Archive Result

11

20121209GRAATB49

00:00

Good morning to you and welcome to the Sunday talk “Tibetan Buddhism with Gelek Rimpoche”. As I said last week, I am attending teachings in South India. So I am reaching you here with a prerecorded talk.

Last week I talked to you about the definitions of the defined points of the Four Noble Truths from the theoretical point of view. They are also from the practical point of view, defining them ourselves. It tells us where we are. I was telling you that there were 16 different wrong views or bad views – actually thoughts of different schools at Buddha’s time about he thought they were wrong and not acceptable. We talked about the First Noble Truth, the Truth of Suffering. The nature of the Truth of Suffering itself is not permanent, but impermanent. We gave reasons. It is also not joy, but suffering. We gave those reasons too. Then, there is no ownership, no responsibility-claimer in there. That claimer does not exist. It is also selfless. These are the four points we talked about.

Today I have to talk to you about the Second Noble Truth, the Cause of Suffering. I also talked last week from Buddha’s quotation in du wa about what is the cause of suffering. He says that it is something which makes the First Noble Truth of Suffering grow. I quoted that from Buddha’s words in the sutra. Also the definition is this:

Rang de/ dug ten kye pei / lhen gyün kyi ri kyi dö pei te/ kun jung den pai ngo wo/

Either delusion/afflictive emotional – or afflictive emotion-influenced karma, which will be able to create your own result of suffering.

Whether it is karma or afflictive emotions or both, they will make your own result of the truth of suffering able to grow within the individual. In other words, when you divide the Second Noble Truth of the Cause of Suffering, normally we say it is karma and delusions.

0:05

Karma is everything, whatever we do and think, both or either. We create a certain impact on our consciousness with that – if you don’t want to call it ‘soul’. It is easier to call it consciousness. If you call it ‘soul’ you are going to get a few difficulties. You are going to see that here today. That is the difference between the Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools in the early Indian tradition. That has been taught in the Buddhist teachings.

However, you will see, this will define whether Buddhism is theistic or non-theistic. There are people who accept that Buddhism is non-theistic, because there is no single God. Then there are some Buddhologists and Tibetan Buddhist professors who claim that it is theistic. That is beyond my judgment. I can’t say what is right or wrong, but I can only talk to you what I know and studied and read. I am also looking at a certain traditional, 17th century text, while I am talking to you. You will see it here.

I want to talk to you now about the criteria or divisions or defined points of the Second Noble Truth, the Truth of the Cause of Suffering. There is an early Indian school that we call yang pem pa, who doesn’t accept past and future lives. They say that suffering does not have a cause. There is no cause at all. Suffering is suffering. When it is there with you, that’s that. That’s why Buddha says that suffering is not causeless. There are causes.

Another school says that yes, there is a cause, but it is only one single cause, not multiple, dependent causes. Some schools say that it is the gesture of the Principal or Creator. In other words, it is the manifestations of some creator-type of person.

0:10

They say that suffering is by nature permanent, however, it is a gesture, so it becomes temporarily impermanent, though naturally it is permanent. [at 10 min 50 sec he stops to blow his nose because of being cold, and talks to Jonas while doing that, there is mic noises too and short dialogue with Jonas]

0:11:56

Some schools thought it is created by the thought of Shiva or some other samsaric Hindu-Buddhist mythological god. To that Buddha gave a statement in the Rice field – or growing sutra, [mostly called Rice Seedling Sutra] in Tibetan sa lung jang pei do – it is something like rice shoot, green field or something. He says in there “This is not created by Shiva, nor is it transformed by time, nor is it from its nature, nor from its origin, nor did it grow causeless.” So this confirms this.

So the criteria of the Truth of the Cause of Suffering are these four:

Cause

Condition

Growing

Very Growing

0:15

That’s why Buddha emphasized this. The logical reason here is to do with attachment or obsession. That is a cause, because this is the point where we make the imprint of future experiences. This is the root in which we leave the imprint. Therefore it is cause. It is growing, because it grows in different people at different levels, very differently and very often. It is “very growing” because all the different realms, such as hell realms, hungry ghost realms, human, samsaric gods and all the different realms, it grows very differently. And there are conditions, such as direct and indirect conditions. These make other attachments and causes and conditions, which makes sure that the individual’s samsaric life continues. Attachment, you may have heard or read, is the glue of samsara. It is also attachment which makes the future of samsara grow.

So these are the criteria for the Second Noble Truth. Cause and condition, kun jung, is almost the same thing, but it is separately counted here. There are direct, immediate causes and it is very growing. I gave you earlier some reasonings and differences between these two.

These criteria came about because of the different other schools’ thoughts about where suffering comes from, from somewhere or not, is it permanent or impermanent, created or not, if created by whom, me the individual or some creator who is separate from me, like mythological gods like Shiva, Vishnu, etc.

0:20

This is one of the reasons why the Four Noble Truths are extremely important, particularly this one. Where does suffering really come from? Who created it? This is interesting. As children, people will tell you stories about who created the sharpness of thorns and who created the burning power of power and who created the sweeping power of water. As a kid I used to get these stories as jokes, as play, but if you really think it is not one person who did it. We don’t talk about it. We think it is natural. We think that thorns are sharp and the poke you. Nobody created them, it is just nature. But the whole samsara is created, because if it is not created, it has to be permanent and uncreated and either not existing or existing forever. And that is not true. Even the thorns don’t exist forever. When the thorn goes down the sharpness of it goes down. Roses have thorns. No one created the thorn in the roses. But they came through terms and conditions.

This is important. Who made this? What is it? When you talk about causes, we talk about causes of suffering. We have suffering, so we want to know who created it and what it is all about. But that’s not only applicable to suffering. When you think about, it applies to everything, every environment, every inhabitant and all this. It is easy to see who created a particular house, who put the roof up, who made the windows and who did the window dressing. Here we can easily see that somebody did it. There are architects, engineers, laborers and so on. Even before architects, even before the owner decides to have a building, there is a cause for this. I don’t know whether there is such a thing called “original, pre-fabricated cause”. I don’t think so. However, causes and conditions come together and bring about everything. To me it is all of them. Therefore, anything whatever we experience, feel, touch, enjoy, suffer, whatever we do, is a result of causes and conditions. If these unfortunately happen to be right, we suffering. If causes conditions fortunately are right, we have joy.

0:25

So all of those are because of causes and conditions and thereby it is growing and very growing. Briefly, I am mentioning this as part of the concluding points of the Four Noble Truths talks. You have to really look further into it, but the whole idea is this: we can understand that sufferings are grown out of causes and conditions. Then we will begin to see the results, joys or sufferings, depend on causes and conditions. When we begin to see that, it gives us an opportunity to deal with them at the level of the cause of suffering and cause of joy. At the level of the cause of joy, either we discard the cause or we create the cause. We keep the cause and nurture it and try to get the result. In order to convince ourselves of that it is important for us to see that. Otherwise, we simply say, “Oh Buddha said so”, or “So and So said so”. That will be shaking our spiritual ground. Why do we take hardship? Why do we go against our negative addictions? We do so because we know that negative addictions create suffering.

If we are convinced that suffering is not permanent, but impermanent, then it is fine. We get room. If it is permanent you can do nothing about it. That’s why we need to convince ourselves. That is the reason why need this study. And we need meditation. Just sitting there, thinking whether suffering is permanent or impermanent, that does not necessarily make the suffering go away. Nor does it convince us that suffering is going. We like to believe it, but we are not going to be convinced. We are not going to know that yet, until it goes.

That’s why we have to put efforts in at the level of causes and conditions. These may change the results. We need to know that causes and conditions will change the results. If it is some kind of a manifestation of Shiva then it is the manifestation of some mythological god. So therefore, until this god changes his manifestation or performance, this is not going to change, no matter whatever the heck you do, it is not going to change anything.

0:30

But that’s why we need to get this. It is not “they” who do it. It is “we” who make the difference. Our path or way of changing and improving will deliver the causes for the results we want. Results are also not permanent. They are impermanent and changeable. They are dependently originated. They depend on conditions, terms or time. When things get right, then they function. That’s why this becomes important. Otherwise, it is just philosophical viewpoints of earlier scholars. That will not make that much difference to me, the individual in downtown Ann Arbor. But then I realize that my suffering that I want to change is impermanent and changeable, and that no one else can change it except me, that I have the key, that I am the one who will change my situation. No one else can change it and then I begin to see that I am responsible and the key to my joy and suffering or torture is in my own hand, nobody else’s.

Therefore I am responsible. I will shape my own future. That is the beginning of taking responsibility to create joy and freedom from suffering and it is conditions and causes. That really gives us the end result of our life-long efforts of reducing suffering. We begin to see it. That way it is important for us. When you talk about philosophical points only, about the thoughts of different schools, then it doesn’t really matter to me. But when I think it is dealing with my life and not only my spiritual path, but everything, life, education, development, everything, then it does matter. Then we realize how important it is.

0:35

I hope you will be able to think in that way. That’s what I like to say and thank you.

0:35:10 Four Immeasurables played by John Madison

0:36 end of file