Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 21-minute teaching, Ven Jampa Ignyen uses the Four Noble Truths from the Dharmachakra Sūtra to build genuine yearning for liberation from saṃsāra. After laying out the Buddha’s Middle Way and Eight-fold Path, he explores six disadvantages of cyclic existence: uncertainty (vividly illustrated by a man who unknowingly eats his father reborn as a fish while his dog-mother eats the bones); endless craving despite satisfaction; repeatedly abandoning and taking new bodies; continuous rebirth; falling from higher to lower rebirths; and facing life’s crises alone. He emphasizes that the Buddha discovered these truths independently, not through his teachers. The instruction stresses contemplating saṃsāra with clarity and genuine happiness—becoming realistic without falling into bitterness. Suited to practitioners with Lamrim background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 17 2001 06 14 LR.mp3
UUID: ab9268ca-66c2-4f07-8b6e-b9f892f4d3b6
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Lam Rim 2001 Month 04-06 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-06-14
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 21.4 minutes
Words: ~2,363
The habitual practice on the one hand of those things which attraction depends upon the passions and especially of sensuality, a low and pagan way of seeking satisfaction, unworthy, unprofitable, and fit only for the worldly minded. And the habitual practice, on the other hand, of asceticism or self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. So in fact, there the Buddha was saying that one shouldn’t go to the extreme of indulgence nor the extreme of asceticism as he had experienced in his own life. He’d lived in a palace and had indulged all his senses while living in the palace. Then he had spent six years in austerity, eating a few grains a day.
Both extremes are unprofitable. Then he said there is a middle way of bhikkhus, avoiding these two extremes discovered by the tathagata. Tathāgata means thus gone one. One gone, one gone via the middle way. So there is a path which opens the eyes and bestows understanding, which leads to peace of mind, to the higher wisdom, to full enlightenment, to nirvana.
What is that middle path, O bhikkhus? Avoiding these two extremes, discovered by the tathagata, that path which opens the eyes and bestows understanding, which leads to peace of mind, to the higher wisdom, to full enlightenment, to nirvana. What is that path that leads there? It is this. It is this eightfold noble path.
That is to say, right view, right aspiration, speech, conduct, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration. This O bhikkhus is that middle path, avoiding these two extremes discovered by the Tathagatas, that path which opens the eyes and bestows understanding, which leads to peace of mind, to the higher wisdom, to full enlightenment, to nirvana. Now, this O bhikkhus is the noble truth concerning suffering. Birth is attended with pain. Decay is painful.
Disease is painful. Death is painful. Union with the unpleasant is painful. Painful is separation from the pleasant. And any craving that is unsatisfied, that too is painful.
In brief, the five aggregates which spring from attachment are painful. This then, O bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning suffering. Now this O bhikkhus is the noble truth concerning the origin of suffering. Verily, it is the thirst or craving causing the renewal of existence accompanied by sensual delight, seeking satisfaction now here, now there. That is to say, the craving for the gratification of the passions or the craving for a future life or the craving for success in this present life.
This then, O bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning the origin of suffering. Now this O bhikkhus is the noble truth concerning the destruction of suffering. Verily, it is this destruction in which no passion remains of this very thirst. The laying aside of, the getting rid of, the being free from, the harboring no longer of this thirst. This then, O bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning the destruction of suffering or the cessation of suffering.
Now, this O bhikkhus is the noble truth concerning the way, which leads to the destruction of sorrow. Verily, it is this noble eightfold path. That is to say, right view, right aspiration, right speech, conduct, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration. This then O bhikkhus is the noble truth concerning the destruction of sorrow. So these words in the Pali, translated from the Pali, are pretty closely reflect actual words spoken by the Buddha at this time.
Now, here he also states Bhagavati states that the formula of the four truths was stated twelve, stated three times each, making twelve. So I’ll just recite then how the first noble truth was recited three times over. Now this was the noble truth concerning sorrow or suffering, was not O bhikkhus among the doctrines handed down. Now this teaching on suffering or the noble truth of suffering was not something handed down to him, was not something that he ever heard from anyone or received from anyone of his teachers. But there arose within me the eye to perceive it.
There arose the knowledge of its nature. There arose the understanding of its cause. There arose the wisdom to guide in the path of tranquility. There arose the light to dispel darkness from it. And again, O bhikkhus, that I should comprehend that this was the noble truth concerning sorrow, though it was not among the doctrines handed down.
There arose within me the eye, there arose the knowledge, there arose the understanding, there arose the wisdom, there arose the light. And again, O bhikkhus, that I had comprehended that this was the noble truth concerning sorrow, that it was not among the doctrines handed down. There arose within me the eye. There arose the knowledge, the understanding, the wisdom, and the light. So in fact, with each of the three truths, with each of the truths, three times over, he makes an observation in relation to the truth.
First, that the truth concerning suffering that was unheard of by me before, that the idea of that truth arose within him. Then that that truth should be comprehended, and then that the Buddha himself had comprehended that truth. So these were the three stages for each of the four noble truths. Right. So that is actually from the what’s called the Dharmachakra sūtra, which means the sūtra of the turning of the wheel of dharma.
Turning of the wheel meaning, like dharma is a wheel that exists in one’s heart. When one speaks dharma, it’s as if one sits turning that wheel, which then rolls, which then moves forward and strikes the continuums of other beings, and they also come to comprehend that Dharma like a wheel, and they also then can continue to turn that wheel. So therefore, this teaching is called turning of the wheel of Dharma, setting forth Dharma in the world. Has anyone been to Varanasi? You’ve been to the Sarnath stupa?
Oh, has anyone actually been there too? Yeah. There’s a large stupa on the side They tried to pull the stupa down about a thousand years ago, but they’d actually constructed the stupa so well on the site where the Buddha taught this sermon that they were not able to completely pull it down, which is useful for us because we right. So it’s understanding these four noble truths that enable us to develop a yearning for liberation. But again, we may need to put these four noble truths in our own words as well and describe them in terms of our own experience.
Now, moving along a little bit. So here we need to understand the four noble truths in order to develop a yearning for liberation from Samsāra. Also, need to understand the disadvantages of saṃsāra. The sufferings of saṃsāra. And here, there are six in this section, there are six elements that are mentioned.
The bane of uncertainty, that our current existence, which is saṃsāra, saṃsāra is the five contaminated aggregates or the contaminated mind body continuum that we presently possess. This is saṃsāra. This mind body continuum is uncertain. So it’s by nature, it’s how long it will continue to exist is uncertain. And what we experience with this current mind body continuum is uncertain.
And this uncertainty of our experience is quite evident. In fact, there’s a I’ll just read out this example of what can occur in Samsāra Samsāra, and I think it’s probably worth just hearing once more. Although, I’m sure everyone’s read it. Once a layman’s old father always used to eat fish from a pool behind their house. The father died and was reborn as a fish in the pool.
Well, which is perhaps a good motivation for us to give up fishing. The layman’s mother was attached to the house. So she was reborn as the man’s dog. So being attached to a house or the home in which we live in is also something we should give up. The man’s enemy had been killed for raping the man’s wife.
Because the that enemy was so attached to her, he was re reborn as her son. Then one day, the son, that son caught his father, the fish and killed it. While he ate the meat, the dog who was his mother ate the fish bones. And so was beaten by her son. His own little son, his enemy was seated on his knee.
And Śāriputra saw all this, and then stated, he eats his father fish and beats his mother. The enemy he killed sits on his knee. A wife gnaws her husband’s bones. Samsāra can be such a fuss. So in fact, his own father had died and been reborn as a fish.
His mother had died and been reborn as his dog. He actually caught his own father, reborn as a fish, ate the fish. His mother had been reborn as a dog, ate the bones of the fish in which he had, and he even gave the food to his own son who was the reincarnation of the enemy who raped his mother, who he had killed. So in fact, Samsāra is is like this. There’s nothing certain about the relationships within Samsāra.
And there’s many stories in in the scriptures like this that illustrate just how uncertain things are and that we really can’t take things on face value. And this this particular text gives many excellent examples. So there’s a being uncertain is the first bane. Then the bane of being unsatisfied, And it gives in the beginning, it’s very interesting. Butterflies are attracted to visual forms.
Deers are attracted to sound. Bees are attracted to smell. And elephants are attracted to physical contact. But all of those types of attraction are really just samsaric types of attraction. And as Pabongka Rinpoche says, it’s a little bit like drinking salt water, trying to quench our thirst.
No matter how much we drink, it doesn’t satisfy. In fact, humans in fact, it mentions they’re an an animal like butterflies are attracted to visual forms and so forth. humans are, in fact, probably an example of something that’s highly attracted to all sense data, all sensory attractive objects. So contaminated mind body continuum is by nature never satisfied. It’s attracted to all manner of things and then no matter how much we indulge ourselves in those objects, we’re never gonna be sated.
And it’s even worse for those who are greatly wealthy. And examples of that for kings even who, you know, who have great possessions but still even crave greater possessions. And then the bane of repeatedly leaving bodies. So mind body continuum, we’re always exchanging. We’re always exhausting one and then gaining a new one.
Having to go through this incredible process of giving up the current one we’ve got when we’re so comfortable with it, throw it away or at declines of its own nature and then take on a new one, go through this incredible process, then get a new one, become comfortable with it, and then have to give that one up as well. So this we do repeatedly. And then Pabongka Rinpoche then mentions just the extent of this process, how often we’ve repeatedly given up our bodies. And then the bane of being conceived and born over and over again, which follows from the previous. So we continually are exchanging or repeatedly leaving our bodies and then being continually reconceived or reborn in new bodies, these two really go together.
And there are also he gives examples of just how large a mass of bones they would be and so forth. We stack them if we stack them all up, it would be an inconceivably large pile of bones. All of our past incarnations as humans, if the bones were stacked up, it would make a huge pile, an inconceivably large pile of bones. So anyway, he gives many examples for that. And then the bane of moving from high to low over and over.
So we’re continuously finding a high high rebirth only to be falling into a lower rebirth. As in the Vinaya states, all collections end up running out. The high end up falling. Meeting ends in separation. Living ends in death.
Of course, all of these things are stated to make us disappointed with our current mind body continuum with saṃsāra. Not to make us unhappy. Disappointed. We should be disappointed with Samsāra, but remain happy. In fact, we should be ready at any point to throw saṃsāra away completely.
Not other beings, of course, but saṃsāra. And what is saṃsāra? It’s a contaminated mind body continuum. Right. And then the next one is there a next one there?
Yep. The bane of having no one to help us. And often we go through this entire process of taking on a mind body continuum. We do it alone. We so often have we gone through this process, and we always do it alone.
Even if there’s twins, still in a way we’re doing it ourselves. And we go through all our crises alone in a sense, young life crisis, midlife crisis, old life crisis. All of our different crises, we tend to go through by ourselves. So this also is a disadvantage of our current level of existence. And so we should think about these disadvantages in a very skillful way.
So that means we think about them with a view to understanding the bare fact, without adding anything to it, but remaining clear and happy at the same time, most important. And as Buddharakshita said, if we can’t if we’re not actually happy, at least pretend to be happy. Even if pretend happy is okay, gradually, real happy happiness will will emerge. But at the same time, we do need to reflect on the nature of saṃsāra. And these six general points about our current mind body continuum, our mind body.
Basically, substance of who we are, our current substance that’s moving along moment by moment that we identify with. It has six general disadvantages, and these are mentioned here. So, anyway, we’ll stop there, have a cup of tea.