Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 70-minute introductory session, Ven Thubten Dondrub launches the Discovering Buddhism Presenting the Path program with foundational Buddhist concepts. He opens with practical guidance on how to listen to teachings effectively, emphasizing the three faults to avoid when receiving instruction. He then grounds the course in motivation, introducing bodhicitta as the aspiration to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, and explains why mind is the primary focus of Buddhist practice. Dondrub walks through the life of the Buddha and the historical spread of Buddhism in India, then delivers a clear exposition of the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha’s foundational teaching: that ordinary existence is suffering, that ignorance is the cause, that cessation of suffering is possible, and that a path exists to achieve it. He concludes by introducing the Lamrim or Graduated Path to Enlightenment as the essential framework for the remaining six weeks. The teaching aims at newcomers to Buddhism and serious practitioners alike.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2016 02 16 DB Presenting The Path Week 1 16022016.mp3
UUID: a67a5ac7-0ba9-4f10-ae84-48bbcdaf64d0
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Presenting the Path (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2016-02-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 70.4 minutes
Words: ~8,715
Welcome everyone to our Discovering Buddhism program. We are doing the Presenting the Path module, which outlines the whole path to enlightenment. I would particularly like to welcome those people who are new to Buddha House or seem to be. I haven’t seen some of you before. So not sure, I don’t want to embarrass people, but if there are how many people here of the new people are pretty new to Buddhism?
Very new to Buddhism? Yes? Okay. Right. That’s okay.
So some of the people here have been studying and discovering Buddhism for some time and of course the more background you have it helps to understand any particular module but the way I try to teach each module hopefully it will make some sense for new people in each module. But of course, Buddhist teachings are very profound and you shouldn’t expect to understand everything at once. Are just so many, many things to explain such as even why I’m sitting on this fancy throne and all those kinds of things, and why we prostrate. There’s an explanation to everything, but it takes a lot of time. One thing I ask people to do in coming to these courses is to be patient.
Patient with me, patient with yourself, because it all takes time to put things together. So there is an introductory talk that I’ve made in general to the Discovering Buddhism program. That will be sent, some of you are familiar with that, but the newer people that will be sent to you, emailed to you, as well as each week there is a link to how you can listen to because these amazing talks are recorded, so you can listen to them again if you really want to torture yourself by listening to them again. Actually, I would encourage you to listen to them again, especially the newer people, there’s many things that you can miss in a talk and also just by hearing things again, what you may not have caught the first time or understood the first time by hearing it again, it may start to make a bit more sense. One of the things we try to encourage people in this particular series of courses of the Discovering Buddhism program is not just simply to come and listen to myself or anyone just talk about the Dharma, but the idea is to try to engage with it as much as possible.
So for this reason you’re given a sheet of homework every week. It’s very simple, you don’t fail it or pass it, it’s just something to encourage you to integrate what you’ve heard and sort of investigate a bit more of what I’ve spoken about for you to do something during the week. So I really encourage people to do this and to put as much effort as you can into doing the homework. It involves some reading which is set out in the student material There’s also a book that was given to you. It wasn’t a free book.
So there’s that to read. I give a little bit of meditation homework and a little bit of mindfulness practice to do. It’s all very, very simple, but I would really encourage for people to do it and for people to really try and do it as much as you possibly can. Because the more energy you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. The Buddhist teachings were always meant to be something not just to be listened to, just some kind of intellectual entertainment, but they are really meant to be put into practice if one feels that they make sense, are beneficial, and so on.
That’s really important because the more you get a taste of the teachings by practicing them, the more one’s connection hopefully with the teachings will increase. As a beginner, when we first approach the Buddhist teachings, the reason to listen to them is to know what they’re about, to see if one has a connection with the teachings, if they make sense, one wants to practice them. And after having listened to the teachings for some time, read the teachings for some time, one may feel that one doesn’t have any connection with them and one can leave them, or you feel there is a connection and so one continues to listen to the teachings. At that point the real purpose of listening to the teachings over and over again is to gain a deeper and deeper understanding of them for the purpose of putting them into practice. So the ultimate reason for practicing, for listening to the Buddhist teachings is to put them into practice.
And the reason to put them into practice is to influence, to change, to affect one’s mind. Because the basis of all Buddhism is really all about the mind. That our mind is the source of all our experience. Everything that we experience, our sense of self, our body, our body in this world, everything that we experience, everything we know and feel is all coming and dependent on our mind. Every time we know something, experience something, is a feeling of happiness or suffering, So all of that experiences of happiness and suffering, they seem to depend on something in the external world, but in fact the real source of them is coming from within our own mind.
So the more we start to understand that, the more we begin to understand that if we want less suffering in our life and more happiness, we really have to take care of our mind. That’s the main thing. That’s the essential message of the Buddhadharma, that we have to take care of our mind. Waste our life taking care of our body, our possessions, our investments, if we have any, our money and blah blah blah, family and friends, but we forget the essential thing, which is our mind. If we don’t take care of our mind, all those other things are just a waste of time, really.
They’re not going bring what we want, because what we all want is to be free of suffering and to experience happiness. And we want happiness that is not just imperfect or short lived, but we want permanent lasting happiness. The Buddha says this is possible, but the only way it can be achieved is by taking care of the mind. So if we want more happiness, we have to take care of our mind. If we want less suffering, we have to take care of our mind, because it all comes from our mind.
And the more we understand what our mind is, that it’s not the brain, our mind isn’t something physical, it’s something formless, insubstantial, but very, very real. It really does exist. The more we understand what the mind is from a Buddhist point of view, and that because it’s formless, it’s indestructible, and therefore it goes beyond this life, and in fact it goes not just beyond this life for a short time, but forever. It never comes to an end. And if we start to realize that, then we start to realize that we really do have to take care of our mind.
Because suffering and happiness doesn’t just last for eighty, ninety or one hundred years of this life, but suffering and happiness can go on forever. And who is creating the causes for this eternal happiness or eternal suffering is ourselves, what we do with our mind. Again, this is an essential part of the Buddha’s teachings. Sorry for the old students who have heard all this fifteen million times before, but anyway, I think it’s always good to hear again. So, at first, we start out wanting to take care of our mind for our own sake in this life.
But as we practice and start to hear, get a deeper understanding, a wider understanding of the Buddhist teachings, then we can start to understand and connect with the fact that it’s not enough just to practice and take care of our mind for happiness in this life because we’re all going to die and the next life is going to happen. So we really need to take care of our mind for the sake of our next life. Because that could also happen at any time. But more than that, we can start to understand that it’s not enough just to make sure that when we die we’re going to get a good rebirth. Because while our mind is controlled by disturbing thoughts and the negative karmic imprints generated by those disturbing thoughts, we remain in what is called saṃsāra.
saṃsāra is our mind controlled by delusion and karma. This is what saṃsāra is. The whole aim of the Buddha’s teachings is to become free of saṃsāra, because saṃsāra is suffering. While the mind is controlled by delusion and karma, we suffer. We’re not able to experience perfect lasting happiness.
We’re not able to experience the true nature of our mind, because the Buddha’s teachings say the true nature of our mind is pure and perfect. It possesses this potential for everlasting bliss and joy, has the potential for great compassion for all beings, great love for all beings, etc. And yet all these amazing qualities are suppressed or obscured because we’re in saṃsāra. It’s obscured by all our disturbing thoughts, negative imprints. So we need to get out of saṃsāra, we need to free our mind.
We need to free our mind to get out of cyclic existence. But, according to the Mahāyāna teachings, there are two main streams of the Buddhist teachings. There are the teachings which are part of what is called the individual vehicle, and then there are other teachings called the Mahāyāna. So Tibetan Buddhism, which we teach and try and practice at this center, a part of the Mahāyāna tradition. So if we just become free of cyclic existence, become free of suffering ourselves, of course this is wonderful for ourselves.
We are free of suffering, we can experience the bliss of our mind. But it only benefits ourselves. So from a Mahāyāna point of view, it’s good, but it’s not that fantastic, because there are all these other suffering beings existing. And what the Mahāyāna tradition points out is that the vast majority of other sentient human beings and other kinds of sentient beings, beings with consciousness like ourselves, are experiencing so much more suffering than ourselves. And all these beings are very deeply connected to us.
Here I go again. If you just check today, for oneself, each of us, exist today, we depend on an enormous number of beings. Directly we depend on some people, but each of those people and beings depend on others, and they depend on others, and they depend on others. Directly and indirectly, just to have a piece of toast, just to have something to wear, to have a car to drive in, or to catch a bus or a taxi, to have a house or a place to live in, All of these things we depend on others. We just simply could not exist without other sentient beings.
Vast numbers of them. And not just human beings, but we depend on all the animals to provide our food, fertilize the soil, etc, etc, etc. Sentient beings are extremely kind. So if we think about these things more and more, become aware of them, then we can develop this wish, this determination that it’s not enough just to free ourselves from suffering and to experience happiness for ourselves, but since everybody else is suffering and everyone just like myself doesn’t want to suffer, and everyone like myself wants to be happy but isn’t experiencing it, then, rather than just freeing myself from suffering and working for my own happiness, I need to do it for everyone, to repay their kindness. Because life after life, I’ve depended on the kindness of others.
Much of the time I’m unaware of it, I ignore it, I don’t appreciate it, but the Buddhist teachings, the Mahāyāna teachings, encourage us to be more and more aware of that. Our connection with others, our dependence on others, their incredible kindness. And the best thing, the most meaningful thing that we can do in this life, today, this week, this month, this year, this life, all our lives, is to benefit others. To stop harming them, directly and indirectly, and to begin to really benefit them, to repay their kindness. This is the most meaningful, joyful, satisfying thing that we can possibly do.
And to do it, we have to achieve enlightenment. We have to free ourselves of all our faults, awaken all our good qualities, and achieve enlightenment. And so, that’s what this course is about. Presenting the path is about the path to enlightenment. Not just the path to a good rebirth, not just the path to getting out of saṃsāra, but it’s referring to the path that leads to enlightenment, path that leads to realizing and continuously experiencing the true nature of our mind, our Buddha nature, our Buddha potential.
So we’re going to do this in seven weeks. Look at the path to enlightenment. So that was an introduction, but also by way of motivation. So this wish to achieve enlightenment in order to repay the kindness of sentient beings, that state of mind which is extremely difficult to actually cultivate, is called bodhicitta. So this is the motivation that we are encouraged to develop, to try and have some approximation of that motivation when we listen to the teachings, when we study this particular program.
Because our motivation, the nature of our motivation, the strength of our motivation, determines the results of what we do. So it’s really important to make our motivation as strong and sincere as possible. And the very best motivation we can have for doing anything is the bodhicitta motivation wishing to be able to benefit all sentient beings in a perfect, lasting way by helping them become free of all causes of suffering and to achieve peerless, everlasting happiness. So there is a traditional prayer that we say at the beginning of the teachings. So if you would like to join in, because we will do this.
It’s on page in Roman numerals, it’s on page XI. So we do this twice in Tibetan, our Australian version of Tibetan, and one time in English. So if you’d like to join in. Traditionally, as one says such a motivational prayer, one tries to think of the Buddha in front of us as the source of these teachings, the very embodiment of these teachings. And we can think of the Buddha as someone appearing in front of us to remind us of our Buddha nature and to think that the Buddha is appearing in front of us to inspire us to realize our Buddha nature.
And at the same time we try and think of ourselves surrounded by all sentient beings. So there are an awful lot of sentient beings, so it’s very difficult to visualize all of them. But at least we can try and think of those people that we’re most connected to in this life. So we think of our mother of this life on our left, our father on our right, then the rest of our family, all our friends and helpers behind us. We’d like to put them in front, but the Buddhist psychology is that we put them behind us and the people who we don’t like to think of, our so called enemies or people who dislike us or whom we dislike, we put them in front of us.
Not to generate negative thoughts towards them, but to realize that actually these people are no different than my family and friends and all the people kind to me. They are suffering and don’t want to suffer. They don’t have happiness, but they want happiness just like me. Actually, in past lives, they’ve been kind to me. So they deserve my compassion, not my aversion or indifference.
So then, as much as possible, we try and think of all other human beings, and if you believe in the other realms of existence that are taught in the Buddhist teachings, then one can try and think of those beings as well. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So then, if you find it helpful, you can imagine that the Buddha in front of you is very pleased with your motivation and because of that the Buddha now comes towards the crown of your head. And then when directly above your crown you imagine that the Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light, and then that light pours down into you, blessing your mind.
Blessing your mind so that you are able to understand the teachings correctly, blessing your mind so that you are able to put them into practice properly, blessing your mind to be able to gain the transformative experiences, the realizations that come from practicing the teachings properly. So then we can enhance that positive state of mind, doing some simple breathing meditation. Those who know can do the nine round breathing exercise. Just to let your mind become a little bit more calm, clear and concentrated, so that we can use that more focused mind, that more subtle level of mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Thank you.
Part of the homework is to read on page thirteen in the Roman numerals the eight point Vairochana posture, which is how to sit correctly in the meditation posture according to the Tibetan tradition, and also how to do the nine round breathing exercise. This is point eight of the eight point meditation posture. I hope fairly simple to understand that and it’s good to know that because we do that at the beginning of each class and also I encourage people to do that as part of the meditation homework each day. So, don’t think I need to explain that. Just by reading it, I think it makes sense.
So the path to enlightenment is a huge subject actually, so it’s very difficult to do it justice in seven weeks, but I’ll try and go through the essential points of what needs to be understood and practiced in the path to achieving enlightenment in realizing the true nature of our mind. Before we start, what I have to talk about tonight, because I have a What is it? What do you call it? Anyway, an outline that I’m supposed to follow in the programme. I don’t just make this up myself, because this programme is taught in our centres all over the world, so there’s an outline of what one’s supposed to do.
So I try and follow the outline, but I’m not very good at it. But anyway, so for the first night, what I’m supposed to talk about is the life of the Buddha and a little bit about the development, the spread of Buddhism and maybe a little bit about the Four Noble Truths, which is the very first teaching the Buddha gave. But before that, I have to talk about how to listen to the Dharma. So this is actually all set out very nicely on page fifteen in the Roman numerals. Just very quickly.
So the Dharma is, of course, the Buddhist teachings. Or the Buddhadharma referring to the Buddhist teachings and if we start to appreciate that the Buddhist teachings are very profound and extremely beneficial the more we start to appreciate that, then when we listen to the teachings, for the teachings to be effective for our mind, is said that we should ourselves avoid what is said to be the three faults of the vessel. So, these faults are firstly, if you have a vessel that can contain so the teachings are like a precious nectar that can come into us and change our life if we really listen to them properly, understand them correctly, put them into practice. But if a vessel is upside down, then nothing can go inside it. Need to be encouraged to listen to the teachings correctly, to really try and concentrate on them as much as possible, That’s the first thing.
Second thing is even if you’ve got the vessel up the correct way, but if the vessel is really dirty and you pour this incredibly precious, beautiful liquid into it, it gets polluted. So we have to avoid being a dirty vessel. In other words, when we listen to the teachings, we should try and listen with an open mind that is not prejudiced and judging and comparing and contrasting. We should use our intelligence, of course, and check the teachings, but we should do it with a really open mind. I think it’s also really important for us, most of whom I think practically everyone in the room is a Westerner, and we weren’t brought up Buddhists, is that we should try to understand Buddhism from its own perspective, not try and relate it to things that we’ve already studied and believed in, and try to put it into a box that it doesn’t actually fit into.
I mean, one should do this with everything that one tries to study, different religions and philosophies. One should try to understand the religion or philosophy from its own perspective, not from another one, because then you can’t really understand what it’s actually saying if you’re trying to fit it into what Christianity says, or Judaism says, or Islam says, or something else says. There are many, many similarities, of course, with what Buddhism says and Christianity and other religions, but it also has its own very unique point of view, a super unique point of view in some ways. So, one needs to be open to that to really appreciate it. And this is also, you know, to avoid the dirty vehicle vessel, it also is referring to avoiding listening with the wrong motivation, having some kind of negative motivation for studying the teachings.
Some people come and study just to criticize them. Many, many, many years ago, when I was giving some talks, this person actually quite honestly admitted he was only coming so he could learn to then go out and teach Buddhism to make some money. So he could be a guru. So this is not a good motivation. So one should avoid that kind of motivation.
Having the right motivation is really important, which is really wanting to work with one’s mind. Because Buddhism is all about working with one’s mind and really wanting to overcome the negative aspects of one’s mind, understanding this harms ourselves and others, and really wanting to develop the positive aspects of our mind, understanding that these are what really benefit myself and others. So at least we should try and have that kind of motivation and avoid the opposite. And also to avoid listening with pride thinking: oh, I already understand this, I understand this better than the person explaining it, or this person explaining it very well, I’ve heard much better explanations, I could explain it much better than this. So if one is listening with a mind like that, you can’t really get any benefit.
That judgmental mind is maybe not able to pick up some amazing subtleties that, for example, I might be saying. But don’t look for too many subtleties in what I’m saying, unfortunately. Third point, third fault of a vessel to avoid is even if the vessel is upright and it’s clean but it’s cracked, then the liquid will pour out. So, what we have to do is to remember what we hear. And this, to be quite honest, for us in the modern world, especially us Westerners, is really quite difficult.
We have quite a difficulty remembering things. It’s one thing to be listening right now, concentrating and focusing and with a good motivation, but if we don’t remember what we hear, then it’s not going be able to benefit us. So it’s really important to try and listen with the motivation that I want to hold this in my mind and really try to keep it going in your mind once you’ve heard it. If you don’t agree with what’s being said, of course, there’s not much point remembering it. But if by studying the teachings you start to think that, oh, this is really good, this is very helpful, beneficial, etc, etc, then for it to benefit, we have to be able to remember it.
We have to practice mindfulness of it. And the beginning of practicing mindfulness is making that strong determination to be mindful, to hold things in one’s mind and trying to remember them. This is why you get the homework. The first part of the homework is to review what you’ve heard. This is why I would encourage people to take some notes.
These can be very helpful to remember different points that have been said. Or to listen to the talk again, to refresh, and also to meditate on these things, because this is what meditation is for. It’s to imprint the teachings into one’s mind more deeply so that one can remember them, and by remembering them in our daily life, then one can put them into practice. You can’t practice something that you can’t remember. There may be something really useful, but if you can’t remember it, you can’t put it to use.
So these are the three faults of a vessel to avoid. There are other aspects of listening to the Dharma. I’ll leave you to read that because it’s part of your homework. But those three things are good to remember. So what I have to talk about tonight is a little bit about the life story of the Buddha and the spread of the Buddhadharma.
Dear. Oh good. Right. So actually, is all set out in your student material briefly, which is also part of your homework to read over this during the week. So something of the life story of the Buddha is set out on page sixteen in the Roman numerals, life of the Buddha.
So in the different Buddhist traditions, there are different slightly different versions and interpretations of the life of the Buddha. But certainly according to the Mahāyāna tradition, there are many Buddhas, There’s not just one Buddha, We’re talking particularly now about the historical Buddha who is referred to in the Tibetan tradition as Guru Śākyamūni Buddha. Śākyamūni Buddha is a historical figure but is only believed to be one of many, many Buddhas that have existed in the past. We can reflect on them and this just keeps going on and on and on. So we continue.
One of the problems of following our disturbing thoughts, every time we follow our desires, our afflicted desires, our anger, our pride and jealousy, Not only do those states of mind, as they arise, bring agitation and pain into our mind and lead us to engage in negative actions and whatever. But also, we’re creating the tendency to do the same thing again. Every time we follow desire, we’re creating the habit to desire something again. Every time we get angry, we’re creating the habit to be angry again. Every time we get jealous, we’re creating the habit to be jealous again.
So it just goes on and on and on. We think the solution to being happy is to follow our desire: I don’t have something, therefore I’m unhappy. Or here’s the thing that will make me happy, I desire that. If I get that, I’ll be happy. But you get it, but what happens is you’ve also created the imprint to desire something again.
Even though you’ve got this, you’ve created the tendency to desire something else, or a bigger one of these, or two of these, or three of them. I desire one dollar, oh, two dollars, three dollars, I desire a million dollars, no, I desire two million dollars, three million dollars. Yeah, It just doesn’t stop. First Noble Truth, Samsaric mind is in its nature suffering. Because from two points of view I’ll stop after this.
Sorry. Because of all of what I said, but from another point of view, all of this stuff, all the disturbing thoughts bubbling up, creating negative imprints, etc, is blocking the arising of our positive qualities. They get buried, suppressed, and they are the very source of our happiness. The Buddha’s message is that happiness isn’t out there. You’ll never find the happiness that one’s really seeking out there.
It’s just not out there. There’s some pleasure out there, the illusion of happiness out there, but the real source is within our mind. Where is it within our mind? It’s not in desire, and anger, and attachment, and pride, and jealousy. Real happiness exists in the manifestation of love and compassion and generosity and kindness, etc.
That’s the Buddha’s message. Because that’s what the Buddha discovered within his mind, which is no different than our minds. Thank you. Sorry I’ve bombarded you with lots of stuff. Take a tea break, coffee break, biscuit break.
So just while I think of it, I forgot to mention, for those who will be attending the whole course, every week I put over here on this table there is the homework, so it’s good to collect that in the break time or at the beginning of the class or after the class. Not during. If there are some other handouts, also put them there. And also, when you’ve done your homework, the idea is to put it there. I’ve put a couple of folders for the marked homework and so on to collect it there.
So there is tonight’s homework there and there’s also one handout which is brief meditation on Śākyamūni Buddha, which is your homework for the week. And there is also just a very brief outline of what I’m going to try and talk about each week, so you have some idea of what we’re doing in the course, so you can collect those later on. Also, the other thing I should have to mention is that apart from the reading material here, there are various recommended books that you could, if you really want to, go into the topic more that one can read. So some of these books are available in our well, we have a very good library here. We’ve also created a special small Discovering Buddhism library that people could join.
It’s twenty dollars for a year. In this way you can borrow books from that. If you want to join the main library, it’s much more expensive. Or you could also become a member of the Buddha House, which would be great. Especially because we are going to move in a few months to Magill.
We have finally acquired our own place, because we’re renting this. We have acquired a property, which we’re going to transform slowly or quickly into something wonderful. We hope. Anyway, so the first noble truth is so actually this term the four noble truths has been used for a very long time. It’s not technically accurate.
It should be called the Four Truths of Noble Ones’. So a Noble One is someone who has cleared their mind of confusion and is able to directly perceive reality as it is. So for such a being, and the Buddha is of course the complete example, someone whose mind is totally free of all limitations forever. So for such a being as a Buddha or an Arhat or an Ārya being, there are four things which are true, one of which, the first is that ordinary existence, having a mind, being in saṃsāra, having a mind controlled by delusion and karma, is in its nature suffering. So what this also really means, one should think about, is that it doesn’t simply mean that our ordinary existence involves having some suffering, like from time to time we will suffer.
It really means that the very fabric of our existence is suffering. Not suffering necessarily in the sentient beings painful, obvious physical or mental pain, but suffering in the sense of unsatisfactory, incomplete, imperfect, not what we really want. Because what we really want is this perfect lasting happiness. So saṃsāra, when the mind is obscured, that is impossible. Real happiness, this is what the Buddha is saying, Real happiness, no matter what we do, we will never achieve genuine happiness with an obscured mind.
Many people are attracted to Buddhism because they think it’s very undogmatic, but I don’t know if this is technically true. There are things that the Buddha said: It’s like this. It is like this. The Buddha said, can, you know, you’re free to believe this or not, but the Buddha says, I’m enlightened. I know what I’m doing.
In the mythical, you know, the very mystical version of the life story of the Buddha, when he was born, he came out from the side of his mother. He didn’t come out from the usual place, but was born from the side of his mother, and he started walking immediately. He took seven steps and said, I am enlightened. That was pretty precocious thing for a one second old child to say or do, but that’s what the Buddha said. So the Buddha knew he was enlightened.
But he says, well, it’s up to you to check. Just don’t believe what I say because I said it, but believe what I say because you’ve checked yourself. Because if you check yourself and come to the same conclusion, then your understanding will be very, very deep and unshakable. But if you just blindly believe, then blind belief can be easily collapsed. So this is why the Tibetan tradition, especially the Gelugpa tradition which we follow here, of which the Holiness is the supreme member of, leader of, listening to teachings and thinking about those teachings, checking those teachings is really, really important.
Not just to blindly believe, but to really think about it and try to logically understand things. Of course, this may not be immediate you can’t necessarily immediately understand all these things and understand all the logic, but this is what we should try to do as much as possible. Anyway, that’s the first noble truth that ordinary existence is in its nature suffering. Second noble truth or second truth of noble beings is that, as I’ve already indicated, is that there is a true cause of all our suffering. And what the Buddha discovered as the true cause is this ignorance.
That this is the very root cause, that all suffering, physical, mental, from the smallest to the greatest, all of it has its origin in this ignorance. Because of ignorance, we have all the disturbing thoughts. When they arise themselves, we are suffering. When we’re angry, it’s very obvious. When one is angry, it’s painful.
It’s actually very uncomfortable to be angry. But actually desire is also painful. They lead us to do unskillful, negative actions that lead to more suffering in this life generate negative imprints that ripen the suffering in the future. So it all comes from that ignorance. This the fundamental insight of the Buddha.
We believe that because it appears that way that the cause of our suffering is in the external world, like in diseases, in the hot weather, especially other unpleasant people, the real problem in life if all those nasty people would go away, then I’d be happy. But the Buddha says: These are not the cause of our suffering, they are the conditions. The real cause lies within our mind. So the immediate cause of our suffering is our negative imprints, the cause of those is our disturbing thoughts, and the cause of those is ignorance, this failure to experience our self and everything as it is. So the third noble truth is that there is a true cessation of suffering.
This is what the Buddha himself experienced: a true cessation of suffering, meaning a complete everlasting cessation, not a partial or a temporary cessation of suffering because we can all experience that. But the Buddha says there is a true cessation of suffering where all suffering can be completely and totally brought to an end forever in a way that it is utterly impossible to arise again. And that comes from eliminating ignorance. If you eliminate the cause, the result can’t occur. If the cause is still there, the result will keep coming.
Just like if you have cancer, while you have the cancer, you will be sick and suffering. If you get rid of ninety nine point nine percent of the cancer, you will still suffer, because it will grow. It’s only when you get rid of all the cause that all the result stops. If even there’s a little bit of cause there, you get the result. You have to get rid of the actual cause and you have to get rid of it completely.
But if you get rid of it, the actual cause, you can have a problem and you say, The cause of my problem is this. If that’s not the actual cause, suffering won’t go away. You have to get rid of the actual cause. And the Buddha says there is an actual cause of our suffering and it can be removed, it can be eliminated. Because that ignorance, although it’s in our mind, it’s always been with our mind, it is not a true aspect of our mind.
And our ignorance continues to fester and stay within us, basically because we don’t know it’s there. Until one comes across the Buddha’s teachings, we don’t know we’re ignorant. We don’t know we have this ignorance. Many people can feel very offended and think: I’m not ignorant, I’m very intelligent. I’m very educated, I’m very intelligent, I know what’s going on.
I’m not ignorant. How dare you call me ignorant? But even the most intelligent people are ignorant in the sense that the mind is still obscured, experiencing things in a false way. And it perpetuates itself because we’re unaware of it. As soon as we can become aware of it, we can begin to eliminate it.
Ignorance thrives in ignorance. It breeds in ignorance. It festers in ignorance. But as soon as one starts to check, one’s We experience something in a particular way and immediately we grasp that that is true. Whatever we see something, the way we see it, our mind grasps that what we are seeing the way we are seeing what we are seeing is true.
We never doubt that what we’re seeing like in the moment, straight away, we don’t doubt. That’s right. What we hear, that’s right. That’s true. What I think is true.
What I believe is true. We just grasp it a hundred percent. But if we start to check and we have that ability, because we have this wonderful quality, even the obscured mind has this amazing quality of intelligence. We can check things. We can use our logic to investigate.
When we start to investigate, we can start to see things don’t necessarily match. And that’s when ignorance starts to crumble. Unfortunately, it does take quite a while to crumble completely. Because ignorance itself depends on many things. It’s just not there from its own side under its own power.
It’s arising depending on many factors. So if you change the factors, the ignorance changes. Again, this is one of the fundamental teachings of the Buddha, is connected to that. The way we experience things, everything seems to not depend on many things. Things seem to just be there from their own side.
But what the Buddha perceived is that actually every single thing that exists, the way it exists, it arises depending on many, many factors. Nothing exists by itself independently. Every single thing depends on something else. Everything is interconnected, absolutely everything is interconnected with everything else. So, ignorance can be eliminated completely.
The Fourth Noble Truth is that there is a path to follow, whereby one step by step is able to eliminate that ignorance. So that’s what this course is about, the Fourth Noble Truth. There is a true path that we can follow, whereby we can, step by step, stop engaging, we can eliminate, reduce and eventually eliminate our suffering and awaken all our good qualities by avoiding negative actions, pacifying our delusions, and eventually eliminate them. So it’s a step by step process. So that’s just a little bit on the Four Noble Truths.
Now I’ll go back to the life of the Buddha. So that was the first teaching the Buddha gave in a nutshell. And it’s actually one version of that teaching is actually set out here. One of the sutras on page sixteen in the Roman numerals. So it’s just very short.
The sūtra of the four noble truths. So you can read that as part of your homework. So all the teachings that the Buddha gave for the rest of his life in a sense were elaborations on those four noble truths. So the Buddha really brought about a great revolution in India because he really did attract many many followers. And one of the interesting thing which are things I’ve boringly pointed out a few times to people is that, for example, when the dharma came to Australia or to the West in general, which was probably starting in the late sixties, I suppose, You know, like in really serious way, as a more like a big movement among people.
I mean, were a few scholars interested in Buddhism, Western scholars before that. But as something that groups of people started practicing, this started basically among all the hippies, who at the time of course were a pretty despised class of people. As Buddhism has become more popular, more and more people from all different classes, it’s become very respectable and now you have university classes on Buddhism being taught and so on. But at the time of the Buddha, first people to be attracted to the Buddhist teachings were the ruling classes. It was the princes and the very wealthy, or the children of the very wealthy, who became his followers, who gave up their wealth and became monks, became, you know, completely renounced everything and started following the Buddha.
So this was really quite a radical thing. And if you read the various Sutras and other stories of the time of the Buddha’s life, he would wander or travel around the different cities in North East India with usually at least a thousand monks with him. At that time India didn’t have a thousand million people, it had, I’m not sure, a few million people. I don’t know what the population of India was in six hundred BC, but it was far less than what it was now. But even if you imagine the Buddha in Adelaide wandering down Rundle Street with a thousand monks, that’s quite impressive, I would say.
Especially a thousand monks who come from very wealthy families, mostly from quite wealthy families. Although, the Buddha picked up all sorts of disciples, some really wild ones, mass murderers and all sorts of people. Many of them came from very wealthy families. But in India, at those times, the biggest city would have been a few thousand people, ten, twenty, thirty, you know, Rajgriha, which was capital of Magadha, which was the kingdom of King Bimbasara, who became one of the first disciples of the Buddha. So Rajgriha was, I don’t know, town of, I don’t know how many people, twenty thousand or something?
Until you see a thousand monks walk down the street. That must have blown people’s minds. With the Buddha in the front. And the Buddha’s teachings are incredibly radical, really. Buddhism can be very conservative, but the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha, are actually extremely radical.
In a sense, because they’re completely the opposite to our worldly way of thinking. Really? Anyway, I’m getting carried away. What is there to say? I better stop actually.
For about fifty years, the Buddha continued to teach the Dharma to small groups of people in all sorts of situations. And so there is now a collection of the sutras which are the direct teachings of the Buddha. And the Buddha taught different things to different people. The Buddha having an enlightened mind, knowing the minds of other people, the Buddha would say to a particular person or a particular group of people what the enlightened mind could see was beneficial for that person at that time. But also seeing that although what he taught at that particular time may have not been the complete and perfect ultimate truth, that person would be able to benefit from that relative truth and and not be harmed by it and eventually be able to come to a point where they understood and were able to practice the highest truth.
But because of that, if as an ordinary person one was able to read all the sutras of the Buddha, which is practically impossible, it would take a whole lifetime really just to probably just even read all the sutras and then to try and actually understand them would be something else. But if one was able to do that, it would be very confusing because the Buddha said one thing at one time and another thing at another time, And you would think, well, the Buddha really didn’t know what he was talking about because he contradicted himself all over the place. But the Buddha did that with an understanding that this person would benefit now, but be able to progress step by step. I mean, there’s a very radical, but I like it, extreme not radical perhaps, but extreme story that illustrates this is that King Bimbasara’s son, whose name was Ajatasatru, actually eventually murdered his father because he got bored waiting for his father to die because he wanted to be king. So he killed his father and actually killed his mother as well and became the king of Magadha.
But at some point after that, he went kind of crazy with guilt, thinking, Oh, I’ve killed my mom and dad, so this is really not a particularly nice thing to do. So he went kind of crazy. So someone advised him to seek advice from the Buddha. So he went to the Buddha and the Buddha supposedly said: Don’t worry, don’t be upset, it’s extremely good to have killed your mother and father. That was great!
Well done! And because the Buddha said it, his mind completely calmed down and he relaxed and his mind went back to normal sanity. But after some time, as a sane person again, he started to think, well, this is very strange that the Buddha said it’s good to kill your mother and father, because normally the Buddha goes around saying it’s not good to kill anyone, even animals. So he thought about this and contemplated more and more, and it is said that he came to the conclusion that what the Buddha was really saying, killing your father and mother was referring to killing your I’m not sure which is in the symbolism, but anyway, killing your ignorance and your delusions. That’s what the Buddha was really saying to me.
That’s what I have to do. And that’s what he did, and he became an arhat, according to Buddhist propaganda. Anyway, this is an example of saying something that wasn’t actually true, but it was said understanding that this person would benefit from that, but not benefit from it and therefore go around telling everyone else to kill their mothers and fathers, but that person was able to use that to eventually gain a much higher understanding and a far greater benefit. This is what Buddhas can do with their omniscient mind. Their teachings aren’t just like, You must do that, and everyone must do that all the time.
Even though there are karmic truths, universal truths, the way to put them into practice varies for each person. Anyway, I better shut up very quickly. I’m trying to get to this point. So the Buddha taught different things at different times, so it’s all very confusing. But fortunately, later on, this great Indian master, Atisha, who eventually went to Tibet in the tenth century, being this incredible scholar, not just a scholar but a highly realized being, was able to know all of the sutras, understand the meaning of all the sutras and he condensed the meaning of all of the sutras, the essential meaning in what is a system of teaching and practice, which in Tibetan is called the Lamrim, or the Graduated Path to Enlightenment.
Because this great Master was able to understand all the contradictions in the sutras, why the Buddha said that at this point, even though he said that, this wasn’t his ultimate teaching, this was the ultimate teaching. And he set out from his understanding of all the Sutras and the actual path that you have to follow from the beginning to the end. Which involves firstly developing the mind renouncing this life, not giving up on it, but renouncing one’s obsession with the ordinary and meaningless and negative things of his life in order to get a good rebirth, then developing the mind that renounces saṃsāra altogether, and then developing the mind that generates bodhicitta, the genuine determination to achieve enlightenment. Each of those major steps involves other minor steps and practices that we do to overcome all our wrong views and suffering, and step by step move away from suffering and confusion and obsession just with me to developing this big mind, this big love, this great, all encompassing mind that is thinking about achieving enlightenment, not just for me, but for all sentient beings. Not just for this life, but forever.
So it’s a wonderful path. So, in the next six weeks, I’ll try and talk about that. So I’ll stop now. We’ve got one minute left. Sorry, I blabbed a lot tonight.
Are there any questions you’d like to ask? I’ll save more time for questions next week if any of you come back, I promise. We will also have a discussion group each week from now on. So I won’t blab all the time from now on. Shocked into silence.
Bludgeoned into silence. Okay, thank you very much. So just as we began with trying to have a good motivation according to the tradition, we have created some positive imprints in our mind tonight, some merits, some good karmic imprints, so we can dedicate those imprints that they become, when they ripen, they don’t ripen just in an ordinary boring way to bring some ordinary boring happiness, but they ripen to bring us, ripen in a way that enable us to progress along the path to enlightenment. So if you would like to join in the traditional dedication which we will do in English, it is on page eleven in the Roman section. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of the Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state.
May the precious bodhicitta not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. Okay. Thank you very much. So also the tradition is for those people who feel comfortable to do so, especially those people who’ve taken refuge in the the Buddhadharma, then we finish with three prostrations to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.