Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this three-hour teaching, Ven Jampa Ignyen addresses a fundamental challenge for modern students: whether a path described 2,500 years ago remains practical and relevant today. Rather than assuming the Buddha’s framework fits, he encourages critical investigation—can you actually use these teachings; do they describe your situation? Working through the Eightfold Noble Path, he spends considerable time on right view, using impermanence as an entry point. Everything changes moment by moment, he argues; recognizing this cuts through the illusion of a fixed self and reduces attachment. A major section tackles a contemporary tension: whether secular humanitarians can develop right view without accepting karma and rebirth—a question that reveals the Buddha’s metaphysical framework and its consequences for understanding suffering.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 8 FT 2012 10 21.mp3
UUID: 40d9ebe4-2f50-4048-a9bc-f0de77e572a1
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y 8 Fold Truths (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2012-10-21
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 189.6 minutes
Words: ~11,980
So we’re continuing with this course on the eightfold noble path. So how’s it going so far? Is it sinking in yet? Good. If you have any questions about the meaning of anything that we’ve discussed so far, please bring it up.
What we’re investigating, this is a very ancient presentation, described two and a half thousand years ago. So we need to investigate whether it’s really relevant to ourselves. Does it really describe what we imagine the path to be? Path to enlightenment? Can we bring this into our current life?
I’ll just bring this over a bit. Is it relevant to us? And in fact, this is almost the question we have. Why do I have any of those instructions or ideas that come from thousands of years ago is applicable. Can I use it?
Does it help me? Is it practical? Do I agree with it? So this we have to apply. We have to be very critical of all of these things.
And it just tests to see whether we can use them whether it does describe our situation. So this is very very important for us. We have to develop we already have this critical ability. But we really have to exercise it in this area as well very much. Okay, so yesterday we dealt with the eight.
We just looked at these eight factors: eight limbs, anga in Sanskrit, sort of the eight parts of the path to enlightenment. The eightfold noble path. Now some of them we directly can relate to at present, you know, such as right speech, action, livelihood, they’re reasonably straightforward. Exertion, Yes, we can understand that quite easily. Mindfulness concentration are things that we probably say we need to develop more.
And then right view and right investigation: they also are perhaps a little bit hard to develop. Extremely important because the right view for instance the right view is just our view in the present of how things are, why things exist, the way we interpret the world around us. We’re always actively engaging and interpreting what’s going on and we need to look at the assumptions of our view of the world. Just how it has developed. Where has it come from?
We get bits and pieces from other people. They tell us things and we add it to our view of the world. How we look at the world itself is made up of many components. Some coming from our parents. A lot of advice we get from our parents, it keeps coming back to us.
Words they say, things they’ve said to us, advised us, and we take it on board and it’s part of the filter that we use to interpret the world around us and help us to decide on how to act. So that view is extremely pertinent to us because the way we look at things, our view really does decide how we move forward. Here we talk about right view. Some people may think, there’s no real right view. There’s just different views.
They’re all relative. And to a degree that is true. Views are relative to the person that has that view, where they’ve come from, their culture, their interests, and so on. Now here, when I say this, there’s a particular right type of view. Now we might be challenged by that.
Think, well, is there a right view? Is there a So then that becomes a point of contention for us and we have to investigate that. So what is suggested here is that there’s a particular way that we need to look at the world around us and our place in the world in order for us to progress to enlightenment. It’s not something that is automatically going to happen. It’s going to depend on how we interpret the world around us.
So when we spoke yesterday of this right view we talked about view of the reality. How we understand the real nature of the world around us. So understanding the nature, you know, how it actually is is important. So we talked a bit yesterday about that. There’s different ways that we different levels of our appreciation of how things exist.
And the one that we generally use is, you know, is the commonly accepted way that people look at things and so we agree with that and we interact with others and we talk about the world around us in those terms. And that’s fine. We need that. Without it, we can’t communicate with other people. But what I suggested here is that there are deeper ways of looking at what’s going on around us.
And in order to progress gradually, small step by small step towards enlightenment, we need to develop a deeper and deeper appreciation of the world around us, of other beings around us. So part of the question here is then how do we embark on that sort of a journey, that sort of a path? Of the Eightfold Noble Path, how do we develop right view? So this question is not something we’re going to resolve immediately. In fact, part of this sort of a course is just to bring up the question of what right view is.
What what is the type of view that will lead to developing enlightenment? So that’s something that, you know, we need to be aware of and just keep coming back to looking at it, what right view is. Here we’re talking really about understanding the deeper levels of the world around us such as the impermanence of the world around us, which is a deeper level of appreciation of the world than we normally have. We don’t often think about the impermanence of the world. Now understanding the impermanence is a great benefit.
It it protects us because everything, all the objects of the senses are impermanent. They’re changing moment to moment. There’s nothing nothing that we look at that’s fixed. Nothing we hear that’s fixed. Nothing that we smell or taste or touch that is fixed.
It’s all moment by moment. No matter how short the moment is, no matter how far down we go, it’s changing. So this awareness of the impermanence helps to protect us because we’re impermanent. We’re not fixed. No one around us is fixed.
We’re changing all the time. It’s because we hold that things are fixed that we are shocked when we begin to age. It’s almost as if we’re not prepared And we don’t like it. But this is because we have this idea that we’re fixed, that we’re not changing moment to moment. The person that got up this morning is the same as the one that had breakfast.
It’s the same as the one that had a wash, it’s the same as the one that got in the car, and so on. But it’s not the same person. There’s nothing in that in us that remained since this morning. Of course, we accept that the physical body changes every seven years, don’t we? We’ve heard that?
That the molecules that make up our physical body completely change all of them over you know, within a period of seven years. True? Never heard that? This is said to be the case. But that’s a quite a gross level of change really.
Actually every moment we’re changing, aren’t we? We look at the atoms in our body they’re all changing. The electrons, the nucleus, the protons, the neutrons, the subatomic particles they’re all in motion. Right? There’s nothing and we look around us there’s nothing that we look at that is not changing moment to moment.
Is there? Actually when we look at it it looks as if it’s fixed it’s not changing. True? We look around the room, we think, oh, yeah. That’s that’s all sort of fixed.
It’s not moving. It’s not changing. But in reality, the deeper level of reality is that everything is changing. So what we see in this moment is not the same as what we see in the next moment. So this is an example of developing a view that is conducive to enlightenment.
These views right view is not we’re not trying to add anything to what is here. It’s that we’re trying to get a deeper appreciation of what is actually there, what the fact is. So understanding impermanence is extremely useful. And the area where it is most useful is that it helps us understand selflessness. That it is like a beginning, a foothold into understanding selflessness.
What it helps to overcome is this idea that the I is fixed. That the I that we have at present doesn’t change. Because that idea that the I doesn’t change is the basis upon which all the afflictive emotions can arise. But if we begin to appreciate just how everything is impermanent, all objects of the senses are impermanent, and so forth, then that has the capacity, that is the ability to begin to undermine our misconceptions about how we exist. That’s really an example.
So we need to develop right view. If we understand how we’re impermanent then death doesn’t become such a challenge. This contemplation of death and impermanence Death is very a very coarse level of impermanence. But it’s a it’s an issue. It’s a problem for us really because we don’t understand impermanence very clearly and we get attached to things very quickly.
And attachment is there in the first moment. So we look at things and attachment, attachment, attachment. And the attachment is generally supported by this conception that what is there is fixed. It’s not changing moment to moment. Now this is something we have to investigate.
If we look at something and we understand and we remind ourselves: Oh, it’s changing moment to moment. It’s not permanent. It’s not fixed. There’s nothing there that remains in the second moment that was there in the first moment. There’s nothing to hang on to there.
That helps us to diminish our attachment. What do you think? Does that help us to overcome attachment? This we need need to contemplate. So this right view is really contemplating these types of issues.
It’s hard to say that the person is non existent. That we exist we’re sentient beings, it just means that the way we exist is as an impermanent entity. One that involved in a continuous process of change. Not only physically but then internally, mentally, the mind always changing. This moment of feeling generates the next moment of feeling.
It’s the substantial cause of the next moment of feeling. And so our feelings progress continuously evolving and changing. And our mind, our thoughts, our feelings, our discrimination, all of these things, completely impermanent. Yeah. We have a solid base.
We’ve got a physical body as our base. That doesn’t go away. Just because it’s impermanent doesn’t mean to say that it doesn’t endure. But already from science we know this physical body is changing moment to moment. No, that physical body is mainly space, isn’t it?
It looks very solid but actually we go down to the, you know, smaller level and we have little nuclei for the atoms and off in the distance a few electrons in the shell that spin around mainly ninety nine point nine nine and so on percent space. This is just how it is. We can’t argue with it. Physical objects, they have the appearance of being completely solid. But when we go down to a small level, microscopic level, then we realize that the physical body itself is you know, there’s not a huge amount of physical substance there.
But in saying that we often think, oh, that sounds like a I have first, I had a really solid physical existence. Now when I look at it that way it seems that I’m losing it. I’ve lost that, you know, really solid base. And that sense of loss is coming from our attachment. We’re so attached to thinking that, you know, that our physical body is fixed and almost unchanging and, you know, quite solid and so forth.
Though those ideas don’t really sort of match up with reality as it is. Yeah. Well, we’re pretty similar to when we were a child, really. Yeah. That well, that’s right.
Yeah. We look at ourselves when we’re two years old or three or four or five and so on. And and now we realize, oh, that was that’s a photo of me. But things have changed since then. So much has changed.
Yeah. Although it is. But we still retain probably many of our attitudes that we had as a child. Our tendencies, propensities to act in certain ways are still, you know, quite strong for us. But good to reflect on that.
Also, know, the whole emotional area, the feelings that we have now are as strong as they were when we were a two year old or a three year old. And that continues the mind, the inner our inner life is still very strong and vibrant throughout all our life no matter how old we get, no matter how infirm and, you know in our old age, you know, where we might be in a wheelchair, but our feelings, our emotions are still as strong. Which also indicates that the mind is not the same as the physical body. So understanding impermanence, let alone selflessness or let alone nonduality or let alone emptiness. Just understanding impermanence is, you know, like perhaps the first milestone on developing right view.
So contemplating impermanence is a very good thing for us to do just our impermanence. And just bringing to mind that I am impermanent. That protects us. It protects us from, for instance, the fear of our own death because all death is is just an impermanent event. The fear associated with our death comes about through the fear of ceasing to exist.
And our rebirth comes about through our attachment to keep existing. But in a sense, there’s no the mind itself, our current mind, the impermanent mind that we have in the present moment, which changes moment to moment, that never ends. That just continues. And then that therefore forms the basis of future rebirth. So in this whole practice, this whole what we’re trying to do with these eightfold noble path is to purify the mind right down to the subtlest level.
That becomes enlightenment. This stream of awareness that we have in a sense is the main our main component. It’s our main basis. The physical body that we have is just something that we’re associated with due to our karma from time to time to time like that. Okay.
So that’s impermanence in right view. Do we have any any questions about that? Any further? Very much. We can develop the theory, an understanding of the theory, on a particular level.
But bringing it down into the mind so that it begins to counter our misconceptions takes a long, long time. But this is part of the process of developing right view because if we develop the right view then that can inform the emotions, can inform our habitual patterns of thinking so that we can gradually change them, let go of them. Because in this type of work, what we need is the fact. From a Buddhist point of view, the the source of our problems is just ignorance of what the facts are. Just ignorance of how we actually exist.
The question is how do we actually get to the point of understanding how we actually exist? To do that we need some guidelines. We can’t just do it from first principles ourselves. It’s too difficult. So right view here is just looking at different ways of describing how we actually exist and then thinking and contemplating and developing and understanding that that probably does correspond to how things actually are.
Testing it. Investigating it. Checking it. Is the mind really impermanent? Is my physical body really impermanent?
Am I impermanent? Investigating and this investigation takes a long time. The central issue that we have is eye And how we investigate the eye is we look at the bases upon which eye is imputed. How do we impute the eye? Really, what’s the I imputed upon?
What do we call I? It’s really the body we call I. Our feelings we call I. Like, you know, I’m good today. I’m happy today.
I am happy. Meaning, I am feeling. Right? Because happiness is a feeling, isn’t it? I’m hot.
Meaning my body is hot. So we apply I to our physical body. I’m hot. I’m tired. I’m in pain.
I’ve got an ache. I’ve got a toothache. And so on. All of these things. It’s applying I to the physical body.
And then there’s a whole range of things that we apply I to so that we have to investigate the basis designated as I and then through that we understand how I am. How I exist. This is all part of the process of right view. Some say we are what we eat. I am a potato and so on.
That’s probably taking it too far. But then maybe after we’ve digested the food and it becomes a bit of body fat or a bit of blood or whatever then that’s me there. So right view is involved with these basic issues of know who we are as an individual. So these areas of investigation are not easy. There’s a lot to think through.
And it can’t be done quickly. It takes a long time. Just a little bit here, little bit there. And we are the testers whether these types of investigation help to settle the mind. Reduce the tension that we have about our existence.
So all of these are part of the investigation. Then we have Right investigation which is really then some of those issues exist that we need to develop a clearer understanding of the reality around us on a coarse and progressively subtler levels, then we investigate things like the Buddhist sutras and so forth And investigate what I said. Investigate the meaning. Read them. Think about them.
Debate them. Try and refute them. And so on. Or refute them. Someone is investigating.
And then right speech is having investigated then talking about those issues basically with some basis to speak about them. I think it also includes, you know, thinking creatively about these topics. Anyway, right speech is like that. Right action then again is not engaging in negative actions such as killing and stealing and so forth. Why why would that be a why is that necessary?
Sorry? True. They become karmically active. Positive or negative actions are karmically active and they leave imprints on the mental consciousness? That’s that’s right.
Why is that necessary? Sorry? Why does it delay? Yeah. Very much.
It it adds to our demerit and acts as a countercondition, acts as an obstacle. All the imprints that we have from negative actions act as stop us from progressing. So we don’t want to be laying down negative imprints, negative karmic imprints through harmful actions to others. Exactly it does. It is.
There’s two levels. Because when we are not harming others, it makes the mind calmer. Exactly. It calms the mind. It and it makes us more positive in how we interact with others.
Lays down imprints in our mind to experience that sort of happiness in future again. So there’s double benefit. Yeah. It it’s funny that that’s right. There are a lot of people in our society that are not really religious but are ethically very sensitive.
They’re very ethical people just and they act very ethically without having a particular religion or philosophy that they follow. I remember the Dalai Lama he was talking about this one day and he was trying to I was it was in India and he was talking to the Tibetans and he was trying to explain the humanitarian view which in Tibetan is Mi Tawa, the view of humans. His Holiness was trying to explain to the Tibetans and say, well, it’s not really a religion. No. It’s not a philosophy as such.
You know, it’s not a because a philosophy is trying to explain the big picture. But it’s a sort of view that many people have outside of religion which is that really, you know, to benefit other humans and also animals on the planet and the environment. Not with a view to a future life that that is going to, you know, be something that we, you know, we put in the the store for the benefit of our future lives. So his holiness went on and on about this giant because he was saying, well, that’s really interesting because, you know, normally, we as Buddhists we’re doing things because it will be a benefit in the future. So we act in a positive way in the present because there’s an outcome.
But to act in that way ethically without an outcome is really very interesting. Very interesting view. Because it’s very positive. Whether one believes it or not, if you act positively it will have positive benefit in some future life. No.
It’s good. It’s excellent to have that ethical sense that many people have And then, you know, to apply it and just to work in accordance with it. Perhaps Buddhists are a little bit more take a view of the result here into account and there is a sense of enlightened self interest in acting positively in the present. Now that’s a whole that’s a very very interesting question whether one can actually attain enlightenment if one doesn’t have the view of rebirth. Because actually if there’s no rebirth there’s no possibility of attaining enlightenment.
Because it’s so difficult to attain enlightenment. One needs more than one life to do it. And in fact, this comes up in the second chapter of one text on logic. And the logic applied there is that rebirth must exist because someone like a Buddha could not generate that level of compassion in one short life. Someone like a Buddha who has perfected compassion must have lived for longer than one lifetime to do it because perfecting compassion is so difficult.
One life is just not enough so that being must have had more than one life. Still, you know, a humanitarian that practices ethics excellent. It’s very, very good. And with a from a Buddhist point of view, they’re, of course, gonna take another rebirth and they’ll probably be reborn as human, if not as a divine being. But what is suggested here that without right view one cannot attain enlightenment.
So unless we have a view of rebirth do you think that’s a bit hard on on the humanitarians or those that don’t, you know, have a view a longer term view of what a human being is? This is yeah. A fascinating question because we’re looking at that with view. We’re looking at the importance of our world view of what we’re taking into account here and how much of a difference it makes as to whether one accepts we live again in the future or not. Yeah.
They just like practicing ethics, for instance. Sorry? Well, that’s a very interesting question. Where in fact right view is necessary in the eight? Because this is what really right view here is the view that the stream of consciousness does not end as well.
So death comes but because actually there’s if the mind stream comes to an end at the end of this life, which is often what, say, humanitarians or others of a similar view may accept that they may just have no opinion, Is it possible then to generate on that on the basis of that view the attitudes necessary to attain enlightenment? This is an important question. And then also is there a difference in the strength of love and compassion that one can generate if one doesn’t believe in a future rebirth? These are very Because this is very prominent in the West, this idea. And it probably come about, you know, through the rise of science, you know, for the last two hundred years.
That’s challenged religion and the idea of, you know, being reborn next rebirth, you act in a positive way. You’re reborn in heaven, and that’s it. Or you’re reborn in hell, and that’s it. And so forth, which were, you know, prominent views in the religions in Western religion. Yet from a Buddhist point of view it’s implied that we need to have view of rebirth.
Do you think that’s unreasonable? Do you think the Buddha is going too far with this? Yeah. Yeah. This this is important because that’s our Western worldview.
Very much it’s a central idea in in Western worldview. Right. Especially from a Christian point of view where the animals are just there as to be used by humans, and then the humans die and are reborns. If they’re good, they’re reborn in heaven and then remain there, and there’s no animals that are up there, for instance. What becomes of the animal?
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yep. Right.
Where did From a Buddhist point of view, the humans live on other planets as well. So there’s countless other planets with it. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right.
There’s other planets like this earth that are suitable to, you know, act as an environment for human beings to be to live. As a beginning. That becomes difficult how that’s right because anything that’s a result must have causes. So even with the big bang, with that singularity of the big bang, it must have been conditioned by something to produce it. So something preceded it, so there wasn’t any first moment when everything began.
And probably there’s no final moment either even just on a physical level. Yeah. Yeah. No. It’s great because scientists themselves admit that they they have a small window into what’s happening but they can’t explain many things that exist outside of that window or even within the window.
They’re they raise as many questions about, you know, what exists in the universe as they’re able to give some or attempt an explanation of. In a way, Buddhism is doing the same. Buddhism is looking at the same information, but is really looking at it more from the mind itself instead of looking at the the physical reality. It’s looking more at the how the mind has evolved. So there’s a they complement each other, I think.
And these days in science, there’s nothing much in science that Buddhism would argue with at all. There’s nothing. All Buddhism is doing in a sense is just adding consciousness to the equation. And what Buddhism does is it actually has a in a way it’s got a bias towards consciousness and it’s saying that actually consciousness the way the universe has evolved even a physical universe depends on consciousness. So it is making a few statements, few assertions here.
And about the fact that’s for instance consciousness in a sense we could say there’s two streams of energy in the universe. There’s one a physical and there’s a a mental stream. And they interact all the time, one to the other. But the mental stream is beginningless and endless. The physical stream can from a Buddhist point of view, it can begin at a particular time, but it doesn’t begin from nothing.
There it goes through these the universe goes through these so the physical universe goes through a period of generation of the universe, abidance of the universe, destruction of the universe, and then a void period, and then it starts again. And so we have the it’s like the big bang. It there’s a big bang at one point, and then it it takes a number of eons for the universe to reach a point at which life can exist. And then it abides for many eons, and then it goes through a period of destruction of that physical universe. And then it’s completely destroyed, and it goes through a void period where there’s no course physical universe.
And then it starts again. Then there’s a period of a new universe being created. So it’s just an endless series of like big bangs. Consciousness beings survive through all of that because consciousness the stream of consciousness is maintained. Within the Buddhist idea, the universe is only destroyed up to a certain level of consciousness.
The universe on in a desire realm can be destroyed completely is destroyed completely on a regular basis where we live, this this level. But in the form realm, which is a higher level, it cannot be completely destroyed. So beings tend to be reborn at the highest level within the fourth level of the form realm or up to the third level, up to the second level. They just stay there until the course of universe is reestablished. So there are ways.
Those ideas are really metaphysics. They form part of Buddhist metaphysics and we as Westerners have tended to put metaphysics on the the far back burner for the last two hundred years. And which is okay. Science physical sciences have dominated. So the whole issue of metaphysics, philosophy, philosophical issues, metaphysical issues, ethical issues, so forth have tended to go further and further to the back or be put into the area of religion and belief.
And you can believe all of that but it doesn’t really it’s a part of the modern picture of who we are as humans. Unfortunately, I think that view that metaphysics is not that important itself is a metaphysical statement. Right? By science, which I think is invalid. Did anyone ever study the Vienna Circle?
There was this group of philosophers in the thirties who were logical positivists, and they they accepted a quite a radical view of the world, which was that they would only accept to exist what could be empirically proven to exist. Right? Meaning, they would only accept what science had discovered and what could be proven through the senses, really. And by doing that, then you cut out all the philosophy, you know, the mind, the rebirth, the religion, god, and so on, of course. It’s only what’s directly in front of us.
You know, we can investigate physical objects and so on. And now someone came up with the idea, well, wait a minute. How do you prove your initial thesis that, you know, only those the only things that can be empirically proven to be true are true? They can’t. No.
You can’t prove that statement, so it’s difficult. Yeah. But still, the logical positivists are still very strong. And although, you know, as you pointed out, a lot of people are thinking about these issues. But it’s I wouldn’t say it’s politically incorrect, but it there’s, you know, science is you know, the scientific research and so forth has been our dominant interest for a long time.
But it has many advantages, many things that have come out of scientific research which are wonderful. Yeah. Oh, which is fine because science is basically looking at the the material, what can be investigated using an observer and and so forth. What’s happening within the brain, you know, like scanning the brain, checking mental function through brain function, and so forth, which is excellent. There’s so much has been done.
But it’s still not the complete explanation. It’s just looking at one side of things. All the secrets here. Yes. Yes.
A lot of them, yeah, are based on ideas coming out of eastern philosophy. I mean, and this goes back into western philosophy that over the past two hundred years or longer, much longer actually, has interacted with Eastern philosophy and taken up ideas here and there. Yeah. That’s good. Mean, whether those ideas come through the front door or whether they go through the side door doesn’t matter.
If they’re of benefit to people then yeah. That’s useful. Mean it still means that we’ve got to test these ideas ourselves but the fact that we are testing them is the big benefit. Benefit. Yeah and we do need to look broadly.
Sorry. That is the other issue. We really have to be patient. We need an ocean of patience with ourselves because we’re you know, we’d like to be smart and we’d like to be wise immediately, but it’s the hardest thing to do to develop this sort of understanding in any culture. I mean, it just takes a long, long time because these ideas are extremely deep and very subtle.
And Yeah. Hopefully, that that’s right. That we are standing back and able check what we’re doing with it. It’s good to get angry. That’s a lot of rats, you know, have a primal against a tree or something like that.
It may it might be of some benefit in some circumstances, you know, to get out and scream one’s head off or yeah. That probably is not gonna be so beneficial. Although standing up to others can be a very good thing as well as long as the anger is not a dominant part of the mix because then that but, yes, standing up. One can appear angry as well without actually being angry. That can be used.
Anyway, we should have a quick break. We’ll just have a quick break, and we’ll come back in, say, ten minutes, get a cup of tea or something. And Right. So we’re just continuing with the discussion now. So far we’ve been looking at right view and why right view is one of the most important.
In our discussion we started to talk about our Western worldviews and just for instance about reincarnation. I think just to pursue that a little bit further would be good. Within our Western culture rebirth karma and rebirth are not they don’t figure in our Western idea of what exists. Still, from the Buddhist point of view of correct view or right view, they are essential. But we also note that there are many in our Western culture who have no idea or do not have an opinion about karma and rebirth but are quite ethical and they practice ethics quite religiously strongly and that is of great benefit to them.
Now is it possible for beings like that, for humanitarians and so forth, to really develop correct view without being able to conceive of another life? This is a very well, it’s a question that comes up from time to time. We’re aware of it. And really I think there are many people that perhaps don’t have the predispositions to accept something like rebirth. It really becomes a difficult issue, stumbling block, something that there’s resistance about.
Even though some may have an affinity with the Christian idea of, you know, we’d take one life here and then if we may be reborn in hell or we may be reborn in heaven, which is a type of limited idea of rebirth. Although within the Christian conception, another human rebirth is not a possibility. Within Buddhism, all three are possible. human, hell, animal, hungry ghost, demigod, god, so forth. And there’s no limit to this process of how many rebirths one can take as a human and so on.
So I think we do keep on coming up against this issue and at times we have to be quite diplomatic and not push it very far this way or that and often maybe just forget about it altogether. Because it is perhaps confronting for some people. We start talking about rebirth. And so what do you think on this issue? Right.
I think in a sense that there is relevance or to what you say there because even though we can’t go back in time because of the law of cause and effect, because the cause always must precede the effect, we can’t have the effect preceding the cause. So that there is this natural law in place in that regard. But still, in previous lifetimes, for instance, as an animal, we have, you know, committed various actions that imprint the mind, that remain there as like karmic seeds. And they can manifest at any point. This it’s not definite how they’re gonna manifest.
They could either manifest themselves as projecting karma or as completing karma or as establishing karma. So in other words, these karmic imprints that exist in our mind stream can manifest by hurling us into another existence or projecting us into another existence. If they manifest at the time of death, they could take on that role and generate a completely new rebirth for us. Or they can manifest once we’ve attained rebirth like at present, and they just will add what? Add something to that rebirth.
For instance, one will get rich or one will get poor or, you know, one will be in a difficult environment or a pleasant environment and so on. So that’s more completing karma. Establishing karma and projecting karma are quite similar. They occur together. So we have various imprints and what does manifest or when those karmic imprints are manifesting for us, they really are a reflection of the past.
It’s like the past coming back to us. It’s often uncertain what part of the past is coming back. But they’re like, you know, these preserved bits and pieces of the past that exist in our mind stream. So for instance our feelings in the present, especially our physical feelings, are coming from our past karma. So whatever feelings we experience, especially the positive mental feeling and the positive and negative physical feeling is coming from our karmic imprints in the past manifesting in the present.
So this is said from a Buddhist point of view. Feelings in a way they’re not coming from the present. They’re conditioned by the present but they’re not generated anew in the present. So in a sense, you know, like in a previous life as an animal, we may have committed certain actions, and we may experience the results of those as completing karma in this life. For instance, as a positive feeling that arises or a negative feeling.
Also that can manifest as an external situation that we enter or us being inspired to go somewhere or and so on. In a sense we deal with the past all the time. We can’t get beyond our past. Especially our feelings in the present we really have to understand those as well as we can because then that will help us from or potentially protect us from reacting to our feelings in inappropriate ways. At present, we tend to react to our feelings inappropriately in the sense that we blame others for our feelings in the present.
If a positive feeling we get attached, negative feeling we hate, and we tend to hate the first obstacle, the first being that’s there if it’s or we had our situation or we had another person. But the architect of the feeling is ourselves. We’re responsible. So understanding that can help us generate some the beginnings of detachment and not be overly concerned about what feelings we experience. You know, that negative mental feeling arises.
Oh, well, that negative mental mental feeling. Now negative mental feeling has two types, really. But negative mental feeling is something that we indulge ourselves in as well, And so it becomes karmically active in and of itself. So it doesn’t have to be the result of our past actions. Yeah.
No because when we have a negative mental feeling we tend to in a sense through that negative mental feeling we make the mind negative. We allow that the feeling itself conditions the mind itself to becoming negative. Normally the result of karma inevitably the result of karma is neutral. Right? Any karmic result is neutral.
It’s neither positive nor negative. It’s just the result. So it could be a negative feeling or a positive feeling. That feeling in itself is neutral. Neither virtuous nor non virtuous.
But often for us our negative feeling we add to it and make the mind non virtuous through the feeling. So what is meant there is that when it is karmically active like that we should step back from making the mind allowing the mind to be negative. Alright. Just to understand its impermanence for a start. But just observe, you know, the I mean, to be sad, but for the mind to be virtuous is very good.
No problem there. The only problem is is if the mind itself is becoming non virtuous. If we start if we have a negative feeling and we start to hate, we generate anger because of it for instance. They’re not good. That’s poisonous.
That doesn’t help us at all. Or if we get worried by it, you know, have a we’re very susceptible to being worried. Just worried about things is not helpful. We we have habit strong habit to do that, but it doesn’t benefit us in the least. It doesn’t help our situation.
If it helped, go for it. We should worry all the time. But it doesn’t. It’s often worry because we don’t understand the broader picture of why things are happening. So we shouldn’t we shouldn’t worry.
And if the mind we should check if the mind is becoming non virtuous then we should be aware of that and understand the karmic implications of that and apply the antidotes. So when the mind becomes negative, what are the antidotes? It can be. Here, in a way, it depends on us recognizing what what how it’s in what ways it become non virtuous. For instance, if a mind of hatred arises or resentment and so on, those sorts of things, then we need to apply an opponent to that, a counteracting state of mind.
This is hard work. This is very hard for us to do. Extremely hard. But if the mind, you know, is tending to dislike and tending to become annoyed or tending to become angry, then if it’s becoming annoyed, then patience. We really have to practice patience and practice love.
So if it’s especially if it’s to another being, then we apply the antidote of love. We take the same focal object because we know that directed towards a single focal object, we can’t have the mind of hate and the mind of love at the same time. Now we use that that fact. And we grit our teeth. We clench our fists, and we say, I’m gonna generate love to that being.
So it takes it takes a lot of effort to do so. Now what happens at that point of course is that why should I? That person is full of bad qualities. Nothing but bad qualities. When I think of that person all I can think of is they’re like this.
They they lie. They cheat. They steal. There’s nothing in that being that is of any any worth, any value. Being is valueless.
So we tend then then to carry on this internal debate. I can’t generate love for that bee. There’s nothing of value. So then we have to start thinking of their good qualities. We have to drown ourselves to thinking of their good qualities.
There’s inner resistance to doing it. So we have to list them one by one and then focus on them. Now the tendency is for us to go back to the mind of hate. It’s attractive. It you know, the mind likes in a way, is used to that, and will tend to want to remain there.
But we are when we understand that the mind of hate will only bring us pain, only bring us unhappiness, then, you know, we have to counter it at all costs. At present we have a lot of doubt about these issues because we think we’re entitled to hate other people. We think we’re entitled to be annoyed with them and get angry at them and resent them. We think we’re fully justified because there are beings out there that have got no good qualities such as this person and that person. But really that sort of assessment is false because there’s no being anywhere in the universe that doesn’t have some good qualities.
So what we’re using here is an understanding of valid awareness and what is invalid awareness. Hatred, anger, all of these negative mental attitudes, all of these attitudes are invalid. Non factual. They’re conceptions, they’re type of conceptual minds which have misunderstood their object. Even though to us they appear so convincing, it’s you know, mind of hate arises.
Oh, that’s exactly what it is. That is a true assessment of that person. We fall into that you know, how many times a day a mind you know, we think of someone and dislike, annoyance, anger, hatred arises towards someone else. It arises and we think, oh, that’s valid. That’s true.
But we haven’t actually unpacked that mind and had a closer look at it to see whether it’s true. So anyway, these are the sorts of investigation that we can carry out. When a negative feeling arises, mental feeling arises. We should be aware of the negative mental feeling. If it’s just a neutral mental feeling, it can be just the result of karmic action in the past.
But if the mind becomes non virtuous itself then it goes beyond that and it becomes karmically active. And then we have to then we have to apply the opponents. Destroy that mind. Hate that mind of hate. So anyway, from a Buddhist point of view, because the feelings are explained in terms of our past lives, past lives becomes a big factor in the Buddhist explanation.
There’s no way we explain what is happening to us in this one life just by, you know, what we have in this one life. We can’t explain our feelings. So in a sense, this is the the great, I don’t know, creativity of the Buddhist idea of what the feelings are, where they come from. Like, comes up in Western philosophy, this whole idea of qualia, You know, like, the mind in the philosophy of mind, we have different presentations of what the mind body are. But one one thing that science has had trouble with coming to terms with is qualia, which just means this unique internal experience that we have that only we have.
You know, that only only I have this feeling. No one else has it. Well, someone else can have a similar feeling. And this is a bit of a problem for us, you know, that we have our own unique feelings, and we’re not always in tune with the feelings of others. Even two people can love one another, but, you know, the feelings are different and they one, you know, is in a good mood, the other’s in a bad mood, and so on.
Feelings are unique to each individual and come from past karma. Right. So right view does tend to encompass this area of karma and rebirth as well. So the question is then because of that do humanitarians have wrong view or can a humanitarian have a right view? Actually, humanitarian those that believe in the humanitarian ideal are wonderful people.
Really. And many that are reluctant to enter you know, adopt a philosophy beyond, say, humanitarianism and have a view on any of these things, in a way, it doesn’t matter too much. As long as they’re accepting ethics, they practice ethics, then it’s very good for them. That will bring benefit. That is, you know, the source of benefit for any being is the practice of ethics.
But when it comes to the question of enlightenment, then karma and rebirth come up. When rebirth come up. Yeah. Why not? Why why shouldn’t one have the reward of enlightenment?
Yeah. That’s okay. Stick in the carrot. The carrot is, you know, enlightenment. The stick is being reborn in hell.
Nothing wrong with that. It’s said that a a a being who attains enlightenment must have two aspirations. Aspiration for their own purpose and aspiration for the purpose of others. Without their an aspiration for themselves to become enlightened, they can’t achieve enlightenment. Nothing wrong in having the reward of enlightenment.
That’s right it doesn’t occur externally it’s an inner state that one enters. But in a sense if one says it’s a reward, that’s fine. I mean, is the object. It’s a goal. And it has great benefit for oneself.
Like uncontaminated bliss and great you know, having great compassion and love, uncontaminated love and compassion for all beings. Great happiness, infinite, immeasurable happiness and so forth. And clarity, wisdom, discernment, the ability to help other beings, the ability to understand where other beings are and be able to help them on that level, any level. That the enlightenment is really just taking every positive quality to its final potential, to its final limit. Because a Buddha is an enlightened being is in many ways like ourselves.
An enlightened being has feelings, discrimination, intention. They have consciousness. They have many of the mental states that we have, but none of the negatives. They don’t have hatred, don’t have anger. They’ve completely purified their minds of those.
Becoming a Buddha, you lose conception. You don’t have any more conceptual mind. So, actually, the Buddha loses something. We have something that a Buddha doesn’t have. Well, in a way, it’s if you look and think, you know, you like the practice of ethics because, you know, it has outcomes in this life protecting animals, taking care of the human beings, being generous, feeding the starving, all of that is wonderful.
But to give it any idea that that might produce a reward in future is okay. But then one has to investigate why why are all these issues about rebirth and so forth being left out of the equation? On on what basis? Can you prove they don’t exist? In fact, one begins to wonder, if we just have this one life and every other being just has one life, why bother?
You know, the animals will live ten years, twenty years, thirty years, and then that’s it. They go in they they end. They finish. Finish. Yep.
True. So that yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
That’s a better position than denying, definitely. And true, if people hold that view, you know, a Buddhist can’t come and impose, you know, there is rebirth, there is, you know, karma and so forth. You must take that into consideration. Not possible. Can’t really impose that.
But what I think is useful for a Buddhist is to understand why they are a part of the equation. Can one be a Buddhist without accepting karma and reincarnation? Yes. There are different opinions on this. Yes.
Like Stephen Batchelor for one or and there’s others. I’ve met scholars that have come from Japan and really, they’re they’re Buddhist, but they don’t accept reincarnation at all. They they some that I’ve spoken to, they say, well, reincarnation is coming from is coming from Hinduism, which ended Buddhism at an early stage and it was never really part of Buddhism. But that that’s hard. That’s very, very difficult to say.
Yeah. Oh they tend to say well you know one understands emptiness and know one doesn’t need to introduce any idea of reincarnation. It’s just understanding emptiness, you know, through meditation, and that resolves karma. Yeah. It’s an impossible position as a Buddhist, I think.
Even for Stephen Batchelor, impossible position. Because the four truths, if you the second noble truth, the truth of origin, truth of origin. Noble truth of origin has two parts, karma and affliction. So karma already comes into the second noble truth. And karma can only manifest over over two or three lifetimes.
There’s no possibility of karma manifesting in one well, ordinary karma manifesting in one life. It must play out over two or three lifetimes. And so therefore, if you say that there’s no rebirth, you cannot establish the second truth. Oh sorry that’s the problem. Yeah.
Yeah. Well that’s right I mean if Yeah that’s right the more you think about it and you see that there is some potential underlying logic to it, then you know of course that’s what one must investigate. If it’s against logic, it’s against common sense then throw it out. You know we don’t karma rebirth, get rid of it. But if if it’s not possible to refute it, then one must keep an eye on it.
And and if that is the basic problem that we’re looking at, karma and afflictions that occur over many lifetimes, then that’s the if that sums up the problem, then that’s what we’re gonna deal with. No. I don’t believe in what bachelor says at all. That’s true. That’s true.
In fact, another thing there is another point of contention is there are there are five afflictive views such as the view of the mind body continuum possessing a fixed self and so forth. The view of and the other one is wrong view. They’re going through the other three. And wrong view is the worst possible view that one can have. And a wrong view is the view that one’s actions don’t have a result.
One’s ethical actions have no outcome. Having that view is the worst possible because it means that that can inform your actions, you know, your negative actions. You can therefore justify committing non virtuous actions with the thought that there’s no not gonna be any result from that. So in the universe, that’s regarded as the worst possible view. Oh, I can’t.
You can’t prove it in one life. That’s right. You know, people that steal that are wealthy, people murderers who live in great luxury and in peace and so on. And it appears, well, you know, there’s no result of that. There’s no result in this life from that karmic imprint, but that will have a result.
Oh, yeah. No. That’s a matter. I mean, oh, exactly. Then yeah.
Sorry. Oh, that could be exactly that. And the thought that, oh, well, you know, I’m not gonna even think about that. You know, I’ll tough it out in this life. I’ve committed those actions I’ve stolen from many people.
And I’ve all that money is now in a Swiss bank account, and that’s fine. And I’m wealthy, and I just don’t care. Or I’ve murdered people. I’ve hidden that from the police. They’ve never caught me.
They, in this life, may not you know, they they might steal themselves against, you know, being concerned or having any remorse and appear maybe even fool themselves into thinking they’re reasonably happy. I think that can happen. But any happiness is coming from good deeds. So the fact that they are have some happiness in this life even though they’ve murdered others is coming from the positive past action. But you can’t confuse the two.
The murder will never produce happiness. Impossible. So to think, you know, but it looks when we look back, you know, take a step back from situation saying, oh, this murderer, but they’re happy. They’re happy from murder. But it it’s impossible.
Oh, That’s where we we’re as bad as the murderers. Any murderer in this life, mass murderer, we have done as bad in the past. So we shouldn’t be proud and think, wow. You know, I’m you know, I’m better than that person. Hopefully not, but the possibility is there.
Yeah. Well that’s what we have to protect ourselves from because if we do engage in that, if we kill, then we will tend to suffer a result similar to the cause. Oh, we can. Of course, we can. Not as if the action if it only reaches a mental level, then, you know, it’s not as bad as as coarse as getting to a verbal or a physical level.
But it has a I mean, if we hate if we hate and hate and hate and hate, that generates such imprints and have, habitual mindsets that it has a terrible effect on us. So we have to but if we, you know, hate another and then we get to the point of then abusing them verbally and then we start acting against them physically, we beat them or worse, we kill them, then that has a progressively worse outcome. Yep. Anyway, we should stop there. We’ll just have a break before lunch.
Right, so the heart training in ethics is designed to settle the mind so that the different elements within the mind that exist settle so that some degree of clarity arises. When the mind is not agitated by our actions, then concentration becomes possible. The mind becomes naturally clear which is like concentration which is like the water becoming clear. If we we take muddy water and we instead of adding new mud to it all the time we just leave it then gradually it will settle and the water will become clear. So this is really what’s meant.
We’re not agitating the mind by negative actions negative actions of body and speech mainly. So through practicing that we’re not agitating the mind. The mud, all these particulate matter in water are not added to it and stirred and churned up within the water of our mind. So the mind naturally starts to become clearer and concentrated. And in that case then the water in becoming clear it’s possible to begin to see.
We can see that seeing is wisdom. So these are the three high trainings. Buddhism. There’s ethics, concentration and wisdom. So the ethics here is a bit like the hub of the wheel.
It’s what you know is the core, the basis for the wheel. And the rim is like the outer the outer rim of the wheel is what ties the wheel together. Okay, in this one particular text by mentions it in this way: The higher training of ethics are like the hub because they are the higher training of ethics and based on them one obtains right concentration which is the higher training of mind and by obtaining that the higher training and wisdom arises. So everything is supported by the ethics in the center. Now the higher training in wisdom is a little bit like the spokes.
So that has four parts like right view, right exertion and right mindfulness. Here he says because they mutually engage they are like the spokes because they mutually engage and they sever objects to be abandoned on the path of seeing. Right. So the spokes are really what tie together the rim and the base. They are tied together by the concentration in the base.
Concentration is like the rim of the wheel: it ties the spokes to the base the hub, the core which is FX. Wisdom here the higher training of wisdom is referring to that which severs or that which clarifies, differentiates. So here it’s regarded the spokes are a little bit like that which cuts through the root of ignorance, the root of attachment, the root of hatred and so forth. Maybe they’re a bit like swords in a way that are severing these roots of the poison, poisonous mental attitudes that we generate. Yeah it is.
We’re looking at it a bit like a spinning wheel. Yeah. It’s a bit like the Bodhisattva of Wisdom has a sword. Ah, that’s right. That sword!
The Bodhisattva wisdom carries the sword of wisdom. It’s not a sword there to injure people. It’s very special sword. It’s a sword with a very sharp edge. The edge of wisdom which is able to penetrate to the heart of the matter and also has a capacity to destroy the roots of the afflictive emotional states.
Which is why we want to generate wisdom. We want to generate wisdom to eliminate the root of our suffering. Sever the roots of suffering. From the very root so it doesn’t occur again. That’s one way we can look at the wheel.
It’s not that we want to produce a weapon here that we’re going go and use on the streets or something like that. But here it’s also indicating that in order to attain enlightenment we have got to do work on ourselves. There are elements within our being that need to be eliminated, eradicated. And there we can’t take, you know, we take no prisoners. We are out to destroy utterly from the root: attachment, anger, hatred, resentment, ignorance.
The worst of all is the ignorance. So this wheel is opposing the root of ignorance. So that also represents the path of seeing. If the path of seeing could be represented it’s a Dharma wheel. The wheel of Dharma.
And then turning the wheel of Dharma really means presenting these eight parts of the noble path. So of course we have a lot to overcome so we need something effective, strong that actually goes to the root of the problem. Anyway it’s useful that if we have it in one diagram like that we have the eight parts. Now some people some scholars don’t list them in this way. They might add other things to their higher training of concentration for instance.
But this is a good way a valid way of looking at it. Within wisdom we have right view, right investigation, right exertion and right mindfulness. Although they’re not all wisdom, right view is wisdom. Right investigation is not quite wisdom. Right exertion is not wisdom.
Right mindfulness is wisdom. It’s included within wisdom. Right speech, right action, right livelihood are really talking about ethics. So that’s Actually it’s not talking about the verbal or the physical act it’s really talking about the mind motivating those actions. And then right concentration at the end like the rim.
Right, so that how can we use something like that that bit of information? Is it usable as it is? Yeah. Yeah. That’s right.
And the spokes are not going to remain there without the rim to hold them. Nor will they be there without the hub which is the basic support point. Well that’s right. Right speech is informed by right investigation. Right speech is coming from right investigation.
Yeah it can be. Silence can be valid speech or correct ethical speech. It sometimes is helpful to have an image like that so that we can remember say the eight. Because listed we probably we don’t remember. Or we can condense them down into the three higher trainings: Higher Training of Ethics, concentration and wisdom.
Which is a bit easier. The simpler and the easier the better for us. At the time of the Buddha there was a monk who when he took monks vows and he realized there were two hundred and fifty three vows to protect, he went and complained to the Buddha. He said I can’t remember two hundred and fifty three vows. And so the Buddha said, Well, you just practice virtuous actions of body and virtuous actions of speech.
So that made it easier. Then a particular monk could engage in a meaningful practice because he didn’t have too much detail to worry about. Similarly for us, the Eightfold Noble Path is really the three higher trainings: a higher training in ethics, higher training in concentration, higher training in wisdom. And those three are it’s easier to understand the connection between those three than it is between the eight. But if we understand that the eight condensed down into the three then that’s some use.
It might be easier just to think about the three. Now we have compassion into the three higher trainings. Well, probably It’s not listed there separately. It’s virtuous. Compassion is a virtuous state of mind.
It probably enhances all three as a method. It’s not listed there and the reason for that is that this is mainly dealing with how to generate wisdom. And compassion belongs to method. But compassion enhances that. In fact we can’t attain enlightenment, state of a Buddha, without compassion.
But this is looking at the wisdom aspect. It’s looking at the causes for generating wisdom which is right speech, action, livelihood, concentration and so forth. So this suits both the Hīnayāna, the small vehicle path and the great vehicle path. It’s a common presentation but from the great vehicle point of view we would have to add compassion. So it’s a way, it’s implied.
There. But it can’t be included in any of those other character the other eight, can it? Right. Even so, ethics there, they’re all virtuous activities. Right speech, right action, right livelihood, right concentration is neutral.
View, investigation, exertion, mindfulness tend to be neutral. So what makes the practice virtuous is the ethical part. They are all interlinked. Yes. And they hold together as a single wheel.
Our practice a little bit very much like that. It’s a little bit like putting up a tent. If we were out in the wilderness and we’ve got a tent in a case and we’ve got to put it up, we get out the tent itself and it’s probably got different parts and then we’ve the stays and the rods and the poles and if we want to put the tent up we’ve got to do a number of different things. Where we’re going to put a flat bit of ground and where we’re to put the stakes in and where we’re to put the poles and the ties and the ropes and so forth all of that. So we approach it a little bit little bit until in the end we can actually put up an entire tent.
We can’t just put it up straight away. Dharma wheel is similar. Dharma wheel this represents our mind. What we’re trying to do is generate internally a state of awareness that reflects the Dharma Wheel. So it’s incorporating ethics, concentration and wisdom.
But we put it together over a long period starting with ethics. What we’re doing is internally we’re engaging in right speech and right action or we’re generating the motivation for those and then right livelihood. These are in a sense the inner motivation for those. And then right concentration. But just like a wheel you need the hub.
If you’re building an actual wheel you have to put the hub and then you work out the spokes and it’s a complicated thing to put it all together. Similarly our practice is like that. We’re putting together often imperfect states to begin with. We have rough ethics to begin with. Look at ethics there.
If we look at the right action we’re looking at not killing. So we’re trying to improve our record on killing. Let me try and reduce the number of insects I’m killing every year. Let me be at least more mindful if I can about treading on insects and so forth. Or be mindful about eating meat for instance.
Here I’m eating something, an animal that died recently in order indirectly for me to eat meat. Just to be aware of that so we’re starting to generate an ethical sense or sharpen our ethical sense. In the beginning it often seems like oh well does that really make much difference or does it have a great meaning and so on. So we have to investigate this. We have to try and look clearly into these issues and understand what ethics brings and what practicing non ethics or being unethical what effect that has on us.
So it’s a bit like putting up a tent. We’re just We’re testing ourselves all the time. If I act ethically here what advantage? What am I going get out of it? What’s in it for me?
What’s in it for anyone else? Is it weak to practice ethics? Would I be laughed at by others? Would they think I’m some sort of weak individual if I practiced ethics? All of the I mean we just have such a range of different ideas that come to mind with any anything.
We have to work our way through these things. So in setting up the Eightfold noble path we are just at the very early stages. The actual eightfold noble path only begins with a path of seeing. So we’re a long way from even beginning to enter the Eightfold Noble Path. We haven’t entered the path of preparation yet or the path of accumulation yet.
Does that sound a bit pessimistic? Sorry? Oh, that’s even better. Sorry? Our path of seeing.
So this represents the path of seeing. If we had anything to you know, that we could bring up as the path of seeing, it’s the wheel of Dharma. So what it represents is seeing the four noble truths. But it’s the first direct perception of the Four Noble Truths. Direct perception of the Four Noble Truths.
Non conceptual wisdom directly perceiving the Four Noble Truths. Does that answer? It’d be nice if there was just a one word answer to a lot of these questions than in fact, there are one word. In fact, the Buddha, when he taught the perfection of wisdom, which is all of this area plus, the shortest teaching he gave on it is one syllable. A.
Just a single syllable. But that was really only for the very extremely sharp faculty to Bodhisattvas. Someone with extremely sharp intellectual faculty will understand all of this with the short syllable A. For medium faculty a few more words like the Heart Sūtra. Read the Heart Sūtra and they understand.
Path of seeing, preparation, path of accumulation, path of meditation, path of no more learning. The five paths. Then there are those who are dull faculties require a lot of words like the hundred thousand verse Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra. We’re about there. Explanation for all of these points because every time we come up with a point it’s: But, but, what about that?
And what does this mean? It just means that we do need a lot of reflection. We do need to think about this. Overcome our laziness and think about Penetrate. And we do that by raising our doubts about these issues.
Really we need to increase our intellectual faculty as well. Make our minds sharper. That’s done through correct contemplation thinking about these issues Thinking about these issues is what helps. Generating virtue. The more virtue we have the easier everything becomes.
As it said in Tibetan Sonam denpa mi nam kün drub which means a person with merit is able to achieve whatever they desire. If we have merit, whatever we put our mind to we can achieve. And that’s a product of the merit. What is the merit? The accumulation of virtue that we have.
So we generate virtue here by the hub the hub and the wheel by engaging in virtuous actions of body and speech. Everyone’s very quiet. Yes. Oh, we could have a quick break. Have a maybe a tea and just relax for a little little while.