Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 82-minute class, Ven Thubten Dondrub teaches the foundational structure of the Buddhist path, distinguishing between the path to liberation and the path to enlightenment. He emphasizes generating bodhicitta—compassion motivated by recognizing all beings as former mothers—as the essential mental ground for practice. The core of his teaching focuses on renouncing attachment to this life and cyclic existence itself by contemplating the three types of suffering: the suffering of pain, the suffering of change, and all-pervasive suffering. He illustrates how apparent happiness (sitting after standing) is actually the subtle suffering of change, because it inevitably reverses rather than lasting. He traces suffering back to its root causes: disturbing thoughts like craving and anger, which generate negative karma and imprints, all stemming from ignorance—a fundamental misperception of reality. The path forward, he explains, requires avoiding the conditions that activate delusions while cultivating virtuous companionship and renouncing negative actions. This teaching is pitched at practitioners beginning a structured study of Buddhist philosophy and ethics, offered as part of an ongoing series on presenting the path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 09 03 DB Presenting the Path Week 4 030913.mp3
UUID: 6f291e3a-6998-4610-98d2-9d3873cd3141
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Presenting the Path (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-09-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 82.8 minutes
Words: ~9,322
K. So welcome everybody to our is this working? Yep. To our fourth class on presenting the path. So we have a lot to cover tonight once again.
So I can only do it super briefly, but even super briefly is not is a bit still could be difficult. So remember the path we’re presenting is oh, where’s the thing? Forgot it. Sorry. Do you wanna sit, closer to listen?
Yes. Sit. You can sit real close. Sit. You can sit closer.
Oh, you could sit closer if you like. If you feel if you feel comfortable, no problem. Yeah. Sure. Good.
Is it okay on the side? Oh, okay. Okay so so the path we’re presenting there are two paths that the Buddha taught the path to liberation where we free ourselves from suffering But there’s also but unfortunately, that only benefits one being ourselves, whereas there is the path to enlightenment whereby if we achieve that path, then we are able to not only benefit ourselves, but be of continuous benefit to all sentient beings. So we are encouraged to recognize that we have Buddha nature, Buddha potential and that we can achieve enlightenment. So we are encouraged to not just consider achieving liberation but enlightenment because yeah.
So and and so the motivation for doing that is reckon comes from recognizing our connection with all sentient beings, how incredibly kind they are in so many ways, especially because of beginningless rebirth. We’ve had beginningless endless mothers. Is that the right word? No. Infinite mothers.
All sentient beings have been our mother, but also our father, brother, and sister, and so on. Our they’ve been our best friend. They’ve been our doctors and teachers. They’ve they’ve sacrificed their lives for us over and over again. So they’re immensely kind, and the more we think about that, we can develop the wish.
The wish should naturally develop in our mind to repay that kindness, and especially when we realize how much suffering these kind beings are experiencing, we can develop the wish to repay that kindness by freeing them from all suffering or helping them to be free of all suffering, all its causes, and helping them to achieve their own inner potential for enlightenment. So as much since that is the very best motivation that we can possibly have can can possibly generate, it’s the all encompassing, most compassionate, most wonderful motivation, then as much as possible we can try and generate that attitude right now for studying these teachings. To help us do that, as we say the prayer, if you want to join in, which is on page nine, We try and visualize the Buddha in front of us as our source of inspiration and guidance and possible refuge. So we think of the Buddha seated on a magnificent lion throne and on the throne is the lotus symbolizing renunciation and then above that a sun disc symbolizing wisdom, above that a moon disc symbolizing bodhicitta and then the Buddha with a hollow body of golden light, at the very embodiment of the Three Jewels of refuge, and, and at the same time, we try and think of ourselves surrounded by all sentient beings, starting with our parents on either side.
And thinking no matter what, in order to achieve enlightenment, I have to follow the path, and to follow the path successfully I have to study the path and so for this reason I will study these teachings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, the Supreme Assembly By the merits I create through teaching the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings? So thinking the Buddha is very pleased with us, we imagine the Buddha now comes to the crown of our head, turning to face the same direction as ourself. And then just for a short time, we can recite the the mantra of the Buddha. And as we do so, imagining a blissful white light pouring down from the Buddha through the crown of our head, purifying our mind, eliminating all negative imprints, all confusion, all disturbing thoughts, all suffering and its causes.
So then as we recite the mantra visualizing golden light and nectar pouring down from the Buddha’s heart, and that light and nectar pours down into us. This time thinking our mind is blessed and all our inner potentials, positive potentials of love, compassion, wisdom and so forth, that benefit ourselves and others, are awakened. So then imagine that now the Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light, and that light pours down into you, blessing your mind to be able to understand the teachings correctly, blessing your mind to be able to put them into practice properly, blessing the mind to be able to eventually gain the unmistaken realizations that bring about eventually bring about the state of complete enlightenment. So then just briefly we can do the nine round breathing exercise as a way to further enhance that positive state of mind, generating a calmer, clearer, more concentrated mind so that we can use that mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Okay.
Thank you. So one thing I’d like to try to explain before we go on in talking about the the path to enlightenment. I I I mentioned earlier that it involves three levels of motivation. Firstly, right now, generally speaking, the average person has the worldly attitude only thinking about this life. So in order to actually engage in one’s practice to be genuine Dharma practice, a genuine spiritual practice from a Buddhist point of view, just thinking about only this life and the the benefits of this life, the problems of this life is just the worldly attitude.
What we need to do is firstly turn the mind to thinking about our next life. So this involves renouncing our obsession with this life. So that’s the first major step in the spiritual path. And having made that step, the next major step is renouncing obsession with cyclic existence, believing that somehow by having a good rebirth, we will be up we’ll be able to experience happiness and be free from suffering. So we realize that that’s not possible, so we renounce cyclic existence in order to achieve liberation, nirvana.
The final stage is is to be able to generate bodhicitta realizing one’s dependence on all beings. I can’t just achieve liberation myself and leave all these kind suffering beings to continue to suffer. I have to help them. So these are the three. And by generating bodhicitta one can eventually achieve enlightenment.
Yeah, so these are the three stages of the path to enlightenment, and one has to lead the mind in these stages. So one thing to understand is that because someone apparently unfortunately, who the person who said this is not here tonight. This is always the case when you try and deal with something that bothers people. They’re never here when you want to try and answer. They’re they never never brought this up.
You know? Anyway, because some someone said, oh, you know, his holiness is always talking about being kind to other people benefiting other sentient beings, but this he I only talk about benefiting ourselves. But the whole point of what I’m talking about is to be able to benefit sentient beings. The whole of the Mahāyāna teachings are about preparing oneself to be able to benefit sentient beings. To be able to benefit sentient beings firstly you have to work on yourself.
There is that simple example you know if you fly in airplanes a lot which I you know tend to do they have this thing where the steward stewardess says about putting on the gas not the gas mask the oxygen mask first and they will put it on children and other people. Right? Because if you try and help the other people first, you may blackout before you’re able to help them. So then both you and they die. Right?
So what you have to do is protect yourself quickly first because you’re in the strong position. You have to make sure you’re okay so that you are able to help other people. And the spiritual path is exactly the same. As a totally deluded people person, we cannot be of much benefit to others. So we have to reduce our delusions and awaken, develop our positive qualities first.
That is the main emphasis. But the motivation is to be able to be of ultimate benefit for others. So in following the spiritual path, someone cannot be wanting to achieve a good rebirth only for their own sake, only so that I will have a good rebirth. Another person may be wanting to get a good rebirth so that they will be able to eventually achieve nirvana for themselves because they realize, well, I’m not gonna achieve liberation in one life. It’s gonna take a few lives at least.
So I want a good rebirth first. But their whole idea of getting that good rebirth is to achieve nirvana for themselves. Some people just want a good rebirth. Some people want liberation, and some people want enlightenment. But to achieve enlightenment, first, you have to want to have a good rebirth, but not just for its sake.
And then you have to develop the wish for liberation, but not just for its sake. You do it so that one can achieve enlightenment. Or to maybe to give maybe what’s an example? If, you know, if you were to go to Victoria Square, your your goal the the ultimate goal is Victoria Square. To go to Victoria Square, firstly, you have to get out of this building.
Right? Secondly, you have to what? I don’t know. No. Well, you have to you have to what?
You have to go beyond Burnside. Right? And then you can get to Victoria Square. So some people just want to get out of this building. Right?
Their other motivation is to get outside the building. But I must want to get out of the building in order to get to Burnside, and that’s their ultimate goal is just to get to Burnside. Right? But some people want to get to Victoria Square. So firstly, they have to get out of the building, then they have to get to Burnside, and then they can go to Victoria Square.
Right? So we are trying to go to Victoria Square enlightenment. But to do that, firstly, we have to get out of the building, then we have to get to the next step, and only then can we get to the ultimate goal. But the whole motivation is different. Right?
So in seeking a good rebirth, we do this practice in common with those who only want a good rebirth, but the motivation is actually different. And then we seek liberation, but only but our motivation, you know, it’s only in common with those who just want liberation. But our motivation or we’re trying to be is is is more than that because we want to ultimately achieve enlightenment. So everything we try to do is with this bodhicitta thought, even though, you know, at least in the Mahāyāna path, Mahāyāna tradition we’re trying to do everything. A Mahāyānist is trying to do everything with that bodhicitta thought even though they haven’t actually generated bodhicitta yet because you can’t bodhicitta you can’t generate bodhicitta straight away.
Firstly, you have to generate an authentic wish for a good rebirth. Of course, it’s very easy to say if one starts to believe in, you know, reincarnation and continuity of of course, one wants a good rebirth. No one wants a bad rebirth. Right? Oh, I’d love to fall into the hell realms and scream and burn.
Oh, I can’t wait. No one wants that. Everyone wants a good rebirth if you have if if there’s any vague belief in it, but the actual wanting to create the causes of it is something different. There is for example, there is a huge difference between not wanting to suffer. No one wants to suffer, but there’s a huge difference between those who are determined to stop their suffering.
Big difference. Most people don’t want to suffer, but most people aren’t prepared to create the to stop the causes of suffering. They want God, you know, they want God to stop it or Buddha or the guru or mom or dad or their boyfriend or girlfriend, husband, wife, someone, but not them. Yeah. I think I got off the track slightly, but yeah.
No. It’s it was related. Yeah. So it’s easy to say, oh, I want a good rebirth, but that is not renunciation. Renunciation is where one is determined to create the causes by letting go of one’s attachment to just thinking about this life and getting, you know, yeah, chasing after the things of this life.
Am I making some sense? No. No. Too hard. Too hard to get to Burnside.
Outside is nice. Good enough. Yeah. Yeah. Trees, sunshine.
Looks like it looks good. God realms. You know? I could be I could be born as a god. Terrific.
Floating around lotuses, goddesses. Terrific. Good enough for me. Thank you. Nice.
Nectar all day long. Yeah. Don’t don’t ask if you can ask a question. Just just do it. Then I’ll say, no.
Don’t ask. Yeah. Sorry. Mhmm. But you don’t.
We only think no. Yeah. I’m the yes. No. Sorry.
Go on. No. Sorry. Excuse me. Yes.
Yes. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. But the real aspiration is something immensely. But first, like I’m saying, to have that, firstly, one has to have the aspiration to get a good rebirth and actually be determined to create the actual causes of that, which means letting go of our attachment to this life.
Because while we’re attached to this life, we are not gonna get a good rebirth. Or we’re well, maybe we could fluke it. We could fluke it. But while we’re attached to this life, we’re creating lots of obstacles to having a good rebirth. Because as we’re dying, our attachment to this life will make it very difficult to have a good rebirth, to die peacefully.
And if we cultivate attachment to the things of this life during this life, we will be attached to the things of this life as we’re dying, and that is that is the single greatest obstacle to having a good rebirth. There will be huge amounts of fear at at the time of death if we die with a lot of attachment. So yes. Of course. Yeah.
Yes. Yes. But we have to do it, though. We have to do it. Yeah.
Okay. Rapidly moving along because now I’ve covered up take taken most of the time on the introduction. Okay. So with what we’ve covered so far is the areas of life that we have to think about to renounce this life, which is thinking about the precious that we’ve got a precious human rebirth, recognizing that strongly, how meaningful it is, how rare it is, then realizing that we’re we’re going to lose it because we’re going to die, and we could die at any moment.
And also we’re wasting our life because we’re attached to all this stuff, and it’s actually impermanent. So we have to think about, you know, realize impermanence more and more so that we can let go of all our attachments, reduce our attachments so that we can direct our mind to the dharma, especially by thinking how when I die, I could fall into a suffering rebirth. Yeah. I got and once I fall into a suffering rebirth, then it’s easy to then be stuck in those suffering rebirths where there’s very little opportunity to meet the spiritual teachings again and be able to practice them. So and and that leads psychologically to then thinking about how can I protect myself from falling into the lower realms when I die?
And the answer from a Buddhist point of view, well, one needs something to protect oneself, and one needs something complete and perfect and unbetrayable. And the you know, and who who what is that? That is the Buddha, the enlightened mind. To entrust ourselves to the enlightened mind, and therefore, the teachings that come from that enlightened mind, contain all the methods that we can apply to our mind to protect ourselves, to hold us back from suffering, which is what the word one interpretation of the word dharma. Dharma has many meanings.
One meaning is to hold back, to hold back from suffering, which is the same meaning as the latin word religio. Religio means to hold back from suffering. That’s what the Dharma is and so when we take refuge we take refuge in the Buddha, the Buddha’s teachings and the great practitioners of those teachings and for us the essential refuge can be if we take refuge is the Buddha’s teachings. That’s what’s going to help us directly And of all the teachings, the single most important one because it’s connected to all the others is the teaching on the law of cause and effect. Because if we take that to heart, this this will encourage us to avoid negative actions of body, speech, and mind, which are the causes of lower rebirths, and it will encourage us to engage in virtuous actions of body, speech, and mind, which are the causes of good rebirths and lead to every other good thing as well, all realizations, etcetera, etcetera.
And, you know, observing the law of cause and effect, I didn’t make this punch line. That’s why I forgot to make it, I think or didn’t get around to it is that it’s the way to practice renunciation because we have to in order to avoid negative actions we have to renounce our attachment to instant pleasure, instant gratification. We have to renounce getting engaging in negative actions, which our self-cherishing thought, you know, relies on to accomplish things quickly. And when, you know, if people insult us or create problems for us, what’s the quick, you know, the self-cherishing solution is to get angry with them, you know, to lash out, you know, not to be patient or accept I’ve done something wrong, but to put the blame on others and to get angry with them and push them away and etcetera, etcetera. So to observe the law, of course, and, in fact, understanding that this is the truth, this is true, that my actions, my negative actions will definitely bring suffering.
My positive actions will definitely bring happiness. By observing that in our life, that brings about renunciation. Yeah? But it’s also the the the practice of loving kindness and compassion for ourselves. Yeah?
It’s compassion because we avoid the causes of suffering. If we have real compassion for ourselves, we don’t want to suffer. Therefore, we have to avoid the causes. By observing the law of cause and effect, we will avoid the causes of suffering. And it’s the practice of loving kindness because if we really love ourselves, we will want real happiness, not the illusion of it.
And we if we really love ourselves, we will start creating the actual causes of happiness. And by observing the law of cause and effect, that’s what we’re doing, creating the actual causes of happiness. And, of course, by developing real love by observing the law of cause and effect, It’s helping develop real love and compassion for ourselves, and it’s only when we develop real love, real con genuine love, genuine compassion for ourselves that we have a basis to to cultivate genuine love and genuine compassion for others. Right? So it’s the basis of bodhicitta, and it’s the basis of wisdom because it is wise to avoid the causes of suffering.
It’s wise to recognize the actual causes of suffering and to avoid them, and it’s wise to recognize what are the actual causes of happiness and to engage in them. And it leads to the highest wisdom because all our negative actions, this leads into our next topic, all our negative actions are motivated by our delusions, and all our delusions involve a false perception of reality, even conventional reality, and they reinforce this subtle mistake about the ultimate nature of things, the deepest level of reality. Every time we follow attachment and anger, we are reinforcing our ignorance that creates the illusion that things exist in a particular way which they don’t. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Alright. Good. Yeah. So observing the law of you know, his Nāgārjuna himself, the the greatest scholar of the Buddhadharma who reintroduced the teachings about the nature of reality, about emptiness. He said in order to to develop the the wisdom that realizes emptiness, the true nature of things, one has to the ordinary person has to take the law of cause and effect as their guide.
For an ordinary person oh, what did he say? I can’t remember exactly what he said, but just paraphrasing it, something along the lines that for the ordinary person, like, wisdom is the law of cause and effect. That is wisdom, understanding, you know, living according to the law of cause and effect. That is wise. That is wisdom, and it will lead to the highest wisdom.
Also because if we engage in negative actions, the negative imprints from those actions obscure the mind and make it extremely difficult to develop wisdom, to develop our potential for wisdom. Alright? So it’s, you know, so yeah. And also to develop the highest wisdom, we have to have a concentrated mind. That kind of agitated, unfocused mind cannot penetrate the profound meaning of the nature of reality as the Buddha taught it.
And what is the greatest obstacle to developing a single single pointed concentration is our disturbing thoughts. And every time we engage in negative actions, we regenerate our negative thoughts. Right? So making it difficult to develop concentration. So by observing the law of cause and effect it makes it easier to develop concentration which is one of the bases to develop the highest wisdom.
So everything in the Buddhadharma is connected to an understanding and practice of the law of cause and effect. It is the very heart of the Buddha’s teachings. And it’s based on the highest teaching. It’s connected to the highest teaching, the wisdom teachings of the Buddha. Alright.
Okay. So those are the things we have to think about to turn our mind away from an obsession with this life so that we have the the space in our mind, the the wisdom, the compassion to to work for a good rebirth. Yeah. So yeah. So now that the next stage to think about are the the the teachings on the subjects of life that help us to renounce not just this life, but cyclic existence altogether. Because in seeking a good rebirth, we still cling to the idea that if somehow if I get a good rebirth I’ll be happy, I’ll be able to avoid suffering.
But this is not the case. What we need to realize is that even a good rebirth in cyclic existence, meaning rebirth as a human being or in the various God realms of the desire realm, form formless realm, these rebirths also still involve suffering. It’s inescapable. This is what the first noble truth. Ordinary existence is in its nature suffering, and here the term existence means cyclic existence.
The Buddha’s existence isn’t suffering, and an arhat’s existence isn’t suffering, but ordinary existence meaning samsaric existence, meaning when when the mind is controlled by delusion and karma, which is what our mind is, then that existence is in its very nature suffering. Like a cake. You know, there’s all sorts of cakes, and there’s all sorts of ingredients in cakes, but the main ingredient is flour. Right? I think.
Oh, anyway, just roughly speaking, you know, it’s all flour. It’s just variations of flour with some sugar, butter, eggs, chocolate, nuts, fruit, stuff. But, basically, it’s variations of what you can do with flour. Right? saṃsāra is just variations of suffering.
It’s all suffering mixed with, you know, a few nuts and nuts and nuts and fruit, which is a little bit of happiness. You know? But that happiness is is not happiness. It just looks like happiness to a to a deluded mind. This is what we have to realize because we can experience perfect happiness.
We don’t have to experience suffering. But to experience that that bliss free from suffering, firstly, have to realize that if I remain even a good rebirth, I still have a mind controlled by delusion and karma. If I don’t get rid of delusion and karma in my mind, I will continue to suffer. Alright? So this leads to the teachings on the different kinds of sufferings.
So there’s many sufferings in cyclic existence, and in our tradition, they are divided into what are called the eight sufferings, the six sufferings, and the three sufferings. So I’ll give you a handout which lists all of those, There’s no time to talk about all of them tonight. But in the context of the eight sufferings, there are four that are useful to think. Well, three of those four are easy to relate to. Like, as a human being, there is the we have to experience the suffering of birth.
Now some people I I don’t wanna get into a big debate because there’s no time because some people think being born just being born is lovely. You know? When ladies give birth, it’s all very exciting and romantic and wonderful. In one way it is, but actually, I think when when a lady gives birth, she screams a lot because it hurts a lot. The baby, you know, it’s painful for the baby.
It’s painful for the baby in the womb, not exactly apparently a huge amount of fun necessarily, stuck in that space for nine, almost ten months. Right? And according to the Buddhist teachings, it isn’t. Yeah. And and then we have to experience as a human being, inevitably, we have to experience the suffering of sickness.
Everyone gets sick. And then we there’s the suffering of growing old. If we don’t die young like the Who wanted to but they didn’t happen sorry, that’s a reference for old people you may not understand. If you don’t die young, you get old, and then you get older and older, and there’s all the suffering of that. And then there is the suffering of death.
So this can be a very horrible and maybe frightening subject, but the way to reflect on it is because we think, oh, well, you you can see old people who aren’t suffering or apparently not suffering. You can see people who don’t get sick very much. Being born looks like a lot of fun for some sometimes. But the thing to recognize is if if we remain in saṃsāra, if we don’t create the causes to end it, it goes on forever. Forever.
Right? It is something that is like a it can be ended, but if we don’t create the causes, it’s a self perpetuating phenomena. And therefore, even if we get good human rebirths forever, we will have to experience the suffering of birth infinite times, not just once, twice, three times, four times, not just a billion times, a trillion times, but an infinite number of times. And, of course, some births are pleasant where the baby doesn’t experience any suffering, the mother doesn’t, but here we’re talking about me being the baby being born. But there are horrible sufferings that babies have to experience.
So it means that sooner or later, we would experience every one of them, and not just once, but billions of times. And then, you know, some people as they grow older, they grow better, and life is better. But there are all sorts of horrible things that can happen as you grow old. Horrible, horrible things of losing your senses, going blind and deaf and, enjoying the taste of food, you know, you get weak, your bones ache, it’s difficult to stand up. Yeah?
And as the longer you live, your friends die. Your family die. You’re left alone. And just when you need people to help you, all your friends and family have died, so there’s tremendous loneliness to be experienced. So every old person experiences those, but if we remain in saṃsāra, we will experience all the horrors of being old, not just once, but billions of times.
This is the reality that the Buddha is trying to show us. That’s the reality. Not the Woman’s Weekly or Hello magazine. This is the reality. This is the truth.
Check up. Yeah? And, of course, with sick yeah. Hold it. I I jumped.
I should have said sickness. Yeah. So if we remember saṃsāra, this means sooner or later we will experience every sickness possible. You know? Every sickness, every kind of cancer, every kind of heart attack, every kind of, you know, ebola.
Have you read about ebola? That’s a terrific one to have where it’ll practically all your organs rot and blood, pours, you know, leprosy, plague, everything. And not just once, we’ll have it billions of times because there’s time in endless saṃsāra. Yep. Yes.
Yes. That’s one of the other sufferings coming to that, and it was very quickly. Yeah. And they have to die, and some some deaths are okay. Not not too much suffering.
Great. But then there’s the possibility of every kind of, you know, being murdered, strangled, drowned, eaten by sharks, crocodiles, bitten by cobras, you know, tortured to death, skinned alive. Sorry. Burned alive, drowned. What whatever yours your greatest nightmare, it’ll happen.
And not just once, billions, billions, and billions of times. That’s saṃsāra. It’s the pits. It stinks, actually. And I will have to meet with things we don’t want to meet with, be separated from thing all the things we don’t want to be separated from, and not meet the all the things we want to meet with, we will have to experience the lifetimes where we never get them.
Yeah. And one of the sufferings is that we’ve not only have we experienced all the bad stuff many times, but everything you can think of that if if only I could be this, have that, go there, do that, I’d be happy. We’ve done it billions of times. We have been the most famous person in the world billions of times. We’ve been the richest person in the world billions of times.
We’ve been emperors and kings and queens, rock and roll singers. You know, we’ve been Britney Spears and whatever whoever the just what’s his name? Justin Bieber. We’ve been all these people like these people billions of times. We’ve been, you know, the most famous, beautiful, sexiest, admired, richest, powerful person in the world billions of times already and still no happiness.
So there’s lots on that. I there’s not much time. But one thing I’d like to try and talk a little bit about is so there’s all the obvious sufferings to experience being reborn in cyclic existence in the upper realms. Forget the, you know, the lower realms where there’s just, you know, really truly horrible stuff. But as a human being, you know, someone who’s interested in the Dharma to turn the mind away, you know, to really follow the spiritual path, what is really vital to understand to get one’s head around is that all the things that we are attached to because we think they are happiness or will bring happiness, that happiness is what is called the suffering of change.
Because in Buddhism, they talk about the word that we translate as suffering is what’s it called? Dukha in Sanskrit. In Tibetan it’s called Dug-ngal and we translate it as suffering but suffering in our language basically means pain But dukkha also means not just the suffering of pain, but the suffering of change, which we think of as happiness. So the easiest way to understand that what we think of is as happiness isn’t happiness is because it doesn’t last. It’s impermanent.
All the happiness one can experience as a deluded person in saṃsāra comes to an end, including the bliss of the god realms which they say according to the teachings, the sutras, if you’re born in their high god realms, that that one lifetime lasts for billions of year billions of human years billions and billions of human years where there’s this incredible ecstatic bliss, but then it ends. Finish, and then plump, you’re back as a dog or, in the hell realms. So it isn’t happiness because it doesn’t last. But the moral subtle way, if you give me an opportunity, yes, I think this is important. Some of you have heard this before, and I I I use the same example I heard the very first time thirty six years ago when I heard this about understanding this.
But if you take the example of you you stand up, you’re standing up, and, you know, you’re talking or something, and so you don’t notice anything. But then that person you’re talking to goes away or something, and then you realize you feel tired, so you sit down. And so sitting down appears appears to be pleasant. So we call this happiness. It’s a very simple kind of happiness, but we think of sitting down as happiness, especially if you’ve been standing up for a long time and you’re tired.
So you’re sitting down and you’re happy. But after some time, as you’re sitting down, you have to wriggle around and move, and eventually, one gets up. So it seems like the happiness of sitting turns into the suffering of sitting, and so you stand up. And, oh, then there’s the pleasure of standing up. But then if you stand for a long time, which you could go home and experiment and do this, just stand on one spot without moving, After some time, it gets excruciatingly painful.
So this what looks like the happiness of standing turns into the suffering of standing. So you sit down. Oh, that’s nice. But after some time, the happiness of sitting turns into turns into the suffering of sitting. But the point is, if something is some if if something is validly something, it can’t turn into something different, the opposite, especially if you’re creating the same causes.
I I never explained this properly, but although, you know, if you hit your head, you know there’s the pain of being hit on the head, you know this hitting on the head is a cause for pain in head. If you hit your head again same cause you get the same result it hurts. Yeah? And if you keep hitting your head, it keeps hurting and probably hurts more. Yeah?
Because that’s a real cause for pain. Yeah? So if sitting was a real cause for happiness, the longer one sat, the happiness of sitting would have to continue or it would increase. But the reality is it doesn’t continue and it actually decreases. So this means because with the fundamental teaching of the Buddha is an effect, has to have a cause.
And the nature of the cause determines the nature of the result. So if sitting was a real cause of the happiness of sitting, sitting happiness, the longer you continued that cause of sitting, the longer sitting happiness would continue. But sitting happiness doesn’t continue the longer you sit, the longer you create the cause of sitting. That means something is wrong. What it means is there’s no happiness of sitting at all.
It’s just an illusion. What act you know? And so what appears to be the the happiness of sitting happiness turning into the suffering of sitting, the suffering of sitting was there all the time. And and how it works is that when we’re when we’re experiencing the suffering of sitting firstly, we’re experiencing sorry, we’re experiencing the suffering of standing. So then we sit, and what happens is our gross deluded mind observes that the gross suffering of sit standing has stopped.
And compared to the subtle suffering of sitting, that relative to the gross obvious suffering of standing, the subtle suffering of sitting looks like happiness. But after some time, we forget about the suffering of standing, and what becomes obvious is the suffering of sitting. But it was always there. It didn’t turn into the suffering of sitting. It was always there.
Check up. And the point is this analogy, this simple analogy applies to all happiness we experience as ordinary beings. It looks like happiness, but only because in relation to something else. In what way? You or you have an aversion to it, and then you’re attached to sitting.
Yeah. A little bit. That also works. Yeah. That it’s a slightly different thing, but yeah.
So that’s really an interesting, very I think one of the most vital things to think about because all of the pleasure you know, this gets complicated. We waste our life chasing after what we think as pleasure, and we create negative karma to get it. But all we get is the suffering of change for a while. And then and then we’ve we’ve created some negative karma to get this suffering of change. That negative karma has put a negative imprint in our mind.
And when that ripens, that doesn’t ripen as the suffering of change. That ripens as the suffering of suffering. So it’s a double double whammy bad disaster. Practice Dharma. Create the actual causes of actual happiness.
Mhmm. Yeah. Yes. But then also recognizing that that that delight that I’m experiencing that is Mhmm. Yes.
Than having what thought? Oh, that’s a good thought to have. That’s useful. Yes. That’s useful to have.
Yes. Yeah. To to reduce one’s attachment to everything and to decide whether it’s worth bothering buying that piece of jewelry or not because it’s only gonna bring something illusory. So when when I don’t buy that piece Yeah. Yeah.
In the Brahma. I don’t mean another another thing. No. No. I know what you In practice rather than In that very moment.
I don’t think there’s a concrete answer. Good question. I don’t know how to answer that. Sorry. Other than I think if if we train to reduce our cravings and attachment to external stuff like all these things, these pretty things, nice looking things that we’re attached to.
The nature of the non attached mind, I don’t have one unfortunately, I wish I did, but according to my teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche whom I believe has a nonattached mind, the nature of nonattachment is joyful. So you you’re it’s not like you have so you have to put your mind somewhere. It’s it the nonattached mind is in a good place. Right? It is yeah.
It it it has some space to enjoy things because you can enjoy ordinary things. It’s not as though in developing renunciation, you can’t have things and you can’t enjoy them. It’s just that you have a space, a different kind of mind that can let go of things. Whereas when we’re caught up in them, you know, you you lose your piece of jewelry or someone steals it, and the mind goes bananas. Whereas for someone could you know, who has no attachment or little attachment to something, they can really enjoy it, and they lose it.
It’s stolen. It’s okay because there’s space in the mind. There’s already that space, that understanding that this thing doesn’t last, and one is not, you know, focused on it for one’s pleasure. There’s some pleasure coming from it, but the mind isn’t fixated that that is the principal cause source of my happiness and my my personality and ego and value. And yeah.
Because, you know, with, you know, with all due respect, I think, we get attached to all sorts of things in various degrees, but but that also it’s not just to the object. There’s the attachment to the object, but that also involves something about me. You know? There’s the me who has this, which we’re attached to. I mean, maybe not with a flower, but, you know, you can own some very expensive object.
So it’s very beautiful, so you’re attached to that. But then you have a sense that I own this beautiful object. You don’t. I do. Therefore, I’m kinda special because I own this.
I am the special person who deserves this special thing that other people don’t have. So it, you know, this it creates this whole ego thing that you’re also attached to. Right? But someone who doesn’t have that attached is is free of all that rubbish. So losing it, having it stolen, it breaking doesn’t matter because their their ego isn’t caught up in it.
I you know? Yeah. Their ego doesn’t depend on it. Their pleasure doesn’t depend on it. It’s okay.
So it’s not like you, you know, you have to put your mind in another space. It’s kind of it finds that spay naturally. I think. I hope. Yeah.
We’d be freer, yeah, to do something. Yeah. Okay. Can I just go a little bit longer ten minutes will take yeah it’s all scheduled Oh gosh, this course needs to be much much longer to cover the path? Sorry.
Anyway, to develop renunciation, we have to have the courage and wisdom to think about the suffering nature of existence. Right? Really. And not to be fooled by the illusions of things. And and what helps what then strengthens our developing renunciation is recognizing what are the causes of all this suffering, why do I suffer, and causes of suffering are not in the external world.
They are just the conditions. The actual causes of suffering, the Buddha discovered, come from within our mind. So the direct cause of any suffering we’re experiencing is the ripening of negative imprints. We engaged in negative actions of of either body or speech or mind in the past. These generate negative imprints, negative potencies in our consciousness.
And then at some point, if we haven’t purified those imprints, those imprints ripen as suffering. So that can be sickness, meeting an unpleasant person, losing our job, not getting a job, all these kinds of things. That’s all derived from a Buddhist point of view. You know, everything is can be seen as an effect that has to have a cause. We are experiencing the effect of of, you know, separating from what we don’t want to separate from, not not meeting what we want to meet with.
And what’s the other one? And what we don’t want to meet with. So all of these are effects affecting our consciousness. They’re all suffering, and so there is a cause. So that cause is the ripening of negative imprints in our consciousness.
Because our consciousness is experiencing the effect, so the real cause has to be connected with the effect. So that’s within our consciousness. And so what is the cause what is the cause of these negative imprints? It is basically our disturbing thoughts. We followed our disturbing thoughts, engaged in negative actions, these generate negative imprints.
The main negative and disturbing thoughts are craving, and afflicted desire and attachment and anger. These are the two main ones. And then there’s also of course pride and jealousy and doubts and so on. So and so all of these disturbing thoughts act as motivating forces for our negative actions that lead to suffering. Our disturbing thoughts themselves are suffering.
Right? Attachment as soon as attachment arises in the mind, craving arises in the mind, afflicted desire arises in the mind, if one really checks, one can discover that it is painful, it is disturbing, it disturbs the mind, it disturbs the peace of the mind. Anger is painful. That’s fairly easy to see. As I always say, craving is much more difficult to recognize as suffering in its nature and attachment.
But this is because when we crave something, desire something, and go for it, when we meet the object, there is pleasure. It’s it’s just the suffering of change, but we think it’s happiness. So we think desire brings happiness. We even tend to think desire is happiness. But if you check where you have a desire for something and you don’t meet that object, what is the experience of desiring something and not getting it?
Craving something and not getting it. It is painful. It is very disturbing and agitating, and one can become quite, yeah, very unhappy, depressed because, very irritable, nervous, tense, fearful, worried, all sorts of stuff because one is craving something and one can’t get it. And also you can get really angry like that because you can’t get what you want. So you, you know, get angry.
You you know, you get angry at something else. Someone says boo, you know, and you get angry, not really because of what you said, it’s because you’re one is frustrated by something else altogether, but we get angry. So we have to let out that, you know, check up. So that shows the nature of desire, the desire, every kind of desire, is actually disturbing the mind. So the result, the actual result, not what appears to be the result, but the actual result is can only be suffering, not happiness.
The the only cause of any kind of happiness is a virtuous state of mind. Afflicted desire is a non virtuous suffering state of mind. And it’s why do we have these disturbing thoughts? This is the second noble truth. What is the real cause of suffering?
Why do we have disturbing thoughts? The Buddha discovered is because we have this fundamental affliction in our mind called ignorance. Ignorance obscures the mind so it creates the illusion of a self that exists in a particular way in which we don’t actually exist. Ignorance creates the illusion that everything exists in a particular way, that they that in fact, they don’t exist that way and can’t exist that way. I’m not gonna go into this anymore because it’s a very complicated topic, and we’ll talk a little bit about it later on in this course about when we get to wisdom, the last part of the path, which is the opposite to ignorance.
But because of this ignorance, we have disturbing thoughts. And because of disturbing thoughts, we engage in negative actions that leads to negative imprints which ripen the suffering. This is what the Buddha discovered. Yeah? So this is what we need to check up.
And as I’ve said many times already since I’ve been here in Buddha House, one of the very first things I heard my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, in nineteen seventy six when I started listening. First three days, I didn’t listen to him because I thought he was nuts. Sorry. Then I realized he was the most amazing being in the universe. And he said, how can you imagine you can be happy you will ever be happy if you have anger and and craving in your mind?
The potential to be angry and to have craving and attachment. How can you imagine you can ever experience happiness while those remain in your mind? And if you think about it, it’s impossible. They always get in the way. The nature of attachment is it always want you know, and desire which go together, afflict the desire, is you always want more.
You have something, and then you want more of it. You never nature of attachment is not to bring satisfaction. It is to bring dissatisfaction. Because every time we we follow craving and afflicted desire, we put an imprint for that delusion to in our mind. It doesn’t remove the imprint.
It puts another one and then another one and another one and another one and another one. Every time we get angry, we put the imprint in our mind to get angry again. Every time we get jealous, we put an imprint to be jealous of something or someone again. Every time we develop pride, you know, we put the imprint to be proud about something again and again and again and again and again. So then it’s never ending.
This is why the radical solution of the Buddha is not to follow attachment, but to stop it. Pretty amazing. Because we follow attachment thinking, oh, because actually deep down somehow there must be some recognition that I’m agitated. If I, you know, if I get the object, the attachment, the craving will stop. Well, it does temporarily, but once put an imprint for craving to come back again.
And, of course, we have all these imprints of the delusions in our mind, and there’s all the have you ever thought about why? You know, we’re not always angry. We’re not always proud, jealous. We’re not always craving something, having desire for something. What sets these things off?
What makes us angry? What makes us well, it makes us not the really the right word, but what is the condition for those delusions to become active? Well, I’m I’m gonna tell you. That was a rhetorical question. If there was time, could answer, but gotta rush through this over time.
Just very quickly, if you think about it, you’ve got to be not angry, no craving and then what sets them off is meeting the object. You meet a person or a thing, and then you crave or you get angry. Yeah. Of course, what makes us crave or angry varies, but it’s always meeting the object. Another factor is even if we don’t meet the object, if you think about the object, if you think about the person you dislike, you can get work we can work ourselves up into a frenzy of anger or, of course, with desire.
You know, this is a very popular thing to do. Think about the object of desire. Yeah. And so desire arises. It also depends on the people we mix with.
If we mix with deluded, very deluded people, if we mix with very angry people, we’ll be we’ll get really angry. If we mix with people who have lots of desire, we will our our potential for desire will manifest. If we people we mix with people who are very jealous, proud, you know, resentful, this or that, that those qualities, those potentials within us manifest. If we mix with good people, virtuous people, wise, compassionate people, that can encourage us to be like that, not to be so deluded. That’s why dharma centers are so important.
Meeting, you know, gurus and so on is really important. Having dharma friends is really important because a real dharma friend won’t encourage one’s delusions. Alright. An ordinary friend will. And, of course, you know, it’s also or so many things in the environment, what we read, movies, what we talk about, all these kind of distractions that we can get caught up with can set off our delusions.
And, of course, we live in a culture full of stuff especially designed to make us desire stuff. So one needs to be aware of those things because we if we really wanna reduce our delusions, seeing that they are the real problem, we have to have the courage and the wisdom and the compassion to avoid those things. We need to be able to recognize, you know, that this is the condition that makes me, you know, angry or proud or jealous or craving something. Gotta stop there. Don’t think we’ll get to the twelve links tonight.
That’s far too complicated. We’ll take a break, ten minute break. Okay. Some of the homework. I haven’t been able to talk about the twelve links this is a very very complicated subject.
In my hand out there it does list the twelve links of dependent origination but without an explanation they really don’t make much sense. But it’s an explanation of how we take rebirth in saṃsāra. So that was meant to be one of the meditation topics for next Tuesday, but you could leave that out and replace it with one of the other ones. The handouts just give you a little bit of information that hopefully you can just use to reflect on those topics. If that doesn’t make much sense just reflect on some of the things I talked about tonight.
Just analyze and think about like for example the suffering of change. It wasn’t set as a particular well it does talk about one meditation as the three types of suffering. So one of them is the suffering of pain, the suffering of change, and then there’s the all-pervasive suffering. I didn’t talk about that because there’s too many topics to talk about for this cause. But I would suggest in that case just to think about the suffering of change, how what we think of as happiness really isn’t happiness because it’s not perfect, it doesn’t last.
And if you can remember the argument I gave how of standing and sitting, how that illustrates that what we think of as happiness is an illusion. Pervasive. Pervasive means everywhere. It pervades. Yes, it’s the nature of everything.
Yeah. Okay All-pervasive suffering means it pervades our five aggregates, body and mind. It’s inseparable. Okay. I think that’s it for tonight then.
Just also I haven’t mentioned it so far, but just to remind you that there is the to conclude the course there is a retreat on the Sunday of the last week so I hope everyone can Saturday the Saturday sorry of that last week Saturday the twenty eighth of September. So please register for that so we know if you’re coming or not, and I highly recommend people try to do it. It’s really good. We have a chance to meditate together on the different topics. People are requested to bring a vegetarian meal plate to share with everyone, which is really nice.
Yeah. If you can’t make it for classes, it’s really good if you do contact the center so that we do know that people aren’t coming and we get some idea why, you know, whether they’ve dropped out or just can’t make it for that class. That’s quite helpful. Alright. Hope to see you next week so we can dedicate the the merit of this time, the positive imprint.
I hope there’s a positive imprint so we can dedicate that, that it becomes a cause for us to be able to follow the path, complete it, achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings. Page nine. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious Bodhimind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore.
So for those people who feel comfortable, we finish with three prostrations together to the triple gem.