Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 29-minute talk, Ven Robina Courtin uses a detailed chocolate-cake metaphor to explain attachment and answer a troubling question: if everything is suffering, what’s the point? She reframes Buddhism as psychology, not religion, and argues that genuine practice requires intelligence-based confidence developed through investigation. She walks through the Four Noble Truths, distinguishing three types of suffering—gross suffering from past harm, the subtle suffering of change we wrongly call happiness, and the desire realm’s pervasive entrapment—showing how attachment makes objects glow falsely while satisfaction remains impossible. Transformation comes only from doing the mental work yourself, not from belief alone. Directly addresses practitioners new to Buddhism who are grappling with whether it forms a coherent practical psychology.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011 09 22 Ven Robina Courtin Samsāra and Nirvāṇa Track 1-2.mp3
UUID: 0d16759c-1a41-4750-a5b4-6547d7537d83
Teacher: Ven Robina Courtin
Collection: z Robina Courtin 2011 – too hard (Ven Robina Courtin)
Date: 2011-09-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 29.9 minutes
Words: ~4,983
There we go. Yeah. Thank you, Bill. And there you go. Well done.
Good. Good. Good. Good. So here we go again.
Continue what we were doing yesterday. Just remind ourselves why we’re here to listen to these ideas of the Buddha, to see if there’s something useful that we can take as tools in our daily life to help us develop our qualities, help us be less neurotic and less fearful, and a bit more kind and bit more useful, even just that. And you can think long term if that makes sense to you. Buddhahood and these things, and that’s fine. This is the reason we’re sitting here.
I wonder if someone’s got a tissue I can blow my nose with. I haven’t got one. Thank you so very much. Oh, okay, darling. That’s good.
Okay. Here we go. We got some. Look. Thank you.
Very kind. Thank you so much. Summarising what we’ve done so far: what this course is about is learning to know what suffering is, what causes it, and then as we’ve seen in the second noble truth, actions created by minds, and finally what even motivates that is the deluded states of mind in our mind. So we need to understand the delusions which are the cause of suffering in order to be free of it. So saṃsāra is learning all about the rubbish, the suffering, and then nirvana is the result of removing from the mind these delusions, the suffering and its causes.
This is how they talk. So we can see it’s just practical psychology, you know. So what we’ve been doing is basically talking about those delusions. That’s what we’ve been doing essentially. But some of the background we’ve been giving, just to remind us, is the view of karma, the idea the mind is not physical, not created by somebody else, not given to you by mommy, daddy, god, but it’s one’s own.
This is sort of a fundamental point to take as our hypothesis in Buddhism, that this mind is ours. This is the crucial point. This is the first major difference between the view we have of the mind in the world and the Buddha’s view. But the other one is other difference, the radical difference, is the potential that this mind has. You know?
The potential it has. The potential basically for perfection. If you’re looking at the Mahāyāna point of view, the Buddha is saying that every single mind just naturally possesses its potential, and we’ll talk a bit about this today as well. Possesses just naturally naturally this potential to can we close the door, do think? Just feels like there we go.
Every single mind just naturally possesses this potential to be fully developed. The word they use in Buddhism is this word Buddha, you know, free of all the delusions, free of all suffering, and full of all the good qualities and the causes of happiness. So like I said, know, really easy to hear this as religion. Oh yeah, I believe in karma. Oh yeah, I believe in nirvana.
Oh yeah, I believe in this and I believe in that. And so by saying that, we sort of make it remote. We don’t make it something real and tasty. But if we think of it as scientific and doable and provable and real and on the earth and psychological, we kind of go wow, you mean it’s about me and my mind, not some abstract idea of the future, which is often how we think of religion. So believing in it is not the point.
This is again something that’s really important if we think about Buddhism, just to talk about this. It it it, you know, it’s the Buddhas of course they talk about, they use the word faith. There’s no question. But I like the I like the idea. You look at the word confidence.
Look at the Latin root, with trust, with faith. There’s its meaning, confidence. When we say confident, when we say faith, they sound very different, don’t they? Faith sounds religious, kind of cross your fingers and hope for the best, not provable, not real. But confidence sounds like you’re using your intelligence.
And that’s what faith in Buddhism means. You check up on somebody. You know, you don’t just have faith in that dentist because he looks handsome. You’d be in big trouble if you choose him because he’s handsome. You know, you choose him because you’ve checked up, you’ve heard his reputation, you’ve understood you know, you’ve done your research and you’ve seen that he’s got some qualities and you can have confidence.
You’ve done your research. This is really important. So your your confidence in him initially is just inferential. You have got no proof yet. Your friends say he’s good.
You look at their teeth, you can see the proof. Then you go to him, and he does the job. And then on the basis of your own direct experience, you now have confidence in him. So confidence comes from your own wisdom, from your own experience. So what in the beginning, you can’t base it on experience because you don’t have it.
So that’s why you gotta do the checking on on Buddha, his teachings. Check it out. Look at the teachers. Look at the centers. Look at the people.
Look at the ones practicing. You really do your research so you have a basis for having confidence and therefore to enter that practice. And you do that the same for music, for cooking, for anything, you know, it’s just common sense. So faith plays a major role, but it’s confidence, and it’s confidence. And confidence comes from your research, not just some feeling, which is how we think of it as religion.
It’s really mistaken, you know. And the other thing is because you see, the thing is if we think of the meaning, the implication of the of of the fact that Buddha is not a creator, it’s kinda tasty. We’re so used to thinking religion equals creator. Therefore, something you can’t prove. By definition, how can you?
If you can prove what god does and says, that means you become god, and that is extremely arrogant. One does not talk this way. But that’s the point in Buddhism. Buddha is asserting there is no such concept as a creator, and all his teachings would indicate that we don’t need creating. This is a point, the way Buddha presents it all.
So we have to really analyze the meaning. If he’s not a creator, then what is he? Where do get the information from? I you know, I can see with all of us, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a question that that there’s except one question ever. I’ve only ever heard one question ever that I’ve not had myself that I’ve never heard anybody else ask.
Every other question we all have because we’re all the same, you know, but this one question was fascinating to me. This guy Nelson in New Zealand, he said and he was a scientist. And he said, who revealed the teachings to the Buddha? I have to say no one’s ever asked that question before. Was fascinating.
And he was actually as a scientist, he was shocked to hear that it actually that Buddha’s more like a scientist insofar as no one revealed it to him. It’s not coming from on high. It’s coming from the direct experience of a person called Buddha, just like, you know, Einstein’s knowledge. If can you imagine if Einstein told you that he had a dream last night or a vision or it was revealed to him on high? We’d be a bit shocked.
Good morning. You got a seat there? You comfy? Okay. And so that’s not what the Buddha is.
He’s got nothing to do with revelation. Okay. You can you can listen to the teachings of many of the great yogis and you hear that they had direct visions of the Buddha who taught them, but it’s not it’s not quite the same thing, because the Buddha’s teachings are from his own direct experience. He worked it out himself. That’s what a scientist is, isn’t it?
Einstein’s this guy who, using his own noggin, nutted things out and and discovered things are like this, that he presented them. Well, that’s what that’s what Buddha is. Exactly. And I’m not kidding, but exactly the same. There is no difference.
So we have to keep remembering that and the implication of that. So if it’s true that Buddha was an ordinary person, and then found methods to completely eradicate from the mind, which is central to him, the suffering and its causes, and achieve what’s called perfection or Buddhahood, if he could do it, the whole point is that it’s something that he’s presenting for us to do. So belief is important based on intelligence, but it’s not enough. So it’s sort of like saying, I believe in mathematics. I’m happy you believe in mathematics.
What good is that to you? You gotta do mathematics. You gotta prove it to yourself. And if you think of that, that’s the point. You can believe in one and one is two.
You can even memorize all the math, and you could even help somebody else with it and give them the answer. But if they ask you to explain it to you, you can’t because you haven’t done it yourself. It’s not experiential. So it’s it’s bizarre to think that believing in something is the point. It’s quite bizarre, actually, if you think about it, the Buddhist approach.
And it’s also intellectually lazy. It’s just copying out. It’s just being lazy. And what good does it do you? Nothing in you will ever change.
Nothing. Just having a belief doesn’t help. Think of it, it’s so practical. It’s like saying I believe in tennis. I believe in cooking.
What good is that? You’ve got to do it. Something has to shift. You have to become internally a cook. Internally you have to experience tennis, then changes occur.
Well the same with this stuff. So if you’re going to take it on board and start to practice something, you’d better be very serious about checking it out, and having some confidence that you’re trying something out that’s reasonable. And the onus is on us to do this. This is the point. Otherwise we’ll all just sort of walk around the edges of it and think maybe it’s interesting, and I like this about Buddhism, I don’t like this, I don’t want that, and maybe that’ll do, and I believe in that bit.
It’s just too boring, you know. We’ve got to really be much more accountable, because it’s our mind and our life that we’re talking about. And if we’re going to start practicing things, we better be very serious about what we think works and what doesn’t. In other words, Buddha puts the onus is on us. We’re the one who has to do it.
Buddha’s just simply presenting what he’s found. He’s not pushing. He’s not demanding we believe. He’s not demanding we even do it. He simply says, listen, this is what I’ve found.
And this is the whole Buddhist approach. It’s totally rude and inappropriate to try and shove it down someone’s throat, you know. And there’s no benefit. No benefit whatsoever. We have to come to it ourself, and then we have to look into it, and then we have to be clear about what we want to do.
And that’s why I’m saying, using the words, which is the scientific way we look at things, which I think is the approach I’m taking, you take it as your working hypothesis. Kathy’s good question yesterday, you know. You’ve got to listen, think about it, and then you take it to the degree that you think about it to the best of your ability, and it’s got to be coherent and reasonable. And then you apply it. And then you that’s when you do your homework.
You know, you go learn the theory that one on one is two, but then your teacher says go home and do your homework. And that’s when you actually make it your experience. She wants you not just to memorize it as a good start, but then you’ve got to put it inside your mind. You’ve got to make it your knowledge, and that’s what and so that’s what you’re doing with this stuff. You hear what Buddha says.
You listen to his teachings about impermanence, about karma, about the mind, about emptiness, about the delusions. It’s Buddha’s findings. So you’ve prepared enough. You’ve checked enough to be prepared to come to a class and listen and begin to try and practice. So you’re taking it as your hypothesis, and the process of internalizing it uses your brain.
Not just a question of closing your eyes and being mindful. It’s so superstitious to think it’s just this. It’s just it’s insane, you know? It shows we’re not getting the point. It’s a practical, doable thing by your mind.
And the mind itself, which is your thoughts and feelings, are the stuff that’s doing the job and that you’re working on. You know? You’re working on your mind itself. You’re changing your very thoughts themselves. You’re reconstructing your views of the world.
That’s what you’re doing. So you better be confident in the stuff that you’re attempting to take on board, you know. And you take it one step at a time. One step at a time. One step at a time.
How else can you do it? It’s an organic, logical, reasonable, you know, incremental incremental process. And, of course, as his holiness says, if Buddha’s wrong and you from your own direct experience can prove that he’s wrong in what he’s asserting, then you must reject him. You must give him up. Of course.
So we’re the boss, you know. The onus is on us. So okay. What we’ve been presenting in this in the context of this entire path of Buddhas from a to zed, you know, we’ve been looking at high school. High school is about the mind.
First stages of practice, junior school in the Lamrim, the first part of the wisdom wing, which is the Hīnayāna part of the path, we’re talking about this, is first mostly dealing with your body and speech, abiding by the laws of karma, learning the fundamentals of karma, how every single thing we say, do, and think leaves imprints in the mind that will ripen as our own experiences. This is the fundamental point in Buddhism. It’s this essential philosophical statement. The karma, cause and effect, the word just means action, but it’s also equivalent to the word intention, which again reminds us of the centrality of mind for the Buddha. That’s his expertise.
But the first stages is more about being cautious and protecting our body and speech, which are the servants of the mind, which do all the problem. Given that our minds are ridiculous, our body and speech do ridiculous things to harm others. So what what Buddha is getting us to do at the first stages of practice by learning about karma, this law of cause and effect, how he how he has found it to be so, But every single microsecond of what every mind does and says with body and speech and thinks with the mind is a karma, is an action that leaves an imprint or a seed in the mind that will bring a reaction in that mind in the future. This is the fundamental it’s like it’s almost I like to call it the creation principle in Buddhism. If you wanna think who created you, well, honey, you created you.
You are experiencing the fruits of your past actions, and you do every second sow the seeds which will produce your future experiences. It’s such a tasty idea. It’s so outrageous. It means we are truly the ones who have created the causes for our happiness and suffering, and we are the ones who can can create the causes for our future suffering or happiness. Up to us.
We’re the boss. It’s so tasty. We should be so delighted with this process. So this is Buddha’s first fundamentals of view of karma. And so the very first stages, given that we’re berserk at the moment, uncontrolled minds don’t see what we’re thinking and doing, then we do dumb things with our body and speech to harm others.
Look at the world. Look at the mess we’re in. Know? First stage of practice is control your body and speech. Behave nicely like your grandma tells you.
You know? Back off. Zip your lip. Keep your hands to yourself. This is the first stage of practice, believe me, on the basis of this view of karma, learning about karma, you know, which we talked briefly about yesterday.
It’s kind of junior school. And then we go to high school, where we can start to deal with the mind. Given that we’ve subdued our body and speech to some extent, we can now get into the real nitty gritty, to the real causes of everything, into the mind where the workshop is, as Lama Zopa puts it. And we learn to change the mind because this is this is this is where the real work happens, and this is where we really become unique do the unique work of a Buddhist. Behaving well is is agreed by is agreed by all religions and all good philosophies.
Good communists are the same. Anybody who’s got a sense of morals, that’s the first stage of path. Okay. Based upon Buddha’s view of karma, slightly different. But the second one is where you really become a Buddhist, becoming your own psychologist, dealing with your mind, because that’s Buddha’s thing.
That’s his expertise. That’s his unique and marvelous, you know, offering to the world, his amazing view of the mind, And how it is the source of all experiences, of all sentient beings, of all mind possessors. Semchen in Tibetan, sentient being. But the technical translation is mind possessor. It’s a lovely phrase.
Mind possessor. So ants and dogs and giraffes and humans and spirits and hell beings and gods and there’s a massive countless sentient beings in the universe. There’s nowhere you won’t find minds. And they’ve all got the same potential, all beginningless, all experiencing their own results of their past actions, all possess Buddha nature. Like that.
So if in the Four Noble Truths where Buddha asserts that cessation of suffering, nirvana, is possible, he says it is a possibility of all minds, you know, then we need the cessation of suffering, then we need to know what suffering is, which is the first noble truth. So we discussed that. The first type of suffering in the package of three is called the suffering of suffering as we talked. We all recognize that as suffering. And speaking in this kind of way where we relate to the second, the second noble truth, is where he states the causes, in particular the delusions, and in particular the three root delusions, attachment, aversion, and ignorance, in particular the way it manifests as kind of indifference.
You know? And the first type of suffering is linked to anger. The causes of why we have this suffering, the suffering of suffering, if we look at the causes, look at the delusions, is from harming others in the past. So we get harmed, you know, when we get harmed in this life or things don’t happen properly or we get sick or the suffering comes or the bombs or the rapist or the bad husband or whatever it might be or the red light even, the smallest thing that blocks us, you know, that’s when you that’s from harming others, from related to anger. The second kind of suffering, like I said yesterday, which we don’t even call suffering, which we call happiness, which Buddha says there’s nothing other than suffering, If we link this to the sec to the second noble truth in particular, the causes in particular the three root delusions, in particular attachment, then this is a result of attachment, and it is the is being caught up in attachment.
Attachment. It’s the suffering called the suffering of change, which we call happiness, like I said. You know? So we figure the logic of saṃsāra is that happiness is getting is is what you get when you get what you want. Suffering is what you get when you don’t get what you want or will get what you don’t want.
So that’s the first kind of suffering, the gross one, which is the harmful stuff, suffering of suffering. The second one, which we call happiness, Buddha says it’s suffering. It’s a subtle level of suffering. It’s a honey covered razor blade. So when we get what attachment wants, which we think is happiness, Buddha says it’s a it’s this other it’s another level of suffering.
It’s called the suffering of change. And the simplest meaning that we think the cake is the cause of happiness, totally believe, attachment believes the cake will make me happy, the beautiful man will make me happy, the nice sound will make me happy, whatever that external object is, and this is the gross level. So therefore we hanker after it, crave it, manipulate to get it, grasp onto it, expect it, and then possess it as mine. We think that’s happiness. That’s our method for getting happiness.
That’s what we know. That’s all we know, and that’s the method of all sentient beings in saṃsāra. In the in the, you know, in certainly in this human realm, we think, and the animals too. But Buddha says that we look more deeply at it, we go beneath it, analyze it really carefully, very precisely, we will see that actually it’s suffering. Why?
Like we said yesterday, the chocolate cake, you know. Many things in your mind all functioning there. There’s your eye consciousness that sees the shape and color. There’s your mental consciousness that instantly recognizes it as chocolate cake. You’ve had it before.
You’ve enjoyed it before. That’s all fine. But then the one that takes over is this craving for it, this belief based upon this crave this deep sense of dissatisfaction which is the disease of attachment. This deep sense of not having enough, not being enough, this aching hole inside us, this gaping hole, this bottomless pit. So that causes us to crave for something, so we look out there like a vampire.
We grab hold of the cake. It looks divine because the attachment makes it look divine. The more the attachment, the more divine it looks. The more hungry and needy we are to get it. Put it in the mouth, waiting for satisfaction to come.
Waiting. Even as you put it in the mouth, it’s divine. So the good feeling is there. Good feeling is fine. Cake eating tongue is a nice experience.
No argument. But the attachment is like the vampire. Already you’re enjoying it. Oh, this is so divine. But already your hand is going out for the next piece.
You’re not satisfied. So you it’s delicious, but you’re not satisfied. That’s the fascinating point. So we reach out for another piece because we think if we have another piece, it’ll satisfy me. But even as you’re talking, you’re enjoying the next piece, you know, already slightly jaded, because already you’re sensing your stomach’s beginning to fool you, feeling a bit distressed.
And you keep wanting the delicious taste. It still tastes pretty delicious. You keep waiting for satisfaction, but it doesn’t come. And already your mind is into the third piece. And then what happens eventually?
Your stomach fills. You’d vomit if you ate more. Your hand stays in your lap. And now what is there left? What is there left but dissatisfaction?
There’s the stress, the guilt of each other. You feel your stuffed stomach. Your mind is exactly as dissatisfied as it was at the beginning. There’s no difference. The satisfaction has not come.
It is impossible for satisfaction to come from a cake because satisfaction is a mental state. Cake is physical. It can’t possibly do the job. Technically impossible to satisfy, to cause satisfaction. Satisfaction is a mental state.
So at the end of the cake, you’re stuffed. You look at the cake now, it looks revolting. If you ate another piece, you would vomit. You have now the attachment, which makes it all glittering and lovely, has now turned into aversion, which now causes the cake to look disgusting. Your stomach is stuffed, no satisfaction at all, guilt and shame because you’ve eaten too much and now you’re depressed, you know, feeling bad, and no happiness.
The happiness that attachment desperately anticipated, There’s no satisfaction. In fact, it’s only now suffering. It’s now turned into the gross suffering of being too stuffed, which is the first kind of suffering. That’s why it’s called the suffering of change. It’s so simple.
It’s so simple. It’s embarrassing. But we can’t bear to see this because it’s the only method we know for how to get happy. It’s too painful for us to just face these facts, you know. It’s too painful because we don’t know where else to turn for happiness.
And every object of the senses is exactly the same. There is not one that the more you get, the happier you’ll get. Because if it is, if you think of logic this is so logical. If the delicious cake or the divine person is the cause of happiness, then it is absolutely logical. The more you get of it, the happier you’ll get.
But we all know that the more cake you get, the more revolting it becomes, and you’d eventually vomit and die. So it’s easier to die from heroin because it’s a more intense object. A slightly too much of heroin, you you die. Cake, you gotta eat a lot more to die, but the logic is the same. The more you get, the more suffering it is.
And then the cruelest cut of all, the worst part of the suffering of attachment is the one that my mother always used to say. Bobsy, she’d call me Bobsy, the more you get, the more you want. I’d hear this, know. That’s so profound, and that’s the cut. That’s the worst suffering of all of attachment.
That actually what you end up with is a stuffed stomach, it’s turned into something ugly, you’re completely stressed out, there’s no not only is there no satisfaction, but you actually crave it more. And that’s the bottomless pit of attachment. So basically attachment is the junky mode. Attachment is addiction, all attachment. You see in our culture, we only say it’s the outer edge of attachment that’s called suffering because we call it addiction, because we assume that ordinary attachment is normal.
Buddha says all attachment is mental illness. All attachment is a junky mode. All attachment is addiction. It’s just a question of degree. So he’s more radical in what he’s asserting as suffering, which is a bit depressing because that’s all we know.
We don’t know happiness that doesn’t come from sense objects, broadly speaking. It’s the only method we know, and this is why Buddha calls this a desire realm. This is the all pervasive suffering, that we’re locked into this mode of existence By the having of senses in the first place, they demand feeding. You know? This is the all pervasive suffering.
So it’s a bit like the first kind of suffering is when you don’t get the junk, so you’re having a complete mental breakdown, getting intense suffering. The second kind of suffering is when you get the junk. And the third kind of suffering is being is almost as if you’re born as a junkie with a body that demands ingestion of the heroin and that the world is constructed of heroin. And to exist, you have to ingest it. That’s the that’s the desire realm.
That’s why it’s called a desire realm. It’s a realm of attachment. Because we may we have this body that has senses and the external world think of it. The external world is simply objects of the five senses, and so we spend our lives ingesting them. That’s it.
That’s our method for getting happy. But actually, it’s a method for more suffering, Buddha Because all it does is cause more suffering, more grasping, more craving, and then in the end, we get born in the lower realms where it’s the worst suffering of all. And it’s just like this vicious circle, you know. But so hear it as psychological. Don’t hear it as holy religion.
Oh, yeah. That’s an interesting thing to believe in. Yeah. I believe in reincarnation. Not like that.
Hear it as psychological because this is how Buddha’s talking. He’s talking about the mind. So we have to investigate this. It’s either right or he’s wrong, and it’s up to us. But the interesting point for me is, you know, when we hear this, we it’s sort of like, what what hope what’s the point then?
What am supposed to do? What are you telling me, Buddha? Give me a break. If everything is in the nature of suffering, what am I gonna do? Kill myself?
So this is why it’s so important to hear what he’s say