Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 87-minute teaching, Venerable Thubten Dondrub introduces the Buddhist understanding of saṃsāra and nirvana, the foundational concepts of all Buddha-dharma. He begins by explaining why we should practice the teachings—because all beings seek happiness and wish to avoid suffering—and connects this to the interdependence of all sentient beings, cultivating the bodhicitta motivation to achieve enlightenment for the sake of others. He then clarifies that saṃsāra is not a place but a state of mind obscured by delusion and karma, where we cycle through six realms of existence including humans, animals, hungry ghosts, hell beings, demigods, and gods, based on our actions. He contrasts this with nirvana, the mind freed from all causes of suffering and obscuration. Central to the teaching are the Four Noble Truths: ordinary existence is fundamentally unsatisfactory, suffering has causes rooted in the mind, these causes can be permanently eliminated, and a path to cessation exists. The talk emphasizes analytical meditation as the primary practice tool and is pitched at both newcomers and those familiar with Buddhist concepts.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 04 23 DB Samsāra week1 Dondrub 230413 MP3.mp3
UUID: a7400d7a-be3d-4c3f-90fe-cbb727b1e01a
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Samsāra & Nirvāṇa (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-04-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 87.1 minutes
Words: ~10,599
Next with one feels that these are beneficial, worthwhile for oneself and others. So then if if one starts to make a connection with the teachings, then the reason for continuing to listen to the teachings is to be able to understand them more and more. And the reason to understand them more and more is to put them into practice because this is the reason why the Buddha taught the Buddha came to this earth and taught not just to impress people with his knowledge or experience, but with the hope that people would understand these teachings and put them into practice so that people could gain the experience that the Buddha himself gained. So the the the final reason, the ultimate reason for listening to the teachings is to put them into practice. So why should we practice the teachings?
And the answer is because we all want happiness and don’t want suffering. But, unfortunately, we’re all suffering and don’t have real happiness. So the teachings are about how to overcome suffering and how to achieve real happiness, not something superficial or temporary, but genuine lasting happiness, what my teacher calls peerless everlasting happiness. So when we first approached the teachings, certainly in my case, there was an interest to make this life better, less suffering, more happiness. But by under by hearing the teachings more, I started to understand that there was more than this life, that I had a mind that goes beyond this life.
In fact, the mind is something that never ceases. And so when if one starts to develop an understanding and belief in the mind and its continuity, then the reason for practicing is not just for this life, but to to ensure that we have less suffering in our future lives and more happiness in our future lives. But as we study the teachings more and more, we can also see that in all our lives, we have focused just on ourself. And in those lives, we have been under the control of the self-cherishing thought, which sounds like something good, but it’s actually quite a negative state and harmful state of mind. But if we, as I said many times, if we just think about today, for ourselves to exist today, just to merely exist, to merely survive today, if we really check up, that depends on ourselves relying either directly or indirectly on all living beings, all sentient beings, just to have it like as I always say, for example, just a slice of bread to eat.
That that slice of bread requires the existence of countless beings, not just now in this life, but going back and back and back into the whole history of the world. And it doesn’t involve just human beings, but for that the wheat to grow to make the bread, you have to have all sorts of insects in the soil and and and bees and fertilizing, pollinating things. And there’s a vast interconnection of so many living beings, sentient beings. And then for our clothing, etcetera, etcetera. So just to survive, we we we actually really do depend directly and indirectly on all sentient beings.
And in addition to that, whatever good experiences we have in this life, ordinary ones, spiritual, we only can have them depending directly, indirectly on all sentient beings. Alright. Anyway, check up whether this is true or not. And then in addition to that, whatever good qualities and skills we develop, ordinary and spiritual, we can only do that relying on either directly, indirectly on all sentient beings, including especially the Buddhadharma. To be able to study and develop any experience of the Buddhadharma relies on teachers and books who which have to be produced by many, many people, and they can only produce them because of machines.
And many people invented these machines and made them, etcetera, etcetera. So we really are totally dependent, inextricably interconnected with all sentient beings. We always have. So this applies just not only in this life, but it applies to all our past lives, all our future lives. So we we owe a huge debt of gratitude to all sentient beings.
Our well-being totally depends on But unfortunately, all these beings who are immensely kind are also suffering. And if we start to check, especially if we study this topic, saṃsāra nirvana, especially if we go into what saṃsāra is, we can start to realize more and more that the vast majority of kind living beings, sentient beings are experiencing far, far more suffering than ourselves right now. And also if we check, we can start to realize that they have far less ability right now in in in this moment than myself to deal with their suffering, to understand why it’s occurring, to modify it, transform it, or eliminate it. And what is worse, in trying to become free of suffering, the majority of beings, most of the time, are in fact creating the causes of more suffering to perpetuate what we call saṃsāra. And so if we think about these things strongly, we can develop a strong compassion that finds that suffering unbearable and leads to the thought that I’ve got to do something about it.
I have to help people, sentient beings, become free of suffering and its causes. I have to help them achieve real happiness because this is the way I can repay the kindness I’ve received. So in order to to to be in a position to help beings become free of suffering, to help them achieve real happiness, I myself have to become free of suffering. I have to achieve perfect happiness. In other words, I have to achieve the real potential of my mind and become enlightened.
So to achieve enlightenment, I have to understand the situation I’m in, the suffering situation I’m in, which is in order to become free of it. So I have to understand saṃsāra. And to follow the path to enlightenment, I have to understand what nirvana is. So for the sake of all sentient beings, I can study this topic of saṃsāra and nirvana. So this wish to achieve enlightenment in order to benefit and repay the kindness of all sentient beings is called bodhicitta.
This is the most compassionate, most wonderful, most powerful, most courageous, all encompassing mind that one can possibly have before enlightenment, and it’s the best motivation to have. So this is the motivation we’re encouraged to have in listening to the Buddha’s teachings, to wish to achieve our our Buddha nature, to realize our Buddha nature, to achieve enlightenment in order to enlighten all sentient beings. Since this is a Buddhist center presenting a Buddhist course and I am a Buddhist monk, part of the tradition in discovering Buddhism is that one is encouraged to generate that motivation and as part of that and one way to do that there is a traditional prayer which is on page nine of your student material which is called the prayer of refuge in bodhicitta. So as the teacher, I I have to say this prayer. So you’re most welcome to join in saying it.
I’ll do it one time in Tibetan, twice in English. And or at least as I’m doing it please try and generate from your own side a good motivation for being here and doing this course. And for those who have taken refuge and and feel, you know, feel that they are follow trying to follow the Buddhist path and or if even those who aren’t and would like to experiment to make this motivation more powerful, We think of the Buddha in front of us as our source of inspiration, guidance, and refuge. The being who has achieved what we want to achieve, total freedom from suffering, has achieved peerless everlasting happiness. So we imagine the Buddha seated on a magnificent lion throne above that a lotus sun and moon, and the Buddha seated with his legs crossed in the vajra position with a hollow body of golden light wearing the saffron robes of a monk, holding a deep blue begging bowl in his left hand, which we imagine is full of wisdom nectar that overcomes the causes of all suffering.
So as we are inspired by the example of the Buddha, we can be motivated to follow the path the Buddha followed by thinking of all sentient beings surrounding us. So particularly, we think of our mother of this life on our left, our father on our right, the rest of our family, all our friends and helpers behind us. We think of or imagine those people who dislike us or have even harmed us. We put them directly in front of us, not to generate negative thoughts towards them, but to realize that, actually, these beings are suffering as well. And I also depend on them in various ways, have in past lives, will in future lives.
So they deserve my compassion, not my aversion. So at least try and think of, those people that you’re most connected to in this life. But as much as possible, one tries to open one’s heart and mind to an awareness and concern for all other beings. And so we dedicate, our study of this course to to them. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, supreme assembly.
By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings? I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, and 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 then if you find it helpful, imagine that the Buddha in front of you now being very pleased with your motivation shows this by now coming to the crown of your head. And when directly above your crown, imagine that the Buddha turns to face the same direction as yourself, then dissolves into blissful golden light so that that light can pour down into you, blessing your mind so that you can actually understand the teachings the way they’re meant to be understood, blessing your mind so that you can put them into practice correctly, and blessing your mind so that at some point we’ll be able to actually gain the authentic realizations of that practice, those transformative realizations.
Okay. Thank you very much. Alright. K. So our topic is saṃsāra and nirvana.
So that covers everything in the Buddhadharma. So I should have said in the introduction that this course is only a simple introduction to all these things. I do try to bring out the main points and try to explain them as best I can. But all of the Buddhadharma is extremely profound and vast, so it it really does take a lot of time to explain all these things. So this is just an introduction to this topic of saṃsāra nirvana.
But really everything that the Buddha taught could be included in this in in those two concepts. So especially sorry for the people who have a Buddhist background in Buddhism. I particularly the first talk, like to sort of direct especially to those people who are who are new to it. So the Buddhist teachings are really all about our mind. This is and I think this is in in in many ways something quite unique that all of the Buddhist teachings are related to our mind, and the mind is not our brain.
The mind is something and the mind is not something which is produced by the brain. Our mind is something quite different, quite separate from the brain. Although at the moment, our mind is operating one level of our mind is operating depending on the brain. So if the brain is damaged in any way, the the the gross mind that we are operating through at the moment is affected. But the the part of the mind which is dependent on the brain at the moment is not the totality of the mind at all.
So anyway, the Buddha’s teachings are about the mind, and the Buddha’s teachings are all about how we can become free of suffering and achieve genuine lasting happiness. And, basically, the Buddha is saying that to be free of suffering and to achieve genuine happiness, we have to work with our mind. Because unlike our ordinary perceptions or conceptions of life, the real source of suffering and happiness does lie within our mind. We as ordinary people tend to think that when we’re suffering, the cause of our suffering comes from outside our mind because of other people, other situations, and so on. And and what what the Buddha is trying to teach us or I shouldn’t say that.
He’s not trying to. He does it very well, but we have to try to understand the teachings is that what we think of as the the the external causes suffering are in fact merely the conditions for suffering. The real cause of of our suffering lies within our mind. And when we think the cause the external causes of sorry. What we think of as the external causes of our happiness are in fact merely the conditions for happiness.
The real again, the real cause of happiness lies within our own mind. So this itself is a huge topic, and I tried to deal with it briefly in a previous module about mind and its potential. So, basically, in a nutshell, in a few minutes, what the Buddha discovered is that our mind in its very nature is pure, perfect, can is possessed of every good quality, which are the source of genuine happiness. And the very nature of our mind is blissful. The very nature of our mind is blissful, or the potential of our mind is pure bliss.
The the nature of our mind is wise, blissful, and compassionate. This is our Buddha potential in a very simple way of putting it. This is what the Buddha discovered. But that pure mind is unfortunately obscured right now, and it always has been obscured. And the whole purpose of the Buddhist practice is to get rid of those obscurations so we can discover this pure, perfect, blissful, wise, compassionate, true nature of our mind.
So the the obscured the obscured mind is saṃsāra. This word saṃsāra has now sort of started to enter the the language of a common language of people to some extent just like the word karma and guru is thrown around all these days. But if people know anything about or heard the word saṃsāra, they tend to think of saṃsāra as referring to a place that the world is saṃsāra. But this is not the meaning of saṃsāra. saṃsāra the the main meaning of saṃsāra, the the fundamental meaning of saṃsāra, which which everything else is connected to, is it is referring to the mind.
It is referring to the mind obscured by delusion and karma. This is what saṃsāra is actually referring to. So saṃsāra is not the world or the bad world or something out there. The saṃsāra is is one’s own mind under the control of delusion, disturbing thoughts, and karma. Right?
That’s what saṃsāra is. Of course, the the Sanskrit word, saṃsāra, is often translated as cyclic existence because the mind, when it the mind controlled by delusions and karma cycles. It takes rebirth over and over and over again Depending on karma is referring means action, activity. It’s referring to the activity of the mind. And the Buddha discovered that every time our mind is active and it’s active all the time, meaning our mind is generating thoughts all the time.
And those thoughts are either motivated by disturbing thoughts or the the delusions or they are motivate those thoughts are motivated by the positive mental factors of love, compassion, generosity, and so on. But every time the mind is acts, it generates imprints. And those imprints ripen depending on the nature of the impulse or the motivation. So if the motivation is something positive, meaningful, virtuous, coming as as as some kind of reflection of our Buddha nature, then those positive imprints bring a positive result. If if our actions are motivated by the disturbing thoughts, the disturbing emotions, the negative imprint the the negative imprints are generated, which can only ripen as various forms of suffering.
This is what the Buddha discovered. This is what the Buddha taught. And so because of that, we have cyclic existence. We our mind leaves this body because the the mind being something formless, it’s not something physical like the brain. The mind is something completely insubstantial, formless, like space.
So if you think about space, which is something that does exist, it’s not just a concept. Space is something that does exist, but it’s not something you can see, smell, taste, touch. It has no shape, no dimension, no weight, but it does exist, and it’s something that is indestructible. You can’t harm space. Right?
You can’t chop it up. You can’t blow it up. You can’t damage it, bruise it, reduce it. It’s just there. And it just goes on, and space doesn’t stop.
Space doesn’t suddenly stop. And the mind is like that. It is insubstantial, so you can’t stop it. You can’t chop it up. You can’t blow it up.
It just doesn’t end. It never comes to an end. And the nature of the mind is to know. It gives rise to experience. The mind is always giving rise to experience.
So there is an experience called death when the mind leaves this body, but the mind doesn’t stop. This body stops, but the mind doesn’t stop. It just keeps going. And just like the mind, existed before this life and conjoined with the, the sperm and ovum of our parents to produce this body. So the the mind is going to leave this body at death.
And at some point, it will conjoin with some other substances and produce another body. And then that body will die and the mind will continue, and it will join in with something else, some other substances to produce another body and then another body and another body. And this is cyclic existence. That we are born and die again and again and again. We cycle.
And why it’s called cyclic existence is because the there are various kinds of rebirths we can have depending on our karma, depending on the imprints in our mind. There are there are there’s not only the possibility of being reborn as a human being. The Buddha discovered well, maybe maybe the Buddha didn’t discover this because this was also accepted within Hindu belief. And the Buddha didn’t reject that because he could see that this was true, that there are many kinds of life forms that one can take rebirth into. There’s not just humans who have a mind.
On this earth, the only other kind of life form that has mind are the beings in the animal realm. Many, many people on this earth would deny that fact. They think of animals or insects and some beings in the animal realm as just some kind of I don’t know what things that run around. But the Buddhist view is that these beings have mind. They have feelings.
They have awareness. They have some kind of intelligence, and their minds are not like a separate category of mind. They are just minds. All minds are the same. We have separate minds, but the nature of mind is the same.
My mind is the same as your mind in its nature, but the way I use my mind, the way I think may be different than the way you think. My personality, which depends on my mind or lack of personality, is different from yours. But the nature of the mind producing it is the same. And the nature of the mind of a child is no different than the nature of the mind of someone a hundred years old. The nature of the mind of someone who has an intelligence, an IQ of thirty, and someone who has an IQ of, I don’t know, a hundred and eighty, the mind is the same.
The nature of the mind is the same. But, of course, minds are very in the extent of which they’re obscured. So animals have much more obscured minds. Why? Because that that that is the result of delusion delusion and karma.
The more we follow our delusions, the more we create more, you know, negative actions. We generate negative imprints that obscure our mind. So, anyway, I do I think I don’t have much choice but just to launch into the Buddhist view of the world. This can sound very strange to some people, but so according to the Buddhist understanding of existence, there are three realm three vast realms of existence. And we are in one of those realms of existence, which is called the desire realm.
It is the realm which where sentient beings are mainly under the control of desire to various degrees. So but within the the desire realm, there are six realms of existence, and we’re in one of them, which is the human realm. And the only other realm in the desire realm that we can see is the animal realm. But the Buddha perceived that there are other realms of saṃsāra that our mind under the control of delusion and karma can be reborn into. And maybe I’ll I’ll go into the higher realms first.
Beyond the the human realm in terms of less suffering and more pleasure, there is what are called the demigod realms, and then there are what are called the god realms of which there are six kinds. I should give you a chart. There is a chart I’ll give you when I finish this complicated procedure. And there are three realms, of more suffering than the human realm, which is, of course, the animal realm. There’s another realm called the preta realm, the realm of hungry ghosts.
And then, unfortunately, there are various kinds of hell realms. Right. So this is the desire realm. Maybe I’ll just leave it at that. I’ll talk about the form and formless realms a bit later on.
So all of these are potentials of our mind controlled by delusion and karma. If we if if if we use basically, what the Buddha is saying is that if we live this human life now following our negative tendencies, our negative emotions of self-cherishing, anger, afflicted desire, attachment, pride, and jealousy, if we, you know, become dominated by those negative emotions and act on them and we generate lots of negative imprints, we engage in many negative actions, generate lots of negative imprints, and obscure the mind more and more. And so when we when the mind leaves this body, it leaves with all that obscuration. So there’s no way it can have a good rebirth. So the the mind, because of that because it is so obscured, can only be reborn either in an animal body, in the the the realm of hungry ghosts, or if the mind gets really, really obscured, one will experience the torment of what is called hell, of which there are many types according to the Buddhism.
There are hot hells and cold ones, and there’s there were many of each of each type. Now this all sounds very strange and unbelievable. I personally believe it. This is what the Buddha taught. I do trust that what the Buddha taught is true, that the Buddha didn’t make any mistakes.
If if you check your own mind in any one day or one week, and some of the time, we are like human beings. We are basically kind, compassionate, stable, etcetera, etcetera, able to put ourselves in the place of other people for a short time. When we’re doing all those things, we are really being human beings. Sometimes we behave like animals. Yeah.
Just motivated just by, you know, pure instincts. Not such pure instincts, but just instinct and just cravings, you know, just charging after pleasure and and and so on. Sometimes we are like hungry ghosts where we’re just always craving and dissatisfied. And sometimes our mind is a little bit in hell. I think we’ve all experienced those things to some extent.
So these are all potentials of our mind. Alright? So if we can experience these as a human being now, especially for us in this very fortunate country, why is it not possible that given other circumstances, we could experience those kind of terrible things not just for a moment, but for a very, very long time? And if you look at the the the bodies that other beings have, just just among human beings, the variety of human bodies is quite amazing from very tall to very short, very wide, very thin, very beautiful, very ugly, amazing sorts of bodies that you you you know, a man has to ask why is this this variety? Where does it all come from?
And then you look at the the vast variety of, beings in the animal realm. Yeah. Truly mind boggling, the the appearance of these beings and and the conditions they live in and how they survive, you know, in the depths of the ocean and so on, in the in the earth, Alive. So why not the possibility that there are other realms? Especially if one has some belief, if one studied the mind and the law of cause and effect, that certain actions produce certain results, so heavier ones must produce heavier results, more suffering.
Anyway, this is a very huge topic. But anyway, all I can say is saṃsāra, because the the our mind is controlled by delusion and karma, we take various kinds of rebirth and not just a human rebirth. We can be reborn in the animal realm, in the hungry ghost realm where the dominant suffering is is craving for food and drink but not getting anything, which seems impossible. But maybe it is possible to have a body that way you don’t get any sustenance. You want it.
You want to eat. You want to drink, but you don’t get it, but you don’t die. Actually, if you check up, there are some amazing stories of people who have lived for amazingly long times, human beings without food or drink. Of course, after some time, you die. But it seems, you know, impossible that human beings have lived that long without eating or drinking.
But the Buddha is saying that our mind can create a realm where a situation where one experiences a body and a state of mind that is constantly craving and never gets what it wants. And so there’s just this incredible torment which is expressed as this un you know, unending hunger and thirst. And then I won’t describe the hell realms because it’s just too gory, but you can imagine yourself. Alright. So So in the in the demigod realms I’ll just ignore this for a short time.
There’s much more pleasure than the human realm, but and one lives much longer. But one is tormented by jealousy because according to the teachings, the being when one is born in the the demigod realms, one has the ability to see the beings in the god realms. It’s a little bit like the teach you know, the the Greek idea of the gods and the demigods there who would constantly fight with each other. For the demigods always lose. They can see the gods, especially the goddesses who are much more beautiful than the ladies in the demigod realm, suffer from immense jealousy and so on.
And then there are the god realms, where there is just constant pleasure. But the point about it is it doesn’t last. It seems that it goes on for an incredibly long time, but then the karma, the energy for it runs out. And then the mind falls down into another rebirth. Yeah.
So this is cyclic existence because it doesn’t one doesn’t just progress life after life from something bad to better, which is what some you know, like in some of new age philosophies, they argue. They talk about karma, and there’s a view that you just keep getting better and better. This is not the Buddhist view. saṃsāra is cyclic existence because if you check-in this life, we have done both good and bad things. And in all our lives, it’s been the same.
We do both good and bad things. We do so we’ve got positive imprints in our mind and negative imprints in our mind. And these imprints ripen if we don’t do anything about them. So some of the you know, a negative imprint will ripen to bring a good a bad rebirth. But then at the end of that bad birth bad rebirth, a positive imprint can ripen, and we get a good rebirth.
So we go up and down, around and around. This, in a nutshell, is what saṃsāra is, the mind controlled by delusion and karma. And because of that, we create both positive and negative actions. And because of that, we have both good and bad rebirths. And because oh.
And the point is we are all in saṃsāra, but we don’t know it. We don’t know it. And because we don’t know it, we we are creating positive and negative actions without much awareness, without much control. And so we have good rebirths, bad rebirths. We just go up and down, around and around.
And the whole purpose of the Buddha’s teachings, why the Buddha came to this earth and taught, is to show us that you’re in saṃsāra. saṃsāra is awful, but it doesn’t have to be like that. One can get out of saṃsāra. One can get rid of all this obscuration, and one can achieve nirvana. So saṃsāra and nirvana are both states of mind.
Whose mind? Your mind. These saṃsāra nirvana aren’t things out there. They’re they are potentials of of your mind, of any any being’s mind. There are many Samsaras.
There are many nirvana’s. And we talk about saṃsāra and nirvana. Sounds like there’s one big saṃsāra and one big nirvana. But there is a there is a saṃsāra for every sentient being, and every sentient being can can eliminate that saṃsāra and achieve nirvana. But to achieve nirvana, one first has to really understand saṃsāra, that one really is stuck in it.
On that happy note, we’ll take a break. Thank you. Ten minute tea break. So you’ve you’ve now should have maybe a few missed people have missed out because there there are two handouts, one which is an outline of the course, what we’re gonna cover in the seven weeks, and the other is the a chart of the the different realms of saṃsāra according to the Buddha’s teachings. So okay.
The the the desire realm includes these these six six levels of of existence, and we are in the best one, the human realm, because although we have suffering, we do have some happiness. And although our mind is obscured, our mind isn’t completely obscured. We so we have the ability to understand the Buddhist teachings and to put them into practice. Whereas in the lower realms of of of the animals, the hungry ghosts, and the hell realms, in in those realms of existence, the mind is so obscured and there’s so much suffering that it’s it’s impossible to practice the Buddhist teachings. In the god realms, the mind is not in in some ways is less obscured than the human beings, but those beings.
And the the point is, of course, we’ve been in all these realms before. This is a thing to try and get one’s head around is that, we have had infinite rebirths and and not just as human beings, but we’ve experienced all the realms of saṃsāra. And not just one time, but many, many times. We’ve been in all of these realms of cyclic existence. So anyway, in the god realms, when one is in those realms, the mind is less obscured than in a human being so that one experiences more pleasure.
But because one is experiencing so much pleasure, one has no interest in working with the mind. One one is under the belief that, you know, I’ve made it. I’m in heaven. I’m fine. I’m happy.
And one doesn’t know, one doesn’t understand that that pleasure, that happiness is going to come to an end. So because of that, beings in the when one is in those realms, there’s very little motivation to follow the spiritual path. So although from a point of view of pleasure, the human realm isn’t the highest, it’s the best realm to be in because in this realm, with this human body and level of mind, we can actually follow the spiritual path. So then there are two other realms of existence which are called the form and formless realm. So these are if if you find some of the desire realm states difficult to understand, maybe the form and formless realms are even more difficult because in in a in a simple way of understanding it, these are just simply more refined states of the god realms where the beings’ minds are are far less obscured that in the in those realms when one is reborn in those realms, the the lifespan is incredibly long and the the the bliss of the mind that is experienced is incredibly amazing and very refined.
The difference between the the being born in the form and formless realms and being born in the desire realm is mainly the cause of rebirth there. So to be to be born in the lower realms of the desire realm, the cause is the result of negative actions or the cause is engaging in negative actions. The cause to be born as a human being or in the the the upper realms of the desire realm, the basic cause is is to live a virtuous life, to practice morality. This is the basis of having a good rebirth. Acting on love and compassion and so on.
Whereas to be reborn in the form and formless realms, there is a very specific cause which is much more difficult to create, which is to develop very high levels of meditative concentration. So when one develops those very high levels of meditative concentration, one can then because of that, that acts as a cause to when one dies, one is reborn into those form of formless realms. But again, these what one tries to understand that these are all examples of saṃsāra, of cyclic existence. These are all potential types of experiences or rebirth one can have when the mind is controlled by delusion and karma. And what the Buddha is trying to tell us is that although the the rebirths in the in the god realms of the desire realm and the and in the form and formless realm, there is an enormous amount of pleasure and bliss.
One shouldn’t seek to be reborn in those realms because even though those lifespans are immensely long, they come to an end. And then one experiences the suffering of being an an an animal, a human in the hell realms again and again. That one just cycles and cycles and cycles. There’s no point seeking those higher rebirth for for that pleasure because sooner or later, it comes to an end and obvious suffering starts again. So really the message of the Buddha is that saṃsāra, the mind controlled by delusion and karma is suffering, is a suffering state.
Even the pleasure of in in those realms is a type of suffering. It’s unsatisfying. It’s not worth having in the long run. It’s misleading. It’s a trick in a sense because it doesn’t last.
So we’ll go into that during this course. But just to go back a little bit, if you check your own life now and what you’re doing in this life, if you look at the at least as much as we can see in the lives of other people on this earth. We all tend to live our life thinking that well, maybe maybe some people have the view that that there’s no hope of being happy in this life. Life is basically pretty grim. But then other people, you know, have some idea that they’ll be able to be happy in this life.
And how does one accomplish that? The belief is one will find it. One will find happiness depending on something or someone in the external world. That’s how we all live our life generally. And we assume that if we can arrange things, you know, somehow, we’ll be happy.
We won’t have too much suffering, and we’ll be happy. If we find the right woman, the right man, right, and we get the right job, and we get the right house in the right location. And if we can arrange this body so and and this this face and this stuff, if we can arrange these things nicely, we will be happy. And we kind of think we will be able to do it sooner or later. That’s how most people, most of the time, in all cultures live their life, thinking that somehow I will be able to protect myself from suffering or most suffering, and I’ll be able to get have a happy, peaceful life by arranging the external world.
And the Buddha came to this world to say, Not possible. It will never, ever work. It’s impossible. Because no matter how much one arranges things, no matter how successful one is, one is still in saṃsāra. One still has a mind controlled by delusion and karma.
So one will never experience real freedom from suffering, and one will never experience real happiness. One of the first things my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, said or that I heard him say that really struck my mind was to he said, how do you think you can be happy when you have a mind controlled by afflicted desire and anger? No matter how much money you have, success, good health, possessions, blah blah blah, how do you can you expect to be really happy if you have a mind that is bombarded with thoughts of afflicted desire, craving, attachment, and anger? Check up. It’s really worth checking up this point because that’s how most people live their life.
Most of us, even Buddhists, live their life not taking care of the mind, ignoring their mind. Most people don’t even know they’ve got a mind. Everyone knows they’ve got a brain, which they call the mind sometimes, but most people don’t know they’ve got a mind, which is something different. And because of that, people don’t take care of it. The word that is translated as meditation, the general word is Sanskrit word is bhavana, which really means mental development or actually it really means mental education, educating your mind.
We don’t educate our mind. You know, the the the education we get in universities doesn’t transform the mind. It puts information in the mind, some of which can be useful, but it doesn’t educate the mind. It doesn’t transform the mind. Alright.
So this is what we need to really try to understand that we are in saṃsāra or have saṃsāra. We have a mind controlled by delusion. And because of delusion, there is karma. There is actions, and there are good actions, but unfortunately, we have negative actions generating negative imprints. And as I tried to explain in the the immediate course before this one, which was about the law of cause and effect.
Every time we engage in a negative action, it it generates these these karmic imprints, these potencies, these negative potencies in our mind. If the if we don’t purify them, and but if we don’t, they ripen as suffering. As the Buddha said, a bitter seed can only produce a bitter result, a bitter fruit. A sweet seed only produces a sweet fruit. But even before those negative imprints ripen as obvious suffering, what they are doing right now, because we our mind is loaded with negative imprints, they are obscuring our mind.
We could be doing so we we, you know, we we could be so much wiser, kinder, compassionate, loving, patient, generous, sweet, kind, all of these things then we are. Why aren’t we? Because those qualities which are all the potential of which is always there can never be removed are obscured. There’s this fog in a sense obscuring our mind of imprints, negative imprints, and disturbing thoughts. And sometimes, you know, the positive things can come through those clouds and shine for a little while, but then the obscurations, the black clouds come again and again and again.
And the amazing thing is we never get the message because we all know that there are people with billions of dollars who aren’t happy. Some of them seem to be incredibly unhappy. But, yes, somehow we think if I had lots of money because why are we all I’m not. But that’s because I’m lazy. But why are people working so hard?
Yeah. Spending all their life working, working, working to make money. Why? Because it’s gonna make me happy. If I have more of it, I’ll be more happy.
But then you look at this the people with all of this money, yeah, and their lives. And not just now, in the past. You look into the lives of people who were rich and famous and beautiful etcetera. Of course, they had some fun. No denying.
And big parties and all this stuff. And they knew other rich and beautiful people. But were they really happy? I mean, really, some of them, when you look behind into the actual lives of people, so much misery. And yet we still think if I if I was to look like this, you know, if I get this lifted up and that pulled down and that, you know, straightened up and then I have, you know, these clothes and that much money, then I’ll really be happy.
And it’s never worked. Of course, some very rich, beautiful people are happy, but it’s not because they’re rich and beautiful. It’s because of their mind. And there are poor, ugly people who are happy because of their mind. Okay.
So this is, yeah, the point. So the Buddha taught the four noble truths or the four truths of noble ones. Noble ones are beings people who beings who have purified their mind. So they are truly noble because these noble qualities of the mind of wisdom and compassion are active and radiating out. These are beings who are seeing things as they really are, aren’t deluded like us about how you know, what’s going on, what is real.
So the the Buddha said for for noble beings like himself, there are four things which are true. And just very briefly, because we’re gonna spend the rest of this course going through the four noble truths or the four truths of noble beings. The first truth is the first thing to understand is that, well, I think there’s different ways of expressing it. The simplest way is that existence is suffering. The first truth is that existence is suffering.
But what does that mean? What does existence mean? Here in this context it doesn’t mean that every kind of existence is suffering because the Buddha exists and a Buddha’s existence isn’t suffering. That existence is referring to samsaric existence. Ordinary samsaric existence meaning when the when we’re existing having a mind controlled by delusion, disturbing thoughts, and karma, that life is suffering.
Its nature is suffering. So this is a very, very heavy message that most people don’t want to hear, and it can be very depressing. But one has to put it in the context of the other three noble truths. Because ultimately, to know this, to understand it is liberating, and it’s the beginning of actual liberation from suffering. Because most people live their life thinking, you know, life is wonderful.
I can make it more wonderful. But that isn’t the reality if we really check. Someone with a pure mind, so so the Buddha sees that the life isn’t, you know, a bowl of cherries. It, know, it is in its nature. That doesn’t mean it just has some suffering.
For ordinary existence, its nature is suffering. So we have to also try to understand This is an example of an English word used to translate a a Sanskrit word which is dukha, dukha, yes, and the Tibetan is dukkha, and we translate that as suffering. But when we hear the word suffering, we think of obvious mental physical and mental suffering, but particularly physical suffering. But Dukkha doesn’t refer just it does refer to that. It does mean physical and obvious physical mental suffering, but it means much more than that.
It means that that the the nature of cyclic existence is incomplete, imperfect, frustrating, and unsatisfactory, unsatisfying. In some ways, the perhaps the best translation of dukkha is unsatisf no. What? Unsatisfactory. What’s the word?
Horrible. Unsatisfying. But that again, that sounds very weak because you can say, you know, I’m not satisfied with that. You know, I’m not really satisfied with that. But it’s much deeper experience than that.
Because yeah. We’ll look into this later on, but from the Buddhist understanding, even what we call happiness, what we label happiness, pleasure, is an example of dukkha. And the and the simple reason it’s called dukkha, the simple way to understand it, is because all of the types of happiness that we know as ordinary beings doesn’t last. So that’s not very satisfying, is it? It’s not very satisfying.
I mean, it may be satisfying while we’re experiencing the happiness, but it’s not satisfying that this satisfying happiness doesn’t last because then it’s not satisfying. And the nature of saṃsāra is that there is obvious suffering and there is happiness, but even that happiness in saṃsāra, none of it lasts. I I I I have to you know, even myself, when one looks at that chart and, I don’t know. I can’t remember if it mentions the the length of life of the god realms. Does it?
The god realms where it lasts for eons, you know, which is Yeah. Which one? Right. But that that’s in the desire realm. The form and formless realms are even longer.
They go for eons and and an eon is a very, very, very you have to take one toilet roll. You write one and then zeros for the rest of the toilet roll, then you have the length of time of an aeon. So this is extremely hard to imagine. It just seems like something made up. But but according to the Buddha, when one is born in the these form and formless realms, the the lifespan lasts for there’s you have bliss for an eon or more.
But it comes to an end. It stops. And as it says in the teaching somewhere, you know, if you have a dream for a second or an hour, when it’s finished, it’s finished. Doesn’t matter if it was a pleasant dream for a second, a pleasant dream for an hour, a pleasant dream for a day. When it’s finished, it’s finished and not really very satisfying in the long run.
So nothing in saṃsāra lasts. So it’s unsatisfying. Why we should why should we know this depressing news? Because it’s true. And deny well, you have to check up yourself if it’s true or not.
But if one can realize that it is true, the only way to reduce and eliminate our suffering is living life in accordance with what is actually true. Every time we deny the truth about ourselves, others, life in general, we suffer in some way. I mean that’s among the fifty billion basic messages of the Buddha. The basic message is to live one’s life according to the truth, what is true. It is the truth that is going to free us from suffering and the denial of truth is what brings suffering.
So to start to become free of suffering, we have to understand that there is suffering, not out there in me. I mean, it’s also out there, but we have to realize our existence is in the nature of suffering. And I’ll I’ll talk I’ll I’ll depress you more and more about this topic later on if you come back. But why the Buddha taught that, just as a brief introduction, is to we just don’t leave it at the first noble truth. The second noble truth is that there is a cause of our suffering.
Our suffering isn’t just something beyond us that it’s just happening happening arbitrarily for no reason. There is a specific causes for our suffering. So and then and and and the Buddha said those causes lie not beyond us in the external world or but and so on, and therefore beyond our control. The actual causes, the real causes of our suffering actually lie within our own mind. And this leads to the third of the noble truths, which is that all all suffering can be eliminated.
There can be what is called a true cessation of suffering because the causes of suffering can be eliminated from the mind and not just temporarily, but forever. That and that’s what a true cessation means. For example, right now, hopefully, none of us in this room are angry. So our anger has a temporary cessation at the moment. But that’s not a true cessation because if a particular person or a thing happens, this it will press our button and we will get angry.
Right? None of us here probably I’m sorry. But maybe I have gone beyond getting angry, probably. We’re not angry at the moment, but there are things and people who just make us angry. Actually, they don’t make us angry.
It’s our way of thinking about things and people, and we get angry. Alright? But right now, those things aren’t here, so we’re not angry. So there’s a cessation, a temporary cessation of our anger. But at any moment, it can burst up.
But that but there the Buddha discovered there can be a true cessation of our disturbing thoughts. And not just one of one or some of them, but all of them. A true cessation so that there is they can they are eliminated in such a way that they can never come back. And that is nirvana. nirvana is when all causes of suffering are eliminated from the mind.
So the mind nirvana is the mind free of all causes of suffering. And one could think that that state could be boring. You know, you get rid of suffering and then it’s really boring. But the Buddha discovered because some you know, you could think, well, suffering at least keeps me entertained a bit, you know, keeps life interesting. But what the Buddha discovered is that the very nature of our mind is blissful so that when the the the suffering and or the causes of suffering are removed from the mind, there’s not just this bland experience.
There is this pure bliss, this ongoing pure bliss, which is nirvana. And that ain’t boring. And the fourth noble truth in a nutshell is that there is a path, a true path that we can follow to bring about this true cessation. So we’ll look at those things a little bit during this course. Okay?
But in order to achieve this true cessation, it means following the path, and we will only follow the path if we understand I am suffering and I am creating the causes of my suffering. And the more we we feel our suffering, the more we will be motivated to eliminate it. But if we think we’re okay, we won’t do anything about our suffering. You know, someone can look really healthy, but they’ve got a terrible terminal illness but they don’t know. The very thing that is and this terminal illness could be I don’t know if maybe this is a contradiction in terms maybe it’s possible to cure that terminal illness, but the person doesn’t know they’ve got it.
And the things they’re doing in their life are actually, what? Aggravating. Yes. Thank you. Aggravating this disease.
But they don’t know they’ve got the disease. So they continue to do the, you know, in ignorance, they continue to do the things that aggravates the disease. And that’s our situation, basically. We have a disease. We all have so to end on a jolly note, we have the you know, we’re all afraid of getting things like having heart attacks, strokes, and other horrible diseases, AIDS, Ebola, and all sorts of gruesome, you know, plague, things like that.
We’re all terrified of getting these diseases, but we actually all all of us here right now have a far worse disease, right, which is, you know, which is called ignorance, which is the worst disturbing thought, the worst delusion. Because of ignorance, we have anger, attachment, pride, jealousy, all the other stuff. I’ll try and talk about this later on, not tonight, during the course. But because of that disease, we have all the other diseases of anger and attachment and so on, which which don’t only bring suffering in this life. You know, all these horrible diseases, most they can do is kill us, but then we get another life, another body.
But this the disease of ignorance we have, that that causes us suffering life after life after life after life. So it’s actually helpful to know that we’ve got it and what it does. And the more we realize that, the more we will be be motivated to get rid of it. If we start to develop the understanding, we can get rid of it. Suffering can be eliminated by stopping the causes, and there is a path that we can follow to stop those causes.
And when that’s accomplished, there is nirvana. Once again, I didn’t leave enough time to explain some basic things, but in the but I think probably most of you know this already. But on pages eleven and twelve of the student material, there’s it explains the the meditation posture to sit in. I hope most people are familiar with it. And there’s a simple breathing exercise.
I think it’s explained fairly clearly there. I’ll I’ll we’ll we’ll go through it next next week, but this is part of the the homework to do that. And just briefly, do you all have the homework sheet? Oh, Drat. Anyway, there’s a homework sheet you have to collect at the end of the the the night, but I just like to explain a couple of things in it.
Firstly, it asks for your name. Please put both names because I don’t know everyone and some people may have the same first name. So I need to know, you know, when every time you do the homework to put your name and both names. And there’s a question. I mean, you don’t have to answer.
It’s just a little helpful for me. One of which is do you consider yourself Buddhist? So some people always write, well, I I was brought up a Christian. I don’t care what you were brought up. Sorry.
Well, I I do. I would just like to know whether you consider yourself now a Buddhist or not. I you know, you don’t pass or fail or get extra points if you consider yourself Buddhist. I would just like to know what you know? And then also, there’s a couple of places where I ask people what you found difficult to relate to in the teaching or in the especially in the class, what you found difficult to relate to.
So what I’m asking is not whether you find it difficult to put it into practice because it is all for all of us, it’s difficult to put into practice. What I’m asking is, like, you know, was there some resistance to, you know, when you put the mind reacted, oh, this is weird or creepy. I don’t you know, I I would like to know that kind of thing. Not that’s what I’m asking. Or either whether one found it difficult to understand, just difficult to understand or difficult to accept.
You know, if I personally can’t find this too strange to accept. I can’t believe this. Again, I’m not gonna sort of think, oh, I don’t like this person because I I just like to know when what how you’re relating to what’s being said. And then, of course, in the homework, each day you have a slightly different meditation to do. Sometimes they’re the same.
And the idea is to please put a tick or a cross if you’ve done it. Don’t put anything if you haven’t done it. Alright? So just tick if you’ve done so so I know whether you’re behaving yourself or not. This this I’m really checking up.
But I would really, really strongly encourage people to do the meditations. They I’m only asking people to do for, like, ten minutes. And what I’d like to try and explain briefly now is many people, you know, think of meditation as where you stop all thoughts and you just focus on your breath or visualizing something or reciting a mantra or spacing out or waiting for the Buddha to talk to you or some message to come, something like that. None of that is meditate. There is meditation which involves concentrating on an object so that thought most thought fades away.
But there is another kind of meditation which is strongly emphasized in the Tibetan tradition, especially in the Gelug tradition that we follow, which is called analytical meditation, which is basically where you think about something. Yeah. And many people ask, well, how do you do that? And I have to confess that I have never been taught by any lama how to do this precisely. And a couple of years ago, when I was in Nepal, I asked this very great lama of the Gelug tradition to because I was leading a a course, a a month long meditation course in in Nepal.
And I asked this this great lama if he could give a teaching on how you actually do analytical meditation. And he kind of looked at me like I was an idiot, which I am. But so I actually think there is no tradition of explaining how you just do it, basically, like Nike says, just do it. Because it’s nothing kind of very particularly special. It’s just you think about the topic, but you try and do it logically, consistently, and try and what what is different from ordinary thinking is you consciously decide to think about this topic and you proceed it by generating a good motivation for thinking about this topic.
And you try and understand why you’re thinking about this topic. And while you’re thinking about the topic, you try and avoid anything which is not that topic. You try to really focus on it and honestly kind of look into that and, you know so for example, the first on Wednesday, I ask you tomorrow to think about suffering and happiness in your own life. So just check, you know, what kind of suffering do you have in your life that that you recognize? What how much happiness?
What kind of happiness do you have? And although it doesn’t say it, what do you have most happiness or suffering? Yeah. Just to think about it. Yeah.
And also to you know, just to reflect about and another one is just to think about the people other people you see around you, how much suffering do you see in their life? Yeah. Because maybe you can start to realize, actually, they have much more than I think about, than I obviously recognize. So it’s just to look in a in a very simple way about those things. But also when it comes to some topics, the idea is to like, the Buddha says this, and then you think, then you check, is this true?
Do I believe that that this is true? And and then I I have this reason for thinking it’s not true. But but then you try and if you’re trying to understand have some faith that what the Buddha said is actually true, then, you know, the Buddha said this, but I’m saying, oh, it’s not true because of that. Then you try and think, well, maybe there’s some other reason to, you know, refute my negation of the Buddhist truth. Yeah?
And sometimes just doing analytical meditation is just kind of letting the idea kind of sink into your mind. Just stay there. But the main thing is to try and see what your reaction to the Buddha’s teaching is. Do you wholeheartedly agree, and do you have good reasons for it? If you reject it, what are your reasons?
Are they valid reasons? And, of course, the aim is to try and get a deeper appreciation, understanding of the truth of the Buddhist teachings. If one’s you know, you could use meditation to to destroy the Buddhist teaching, but I don’t think that’s possible, to be honest. If you yeah. But, anyway, am I making some sense?
And then then at the end, one tries to dedicate the positive understanding, the positive energy. May this become a cause for me to actually deeply understand and realize this, what I’ve meditated on. So it, you know, leads me to nirvana, to enlightenment. And it yeah. I I think that’s enough.
Thank you very much for your attention, patience, kindness for listening. We can so we started off with trying to have a good motivation. So now we can if you’d like to join in, the tradition is to dedicate the positive understanding and the positive energy we’ve developed during the class, may this become a cause for us to understand and realize the teachings more and more so that we can become completely free of all suffering, achieve nirvana, achieve enlightenment, especially for the sake of others. So this dedication is on page nine. We’ll just do this in English if you’d like to join in.
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 bodhicitta mind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore.