Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute session, Ven Margaret McAndrew illustrates Buddhism’s subtlest teaching with a single image: even after removing garlic from a pot, the smell lingers and must be thoroughly cleansed. She maps the five paths of practice (accumulation, preparation, seeing, meditation, liberation) and shows how mental afflictions—forgetting, non-alertness, distraction—trap us in saṃsāra, while understanding emptiness and selflessness directly undermines them. She contrasts Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna approaches: Hīnayāna Arhats achieve personal liberation but leave subtle obstacles (the lingering smell) unresolved. Mahāyāna practitioners commit to clearing both coarse and subtle obstacles and establishing universal compassion from the start. This is why Arhats must eventually retrain as Bodhisattvas to help all beings. She concludes with practical guidance on integrating formal meditation into daily mindfulness.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 69 1998 12 10 no topic name.mp3
UUID: b75f1efd-636d-4e75-a652-16c115f461c1
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: Evening with V M McAndrew (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1998-12-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.0 minutes
Words: ~4,778
Forgetting in general, but forgetting forgetting virtuous objects. So it’s a it acts as a basis for generating distraction and other afflictions, so it’s a problem. And it seems to be something that can easily creep up on you if you don’t keep on studying or if you get slack. So, non alertness, number nineteen, an afflicted discriminating awareness or a deluded wisdom. So it’s the opposite to the mental factor of discriminating alertness.
It’s an afflicted discriminating awareness or a deluded wisdom. So, it causes us to This might make it a bit more clear. It causes to engage in physical, verbal and mental actions of non virtue and it’s the opposite to discriminating alertness. I think it’s easiest to understand by its opposite. So it says that even if if we have experience of listening to many teachings, even if we have faith experience of listening to many teachings, we can lose everything if we don’t have discriminating alertness.
So, yes, that’s one to think about a bit. I’m not sure. It’s it seems like more like you take it in the wrong way. You take some particular aspect of the teaching in the wrong way because it says it causes you to engage in physical, verbal, and mental actions as non-virtuous. So and now it doesn’t really give an example except to say that it’s the opposite of discriminating alertness.
Awareness. So it seems to be perhaps like yes. Thinking that something that we’re told is wrong to do is actually alright to do or something of that nature. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. It it says well, just says non the name is non alertness, but saying it’s an it’s an afflicted discriminating awareness or a deluded wisdom. So it doesn’t seem to be simply just lacking alertness, but it’s more like an alertness that goes wrong or gets misdirected, that takes the that that still still seems to, in a way, maintain an alertness but maintains it in the wrong way. So, yes, that’s probably something that needs more explanation than what we’ve got here.
But then distraction can be a branch of ignorance, attachment, or hatred. And the mind leaps away from meditation on a virtuous object and follows any object of these three afflictions. So, yes, the the mind is unable to abide in virtue because of being distracted. So we talked before about excitement as being one cause of distraction. So this just seems to be any form of distraction, the mind being distracted away from the virtuous object to any object of affliction to whatever cause.
Yes. Well, it seems like excitement itself is the cause. I mean, it’s yeah. It’s a kind of nervous energy, suppose. Could say it’s a kind of mental energy.
It’s because we have that it’s caused by attachment, basically, but we have it because we’ve been habituated to it in the past. We have the imprint of this kind of mental attitude, but it’s brought about by by attachment. Excitement is brought about by attachment, and the mind gravitates to some sort of attractive object and gets excited by attachment to that object. So so that’s the twenty anyway, the twenty. So the actually, the question here arises, what is the difference between distraction and excitement?
So it says that distraction is an obstacle to attaining freedom from attachment because we need strong concentration to be able to overcome the afflictions and the distraction is an obstacle to our attaining concentration and to being able to abide in virtue. And then the question: What is the difference between distraction and excitement? Excitement is only conditioned by attachment and it goes towards an object of pleasure, But there are other causes of distraction. It says there’s also a mental factor of leaving, which just leaves the virtuous object through various different ways, through either distraction, a non virtuous distraction, or a neutral distraction. So I suppose going to sleep would be a neutral distraction because going to sleep is supposed to be a neutral mental factor.
But, anyway, there’s non virtuous so we can be distracted off our meditation not only by as we mentioned before in relation to excitement, we can be distracted off our meditation object not only by attachment, but also by such things as anger and also by other virtuous objects. So, I won’t go into distraction in detail, but these things can be particularly important if you are trying to meditate and maintain concentration. So, I wanted to talk about the other two noble truths. Did you have any more questions about the non virtuous mental factors before we go on? I obviously didn’t study that nineteenth one as careful as I should have.
So I’ve always just thought that it simply meant non you know, simple non alertness, simply not being alert. But perhaps it’s more like a failure to maintain alertness, something like that, you know, not just simply the fact of not being alert, but the sort of the the the lapse of maintaining alertness, something like that. That’s sort of like a a non virtuous or sort of slack sort of attitude of of letting your your alertness go go lax. Something like that could be the underlying yes. Yes.
It could be something like that. But, anyway, yes, I’ll have to Yes. Well, that’s what yes. Anyway, yes. It’s obviously a little bit more subtle than I’d realized.
I always just thought it was just like a slipping off of the attention, but it seems to be a bit more subtle than that. So the anyway, the four noble truths, we’ve now completed the the truth of the source of suffering because all these things we’ve been looking at are a detailed explanation of the the delusions or the disturbing mental states, which are, together with karmic imprints, are the cause of our suffering and which bind us in Samsāra. And will continue to circle in Samsāra until we get rid of them. So the next question that arises is can we get rid of them? And so the answer to that is the next noble truth, which is the truth of cessation.
And then following that, then you have the truth of the path, which is the path by which we attain true cessation. And so, if you look at it in a course and effect way, then we have first of all, the path and then we achieve the cessation. And so the first two are the two noble truths that it should be abandoned, suffering and its cause. And now we have the two which are to be acquired and that is through cessation and through path. So it’s probably not such a lot that we can say about true cessation.
The essential thing is to say that it actually does exist. It’s possible and it can be attained and Buddha attained it and many other practitioners following Buddha’s teaching have attained it. Practitioners on the Hīnayāna path, practitioners on the Mahāyāna path, many have attained this state. So, Buddha established that it’s possible and that the state that is attained when you achieve true cessation is nirvana, which is peace and unending joy. And it’s also called true cessation because it’s irreversible.
And it’s attained by cutting off the afflictions which we’ve already studied. And it’s these afflictions which bind us in the prison of saṃsāra. So, also when we get free from saṃsāra, it’s referred to as liberation. In actual fact when we’re talking about this topic of the four noble truths in the graduated path it comes in the section of the being of medium scope Which has to do with the Hīnayāna motivation. But we also have to be concerned with the Mahāyāna motivation.
So for the the being of the Hīnayāna path, the goal is to attain nirvana, to attain individual liberation and they do this by cutting off these delusions that we’ve just been talking about. So there’s actually two levels of obstacles that have to be overcome on the path. There are coarse and subtle obstacles. There are course obstacles. There are some obstacles.
Okay. So, anyway, we have course obstacles and subtle obstacles. And the course obstacles are these six root or major afflictions and the twenty minor or secondary afflictions, which prevent us from attaining nirvana, and we’ve been through those. And that’s all you have to worry about if you’re on the Hīnayāna path. You get rid of those and you attain liberation, you attain nirvana, you become an Arhat, and you’ve done what you needed to do.
But for the Mahāyāna path, that’s not enough because to attain full Buddhahood, you also have to deal with the subtle obstacles which is the instinct of duality and clinging to the illusion of inherent existence which prevents attaining Buddhahood. And if you think that sounds complicated, it is. Yes. So but essentially, what we’re talking about is overcoming this very subtle imprint that remains even after these obstacles, these coarse obstacles have been removed, which are like the smell of garlic that remains in the container after the garlic’s been taken out. You know that if you’ve kept garlic in a pot for a long time then when you take the garlic out, even if you empty it all out and brush it out thoroughly, there’s still a very smell of garlic remaining.
Even if you just give it a quick wash, it’s still going to smell of garlic. So you have to wash it very, very carefully and very, very thoroughly to get rid of all the smell. And so this is comparison. So the this has to be done by continual meditation. So the that’s really in the section on the path, and I’ll be talking about that a bit, I guess, if I have time.
So we need various methods to overcome our course obstacles, our anger and pride and the other various different root delusions that I mentioned, the the jealousy, the ignorance, attachment, and, and all the rest of it. So the, doubt with the the other one. Yes. And in particular, the ignorance of distorted views, which is the the ignorance that is the underlying ignorance, which is the basis for all these other forms of delusion to to manifest. So the the final opponent to all of these is understanding emptiness of inherent existence.
And it’s our not understanding emptiness of inherent existence and selflessness, not understanding selflessness which prevents us attaining full enlightenment and Buddhahood. So it’s also what prevents us from getting rid of these delusions, these all the all these other delusions as well and which prevents us from attaining liberation. So whether we want to attain liberation or full enlightenment, we have to achieve this understanding, this wisdom understanding emptiness. And we have to first of all achieve it on the conceptual level. We have to achieve a sort of knowledge understanding through studying, through debate, meditation and so on.
We have to first of all come to this understanding of emptiness on the conceptual level and then through deep meditation and through attaining single pointed meditation, single pointed concentration, we have to be able to apply it in our meditation. So that’s actually talking about the truth of the path. So the true cessation, just to go quickly through the characteristics of true cessation. It has the four characteristics again, as we talked about with the first two of the noble truths, each of them has four characteristics. True cessation has four characteristics which are cessation.
So it’s cessation because it’s a cessation of suffering and it’s peace, it’s benefit and bliss and this is because when you attain this cessation and peace then it’s also benefit and bliss for oneself and also its definite emergence. And it’s definite emergence because it is emergence from Samsāra. It’s getting rid of Samsāra, finally getting rid of Samsāra, getting everlastingly rid of Samsāra. And so these are It’s a state of definite release, final release. So those are the four characteristics.
And then to get on to two paths, we also have four characteristics which is it’s the path and this is wisdom which essentially realizes the sixteen characteristics of the four noble truths and meditates on those and comes to an understanding of those. So to explain more simply, it’s particularly involved with the understanding of emptiness and selflessness. When we looked at true suffering, the four characteristics of true suffering, it’s it had the four characteristics of impermanence, suffering, emptiness and selflessness. And if we understand those four qualities thoroughly, and in particular understand the emptiness and selflessness, then we can actually cut at the root of true suffering. Because having those qualities means that it’s not something which can be ever which can be sort of intrinsically the nature of our minds, but it’s something that which is just an adventitious aspect of our mind and which can be eradicated because it’s not part of the mind’s true nature.
So by seeing through to the emptiness and selflessness of all phenomena and particularly of our own selflessness and emptiness of inherent existence, we cut away at the basis for our cause of suffering. So this is so this is the path, this wisdom, which directly realizes these sixteen attributes and particularly emptiness of inherent existence. Yes. See, we’re talking about in the technical sense. Yes.
We’re not talking about unselfishness. We’re talking about seeing clearly the lack of the truly existent self identity of all phenomena including our own individuality. It’s a bit of an uncomfortable term because in Mādhyamika, this comes from lower schools. When we get to Mādhyamika philosophy, we actually talk about the conventional self and we don’t talk so much about selflessness, we talk more about lack of inherent existence, emptiness. Here it uses the term emptiness but it uses it in a different way and it talks mostly about selflessness because it’s following the lower school view.
So what we have to keep in mind is that here we’re talking about a lower school view and it’s not always going to be expressed in quite the same way, but still if we can understand selflessness in the lower school view, it’s going to help us very much to come onto the higher views. So, here we have to understand this wisdom that realizes selflessness is the path and it’s also the knower, the second point is the knower, because it understands these paths, understands these sixteen points and it also is the achiever because understanding these sixteen points, it also obtains or achieves this understanding or this knowledge which liberates and it’s also definite elimination because it gets rid of delusions. Definite elimination because you can’t fall back from this state. And so that’s the true cessation. And then we have the the path sorry.
That’s the that was the path, not the true cessation. We already went through that before. So that those are four points of the true cessation I mean, of the true path. Sorry. I’m getting all mixed up.
So these are the four points of the true path. And so then how do we achieve this? How do we follow this true path? The the way we follow it is the, the three higher trainings. We’ve been through these before.
Mhmm. That’s right. Yes. Sometimes it’s called conduct or moral discipline. Here, he actually calls it moral discipline.
This is venerable ent. Anyway, it’s he calls it moral discipline, and I think I can’t remember how his holiness called it. But, anyway, the yes. Ethics is another term that’s also suitable here. So what we’re concerned with here is moral discipline that we learned about when we were studying the small scope, which is avoiding the ten non virtuous actions, but here we have to carry it further.
So we’re looking for a higher or superior moral discipline. And so this would involve taking vows, maintaining the vows very conscientiously. So that can involve Prātimokṣa vows, lay people’s vows, particularly monks and nuns vows, Bodhisattva vows. Also, the basis of this, the reason why this is particularly important at this stage is because this kind of constituents observance of moral discipline is necessary as a foundation for attaining concentration. It calms the mind, protects from distraction so that we can then go on to practice concentration and wisdom.
And this chap actually has a very interesting approach. Quite often it’s explained in terms of, first of all, have the moral discipline, then you practice concentration, having gained concentration, then you practice the combination of concentration with meditating on emptiness, which is wisdom. Here he makes the point that in actual fact you have to begin practicing wisdom, perhaps even before you start practicing concentration, because practice of wisdom includes studying emptiness. Generally what happens is that the person studies wisdom until they have a very thorough understanding of it, then they go and gain single pointed concentration through the practice of concentration. And then having gained single pointed concentration, they apply that single pointed concentration, calm abiding, to their understanding of emptiness.
And by doing that, then they gradually develop a deeper insight into emptiness. But to begin with, the analytical meditation tends to disrupt their concentration. So they have to alternate between going back sometimes to concentration, just simple concentration on something such as an image of the Buddha, and then going back to analytical meditation on emptiness until the mind is able to focus very steadily on this analytical meditation on emptiness. And when they have achieved that, then they gradually can break through to a penetrating wisdom and eventually break through to the actual direct insight into emptiness. And so this is the practice of wisdom and that’s, first of all, just through study and debate and analysis and so on, and then eventually in combination with single pointed concentration, which is Vipashyana.
So, it’s explained here how we do the How Yogi, how the practitioner actually achieves the five paths through this practice. So I’ll just go through that quickly. So the first of the five paths is the Path of Accumulation and the practitioner on the Path of Accumulation is mainly focusing on achieving understanding of subtle selflessness of the person and also achieving calm abiding. But at this stage he isn’t combining these two and he actually finishes the path of accumulation and gets onto the next path which is the path of preparation when he attains calm abiding. So, at this stage, the person attains calm abiding and also attains superior seeing or Vipassana.
And this is Then they continue to do this meditation. It said that once they reach this stage, there’s no no degeneration of their practice. They can’t go back. So they continue to deepen their meditation and in this Vipassana meditation they’re gaining deeper and deeper insight into emptiness and eventually they reach the point where they achieve that direct insight into emptiness. The moment that they achieve that direct insight, that’s when they achieve the path of seeing.
So this path of seeing is a very important attainment. It’s a very important stage because this is the first moment of direct insight. Before that, even though they were having quite profound meditation on emptiness, it was still conceptual. Now it becomes direct, non conceptual, experiential meditation on emptiness. So then what they’re doing here is starting to directly overcome the obstacles, the the delusions or the afflictions.
And they start So, they’re actually starting to achieve The practitioner is actually starting to achieve actual true cessation at this point and the first true cessation cessation of the acquired distorted view. And then later they go on and achieve after that the innate the cessation of the innate distorted view. And along with this they’re also achieving the true cessation of the the other afflictions. And these are achieved in stages because there are the gross levels are removed first and then gradually more and more subtle levels. So it’s explained in terms of nine stages that the person has to go through on the next path, which is the path of meditation.
And these are there are three levels, the great, the middling and the small, and these are divided up in three. You’ve got the great of the great and then the middling of the great, and then it goes on like that. So it’s not very difficult to remember the names until you get rid of the small of the small. And and so each of these is a more subtle layer of the delusions until they finally get rid of the most subtle which is a small of the small and then they’ve achieved the path of no more learning. They call that the fifth path, but, essentially, once they’ve reached that, they’ve essentially got it.
And so the attainment of liberation and No. That’s the fourth one, the path of meditation. So yes. So first of all, they attain the path of seeing, and then they have to keep on meditating on emptiness until they attain the path of meditation, when they begin to actually overcome the innate. So the path of seeing is the antidote to the intellectually acquired distorted view but then they have to get at the innate view on the path of meditation.
And this is done in these nine stages, these nine levels. And then they overcome that and when they finish that, then essentially they’ve reached the fifth path which is the path of no more learning. And there’s some sort of technicality with that. I think the first second of it is still not liberation, but the second moment is liberation or something like that, but don’t take my word for that. But, essentially, once you’ve reached the path of no more learning, you’ve got it.
And or something that you Yes. And a certificate Yes. That’s right. They get certificate. What are used to actually give them a sort of verbal sort of he would tell people, oh, yes.
This person has become an Arhat. So he would sort of give them their degree. What? Yes. There might be something about that.
I’m not sure if it’s at that moment, but Yes, the first But anyway, those are the five paths according to the Hīnayāna and of course then you have the Mahāyāna practice where it’s more complicated because you have the Bodhisattva grounds. So anyway, I won’t go into a detailed explanation of all that, but with the Bodhisattva Grounds you actually enter the first Ground of the Path of Seeing and the ten Bodhisattva Grounds are spread out over those last three Paths: the Path of Seeing, the Path of Meditation, the Path of No More Learning. You have to deal not only with the gross level of obstacles or the gross afflictions, but also those subtle the smell of the garlic, the subtle dualistic view. And thing is that the person has to keep on alternating their meditation between this meditative equipoise and the post meditation period, along the path until they reach full Buddhahood. So we were having some sort of discussion yesterday actually about what meditation is.
And when we’re talking about meditation, you don’t want to get the idea that meditation just means sitting on your cushion, formal meditation. But the only way that you can actually go into this really profound meditative equipoise is sitting on the cushion in formal meditation. So somebody brought up the point that you can be meditating as you walk around or doing your work or something. Of course, we can make our whole lives a meditation and we do try to do this. We try to bring meditation off the cushion and into our daily activities and we try to make up by making our daily life mindful.
If we can really manage to achieve this practice of mindfulness, it’s much more difficult to achieve concentration while you’re doing ordinary mundane activities than while you’re sitting on your cushion. But if we can manage to bring this mindfulness into our life then everything can become a meditation. That really deep Vipassana meditation, that Samādhi, has to be on the cushion and then the person who’s doing this practice gets up, finishes their session, they get up and they do some more study and they cook their meals and clean their house and they go out and work for sentient beings and they do all sorts of other things as well as meditating and they keep on alternating in this way. Even if you’re in retreat, you still have to alternate your sessions and your other activities, including other things like prayers and Lamrim meditation and so on, which are all considered as part of the post meditation period in the sense that it’s not this meditative equipoise on emptiness. And so the person practices in this way and it’s only when they attain full enlightenment that they don’t need to alternate in this way.
That the enlightened being is able to engage in activities and at the same time be in perfect Meditative Equipoise on emptiness. A Hīnayāna Arhat cannot remain in Meditative Equipoise on emptiness and at the same time engaging in activities. And when they die and they enter nirvana, then at that time they remain in this meditative equipoise and they’re no longer able to engage activities or to communicate with ordinary beings. So they can’t their work at that point ceases and until the Buddhas wake them up eons down the line, they’re not able to do anything for sentient beings. Then when they do get woken up by the Buddhas, they have to come back as Bodhisattvas and go through the accumulation of merit because they although they have great wisdom, haven’t got the accumulation of merit to attain enlightenment.
And so that’s why we’re advised to follow the Mahāyāna path from the beginning and to practice bodhicitta so that we don’t, you know, take that long diversion, which is a very agreeable diversion, but it’s it’s letting down the sentient beings who are waiting for us. So any questions about that? Yes. It says once a practitioner has attained the path of seeing, that person has reached a stage where s he will never ever fall back into lower states of rebirth. S he will not be brought into the lower realms powerlessly or without his or her own choice.
Yes he also does not accumulate karma which would act as the basis for being reborn in Samsāra. But on the path of preparation, the second path, it’s said that there’s no degeneration after one has attained that state. Prior to this one’s practice, one’s state of mind, the lack of correct conditions can all adversely affect one’s realizations. After attaining the path of preparation, one may experience the negative karma of past actions and undergo unpleasant states and so forth. However, the practitioner’s level of realizations does not degenerate.
So it almost seems to say that you could be born in a suffering state of rebirth, but still your practice won’t degenerate. So I think I seem to remember that in actual fact, there’s a a point on the path of accumulation where it said that you can’t go backwards. At the I think it’s a second this this isn’t going into detailed subdivisions of the paths, so I wouldn’t place too much reliance on the technicalities of what it’s saying here because I seem to recall that it’s on the I think it’s heat, peak, and something or other. So, actually, Geshe-la, I was probably getting a bit too late to go into that now, but there’s I seem to recall that there’s actually a second the second subdivision of the the first path. You you reach a stage where you actually don’t slip back.
So anyway, it’s very interesting to to study these things. It’s it’s very important. And I think we’ll finish at that point unless anybody has any burning questions. So anyway, it’s a good point to finish at the end of the year. And next year, we’ll be starting on the Wheel of Sharp Weapons going through that.
And also, I’ll have to do some reading up on the Abhidharma and the Abhidharma teachings on karma because Khensur Rinpoche said that that we should go through that. So I thought it