The Buddha said KNOW your suffering first, then said look at the cause of suffering then see there actually is no suffering then explained the cause of suffering. which is believing that anything is truly existent rather than just illusion.
These are some note for discussion purposes written by a confused being, see this talk for actual instruction
https://youtu.be/jQVoYtOPkUU
Occasion of discipline in the view or investigating the view or separating the view. Not clear on what he says. Occasion and the other aspect as occasion OR of practicing the view.
Hearing and contemplating. You can take Hearing and contemplating as part of a vipassana, vipassana does not necessarily mean sitting, but seeing how it really is beyond how it appears.
We are discussing profound emptiness. If you don’t have proper hearing and contemplating, it is like a handicapped person trying to climb a mountain but without practice, then we are not climbing the mountain at all.
So without hearing and contemplating, it’s like a handicapped person trying to do it but without practice, we’re not doing it at all.
If samsara is illusion and path is an illusionary rattling toy, then how can illusionary practice do anything?
It’s about having a knack or a feeling for it.
Even if you doubt shunyata , that is very bad for samsara. So even if you don’t believe in shunyata, just the idea of shunyata existing is some kind of step towards getting out of samsara. Transcending samsara.
, some kind of empty space and empty ground. We should wish: May all illusionary, Samsaric beings, be free from illusionary suffering and defilements and attain illusionary enlightenment.
Bodhisattva went to the Buddha and said, I’m getting tired. I’ve only gone through one of my three countless eons or kalpas. I have two countless eons to go. It doesn’t seem to matter how much I try to help people. It’s so annoying. There are so many people and they don’t want to be helped.
If I give them one inch, they want a mile. They’re never satisfied. If I do something for one person, the other person wants help. They’re so annoying.
The challenge is shere length of time The Buddha says if a mother has only one baby and the baby’s caught in a river, the mother won’t think twice about jumping in the river.
But if there’s no child and she wakes up and the baby is sleeping near her , the bodhisattva sees it as illusory. When you make fire and a spark jumps out, the time when the vow was taken to when the bodhisattva reaches the 10th, bhumi . It’s just the time. That’s as long as the spark coming from the fire. And the point is, he did not say as short as the time, he said as long as the time of the spark coming from the fire
2500 years before Einstein, the Buddha talked about time being relative.
How can a dream illusion practice destroy an illusion? The original question. The answer is the moment you know it is an illusion, you have destroyed it. It is the attachment to the illusion that is binding you.
There is an assumption that enlightenment is real. Why? Because we suffer. Thinking the dream elephant is real is where the suffering comes from.
As soon as you can see it is an illusion, there is no more suffering released from thinking the illusion is real.
So the Buddha taught the four noble truths, suffering, cause of suffering, cessation of suffering and the cause of cessation. The two causes and two results.
Cause of suffering the causes the suffering and the causes of cessation causes the cessation.
So a headache is something you have. Your nature is not a headache, you are not the headache. You have a headache. You’re not born with a headache, you are not a headache. Headache is not your nature, therefore it can be removed.
Since you are not a headache, you have a headache, you are not a headache. The path to cessation of Headache is investigating the view, applying view to practice. the Buddha said to know the suffering . He did not say abandon the suffering. He said to know the suffering.
The headache analogy reminds me of Trungpa’s analogy about basic goodness and washing your towels. because the dirt isn’t real, is not the inherent aspect, you can always wash out the dirt.
Time and space are not considered suffering.
But Needing to call someone to eat or drink, needing to make a point with someone, all this is suffering.
So this feeling of needing to do something, needing to make a point, needing to eat, all this is suffering. Most of us don’t know what suffering is. We only think of it as gross pain. But the suffering did not come out of the blue. There are causes of suffering.
So the path is again back to the child going off the cliff. Using a toy to distract them. The first toy makes a loud noise. It’s very noisy, it’s very colorful. So the Buddha talked about suffering to get our attention.
First the Buddha said was know suffering. He didn’t say the moon is good, the grass is good, the sun is good. Or even you could transcend suffering. He first talked about suffering. Cessation is more glamorous, but we need something to chew on.
Then he said but you are not truly suffering. He introduced shunyata . So first look at the suffering know the suffering and then see that there isn’t any suffering and no one to suffer.
So many don’t want to suffer, but no one wants to abandon the cause of suffering, nobody wants to abandon some samsara. So we apply methods to disrupt your habit.
So if you’re trying to stop smoking, sort of analogy, some could just say well, stop smoking. Or maybe the Buddha offers something rolled up in cigarette paper, rolls up something in the cigarette paper something that’s non poisonous and says smoke this. So it’s presenting with path, with methods that we can work with.
But the ultimate aim is to see the truth, depending on the person different methods are used, 84,000 methods . He tells people there are certain things, yes, you can keep doing those things, go through the meditation and paths, but they are all tricks, they’re something to work with.
For instance, Shamatha, concentrate on one thing, but the more you try, the more you can’t, the more you see that you are distracted, the more you are actually aware.
When suffering and cause of suffering is finished, then path is also finished. No learning Nonmeditation. Yogi Expression – the solution and the problem are like a knife and a Whetstone. When the knife and the stone are both exhausted, you lose metal from the knife, you lose the grit from the stone. The suffering and the method or path dissolve at the same time.
Solution and problem are both exhausted.
How can illusionary method destroy an illusionary problem? How can the illusion of practice destroy the problem of believing in the illusion? If you are asking this, then you have not yet seen through the illusion.
Buddha taught birth cessation because knowing that , you know impermanence because when you know impermanence, you know the doorway to know the truth is opened. When you know impermanence the doorway to knowing the truth is opened.
Four somethings:
- all compounded things are impermanent.
- All emotions are pain.
- Everything has no inherently existing nature.
- Nirvana is beyond extreme.
The first to our relative, the second to are ultimate.
Those who understand dependent arising will not be trapped by existence.
Having the view is not trapped and will go across the ocean of Samsara. We get entangled by thinking something truly exists or something truly does not exist. When you are trapped in these two extremes, then emotions arise. Emotions by nature are deceiving the truth. The wise one will understand that all compounded things are impermanent.
He’ll see moment by moment that everything changes. Everything is illusion, everything is a label, a mask. Appearance leads to understanding. Every phenomenon is nonexistent. Even self is not truly existent then one knows suffering is nonexistent.
Selflessness is not self sacrifice because there is no self to be sacrificing.
When we teach at the kindergarten level, we teach shamatha, tong lyn , et cetera. These are tricks. They are very important tricks. But always we should be contemplating nonexistence of self.
Everything is conditional. Not a single atom exists.
We always cling to habit.
As people advance on the path, they may get depressed, they may go through a period of depression. Habit wants to cling to self, but the trained mind wants to abandon the habit. Some early signs of practice is when socializing with people, people’s discussions, what you wear, what you talk about. You talk about the most stupid things for hours, but you start to realize how stupid it is.
Then you begin to lose interest in all this. You may think something’s wrong with me. Why am I not interested in all these gatherings, social gatherings that you spent so much time to cultivate, establish friendships and so forth.
But there’s this battle between the habit of clinging and the trained mind. like as if you had three months to live. How do you talk with people who think they will live for 100 years?
but at a higher state, which is a very advanced state. You come back to where you can easily talk about stupid things, you can talk about stupid things for the benefit of others.
It’s just like when a mother can talk to a baby and engage in this baby talk. So you can do this for the benefit of other people very skillfully.
