Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session, Venerable Margaret McAndrew opens a four-week series on the Four Noble Truths by reading Buddha’s own words from his first discourse at Sarnath. She frames his teaching as scientific: identify the problem (suffering), find the cause (craving and ignorance), confirm the cure is possible, then apply the path — paralleling medical research methodology. The core focus is the First Noble Truth, where she stresses that understanding suffering intellectually is not enough; practitioners must contemplate it deeply until impermanence and insecurity in saṃsāra become visceral reality. She explores how apparent hardship purifies karma, why renunciation brings inner peace, and how good fortune can undermine practice through complacency. Practical instruction for those beginning serious foundational study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 61 4NT 1998 11 05.mp3
UUID: abbf9237-694a-43c5-9f4b-f624c8868fad
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: Evening with V M McAndrew (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1998-11-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.2 minutes
Words: ~5,008
That we’re engaging in this activity this evening for a great purpose. So the result that we get depends on the motivation with which we perform the action. And when we’re performing a virtuous action, bringing about a result of ripening the fruit on the Dharma path. We want to bring about the greatest possible result. So the greatest possible result is brought about by the greatest motivation, which is not only thinking about bringing about our own true Dharma happiness, not just thinking about ourselves, but in particular wanting to bring about true Dharma happiness for all living beings and engaging in the practice for that purpose.
So although we don’t have power to help others now, we’re actually working for others just by engaging in any sort of virtuous activity with this motivation and setting our minds on using this knowledge that we’re gaining, using this virtuous merit that we’re gaining for the purpose of progressing towards Buddhahood, which will give us the perfect power to help others. So I was wondering what to talk about tonight and it occurred to me that I could give four talks on the Four Noble Truths. The advantage to me then is that for four weeks I don’t have to think about a topic. Because for me the hardest thing is to get the topic Once I’ve got the topic then I can go ahead, I’ve got an idea where to start. But just getting started is the hard point.
Helen’s nodding and she’s an author so she knows all about what I’m talking about. Just wondering if I could ask you a question of how it started — that it might relate to all of the features — or you said something too, so would that be possible? Oh I think it might be possible, yes. You can always give it a try. I don’t want you to get that idea that you could do that with me.
Had terrible dreams. I’ve after we talked about the hell realms, it must have really preyed on my mind because I felt I was in there. And I, you know, and I was Yes, well afraid I have to tell you that often when you start to practice Dharma sincerely you start to experience these kinds of things. It’s a very normal experience and You just have to give up being attached to the things of this life. It’s often experienced like this as a result of actual purification, a sign of purification.
I can’t say that that’s particularly what it is in your case, but it sounds quite like it. Of course, I can’t say what particular karma it is that you are ripening, but when you start to practice intensively and with a lot of sincerity then you are purifying a tremendous amount of karma. It seems that sometimes when you purify some of these bad negative karmas you will experience a small result in this lifetime as you’re getting it out of the way. It’s interesting that you mentioned hell like visions and so on because you could be purifying in that way causes to have gone to the hells from past karmas and other lower realm rebirths. We’re getting those out of the way by this purification but we also have to put up with quite a lot of these lesser ripening effects and we can feel happy when you see that, particularly when you can see it happening in a way that seems very obviously linked with purification practice that you’ve been doing.
I haven’t consciously been doing purification, it was just Well retreat would be purification, it would be purifying, of course, particularly sometimes if you’re applying for opponent forces and so on. In this case it looks you can really see the link and you can feel happy in your mind. When Dharma practitioners experience negative karma, it’s ripening on them. They can feel happy because they can think that they’re experiencing something which they’re getting out of the way and which would have otherwise taken them to a horrific result in the future. It’s not only taking away something that’s going to cause you bad results of suffering but also can be an obstacle to your practice.
These unripened and negative karmas on our consciousness are the big obstacle to our practice and so as we get them out of the way we’re making the way more clear for our progress along the path. We’ve got all these things to rejoice about So you can feel really happy. I must say my meditation has been clearer since. Has been worse. That’s great.
Sometimes you can have problems that seem be a disturbance to your meditation but you still have to keep it in mind. I’m getting a few nods here too, so but you have to just remain stable in your practice and just keep on feeling in your mind that you really are purifying this negative karma. Gosh. Yes. Yes.
Well, you shouldn’t worry about your face. All I can see is a few little spots that look as though perhaps some insects bit you or something which may be may be lower down. Oh, yes. Down below your neck there. Yes.
Must have been painful. But, yes, you’re lucky that that it wasn’t something worse, I guess. Yes. So we’re really glad that it didn’t go into your eyes. So I’ve just come across this book, which seems to be a new book, at least I haven’t noticed it before, but it’s called The First Discourse of the Buddha.
The First Discourse of the Buddha was on four noble truths. I thought I would actually read you some of Buddha’s words. So this was the teaching that Buddha gave to the five disciples at Sarnath. So I thought it would be interesting to come at the teachings from this angle because you can say that all of the teachings of the graduated path could also be summarized in terms of the Four Noble Truths. These five disciples, if you know the story, had been practicing ascetic practices in their company.
They were already advanced meditators, people who put a lot of effort into the spiritual path. They created also some very strong karma with Buddha from previous lives. And so the fact is that they were very ready to be receptive although they had rejected him after he gave up the ascetic practices and decided that he was a backslider and no good. When he went to teach them they soon realized different to when they’d seen him before. Before that they thought of him as probably superior among them but not that much different to themselves.
But when he came back they saw that he’d reached a different level altogether and so they then listened to what he had to say and one of them achieved a deep level of realization instantly. On hearing his words, the others realized that he was saying something very profound and became his followers and it wasn’t very long before they also achieved higher realizations. They became monks. They became his first monks also. And so in this way, this was a very important teaching.
So I just have to find the path. Page. So starts off: Thus I have heard, at that time the Blessed One was staying at Deer Park in Isipatana, near Varanasi. Then the Buddha addressed the five ascetics: Oh, because one who has gone forth from worldly life should not indulge in these two extremes. What are these two?
There is indulgence in desirable sense objects, which is low, vulgar, worldly, ignoble, unworthy and unprofitable. And there is devotion to self mortification, which is painful, unworthy and unprofitable. Bhikkhus, avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagatas has realized the middle path. It produces vision, it produces knowledge, it leads to calm, to higher knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana. This obviously is translated from the Pali, so you’re getting Pali words where we would be more familiar with the Sanskrit.
And what is that middle path, bhikkhus, that the Tathāgata has realized? It is simply the Noble Eightfold Path, namely: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness and right concentration. This is the Noble Eightfold Path realized by the Tathagatas. It produces vision, it produces knowledge, it leads to calm, to higher knowledge, to enlightenment, to nirvana. This then we’ve got the four noble truths.
This, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering, or dukkha. Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering. Association with the unloved or unpleasant condition is suffering. Separation from the beloved or pleasant condition is suffering. Not to get what one wants is suffering.
In brief, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering. This, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the origin of suffering. It is craving which produces rebirth, bound up with pleasure and greed. It finds delight in this and that, in other words craving for sense pleasures, craving for existence or becoming, and craving for non existence or self annihilation. This is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering.
It is the complete cessation of suffering, giving up, renouncing, relinquishing, detaching from craving. This, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering. It is simply the noble eightfold path, namely: Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Awareness and right concentration. So there’s more to it, but I’ll stop there. We’ve just been through the four noble truths.
I’ll just repeat them again. There’s the truth of suffering, the truth of the origin of suffering, the truth of the cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path to the cessation of suffering. You can see that in these four points Buddha was following a scientific method, and in actual fact it was the method that he followed himself when he left the palace and went searching for enlightenment, the steps had to involve a logical progression which is similar to what you would find in medical research into a disease. So we can say that our real sickness, our only problem really is the problem that we have suffering. And as we have the basic nature, it’s explained in the teachings, have the basic nature of not wanting to experience any suffering and wanting to experience happiness, and so the fact that we keep on experiencing suffering is a problem for us.
Buddha identified that problem while he was living in the palace and it caused him to go off and seek for a solution. After having tried the extreme of asceticism, having first of all sought various teachers and learned what they had to teach and learning that they couldn’t in fact, although they thought they were able to show the path to liberation, they couldn’t in fact show the path to liberation. He then tried those extreme ascetic practices and came to the conclusion that they didn’t lead to liberation. Then he entered into deep meditation under the Bodhi tree and discovered the path to liberation. He first of all had to go through the whole understanding, understanding the cause of suffering and then he was able to understand the possibility of attaining by reversing that cause of suffering, attaining liberation from that cause of suffering, attaining the cessation of suffering.
He attained the cessation of suffering and was able to show the path to others. We don’t have within our mind streams the result of the preparation that Buddha had put in in previous lifetimes, it’s going to take us more than one night of meditation to attain that goal. You might have heard the story of how Buddha was attacked by Mara’s forces during the night and Mara tried everything, first of all trying temptation with beautiful ladies and so on and then attacking him with hordes of attacking demons and weapons. The Buddha simply touched the earth, calling the earth to witness the practice that he’d done through all his previous lifetimes, accumulation of merit, the many lifetimes in which he’d worked towards the point he was at that time. Because of the power of this great accumulation of merit which the Earth Goddess bore witness to, then the weapons of all these maras were turned into flowers and just dropped harmlessly to the ground without even reaching him.
You can take that literally if you like or not, but the point is that symbolically you could take that as meaning that at that point the very last trace of Buddha’s attachment to worldly things, susceptibility to worldly interruptions, made a last ditch stand to interrupt his meditation but they were totally powerless against the great force of his accumulated merit and his resolve based on compassion for others. And so because his Samādhi was so unshaken, the seat on which he sat is referred to as the vajra throne, vajra having the meaning of being unshakable, undisturbable. It’s symbolized by the double vajra which hangs in front of the throne there, in front of the teaching throne. Buddha was able to present the path to others. The first of the Four Noble Truths is suffering, and so tonight we have to look at suffering.
I’m sorry if you don’t like having to think about suffering, you’ll just have to put up with it because we have to first of all take a look at it before we can decide to move on to the next step. We have to put up with thinking about it. Sorry, maybe I didn’t make myself clear. We have to put up with thinking about the topic. So you’ll have to put up with me talking about it.
If you don’t having to, if you don’t find it very pleasant, then this is just the nature of our samsaric minds. We don’t like to have to think about unpleasant things. It’s painful for us to to dwell too much on suffering and on the harsher facts of life. This might be realistic if there was no solution. We tend, I suppose, to instinctively feel that there probably isn’t much of a solution.
Perhaps for any given problem, if it’s bad enough, we might turn our minds to thinking of a solution, but we don’t like to turn our minds to the fact that basically we’re stuck in a situation where we do have to experience suffering all the time and that no matter what good conditions we experience they’re not going to last. This is our experience as samsaric beings. It’s our suffering as human it’s our situation as human beings we’re always going to be experiencing one suffering after another and we don’t like to think about that we like to be hopeful we like to be optimistic we like to think that things are going to get better, or if things are good now, we like to think that it’s going to continue. And what Buddha taught is that this is unrealistic, but if we keep on thinking this way, we’re not going to be able to take the steps we need to do. And as there is something we can do, but it involves giving up our attachment to the idea that things are going to be alright in this life and that we can just wait for them to get better, then this is something that we need to think about.
We have to address ourselves to the problem. So there is a solution to the problem, but first of all we have to identify the problem. So this is where it’s like medical research. As long as the problem isn’t identified, the problem isn’t going to be tackled. And The good example of that from recent medical history particularly is AIDS.
As long as people didn’t realise that there was a new disease coming about and starting to ravage populations in various parts of the world, then nothing was done about it. Eventually, the realization was born in on the minds of the medical profession that there was a new disease about. Once they began to gain an awareness of this, then it didn’t take long before they started to investigate and pretty soon they became very clear that there certainly was a new disease about and then the next step was to try to find out what was the cause and so a lot of effort was put into research and the conclusion was eventually brought about that the cause was the HIV virus and so now we’re at the next step which is trying to find out whether there actually is a way to stop the HIV virus which so that the second point is identifying the cause the origin of suffering in terms of the Four Noble Truths identifying having identified the problem, Buddha then identified the cause, the origin, then identified the fact that this origin of suffering, the underlying cause could be stopped, the situation could be reversed, he managed to do it in his own mind stream and attained enlightenment.
Then the next step was to set out a course of treatment. In terms of HIV, they’re still working on this, working out whether it is possible to stop the virus and when something seems promising then working out a course of treatment, how to administer the treatment in the best way and so on. Similarly, we have the understanding from Buddha that nirvana is attainable, that the cessation of suffering is attainable, and also we have the path to cessation which is a course of conduct, a course of practice in which we have to engage in order to bring this about. So, any questions? Well in terms of disease, the virus causes the disease.
So in terms of suffering, we have causes for suffering. If you want to know what the virus is, there are two viruses are deluded mental states and karma. I won’t be going into that in detail. That’s the topic for next week. Also, as it said in Buddha’s words, craving is underlying the whole problem.
Also, ignorance is underlying craving so all these things come about through a series of causes and reactions. So just in in our everyday life, what is it that we can do to stop the suffering? Like, even in a small level, you’re saying apart from awareness, which is big. So Yes, well, particularly ignorance of karma has to be overcome. There are two main kinds of ignorance.
The first one is mainly involved with ignorance of cause and effect in past and future lives. This kind of ignorance prevents us from engaging in virtuous actions. That’s the first major step we have to make and the other kind of ignorance is more subtle and it’s ignorance of the true nature of existence and it’s harder to overcome whereas we can overcome ignorance of karma by studying. So, well, we have to study to overcome ignorance of the true nature of existence also and also to engage in meditation but that’s going to take a lot more effort whereas it’s not so difficult to understand how we should behave ourselves and that’s something that we can learn by studying the avoiding the ten non virtuous actions and a few other simple things like keeping precepts and so on. Essentially that’s the fundamental step.
It’s not so easy to do this way. Well it’s not so easy but it’s something that we can start to do. It’s not so difficult to make a start. And then as we practice more we can start at the most basic level and then refine our practice. To practice perfectly of course is something that only comes gradually as you go along and most of us but we can really make a big reversal of our habitual actions as worldly people when we start to understand basic Dharma practice.
And the other thing is to be happy in our minds we just have to learn the thought training practice and apply it in our lives. Then even though we experience all sorts of problems still we can be happy. And I just mentioned to you before about the purification of karma is one of the ways that we can think to be happy when we experience these problems. If we’re ignorant of these things of the Dharma teachings then when we experience all these problems we just feel bad and we think I was all this unhappening to me and it’s unfair and maybe God’s being unfair to me, maybe God’s being unkind to me or whatever, or I’m just unlucky. Whereas when we have this Dharma understanding we don’t really see it as being such a bad thing, we just see it as something that has its positive aspects in it and that we can take in our stride.
Well, if you are thinking, if you are practicing thought training, of course there is a lot of merit in that. Just the karma ripening in itself is not meritorious. It’s getting rid of bad karma. But if you’re thinking in that way, then that’s a thought training practice and that’s very powerful positive karma so you can then dedicate that thought, the merit of that thought. Could really, you know, use it to be mindful and say this has happened and may anything that has happened from it be useful to people.
And I I felt so much better I’m making sure that when the doctor finally came to see me, I had a different, I don’t know, energy or something. Was a useful thing to do. Oh, well. Very good. So it’s not enough to just agree intellectually that of course life involves plenty of suffering, because we know this, but what we have to do is to keep on meditating and thinking, contemplating on the topic so that it really becomes a deep experience for us to become aware of the reality of suffering and that we’re never safe from it, that we can always expect to experience it, that we’re never going to feel really secure while we’re in Samsāra, because if we don’t do this then we won’t go on to the next step of making the effort to understand the cause of suffering and put an end to it.
So we have to really feel very deeply at the root of our being that we’re never going to find happiness in Samsāra, that we’re only going to find happiness by practicing Dharma, by putting aside our attachment to all these worldly things, by focusing our minds on the attainment of liberation. So don’t sort of feel depressed and think that it means that you have to give up everything and stop enjoying life because it doesn’t mean that at all. Because it’s not the objects of our enjoyment that’s the problem and it’s not enjoying them that’s the problem either. So we can enjoy things, we can enjoy things as long as we don’t engage in non virtues. We can enjoy the good things that come to us in life, but if we put too much meaning on these and expect them to bring us real happiness, they’re not capable of bringing us real lasting happiness.
We can feel good for a little while, we can feel pleasure, but worldly things can’t really bring us happiness, that comes from within ourselves. Even the happiness that we experience when we encounter good things, when we encounter pleasures, comes from our good karma. It doesn’t really come from the object. The object has a role in that. It acts as the object for our pleasure, but it’s only enjoyed, we only enjoy it because of our karma, because of our good karma.
And so when we understand these things better we can start to see what we’re trying to do, and what we’re trying to do is to reverse this attitude that clings and grasps at external things, at worldly things, for happiness, that sees the cause of happiness in these things, which can either be inanimate objects, can be experiences and so on, there can be other people. These things can be really good in themselves, but the very nature of saṃsāra is that we’re not going to experience any lasting happiness. Either we’ll be parted from the objects that bring us this pleasure and happiness, or we’ll be in some way changing, the situation will change perhaps from our own side, in our own attitudes, the things that we previously enjoyed don’t give us the same enjoyment. So there’s this uncertainty, there’s this constant insecurity in all good things, in all our pleasures, in all our happiness, in all our samsaric happiness. And so what we have to do is set our sights on gaining the really true deep unchanging happiness that can be attained through giving up this attachment, giving up grasping at these samsaric objects, and instead focusing our mind on reaching the different stages of Dharma practice and particularly aiming at liberation.
This is the medium scope view, of course, or the view of self individual liberation. At the moment, we’re not talking from the Mahāyāna viewpoint because this is a topic which is common to medium scope and great scope in terms of the graduated path. Of course, as Mahayanists, we actually try to focus on the thought of bringing about the welfare for others, but we have to base that on this understanding. We can’t think of helping others without having an understanding of our own suffering. We can’t appreciate the suffering of others until we appreciate our own suffering.
This goes together. So we have to really feel deeply within ourselves how insecure we really are, how subject we really are to suffering. And we have to look for our security and satisfaction in Dharma practice and not look to it in outside things. And that doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy these outside things as they come along to us because it would be stupid to make ourselves miserable for no reason. That wouldn’t help us.
But just to keep in mind this thought that real happiness is not to be found out there. So, if we think that cultivating renunciation is going to make us feel unhappy, that’s a mistaken viewpoint. In actual fact, a person who has really cultivated renunciation well in their minds will be a person who feels calm and peaceful under any circumstances, and will have inner happiness because they’re not going to be disturbed by these sort of external things. They won’t seem very important to such a person. So when we experience states of mind such as unhappiness, a deep sense of loss and grief and frustration and so on, these things are a sign that we haven’t really developed a deep sense of renunciation, particularly if these mental attitudes remain in our minds and continue bothering us.
It’s because we haven’t cultivated renunciation well. When we experience various different things like worries and frustration and so on. So when we experience such things as unhappiness and loss and grief and frustration, it’s easy for us to see life as suffering. Then we can think that we’ve developed renunciation. Sorry, that was the point I was trying make there.
It’s easy to feel that we can develop renunciation. It’s easy to say, Oh, life is all just a pit of suffering. So at this point we can’t really be sure that we’ve developed renunciation very well, but when we feel comfortable and contented and when we get what we want and experience pleasures and experience a good life, then we might think life is really pretty good on the whole and we don’t see much need for renunciation. So it’s only when we can also see these times as being caught up in the pit of suffering that we can really see that renunciation is becoming strong. And if you’re starting to develop that sort of strong renunciation then that is a really good sign of progress.
Yes, Kerry Packer is a good example of that. After all the other things, now he’s gone and won four million dollars and busted all the bookmakers. Yes, they said at least four million, so you might have heard something more recent because they were saying that nobody really knew the total. You can sort of see that he’s had incredible good fortune in his life and everything he does seems to work out or right for him, so he’s using up all this good karma which would be the result of having performed generosity in the past. So of course you can’t say what he’s doing in this lifetime, whether he’s creating more good karma or not, but the thing is that if we feel envious of Kerry Packer and think oh I wish you know I could be like Kerry Packer and have a bit of his good luck, We wouldn’t want to be in his position because it would be so easy to be complacent.
If we get complacent it’s easy to forget to be engaged in creating positive karma. It’s easy to, as you say, be selfish, so we’re much better off if we have to experience we don’t want to have too much hardship that would get in the way of our practice, but also we’re fortunate if we’re not terribly strong in our practice, then we’re more fortunate if we don’t have things too easy either, because it’s easier to practice Dharma if you experience some hardships than it is if things are too easy, and real Dharma practitioners are unhappy when things are going too well because they’re afraid it might threaten their practice.