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Tibet House New Delhi
The 9th Session
The Four Seals of Buddha's Teachings
Setting proper motivation before starting the practice is important. May I become Buddha for the benefit of all my dear mother sentient beings!
Buddha indicated that all our miseries are due to ignorance and ignorance has many layers. But Buddha indicated particularly four levels of ignorance which are very closely related to us as four misconceptions. Misconceiving impermanent phenomena as permanent; misconceiving misery as happiness; misconceiving impure things as pure; and misconceiving selflessness as selfhood. To eradicate these four misconceptions, Buddha taught the Four Seals.
The first seal "All composite things are impermanent" counteracts the first misconception. The second seal, "All contaminated things are of suffering nature" counteracts the second misconception. The third seal "Everything is empty and of selfless nature" counteracts the third and fourth misconceptions. Within that two wisdoms are indicated, emptiness and selfless nature. These two will counteract ignorance in the third and fourth misconceptions. The fourth one "Transcending sorrow is Nirvana" is the resultant state after eradicating ignorance.
In the Pali text, you will find three seals, Anicha, dukkha, and anatta. Transcending sorrow is not explicitly indicated. The difference is in the Pali system, it is presented without the result, while in the Sanskrit system, it is presented with the result.
Impermanence appears in gross and subtle forms. Death is certain, but there is uncertainty about when it will occur. Meditation on this impermanence along the first seal is gross level. Meditation on impermanence at the second seal is a subtle level. We see the transitory nature of all things, moving so fast driven by ignorance due to contaminated karma and self-grasping ignorance. Contaminated karma and self-grasping ignorance are misery and suffering. Sufferings are of three kinds: the suffering of suffering, the suffering of change, and pervasive conditioned suffering.
All evident sufferings are suffering of suffering. All mundane happiness is suffering of change, mundane happiness of having a cheesecake. The suffering of suffering is gross suffering, and the suffering of change is suffering at a subtle level. Pervasive conditioned suffering is at the subtlest level.
In suffering of suffering, you experience and you know that you are suffering. In the suffering of change, you feel good and pleasant; you don’t identify that experience as suffering. In pervasive conditioned suffering, you don’t feel or experience it. You are under the sway of self-grasping ignorance and not aware of it. It is so subtle to identify. Meditation has to be of two kinds: one on what binds us to samsara and another one on what liberates us from samsara.
Pervasive conditioned suffering is due to four factors: 1) Involuntary birth in samsara; 2) Being under the control of contaminated karma and afflictions; 3) Our mind is under the control of self-grasping ignorance; and 4) Mundane neutral feeling.
(How is disability to be treated? Disability is a part of the suffering of suffering; it is not a pleasant feeling. We shall discuss this more later.)
What is a mundane neutral feeling? Let us consider things in dreams and non-dreams. In dreams, we have no control over pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings. A neutral feeling is the ground on which pleasant and unpleasant feeling arises. No control means a lack of freedom. Lack of freedom is suffering and ignorance is the cause of suffering. What you believe in a dream is ignorance. As anything influenced by ignorance is contaminated, this neutral feeling in a dream is a contaminated neutral feeling. It serves as a ground for the other two sufferings, suffering of suffering and suffering of change. So, it is the mastermind for the suffering of suffering and suffering of change.
We talk about non-virtuous affliction, the cause of the suffering of suffering in the desire realm, simply to distinguish it from the neutral affliction which is the cause of pervasive contaminated suffering in the form and formless realms.
The suffering of suffering is triggered by non-virtues, and within non-virtues, we have non-virtuous karma and affliction. Affliction can be non-virtuous or neutral but never virtuous. Non-virtuous affliction is the cause of suffering of suffering. Neutral afflictions give rise to the experience of pervasive conditioned suffering in the formless realm.
The suffering of suffering exists only in the desire realm. The suffering of change exists in the desire realm and the first three levels of the four-form realm. The suffering of change doesn’t exist in the formless realm and the fourth level of the form realm. Pervasive conditioned suffering exists in all three realms, therefore, it is pervasive.
Where samsara is there, afflictions are there. So, the afflictions exist in a formless realm also. But the afflictions in the formless realm are neutral. As they don’t have the suffering of change, non-virtuous afflictions are not there. As non-virtuous afflictions should have the suffering of suffering, the latter is not in the formless realm. So, the afflictions in the form and formless realms are neutral afflictions.
The suffering of suffering is due to non-virtuous karma and non-virtuous afflictions. Afflictions in the form and formless realms are neutral afflictions; they are never non-virtuous afflictions. Self-grasping ignorance is affliction but not non-virtuous affliction but neutral affliction. This is so in the desire realm too.
Afflictions can be non-virtuous and neutral. Non-virtuous affliction gives rise to the suffering of suffering in the desire realm. Neutral afflictions exist in the form and formless realm. Self-grasping ignorance of the desire realm is a neutral affliction. Pervasive conditioned suffering is more of a result and causal factor.
Full renunciation should mean the renunciation of all three sufferings: the suffering of suffering, the suffering of change, and pervasive conditioned suffering. The 7th century Acharya Dharmakriti in his text Parmanavertika chapter 2 said the when Buddha taught "This is the truth of suffering", he meant the pervasive conditioned suffering and not the other two. But we need to know the first two sufferings to understand the third properly.
Renunciation of suffering of suffering and suffering of change will not liberate us. It is the renunciation of the third pervasive conditioned suffering that will liberate us because it is the mastermind of all the sufferings. Thinking of Tantra without the knowledge of renunciation is deception. The Foundation of Tantra is Bodhicitta and wisdom of emptiness. Bodhicitta is the foundation of great compassion. The foundation of great compassion is renunciation.
When you try to escape from daily problems, family issues, etc., it is renunciation from the suffering of suffering. True renunciation is from the pervasive conditioned suffering. Without Bodhicitta, there is no Tantra. Step by step, we need to build a strong foundation by Renunciation, Bodhicitta, Wisdom of Emptiness, and then Tantra. This is the right approach.
(10) 5/12/2024 (Thu) / NDC5010/03/11/2024
The 10th Session
The third seal of the Buddha is: "Everything is of empty and selfless nature". Our mind keeps on moving and it never terminates or stops. It is impermanent and keeps on changing. External phenomena also change like the Big Bang and Big Crunch. Contaminated karma, afflictions, self-grasping ignorance, etc. will never stop unless we make an effort to stop it.
Buddha taught not to pray to him to relieve the suffering. He taught "Ye Dharma he tu prabhava, he tunte shan tathagatha hayavadath, te sham chayo nirodha, evan vadhi maha sharma naye suvha".
All phenomena arise from causes ཆོས་རྣམས་ཐམས་ཅད་རྒྱུ་ལས་བྱུང་།
The causes are taught by the Tathagata དེ་རྒྱུ་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པས་གསུངས།
The cessation of the causes, as well; རྒྱུ་དེའི་འགོག་པ་གང་ཡིན་པ།
Is taught by the Great Seers. དྲང་སྲོང་ཆེན་པོས་དེ་སྐད་གསུངས།
All phenomena occur because of the causes. We need to identify and track the cause to eliminate it. The cause is our ignorance, and counterforce to ignorance is wisdom. What is wisdom? Wisdom is a discerning mind whose apprehension tallys with reality. The reality is that everything is in the nature of emptiness. If we fully understand and discover this, our ignorance will be curtailed. With the removal of ignorance, all will stop. This will take us to the last and the fourth seal, "Transcending sorrow is nirvana".
Emptiness in the third line of the seal, emptiness, and reality, it is very important. [More shall be discussed on this at the end of the course.]
In Pali tradition, the fourth, resultant line is not there. What is emptiness nature? Let us think about the dream and non-dream entity, ignorance, and wisdom. When you wake up from a bad dream you feel relieved and safe. A tiger is a fearful animal. If it comes in a dream or in a non-dream state, it is frightening.
Seeing a dream tiger as the real tiger is ignorance and fear arises. Seeing a dream tiger as a dream tiger is wisdom. Realizing that it is a dream tiger and not a real tiger, your fear dissolves. As it is the ignorance that had us to see the dream tiger as a real tiger, we must stop and overcome this ignorance. For this, we need wisdom to see the reality. The dream tiger is not a real tiger. It comes from our mind but the real tiger comes objectively. What comes from the mind is subjective and what comes from an object is objective.
Therefore, a dream tiger is subjective and a real tiger is objective. The dream tiger is empty of objective existence. This connects us to the third seal the Buddha, "Everything is of empty and selfless nature".
What is emptiness? Emptiness means being empty of the objective existence of phenomena. A dream tiger, being subjective, is empty of objective existence or objective reality. When you see that there is no objective or real existence of a dream tiger, all fear is gone. This freedom from the fear is nirvana. This connects us to the fourth seal of Buddha, "Transcending sorrow is peace".
We need to change our cognitive thinking that nothing exists objectively. With this, our involuntary push and pull will stop. Freedom from the fear of suffering is to wake up from the sleep of ignorance. Just as our fear goes away on waking up from a bad dream, understanding reality will dissolve our fear. Involuntary push of anger and ignorance, and involuntary pull of attachment will stop and our mind will find ultimate rest, this is known as transcending sorrow is peace, nirvana.
Finally, everything is in the nature of emptiness, which we need to realize. Buddha has said, "You are the master of yourself. Who else is your master? Tame your mind. The one who tames his/her mind is wise and will be liberated."
Buddha showed us the path of how to tame our minds. He said we need to you walk on that path. Nobody will walk for us. We need to walk ourselves to see the wisdom of emptiness and reality. Study, reflection, and meditation to see nothing exist objectively and everything exists subjectively. Everything is in the nature of emptiness and selflessness. Everything is dependent origination, and dependent origination and emptiness are two sides of the same coin.
With this, we are done with the four seals. Next, we shall do 5 aggregates, 12 sources, and 18 elements.
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.
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