Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The talk opens with a folk story: a distressed woman’s Lama tells her to bring chickens, goats, and a cow into her already cramped home, then remove them one by one — until her original house feels “so pleasant and peaceful.” Ven Jampa Gendun uses this to frame a 34-minute introduction to the Four Noble Truths, arguing that Buddhism starts with suffering not as doctrine but as the one undeniable fact, more certain than Descartes’ “I think therefore I am.” He then walks through the logical sequence of all four truths — why the Buddha taught them in the order a naturally inquiring mind would pursue a problem — before examining three levels of suffering: raw physical and mental pain; the suffering of change (pleasures that curdle — a new car, a repeated joke, shifting sun and shade at altitude); and the subtle, pervasive burden of carrying an ego. Warm and witty, with everyday examples throughout, this commentary is well suited to newcomers to Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 1987 07 24 4 NT.mp3
UUID: 2175b99a-ee1c-4a49-a54d-25741bc04ee1
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Four Noble Truths (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1987-07-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 33.7 minutes
Words: ~3,877
She goes screaming frantically back to the Lama the next week. And she’s about she’s in hysterics. She almost can’t handle it anymore. And she says, Lama, I have to leave my home. He says, No, no, it’s going to be okay.
Do you have a cow? The story could go on and on. Yes, yes, I have. But Lama, but Lama No, no, It’s going to be okay. Put the cow in your house.
He puts the cow in her house. And now there’s the mooing, the lowing, the clucking, and the cow, know, the dung and all that. And the woman, you know, she finally freaks out. She’s running through the streets back to and the Lama sees her and she says, Come, come. Sit, sit.
Now, go home. Take the cow out of the house. So, finally settles her down and she goes goes back home and takes the cow out the house. The next week she comes back and he asks, How is it now? Well, it’s a little better.
Okay, take the goats out of the house. So she goes home and takes the goats out of the house and comes back the next week and Lama says, How is it now? Oh, it’s not so bad now. I said, Okay, now take the chickens out of the house. She goes home and takes the chickens out of the house.
And she comes back the next week and Lama says, How is it now? She says, Oh, Lama, it’s so pleasant and peaceful. I don’t know how we could ever live without you. So, you know, it’s relative, isn’t it? Pain and pleasure.
And what we call pain is only conceived of in relationship to pleasure. What we call peace exists in relationship to what we call chaos. This is the nature. In a dualistic world, this would be a theory of Buddhism. So we begin with suffering.
We talk about suffering as a method, not as a theory, a method, not as doctrine, but as a means to help us renounce the causes of suffering. Why do we begin with suffering? Why don’t we talk about something nice? Was it? Descartes.
He said, I want to know one thing. I want to know one thing for sure, without any assumptions, without listening to anyone else’s information. I want to know one thing for myself for sure, something that I can know this is true, anything. He wanted to know what he could find out for sure that was true, that was definite, that existed. So he thought, and he thought, and he was thinking, and he was thinking.
He thought a long time thinking, thinking, and finally he said, The only thing I can know for sure, and he said, I think, therefore I am. That was the only thing he could find that he could know for sure. Because he found himself thinking, he knew that he was, that he existed. Now, he spent many, many years coming to this great revelation, I think, therefore I am. And in later years, Bertram Russell said, Well, even that wasn’t quite correct.
He spent all these years trying to come to some surety, some truth. And later on one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century said, Well, there’s a little mistake in grammar in what he said. And Buddhism would come along and say, Well, when you say I think, who is this? What do you mean by this I and I am? What does it mean to be am?
There’d be no limit to the controversy, right? We can argue about whether we exist or not. We can argue about whether the soul exists, whether nirvana exists, past and future lives exist, but no one can argue about suffering. It’s our experience. It’s a very immediate experience.
So we begin with our own immediate experience of suffering. It’s not an abstract theory or an intellectual idea. It’s our own experience. Know, from the point of view of we’re talking about this pair, these various pairs. One of them was wisdom and method.
From the point of view of wisdom, nirvana is very near. We can understand logically, intellectually by abandoning the obstructions to nirvana, by abandoning the afflictive emotions such as desire, hatred, and ignorance by getting rid of these, we can attain nirvana. We can attain the state beyond sorrow. We can come to an intellectual understanding that this is the case. This is a very logical conclusion that we come to.
So in this sense, from the point of view of wisdom, nirvana is near. Samsāra is far. But from the point of view of method, the point of view of experience, what we are immediately experiencing now, Samsāra, is right here. It’s in this room. nirvana is very far away.
Experience takes priority over logic in our lives. Priority which determines our behavior is determined by how we experience things, not how we intellectually conceive of things. So, begin with how we are actually experiencing things, our own immediate experience which we cannot deny. It is the experience which determines our behavior above logical priorities in our valuing system. So now we’re going to begin talking about the Four Noble Truths.
True sufferings, true sources, true cessation, true paths, the four noble truths. The four noble truths are not presented in the order of their arising. From true sources come true sufferings. From true paths come true cessation. This is not the order that the Buddha taught them in.
Again, you know, he taught them in an order how they would evolve in a mind which was investigating, analyzing, inquiring, a mind which was confronting the problem of suffering. He taught suffering first. Look at suffering. When you begin to see suffering, you begin to question. The mind naturally begins to inquire, Where does it come from?
Did it come from God? Does it have no cause? Does it just somehow happen? Does it have a cause? So, from inquiring into suffering, we naturally are led to inquire.
It naturally brings up the question, What is the cause of suffering? The second noble truth. Once we are led that far, we pursue the problem. But once we begin to understand the cause, can his cause be eliminated or is it inherent to existence? Which leads us to the third noble truth, true cessation.
That means, can the cause be eliminated? Can we finally end the causes which bring about suffering? So if we go on this far in analysis, this is a naturally evolving mind which is inquiring deeper and deeper and deeper analyzing into this problem of suffering. It’s not some abstract design which is set up by the intellect. It’s a natural process of unfolding into a problem.
By confronting problem, the mind, bringing our wisdom to bear on the problem, our mind is naturally drawn into this process. Can we get rid of the cause? If we can get rid of that cause, what is the way? How do we get rid of it? What are the means, the methods?
That’s the Fourth Noble Truth, True Paths. So the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths in a manner in which a naturally inquiring mind would realize them. True sufferings are to be recognized. True sources are to be abandoned. true cessations are to be realized and true paths are to be cultivated.
You know, it’s like if you’re sick. Sometimes we’re sick and we don’t know it. By that I mean sometimes people have cancer or you have AIDS for a few years and the symptoms don’t manifest. So we have to relook into ourselves and we realize that there’s some symptoms of sickness and we begin to analyze the nature of our sickness, trying to find, well, what is the cause of this sickness and is there medicine for this sickness? And is this medicine available?
And likewise, we do the same thing with suffering. So we’re going to begin with the first noble truth, the truth of suffering. True sufferings. True sufferings. And this is most easily explained in terms of the three characteristics.
These are Pali words, the three most popular words in Thailand. You hear them everywhere. Anyway, there are four seals in Buddhism that testify to a Buddhist doctrine. If this teaching has these four seals then it’s in accordance with Buddhist doctrine. And these four seals are that all phenomena, products are impermanent.
All contaminated objects are miserable. All phenomena are selfless and empty. nirvana, that is beyond sorrow, is peace. These are kind of like the four pillars, principles of Buddhism. So we take these first three, and these are the three characteristics which are emphasized within Theravadan tradition when they’re always talking about dukkha, anicca, anatta, suffering, impermanence and selflessness.
So we begin discussion of the first noble truth, true sufferings from the point of view of these three suffering, impermanence, and selflessness. So the sufferings, suffering of suffering. Or sometimes maybe it’s better to say dissatisfactoriness. Dissatisfactoriness. It’s kind of easier for the mind to identify with that.
We don’t like to say that we’re suffering. Maybe it’s becoming acceptable now. There was a point where people felt guilty if they suffered. There’s all these people running around television on the beach laughing and skipping and drinking Coca Cola, and everybody else is obviously having a good time, and I seem to be the only one suffering. There’s something wrong with me, and we feel rather guilty about it.
But now maybe it’s becoming okay to say, I suffer, that everything’s not quite okay, that things could be better, that they’re a a little bit dissatisfactory. Dissatisfactory it kind of has an easier edge than suffering, maybe. So we talk about dissatisfactoriness, how the world is experienced by an ordinary being as being dissatisfactory. The world to an ordinary being is seen in three ways to be dissatisfactory. The first is the simple fact of suffering or dissatisfactoriness.
This is actual pain down to the nitty gritty of headache, you stub your toe, you have an ulcer, heartburn, physical sufferings that we all experience every day. And then there’s mental sufferings, which we’re all well acquainted. There’s fears, anxieties, frustration, despair, sorrow, lamentation, being separated from that which we desire, not gaining the happiness that we seek, coming into contact with that which we do not want to come into contact with, all the myriad sufferings that occur to us almost every day of our lives. So we think about these sufferings. We look into them.
Is there any pattern, some connection? Are all our sufferings completely unrelated? Are they occurring completely in isolation to each other? And what is the extent of our suffering? Is it more than we care to imagine?
So this is more or less the very first, the primary level that we consider suffering on just simple physical pain, actual mental pain. The next level we think of is psychological suffering, psychological suffering, the suffering of impermanence. Even if within this area of the first type of suffering, the first level of suffering, we even have to begin to examine our pleasures. Are our pleasures pleasurable or not? We very seldom call them into question.
You know, most of our pleasure is the negation of a prior deprivation, or more simply put, the lessening of tension. There’s an idiot boy sitting over in the corner, you know, and he’s hitting himself over the head with a hammer. He’s hitting himself over the head with a hammer. And someone comes along and says and looks and so, Well, you know, why are hitting yourself over the head with a hammer? And the idiot boy looks up and says, Because it feels so good when I stop.
To a great extent, most of what we call pleasure is simply a temporary cessation of a greater degree of suffering, a lessening of tension, a momentary release. We build up tension quite often purposely so we can experience the release, the sudden release, the catharsis of release. And we call this pleasure. Most of our There’s one master in Thailand. His name is Ajahn Buddhadasa.
He’s probably the most famous master in Thailand at present time and he lives near the coast in southern Thailand. Of course, always have a lot of fish because it’s near the coast, near the ocean they have a lot of fish. So he always uses a lot of fish examples, fishy examples. And he always says contaminated pleasure. You know this word these four seals that we talked about, the second one was all contaminated phenomena are miserable.
He says that all our pleasures have a fishbone in them, you know, they look very good, but there’s some flaw. You know, this isn’t pessimistic. I think he’s being honest. There’s some flaw. There’s something wrong.
You know, when we say the word contaminated, it’s an interesting word. It doesn’t sound very nice, does it? But in Tibetan, the word is called zagcha. Zagcha means to fall. Cha just means to have, possessing.
Zagcha, to possess a fall. Any object which causes us to fall into afflictive emotions, that is, for example, desire, hatred, jealousy, miserliness, pride, any object which causes to fall into any of these negative states of mind is contaminated. In other words, any object which can bring about suffering. Now, the suffering is not in that object. That quality of causing us to fall is not in that object, but it’s the attitude we bring towards that object.
So any object which for us, for an ordinary person, will bring about your fall, your suffering is called contaminated. We have to be careful with contaminated objects. All contaminated objects have a fishbone, and if we’re not careful, we’ll choke on it. And then we buy a car. You hop in your car and you just bought it and you feel a great deal of pride, you know, driving down the street.
Have a feeling that everyone’s looking at you in your car. Actually, people could probably care less. But we feel, you know, we identify with this car. It feels good, clean, expensive, rich. Then we hear a little ding ding in the engine or something, a little pain here in the heart.
And maybe some guy puts a dent in it. Would you mind? So then the car isn’t completely satisfying because we have to begin to worry about it. We have to be concerned about it. It’s not completely free of fish bones, is it?
It’s not complete happiness. There’s nothing in these various objects that we consider pleasurable. There’s nothing inherently pleasurable about them. There’s nothing inherently painful about them either. Only the mind makes itself.
So, if we have a proper attitude toward them, they do not necessarily have to have fishbone. But presently, because of our attitude, things bring up problems. These problems are the fish bones. We have to be careful. This is the nature of the ordinary mind.
This is the nature of our pleasures. They’re not quite complete. There’s some quality of dissatisfactoriness about them. This is not pessimistic. It’s a method for helping us to overcome the attitudes which make them dissatisfactory.
You know the mind will naturally tend to be a human being, to be alive, to be that which is living. The very basis of life is avoidance and approach. Avoidance and approach. The mind will naturally tend toward happiness, towards peace, towards bliss. The mind will naturally avoid suffering, pain.
If we use our intelligence and determine what actually is pleasurable, what actually is peaceful, what actually is bringing us happiness, the mind will naturally go in that direction. If we determine what are painful objects, what objects have fish bones, what we have to be careful about, the the mind will naturally begin to avoid those objects. Naturally, this is our own wisdom. Don’t have to do it’s our own basic sanity operating on problems of existence. This is the point I want to emphasize.
You know, we have a great deal more wisdom than we give ourselves credit for if we use it. Just by analyzing our problems, they are going to be solved. If we analyze them analyze them intelligently with a method, with some direction, with some clarity, the mind is going to tend toward the solution because that’s the basis of life, tending toward peace, clarity, away from confusion, away from pain. So we’re talking about the second level of psychological suffering, suffering, the suffering of impermanence. It’s not obvious because quite often what we term that which is this suffering of impermanence we take as being pleasure.
You know, we buy this motor car. First it’s a great source of pleasure to us. It slowly changes, doesn’t it? The problems begin to arise with the motor, with the new tires, oil change, someone hits it we have to take it to the repair shop, insurance. I don’t know.
I haven’t driven a car in fifteen years, so I forget about these things. But we tried to hold on to the same attitude we had to that car the day we drove it out of the showroom. We tried to hold on to that good feeling that we had in spite of everything. It’s having problems, but it’s going to be okay. It’s just as good as it was five years ago or ten years ago when I bought it.
I just I just to pound that dent out a little bit there and a new oil change. Want to hold on to the same pleasure that we had before and we can’t and we suffer. Things change, the suffering of change. We don’t quite want to accept that things change. Relationships change.
It’s very sad, isn’t it? If these things were inherently pleasurable, then no matter how much we use them, they would bring us the same pleasure. You know, if if sex were inherently pleasurable, then we would be wise to have sex constantly. Or if a joke, know, food was inherently pleasurable, and we would just keep eating, keep enjoying this pleasure over and over and over, but there reaches the point where the pleasure begins to turn first into boredom and then into pain. You know, someone tells you a very funny joke and it’s very humorous the first time you hear it and you laugh and you enjoy it.
And then you hear it again and oh, it’s okay. It’s still funny, but not quite as funny as it was before. And then you hear it again and it’s getting a little bit boring and you hear it again and it’s starting to get painful. Something changes. Pleasure changes in the pain.
This is psychological suffering, suffering of change. In the Tibetan tradition, they often exemplify this by, you know, this isn’t so it’s more noticeable up in the mountains when you’re at a high altitude. The sun is very harsh, extremely, you know, because of the thinness of the atmosphere and it’s quite uncomfortable to be in the bright sun. So you know if you’re at fifteen thousand feet or something and you move into the shade. Now if you’ve been in the mountains, know in the shade, even during the summer it gets quite cold.
So, you know, first you’re in the sun and you’re very hot and you say, Wow, I’m moving in the shade. And then you’re, Oh, that feels good. Feels good, feels good. And then you start, Oh, it’s getting a cold. Oh, it’s not quite as comfortable as I thought.
I think I’ll move back into the sun. Whew, hard. That’s good. Feels good. Feels good. And then it gets hot again..
And this is the way we go through life, alternating between these extremes. Pleasure turns to pain. And we try to avoid that, so we start something else new and that again changes. So the third level of suffering is sometimes termed metaphysical suffering, abstract suffering, metaphysical. It has a big name.
It’s called pervasive compositional suffering. Compositional suffering. This is usually exemplified by what we call contaminated aggregates of mind and body. This mind and body are an example of pervasive compositional suffering. We have a mentality and a materiality which is programmed to suffer.
It’s already there on the disc. We just meet the correct circumstances and the disc prints out this suffering. We suffer just by meeting slight conditions, coming in contact with them, we undergo suffering. It’s called potential suffering. We’re always liable to suffering, just meeting slight conditions.
It’s called potential suffering. This is a very difficult type of suffering to see. It’s very subtle. It’s said that for us, for ordinary people, considering pervasive compositional suffering is like a hair in our hand. Not much problem with a hair in your hand.
But for someone who has realization of the nature of suffering, it’s like taking that same hair and putting it into his eye. It’s that disturbing. He can’t stand it. He wants to get rid of this type of body and mind which are programmed to suffering. Now there’s another way we can look at this type of suffering, perhaps a more meaningful way for us.
It’s simply that we have an ego. We have to carry around the burden of the ego, you know, like carrying around a bundle of thorns on our back. Wherever we go, it’s there. We can’t quite be free. We always have to be securing our territory.
We always have to be checking up, How am I doing? Am I doing all right? We always have to be searching for credentials. It’s a big burden actually to have to be always considering yourself and whatever constantly interpreting whatever happens about you in terms of yourself. You know, someone comes up and says, Oh, did you hear about he died?
And how does that relate to me now? I did it hurt me? Did it help me? Or is it indifferent to me? And, you know, we centralize all our experience around this ego.
Always trying to secure its territory. Always having to be on defense. Wherever we go, this constant burden is there, pervasive with our life. It’s a very kind of subtle suffering, but I think, you know, we all can recognize it. You know, With this type of burden there’s no spontaneity.
There’s no real love. There’s only the self concern, self-cherishing, exaggerated selfishness. So we aren’t looking at these sufferings to make us depressed. Becoming aware of our suffering isn’t going to make us suffer anymore. That’s not the point.
It’s a skillful method, you know, to help us to develop the determination, the motivation to be free of suffering once and for all. We shouldn’t think of suffering as only feelings of suffering. Now we can go into it in a much deeper level. Suffering. Going to suffer next week.
We can continue our suffering next week. I thought we’d have a few minutes of