Nalanda Buddhism Class

A Discourse on Nalanda Buddhism

Session 5th and 6th

 

(5) Nalanda Diploma Course NDC5-5/18/10/2024

Buddha's biographies are many. A full good biography is "The Play in Full" (Tib: rGya cher rol pa. Sans: Lalitavistara). A television series with 54 episodes on Buddha's life is also recommended.

You should be happy. For this it is important that your mind should be calm and at peace. Without peace within, you cannot share peace with other. Meditation and understanding the cause of sufferings help you calm your mind and become less negative.

It is said that Buddha taught 84,000 teachings and some say 80,000 teachings. Both are correct. Buddha attained his enlightenment at the age 35 and started teaching. Later, the Sangha suggested Buddha have one chief attendant to help him in his teachings and they proposed Ananda. The latter agreed on the condition that Buddha would give teaching only in his presence. Buddha agreed. Buddha has already given 4000 teachings before the appointment of Ananda. After the appointment of Ananda as the Chief attendant, Buddha gave 8000 teachings.

What are the subject matters of these teachings? These are properly categorized into three baskets of three higher trainings, known as Tripitaka in Sanskrit, and Tripitak in Pali. In Tibetan it is sDe snod gsum. What are these baskets and three higher trainings?

Compassion and wisdom are the two tools to achieve the two goals of fearlessness and infinite happiness. Sufferings are due to ignorance. This can be eliminated through the attainment of wisdom. Buddha's teachings are wisdom to eradicate the darkness of ignorance. This wisdom should be very bright and very steady. Our mind is pulled by distraction and pushed and suppressed by laxity. Untamed or the monkey needs to be tamed.

Our actions are physical, verbal, and mental. All these three are governed by our minds. Training of your mind which governs your physical, verbal, and mental actions is discipline, Shila. Training the gross mind is the first step to discipline your mind. Training of the mind in the practice of mindfulness and introspection of the mind which governs our physical, verbal, and mental actions is training in Shila, moral discipline. Metaphor is editing an article, first grosser mistakes and later subtle mistakes. Training of your mind which governs your mental actions is Samadhi. With this, your mind becomes very stable and steady.

Now, we need to concentrate on the brightness of the mind, wisdom or Prajna. We have 3 things: training in Shila, Samadhi, and Prajna. Shila is the moral discipline, Samadhi is the meditative concentration, and Prajna is understanding the wisdom of emptiness. These are known as the Tripitaka, the 3 higher trainings.

Buddha's teachings which focus on moral discipline, Shila, are categorized under Vinaya teaching. The teachings that focus on meditative concentration come under Sutra (Pali-Sutta), and the teachings that focus on wisdom come under Abhidharma. They are known as higher training because they are not meant for mundane purposes but for enlightenment, Nirvana, and Buddhahood.

(6) Nalanda Diploma Course NDC5-6/20/10/2024

The Four Seals of Buddha

H.H. the Dalai Lama categorizes Buddha's teaching into two: Pali-based Theravada and Sanskrit-based Mahayana and Vajrayana. The Four Seals of Buddha and the Four Noble Truths are the foundation of Buddha's teachings, but they are not the same or identical. Usually, people categorize Buddhism as Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. The Four Seals or the Four-line practice is something you cannot avoid as a Buddhist to reach Nirvana or Buddhahood.

Anyone who wants to get away from suffering and achieve happiness should practice these four lines. Wise people first learn without accepting it and without rejecting it. Only after understanding it, he will decide whether to accept it or reject it. We need to learn and practice the 4 seals and see if it is true or not, not believe in it just because Buddha said it. The Four Seals are:

1)       All composite things are impermanent                   འདུ་བྱེད་ཐམས་ཅད་མི་རྟག་པ།    

2)       All contaminated things are of suffering nature       ཟག་བཅས་ཐམས་ཅད་སྡུག་བསྔལ་བ།  

3)       Everything is nature of emptiness and selflessness ཆོས་རྣམས་སྟོང་ཞིང་བདག་མེད་པ།    

4)       Transcending sorrow is absolute peace                   མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ་ནི་ཞི་བའོ།    

 Buddha said another important verse:

1)       Commit no evils                                                      སྡིག་པ་སྤྱི་ཡང་མི་བྱ་ཞིང་།    

2)       Accumulate virtues as much as possible                  དགེ་བ་ཕུན་སུམ་ཚོགས་པར་སྤྱད།    

3)       Tame your mind                                                      རང་གི་སེམས་ནི་ཡོངས་སུ་འདུལ།    

4)       This is the teaching of Buddha                                འདི་ནི་སངས་རྒྱས་བསྟན་པ་ཡིན།    

Don't commit evil or bad deeds if you don't want to suffer. Evil actions are the cause of your suffering. Happiness is the result of a virtuous deed, if you want happiness you need to do a virtuous deed.

Some say, I became vegetarian and my health suffered. The doctor advised me to continue with non-veg diets. But this is a short-term solution and not a good one. By harming other beings you cannot be happy and free of the consequences. Just as you will not eat a poisonous food, you should not eat non-veg. It is poisonous to your happiness and will bring suffering in the long run. You should go for supplements and food rich in minerals replacing non-veg food.

The first line "commit no evils" is renunciation of suffering, desire, and strong resolve to renounce suffering. The second line says, that if you want happiness, you need to accumulate a lot of causes for happiness to happen, i.e. accumulating virtue.

Virtue can be accumulated through the practice of six perfections (Tib: sbyin tshhul, zod, brtson, bsam, shes). If you want wealth, practice generosity; if you want a favorable state, practice morality; if you want to have a good appearance and attractive body, practice patience; if you want radiance and elegance, practice joyous effort; if you want total peace of mind, practice Samadhi; and if you want your mind to be free from samsara, practice wisdom.

If you want happiness, knowing that virtuous deeds are the causes of happiness, you should do virtuous deeds. This will result in happiness. The greatest of the virtues is the Bodhicitta mind, a mind striving for the benefit of all sentient beings. So, the second line recommends the teaching and practice of the Bodhicitta mind.

The third line, "Tame your mind" says that our mind has old tendencies and habitual imprints, they are very strong. We are not able to get our minds in the habit of practicing Renunciation and Bodhicitta so easily. Numerous habitual bad tendencies are there and these bad tendencies prevent us from practicing Renunciation and Bodhicitta properly. So, is there a master key to overcome and eliminate these bad tendencies? All these bad tendencies are due to ignorance.

This ignorance is Self-grasping ignorance (SGI). A master key to destroy this SGI is the wisdom of emptiness. Self-grasping ignorance is the foundation of our emotional and mental tendencies. We need to study the iceberg metaphor. So, the third line says that the practice of wisdom of emptiness is the key to eliminating ignorance.

These three lines teach us the practice of Renunciation, Bodhicitta, and Wisdom of Emptiness, the three principal aspects of the path (Tib: lam gtso rnam gsum).

We need to remove the iceberg like SGI which is the foundation of our misery. This iceberg is covered with so much ignorance, but Buddha identified four:

1)      Ignorance misconceiving impermanent phenomena as permanent

2)      Ignorance misconceiving misery as happiness    

3)      Ignorance misconceiving impurity as pure    

4)      Ignorance misconceiving selflessness as selfhood

Through the proper understanding of these four lines, we can get to know the self-grasping ignorance as the major cause of our suffering. We need to get rid of it. To counteract these four ignorance, Buddha taught the Four Seals. (Emptiness in the third line is a little different from the ultimate reality [sic]). Composite things and impermanence we need to know properly. Composite has a connotation that anything composed or made of directional parts and temporal parts (mental). Directional means a matter or an object having a defined direction and shape. Temporal means something mental that could be measured in terms of time only. 24-hour mind has 24 segments of mind.

All impermanent phenomena should necessarily have temporal parts but not necessarily directional parts. The mind does not have directional parts. It is not made of matters. Those made of matters have both directional and temporal parts. A person is made of matter and mind, so it is also a composite phenomenon and composite phenomena are to be seen as an impermanent nature.

Physicists say that the whole universe is governed by atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons, etc. with constant change. Our mind also moves and changes constantly. Impermanence is of two kinds: Gross impermanence and subtle impermanence. Gross impermanence is a phenomenon whose continuum terminates or comes to an end, the year, death, school days, youth, etc. Subtle impermanence is one that cannot be seen or obvious, like the hour hand of the wall clock.

Note: This is a student’s personal note of the teachings given by Ven. Geshe Dorji Damdul of the Tibet House, New Delhi. Errors and omissions are bound to occur. Serious students are requested to refer to Geshe la’s teachings or join the Tibet House class and receive teaching directly from Geshe-la.