disintegrates moment by moment. The self does not exist independent of the aggregate. So, this third characteristic of the first noble truth is that of selflessness and here selflessness means that there does not exist a self which is independent of the aggregates. There does not exist a self which does not rely upon the aggregates.
That there is less or without such a self, selfless. The third characteristic was that of the emptiness of otherness, of being other related of the self and the aggregates. The fourth was selflessness. These two latter characteristics have a relationship to the understanding of emptiness and are difficult to understand. So, if one reflects well upon the nature of the aggregates, seeing their various faults, their unstable quality, then one will develop a longing to be free of cyclic existence.
One will develop the seek to attain liberation. So let’s stop there, but if you have some questions. Toward the latter part of our teaching we were talking about the view toward emptiness and that’s perhaps difficult to understand. So there seems to be two questions. There were two subjects which you talked about.
One, people don’t see their life as suffering, so why get out of it? And two, if they did, then it seems like a rather self centered approach to life. How often I operate instead of being I think there were two points that were mixed together. Some people see no point in getting out and some people think getting out is rather self centered. So, we’ll begin with the second first.
That is for those who have a greatly concern with others, then they would see that only thinking about eliminating their own problems was a fault. And they would, that this scene, only thinking about one’s own problems as a fault, only rises in those who are very much concerned with others. Most people would see that they would have the sense that I really can’t help other people. I’ve got to get rid of my own suffering. They have an anxiety about continually undergoing suffering and they aren’t particularly concerned about others’ problems.
And as you said, there are some who don’t think they’re suffering, and this arises because they really haven’t considered their situation. They don’t really look at their situation, and therefore they don’t think they’re suffering. But if we think well about our situation, then we will come to understand that in general that we are undergoing various types of suffering, that it’s the very nature of our present existence. From the moment of our conception, we spend nine months in gestation during which we have to undergo various sufferings, and there’s the suffering of birth, and then the various sufferings during the course of our life, various sicknesses that we have to undergo, aging process, we slowly lose our hearing, we lose our seeing, our ability to see, we find it difficult to get up, we find it difficult to sit down, and then finally the fear of death and death itself. As we continue to think, can find more and more instances of suffering that we don’t get that which we desire.
We meet with that which we do not desire. We aren’t able to find the happiness that we’re continually seeking, that we are constantly losing our loved ones, our friends, we’re losing our possessions. We went through these four characteristics and the second was the characteristic of suffering. We don’t realize that the aggregates themselves are the worst characteristic of suffering in themselves. The aggregates are in the nature of the pervasive suffering of universal conditionality.
Simply having aggregates predisposes us to undergo suffering. And then even if we were to say that we don’t have suffering over the course of our human life and we’re going to die and take rebirth, and even if we want to accept rebirth in say for example the hell realm, so we can see the animal realms and various types of possibilities within the animal realm, such as taking rebirth as a fish or a snake where they experience a great deal of suffering. Quoting from a verse by Āryadeva, in which he says that everyone is undergoing some type of suffering. It’s just that the quality of the suffering is different. Those who are affluent undergo predominantly mental suffering.
Those who are in poverty undergo predominantly physical suffering, but everybody suffers. So there are various assertions with respect to this. There are various schools of what we call tenets, systems of thought, tenets. Some of the lower tenets hold that the self is the mind, but according to the highest tenet school, that is the Consequentialist Middle Way school, they assert that the self is not the mind. The reason that the lower schools assert that the mind is the self is because the mind is the taker of rebirth and therefore they say that the mind must be the self.
That which takes, the taker of rebirth is the I, the self. I and self are synonyms. And for example, the I which is imputed to the aggregates of Champa. There is an I or a self which is imputed to the aggregates of Champa. Individually you have a self or an I which is imputed to your individual aggregates, Doc, Jim, everyone has an I or a self as imputed or designated and projected onto their aggregates.
This is the taker of rebirth, this I, this self. So the self is neither form, it’s neither matter, nor is it consciousness, but it is what a technical term called a non associated compositional factor. Non associated compositional factor. Does that help? Non associated composition is not associated with either form.
Non associated compositional factor. So the mind is not Buddha nature. The mind possesses Buddha nature, but the mind itself is not Buddha nature. Buddha nature is an element within the set of mind. So the eye is a non associated compositional factor and it possesses Buddha nature, but it is not the mind.
You said Doctor Aggregates would go forward into the next life, so that means doctor karma and with his mind of idea of I, is that what makes go forth into the next one? So, there are five aggregates. The first aggregate, the aggregate of forms, does not proceed to future life. The remaining four aggregates are feelings, perceptions, mental constructs and consciousnesses. These four go into future life.
Mental construction and consciousness. You wanna follow that? So those things make up what Doc will become in the future, and So karma is a mental factor which is included in the aggregate of mental constructs. This is part of what is going toward a future rebirth.