Monday, May 21, 2012

The Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind to the Dharma Pt. 2

Morelia, Mexico, May 30, 2000
Lightly edited course transcript

The Four Thoughts in Reverse Sequence

The four thoughts that turn our mind to the Dharma show us on a slightly deeper level that this is possible. We have discussed how it is possible to gain conviction in the possibility of liberation and enlightenment in terms of the three basic thoughts needed to enter the Dharma: suffering, wanting to get out of suffering, and having the conviction that it is possible to get out of suffering. The four thoughts that turn our mind to the Dharma actually turn our minds toward these three thoughts, specifically to the first of these three steps, recognizing and acknowledge the difficulties and sufferings in life. The last of the four thoughts is of the unsatisfactoriness of samsara, which is the actual acknowledgement of difficulties and problems in life. We need to work backwards in order to appreciate the order and necessity of each step.

What are the difficulties and problems that we face? Buddha gave many lists, but the more concise one is a list of three. We can call them the three types of problems. The first is gross suffering: pain and unhappiness. It includes physical pain as well as mental pain. Most people can recognize this without much difficulty. Nobody likes to be unhappy, so most people would like to get out of it.

The second problem is the problem of change. This refers to our usual ordinary experiences of happiness, which are tainted with confusion. They change; they do not last. For instance, we eat and feel the happiness of our stomach being full but it does not last and we get hungry again. What is the problem? The problem is not that the happiness does not last. That is just the nature of this type of happiness. Having the most profound, direct understanding of voidness is not going to change the fact that this type of happiness is impermanent. Nothing is going to change that. We can get less upset by the fact that it changes, but that is not the point here. The real problem with this type of happiness is the uncertainty factor: when it ends, we do not know what will follow. We are with our friends, having a good time. The good time ends and we don't know if we are going to feel happy, tired, unhappy or what. That is the real problem here. Just going after this temporary happiness will not help us, even though we feel okay for a while. Not only does it not eliminate all our problems, but we are left in a state of real insecurity, not knowing what will come next.

The third type of true problem is the all-encompassing problem. This is that just the type of body and mind and emotions that we have will perpetuate all the other problems. They are self-perpetuating. We have this type of body. We have to feed it and take care of it all the time. And when we eat, the happiness does not last and we have to eat again and again. How boring. We go into one difficult relationship with someone and do not learn and get hurt and go into another and another. The confusion just goes on and on. This person did not turn out to be Prince or Princess Charming and so we look for another and another. The feelings of insecurity keep coming up. This is the real problem; it just keeps on recurring. Understanding these three sufferings is the fourth thought, the disadvantages of suffering. It is also the first noble truth, that of problems.

What is the basis for this understanding of the disadvantages of samsara? The third thought, the understanding of karma and cause and effect. This is the cause of the suffering of samsara. This is noble truth number two. Why do we experience the first type of true problem, gross suffering? From acting in destructive ways. We act destructively because of confusion. We don't understand the results of our actions or we think that our actions have no results.

The second type of problem is that of change and uncertainty. To understand the reason why we experience that, we need to understand karma. If we understand karma, we understand that what we experience is very complex. We have been doing so many things, both constructive and destructive mixed with confusion, without any beginning. We could think we are the center of the universe and be nice to everyone or mean to everyone. We have built up millions and millions of both positive and negative karmic potentials. So, we experience happiness for a moment. It comes from a positive potential. Then it is finished. Now what? There are countless karmic possibilities waiting to ripen. What ripens next? It is not simple. It depends on many different factors: our attitude, the circumstance, what other people do, our health and so on. No wonder there is no certainty, and no wonder that our experience in samsara goes up and down. The twelve links of dependent arising describes how karma and confusion perpetuate samsara. When we understand karma deeply, then we understand how the whole mechanism of karma goes up and down, perpetuating itself, which is the all-encompassing problem.

The third thought that turns our mind to the Dharma gets us into the state of mind of understanding why there is this uncertainty. What will turn our minds to thinking that way? Awareness of death and impermanence. Our lifespan is uncertain. This is the second thought that turns our mind to the Dharma. If we take death and impermanence seriously, realizing that situations do not last on a gross level, then we can start to appreciate the teachings on karma, which show us the uncertainty of what happens from moment to moment.

What is going to bring us to think about death? Appreciating the life and opportunities that we have now: this precious human life. So, thinking about the precious human life that we have now is the first thought that turns our mind to the Dharma.

Summary

By working backwards in this way, we can see how each attitude arises from the previous one. One can explain it going from one to four in a logical sequence. But, since most of you have studied this already, I wanted to present it in reverse order to show how each thought depends on the previous one. In forward order, we think of our precious human life, that it is not going to last forever and that what happens after death, in future lives, depends on karma. Even if we are born in a favorable situation, there will be many problems. Realizing this, we want to get out of suffering. For that, we need conviction that the Dharma actually does teach the way out and that it is actually possible to achieve liberation from problems and enlightenment. That leads us to take safe direction and to develop bodhichitta, with which we dedicate ourselves completely to achieving enlightenment to be able to benefit everyone.

In reverse, as we have seen, in order to put safe direction and bodhichitta in our lives, we need conviction that it is possible to get rid of suffering and its causes. For that, we need to understand the nature of confusion and how understanding gets rid of confusion. For that, we need to recognize the difficulties in our life, the difficulties of samsara: the recurrence of problems and uncertainty. That uncertainty is because of karma. To start thinking in terms of uncertainty, we need first to think about it on the gross level of death. We would not worry about death, if we didn't think about the life that we have now with its opportunities and did not want to lose it.

Whether we look at these four thoughts in a progressive or a reverse sequence, they are very essential for helping us to become stable on the path so that we can be of more help to ourselves and more help to others.

Questions and Answers

Question: How does uncertainty fit into mundane concerns and thinking that if I could only have this or that, I would be happy?

Answer: It depends on what we think will bring us happiness. If we think, "If I could only gain enlightenment, I would be happy" it is different from thinking, "If I could only have the perfect partner, I would be happy forever and never have any suffering." If we are looking for the total removal of suffering, such that it never returns again, from chocolate, a partner, sex or whatever, then we are always going to be frustrated. However, if we acknowledge the ordinary type of happiness for what it is, then we can aim for it as a provisional goal. If we have a certain level of happiness, we can use it as a circumstance to go further on the path. That is why the initial scope of the lam-rim graded path is aiming for a fortunate rebirth. We need general worldly happiness as a circumstance for working toward liberation and enlightenment. It all depends on recognizing our usual type of happiness for what it is and not inflating it. We need to have our feet on the ground.

Conclusion

It is quite helpful to work with these four thoughts. They are called preliminaries in the sense that they get us into an appropriate state of mind to be on the path very firmly, just as the preliminaries before class get us into an appropriate state of mind to listen to teachings. What does it mean to get onto the path of Dharma? We can talk about it in technical terms, but let's not talk about it on that level. To be on the path means to really be convinced in what we are doing and to have our hearts in it fully. Otherwise, we are not very stable. We may do it a little while as a hobby or because other people are doing it, but we are not really into it.

To be really into it requires a change of attitude. It requires a certain way of looking at life. It requires really seeing our life situation and acknowledging that there are problems and difficulties. It is important to appreciate our precious human life and to know that it is not going to last forever. Our life has problems and these problems come about basically because of confusion and karma. Even though we experience happiness in our lives, it is not really satisfying because it does not last and we cannot guarantee that we will stay in a good mood. It is not good enough to just be happy some of the time.

We may know that we get into dysfunctional relationships, but because they are exciting and fun in the beginning, we get into another one knowing that we or the other person will mess it up. And then we get into another and another. Eventually, we get tired of that and say, "I really want to stop this!" We become convinced that it is possible to stop it. Based on that conviction, we can realistically work toward stopping it.

While on the way, we need to try to gain temporary happiness, because it will make it easier to go on the path. But our experience will go up and down. Instead of constantly going out to find Prince and Princess Charming, we can get in some sort of relationship that is not going to be perfect – it is never going to be perfect on this level – and we can use that as the basis for working further. It is the same thing with money. If our entire lives are spent searching for more and more money, it is never-ending.

We do need a certain amount of material comfort to be able to live and likewise we need a certain level of affection, love and partnership in order to have the conducive circumstances to work on ourselves. The relationship with a partner is never going to be perfect. The amount of money in the bank will never be perfect. The amount of comfort that we have in our home will never be perfect. This is the problem of change. Working to try to make those perfect is just banging our heads against the wall. When we have enough of these things to be able to get on with our spiritual life, we need to get on with our spiritual life! The point is to use the imperfect level that we have to work toward something that we can realistically attain: the ultimate state. We can remove the confusion from our minds, and that means that we can eliminate suffering. That is what it is all about. In this way, we will be happy and we will be able to make others happy. Will we be more able to help others by always trying to get the perfect partner, or by working to get rid of our anger?

Dedication

Let us end with a dedication. May whatever understanding we might have gained go deeper and deeper so that it slowly starts to make an impression on us and adds to our positive potentials so that we gradually start to see things in terms of these four thoughts. May we gradually become more stable in our safe direction in life so that we can eventually attain liberation and enlightenment for the benefit of everyone.

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SEE ALSO:

Fourteenth Dalai Lama; Day Two: The Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind to the Dharma

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