Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 93-minute Lamrim commentary, Khensur Rinpoche opens by citing Tsongkhapa’s verse that renunciation cannot arise without first recognizing the nature of samsaric suffering. He moves through the classic eight human sufferings before turning to the higher realms — demigods locked in jealous warfare with the gods, and desire-realm gods who enjoy centuries of pleasure yet must endure 350 human years of dread as they watch through clairvoyance their impending fall to a lower rebirth. The three types of suffering follow: suffering of pain, suffering of change (illustrated by Āryadeva’s balance-beam analogy showing how pleasure and pain always accompany each other), and pervasive conditionality as the contaminated aggregates underlying both. The session closes with a practical Q&A on deathbed conduct, including the instruction to pull the hair at the crown so consciousness exits upward toward a fortunate rebirth.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 LR 1991 07 06.mp3
UUID: 2bb65889-c355-4ffe-9cf0-64b7170d554b
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1991-07-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 93.5 minutes
Words: ~4,769
We’ll begin by adjusting our motivation, developing the awakening heart. We have found a wonderful human life, abiding in this world, a body which is handsome and can be made use of to achieve any desired end that we seek to achieve, that we can understand anything which is taught, that we have this tremendous capacity. This human body has tremendous potential. It has this great power and possibility for great benefit. What capacity does our human life have?
in dependence upon our human life, we can bring about our ultimate happiness and we can bring about a cessation to all the various undesirable results of suffering that we do not wish. This human life, through these various activities, human life possesses the ability to engage in such activities. But though this human life has this vast potential, simply having it is not sufficient. We must actually engage in all the various means to eliminate our various faults and develop all our excellent qualities to take advantage of that potential. Even in your world we understand that some item, some thing which is of great use, is very beneficial and has great potential, that such things are not commonplace.
They don’t come along every day. So having found something which is extremely difficult to find, we have to make use of it. We shouldn’t allow it to go to waste. So how can we make use of our human life? If by developing healthy attitudes, we engage in various vast types of activities, then we will definitely achieve a resultant benefit.
There’s almost no need to speak of the great benefit. Even in worldly activities, when one has a great vision, which will be of vast benefit, and through this intention, one will achieve great results. And the same holds true with respect to the area of spirituality. And with respect to the area of spirituality, what would be our vast vision? There is no higher aspiration than that of the awakening heart.
And how are we to cultivate the awakening heart? We begin by holding others more dear than ourselves and developing the longing to free them from all of their suffering and to lead them to complete happiness. In order to actually establish them in such a state, it’s necessary that I myself remove all my various faults and achieve all the various excellent qualities. That is to say I must achieve This is the kind hearted attitude of the awakening heart. And with the awakening heart as our intention, as our motivating force, what are the various activities that we’re seeking to engage in?
In order to bring about this in, we must begin to, in practice, cease all our various faulty activities and begin to cultivate all the various excellent qualities of excellent activities. And this is brought about through the activities of listening, reflecting, and meditating. The result of such activities will be that one will fulfill the welfare of both oneself and others. So for the next two minutes, cultivate the awakening heart, meditating that I will engage in these various activities and develop these various aspirations. Quoting from the verse by Tsongkhapa, without realizing the disadvantages of cyclic existence, the longing to be liberated from which will never arise.
The Buddha first taught the true sufferings and then true sources, and the reason for having taught true sufferings first is without recognizing the nature of our situation as to the nature of cyclic existence, its suffering nature, then we will never develop a longing to be liberated from it. If we do not recognize and understand the suffering nature of our present situation, then we will never long to be free from it. So therefore, it’s necessary initially to listen to the disadvantages of cyclic existence. The being of middling perspective, first becoming aware of the suffering nature of cyclic existence develops a longing to be liberated from it, and having developed this longing looks for and begins to implement the methods to be liberated from it, and this is the way in which the four noble truths are laid out. None of us like suffering, and therefore there is a tendency not to want to hear about the explanations considering the sufferings of cyclic existence.
Not liking explanations on suffering, then we don’t come to understand what is really suffering and what is not suffering. Not knowing what is really suffering and not suffering, then we never develop a longing to be liberated from suffering. And therefore, we’re never able to achieve liberation. If we don’t know how to listen to the dharma, then we will not be able to achieve the benefit and results of dharma. We like to listen to pleasant things because we derive a pleasure out of it.
We like to listen to music, for example, because we find it pleasurable. That’s the reason that we like to listen to it. But simply liking pleasure is not sufficient to bring about pleasure. Though we like pleasure and want to experience pleasure, we have to go on from there and create the causes for pleasure without having created the causes, implemented the various methods for which will bring about the resultant pleasure, when though we like it, we’re not going to experience And on the other hand, we don’t like suffering. But not liking suffering doesn’t mean that we’re not going to experience it.
In order not to experience suffering, we have to cease creating its cause. If we don’t cease creating the causes of suffering, though we don’t like it, we’re going to experience it again and again. And therefore, it’s not sufficient not to want to not listen about suffering to hope that it’s going to go away. Since we don’t like suffering, it’s necessary that we’re going to have to understand its nature if we’re going to ever bring about its cessation. The Buddha said in setting forth the teachings on the Four Noble Truths is that true sufferings are to be recognized, true sources are to be abandoned, true cessation are to be actualized, and true paths are to be practiced.
So initially we have to understand, that is recognize, what are true sufferings? We have to understand the nature of suffering if we’re ever going to go beyond it. What is the benefit to being able to recognize suffering, understanding the various natures of suffering, understanding the disadvantages of suffering, the qualities of suffering? If we understand the ins and outs of suffering and its quality, then we’re going to develop a longing to be liberated from it. Out of this longing to be liberated from it, we’ll actually develop an intention to implement the various practices which will bring about this liberation.
In the course of recognizing suffering, coming to a thorough understanding of it, we have to know all of the ins and outs of suffering, the various enumerations of suffering, the various qualities of suffering, its nature, its function, its results, the types of suffering which are experienced by other types of beings, by human beings, not only human beings but celestial beings, the anti celestial beings. And then once we begin to see its pervasiveness and its qualities and its various enumerations and functions, etc, then we’re going to develop a sense of renunciation towards suffering. Simply to say, one who simply says, I don’t want to suffer, I don’t want to suffer in the hopes that simply this not wanting to suffer isn’t sufficient not to suffer doesn’t know the way to practice Dharma. It is really foolish. So in the world if we’re going to buy some article, we should be able to recognize the quality of that article.
We should be able to identify whether it has all of the qualities that one wishes, that and whether it’s our we go by it’s full of faults, then we haven’t fulfilled our wishes. So if our wishes will be fulfilled if we buy that type of article which fulfills our standards and without any faults. So our practice is to cease those types of unhealthy activities and begin to implement healthy activities. And why is that? Because if we don’t want to suffer, we have to cease creating the causes that are unhealthy activities.
If you want happiness, we have to create those causes which are healthy types of activities. So we don’t want the various sufferings of cyclic existence, but what are some of the sufferings of cyclic existence in terms of human beings? There is first that having been conceived, have to go through the various sufferings within the womb for perhaps nine months, and then we have to go through the sufferings at birth. And the second moment after our birth begins the suffering of aging process. And then during the course of our aging process we are inflicted with various types of sicknesses, illnesses, and then before not too long, we have to suffer death.
And then there’s the suffering of having to be separated from that which we find attractive. Those individuals that we have a great liking for, that we want to stay together with, our spiritual teachers, our relatives, our friends, our companions, that we simply, we are together and then we cannot stay together always. That this relationship is such that we will definitely have to be separated from them at some time. And there’s the suffering of meeting the undesired or the unattractive, And all of the various individuals that we are forced beyond our control to come in contact with, those who harm us, those who are enemies, those who speak harsh words to us, those who we are in conflict with, those who seek to steal our things, those who seek to kill us even, that we have no control over having to meet with such individuals. Then there’s the suffering of not finding the happiness that we seek.
That we in order to find satisfaction, we require things in our lives. We need companions, we need shelter, food, clothing, worthwhile activities, we find we are continually having to make effort to look for these, and there is the suffering of not finding them, though we make effort to try to find them, so not finding the satisfaction that we seek or the happiness that we seek. And then having to experience the unwanted. All of these experiences, not only the various individuals such as those who harm us, those who cause us conflict, who speak harsh words, fight with us, but those times when we want to be warm, we’re cold, and there’s times when we want to be cool, we’re hot, and though we don’t want to be sick, we uncontrollably fall sick. All of these unwanted experiences that we are uncontrollably forced to go through.
Whoever the human might be, they go through these various experiences of birth, aging, disease, and death. They all have to go through being separated from that which they find attractive, not finding satisfaction, and meeting with the unwanted, undesirable. So these are the faults of cyclic existence. These aren’t the faults of the person or the sentient being. It’s because we have taken rebirth within cyclic existence that we uncontrollably must go through these various experiences.
Within the realm of the what we have described as well is the sufferings of human beings, but additionally there are the various sufferings of other realms, for example the demigods. And the demigods are a level between the human realm and realm of the gods. They have more pleasures than humans. They have better possessions, better dwelling places. But their pleasures are less than those of a god.
So we have described some of the various types of human suffering, such as birth, aging, disease, and death, the demigods don’t experience these particular types of suffering. The question, the thought might arise, well, do they experience any suffering at all? With respect to the sufferings of the demigods. The demigods are in a position where they are continually experiencing tremendous jealousy because the gods have more wealth than they do. They are more beautiful than they are.
The gods have nectars, various types of blissful nectars which they drink. And out of this Chenrezig of the gods, then there’s this continual fighting going on between the demigods and the gods, and and the and the demigods have to undergo the various types of sufferings of being cut with weapons, being wounded, being killed, And therefore, out of this constant fighting, jealousy, and being wounded and killed, they experience a great deal of suffering. And the female demigods are very beautiful, and they’re continually being kidnapped by the gods, so there’s this continual fighting going on. So above the demigods is another of the six types of realms, that of the gods. And the question arises, well, if one were to take rebirth in the god realm, would there be any suffering?
But even having taken this highest rebirth within the desired realm of cyclic existence, even there they experience suffering. So with respect to the gods, the gods during the course of their life, no suffering. That they have very wonderful places to live. They have they have wonderful companions. They have beautiful bodies.
All the various conducive conditions, their bodies are radiant like light, the sun and the moon. But they do toward the end of their life, they have there arises signs of their impending death, and there is said to be five near and five distant signs of death. Seven days prior to their death, signs of death begin to arrive. Their flowers begin to wilt and their usual radiant complexion begins to deteriorate. And they aren’t able to remain comfortably in their seats.
Normally because of their great purity, they have no bodily odors, but now their clothes become infused with the smell of their bodies. Normally, the the gods do not perspire, but now they begin to sweat a lot. And normally their bodies radiate light, but now the light of their body begins to degenerate. And normally the water does not remain on their bodies. It runs off, but now it begins stick on the body, the water remains on their bodies, their bodies remain moist from the water.
So normally the various bodily ornaments would, upon being struck together, would make very beautiful sound, but now they begin to make very unpleasant sounds. And normally normally, they don’t blink, but now they begin to blink. So seven days prior to their deputy signs arise. And though they had all of these wonderful companions during the course of their life, once these signs begin to arise, then the other gods will have nothing to do with them. But those gods who have a great liking for them may, a few may, actually, holding a stick to their nose, give a flower and tell them to pray that they’d be born in the world.
So one day of the god realm is equal to three fifty years of the human realm. These gods have very long lives. So they have to undergo the suffering of impending death for three hundred fifty years. So the gods have a particular clairvoyance whereby they can see where they took rebirth in the past, where they have taken rebirth at present, and where they will take rebirth in the future. That is to say they can see these three places of rebirth.
So they know where they’re going to take rebirth upon death. So they can see that the fact that they may be taking rebirth as a hell being or hungry ghost, etcetera. And because of this, they experience great suffering. So they have to remain in this state of fear and anxiety for three hundred fifty human years. It’d be better if they didn’t see what was coming.
So I mean normally humans, they don’t know where they’re going to be reborn, but these gods, they know where they’re going to be reborn upon their death and they experience great fear. We would experience the same fear if we really knew where we were going to be reborn. Though they have only pleasure and happiness during the course of their life, they experience this tremendous suffering at the time of their death. And because they have this tremendous happiness and pleasure during the course of their life, they have no inclination to practice Dharma. They don’t practice the Dharma.
And they have, through the experience of their pleasures, they have exhausted all of their various creative potentials and they have not created, in the meanwhile they have not created any skillful actions and therefore all that’s left is the ripening of their negative actions which means that they will be born in a bad migration. And then even above the desire realm gods, there are the gods of the form and formless realms. And these gods, they achieve a trance state of deep meditative stabilization, which is almost like being asleep. They spend thousands of years in these states, it’s almost numberless years. But at the time of their death, it’s as if they wake up from their sleep, and all of the potency, the power which has sustained these trance states has been exhausted, and now they are faced with their impending death.
So this is the pinnacle of cyclic existence, such trance states. So even to be born in such celestial states is hardly worth it? So this is the situation with cyclic existence, that because the causes of all of these various types of embodiments are negative in that they are karma and afflictive emotions, then they can only have a negative result. So, you know, what is the cause of true sufferings? The causes of true sufferings are true sources, and amongst true sources, these true sources are constituted of afflictive emotions and karma, and between these two, mainly afflictive emotions.
So all of these various embodiments within cyclic existence, these various rebirths are taken due to the cause of afflicted emotions and because the cause is of a negative quality, then anything which arises out of this will be correspondingly negative. So we should try to understand that the nature of cyclic existence is dissatisfactory, This is the way we can begin to develop a renunciation towards cyclic existence that wherever one might take rebirth in it, it is ultimately not satisfactory. That there’s no stability, there’s no permanency in wherever we might take rebirth. That we even take in a high rebirth, we will eventually have to fall from that state, and therefore it’s in the nature of suffering. So if we understand well the faults of cyclic existence, then we will begin to look upon cyclic existence as something which is not good, which We will want to eliminate cyclic existence.
We will develop a longing to be liberated from cyclic existence, to abandon cyclic existence. So cultivating the understanding of cyclic existence we can simply, if we briefly state the sufferings of cyclic existence we can condense them down into three. That is the suffering of pain, the suffering of change, and the universal conditionality, the suffering of universal conditionality or the pervasive compositional factor. By the suffering of pain, these are the various usual mental and physical pains that we experience, those types of feelings that we don’t desire. The of, the pain of a toothache, stomachache, headaches, all the various unhappy feelings that we experience, these are all examples of the suffering of pain.
So the suffering of change. And the suffering of change is all of our various contaminated pleasures that we experience are examples of suffering of change. For example, we experience when we’re having been tired, we sit and we feel a certain way. So we feel pleasure from resting. That is a contaminated pleasure.
When we’re thirsty, we drink a cup of tea, we feel pleasure. That’s a contaminated pleasure. When we’re hungry, eat food. When we’re cold, we go out in the sun and we feel warm and we feel a pleasure. These are all examples of the suffering of change.
So why do we call these very pleasures, sufferings of change? Because if we take the example of you’re hungry and you eat some delicious food, initially it’s quite pleasurable. But if you were to continue to eat, there would reach a point when it would no longer be pleasurable. That this feeling of pleasure would not only go, but it would become unpleasurable, displeasurable. One would even become sick.
You would get a stomachache and all the various accompanying physical discomforts, not being able to sit well, not the general displeasure of the body. Changeability of pleasure to displeasure is what we mean by the suffering of change. So you know, right now we’re sitting very comfortably resting, and it’s quite pleasurable. But if we were to continue to sit, and continue continue to sit, eventually it would become unpleasurable, it would become painful. So we get up and we no longer are experiencing the pleasure of sitting.
We no longer are experiencing the pain of of having to sit, and we experience the pleasure of standing. But in contrast to that past pain of sitting, we now are experiencing the pleasure of standing. But if we were to continue to stand, and perhaps an hour goes by, and that becomes painful, then that pleasure would begin to change. That pleasure is the beginning of the pain of standing up. And then we say, well, maybe I’ll sit down again.
And so we sit down, and again we contrast to that previous pain of standing up, we experience the pleasure of sitting down. According to a verse from Āryadeva, discussing the nature of the changeability of pleasure and pain, We are standing up and we begin to, having stood up for a long period of time, we begin to experience the pain of standing. And then we, in order to rid ourselves of that pain, we sit down. And that first instant, we experience the pleasure of sit, we experience the cessation of that pain of standing. And this is taken to be the pleasure of sitting.
But, and we think that we’re experiencing pleasure. But in fact, we have that first instance of that pleasure is accompanied with the very beginning of the pleasure, of the pain of sitting. What we are experiencing, we conceive of as pleasure is in contrast to the past pain of standing and additionally it is the first moment of the pain of sitting. It’s like the pans of a balance beam. As our pleasure increases, our pain decreases.
But there’s always some degree of pleasure and pain, that there’s never a moment when we’re completely in pleasure and never a moment when we’re not completely in pain. That they are accompanying one another, that pleasure and pain. As when we sit down, then there is the pleasure of sitting, but that is the first moment of the pain of sitting. Then when we stand up, that’s the end of the pain of sitting, but that’s the first moment of the pain of standing. So the point is that what we conceive of as pleasure is termed contaminated pleasure because it’s dissatisfactory in its nature.
So, the various contaminated pleasures that we experience are examples of the dissatisfactoriness of change. Then the third suffering was that of universal conditionality and this is the basis for these two previous types of suffering. That is our contaminated aggregates. That is to say aggregates which are appropriated under the influence of karma and afflictive emotions. These serve as the basis for all the various sufferings that we experience.
So, one can have the sense that if we didn’t take these aggregates under the influence of karma and afflictive emotions, then there would be no basis for the previous two types of suffering. There would be those of the sufferings of pain and the sufferings of change. Without these appropriate aggregates, there would be no basis for these prior true sufferings and therefore the very fact of having contaminated aggregates is by itself dissatisfactory. So very briefly, this is some of the dissatisfactory qualities of cyclic existence. And what is the foundation?
The foundation is the contaminated aggregates, that is the aggregates which we have appropriated under the force of karma and afflictive emotions. If we don’t take these contaminated aggregates under the force of the common afflictive emotions, then we will not experience cyclic existence. And how can we not continually appropriate, take on these aggregates? Well, the cause which forces us to take them on again and again is karma and afflictive emotions, that is to say true sources. If we cease creating karma and remove the various afflictive emotions, then we have ceased the cause.
And can we eliminate these causes? Can we cease creating the causes whereby to continually appropriate these aggregates? We can, and the methods whereby to bring about the cessation of the afflictive emotions and karma were set forth by the Buddha in his teachings on true cessations and true paths. So, we’re going to stop there, but just in general that we don’t want to suffer, we don’t like suffering. And if we’re going to end our suffering, if we’re going to ever eliminate it, then we have to begin to recognize it, we have to begin to understand its nature, and then we’ll make effort to go beyond it.
So if you have any questions. So if a person dies and say you’re in a hospital and a person dies yeah, can you see what I’m saying? Is it better to send them to the higher realms? Or is it better not, and then what you might touch them and send them to a lower realm? Which is, which is better?
Yeah, So the body at the moment prior to death is the body. The consciousness prior to the moment of death is beginning to centralize at the heart area. And so beneficial that consciousness in exiting the body exited upward fashion. So it’s useful in order to attract the consciousness to pull the hair on top of the head and this can help to bring about a fortunate type of rebirth. If you touch the lower parts of the body, this may act as a condition to bring about a bad rebirth.
Now as to whether having taken a fortunate type of rebirth, on that basis, then this person can go on to practice the Dharma and may not have to take a bad rebirth in the future. That’s the possibility that you’re trying to present to them. The fact is they might not practice the Dharma, they might exhaust their good karma and therefore in the future have to take a bad rebirth, but you can’t help this. But you can seek to give them a basis of a happy rebirth in order to practice the Dharma. So it would be beneficial to do this.
So. One should do this for oneself, to exit the consciousness from the upper parts of the body and making prayers that may I take a fortunate rebirth where I can meet with the Dharma and carry on my practice of the Dharma. One should do that for oneself. So this pulling of the hair at the time of death is mainly for those who have practiced the Dharma in some way, that in order to lead their consciousness and to activate the skillful actions that they’ve created so that they temporarily will not have to undergo a bad migration and that they will practice the Dharma in the future. They will have a situation where they’ll be able to practice the Dharma, continuing their practice.
It’s really difficult to help somebody who hasn’t practiced any type of spirituality during the course of their life when they’re dying. They just simply don’t have that discrimination. Their mind is very confused. It may be of use even for someone who has not practiced a spiritual path at the time of their death to recite the name of the Buddha in their ear. Maybe this would help them to take a happy rebirth.
But even for them it’s possible that they might not like you whispering the word Buddha in their ear and they might get upset and this would bring about a bad migration.