My Dhamma Book (also available on Paper): drive.google.com/file/d/1d8VYL5iOi76u1AEmyI7iGpgPP3T5FaNa/view?usp=sharing My Almanac (also available on Paper): drive.google.com/file/d/1VzAw8zHdhOsDDUzPEubTN64qhVmQhZ0m/view?usp=sharing True Dhamma Lecture: ua-cam.com/video/-uoZ3IgtEeQ/v-deo.html Dhamma Hub Discord: discord.gg/AcDwZ78ybn
hi, i was one of your first subs. kinda stopped watching the videos but im happy to see youre still posting after all this time, and yes i am watching this video :) thank you for the teachings
i personally find it helpful to pay attention to not just the various translations of the second noble truth, like you mentioned here, but also the first one. it helps me make sense of the fact that pleasure can feel like suffering, too. it is unstable. it is dissatisfying. it lacks the profound harmony and peace found in clarity and insight.
I would even go one step further, pleasure always _is_ suffering, at least if it is of the sensual kind, which it is for any worldling =) It is just that we overlook the large drawback in favour for the "little gratification" there is. In essense, going for a sensual pleasure makes the _pain of craving_ for that pleasure go away.
I just came across your channel, someone mentioned it on HH channel. I like your clear presentation and summaries! Regarding the simile of obesity, I get the point, but the thing is that the idea is to completely uproot the defilements, never able to arise again. An obese person could get obese again, they haven't uprooted their unskillful behavior. Thank you!
That is exactly what I said at the end (either in this video or the one on Upadana), I compared obesity with _virtue_ where the defilements can come back. At the end, I explained that the further _understanding_ that your behavior leads to obesity would be necessary to fully remove it (which would be akin the the understanding of dependent origination). Sometimes I only partially repeat a simile^^
When one experiences a pleasant feeling and delight in it. Does one suffer at the same moment or does one suffer later when the circumstances that induces that feeling changes?
The suffering always coexists together with craving. The feeling itself is not the problem and is not the source of suffering. You would suffer _in the moment_ when/if the feeling is "not enough" (you crave more)
@@TheDhammaHub do you mean when one delight in the feeling and crave for more, one suffers? Or does delighting and craving for more always co-exist? Can one takes delight but not crave for more and thus don't suffer?
@@yhseow delighting and craving are more or less the same thing. As soon as you want more or delight in a prospect of something, you suffer in the very same moment. We just have a habit of looking awax from it and instead focus on the "reward at the end" of out delight and fail to see the pain here and now.
Say it a person gets a promotion and is praised by his superior. He feels very happy about it. Is that delighting and suffering happening at that very moment? How should one practice on such occasion that will induce joy?
@@yhseow That very much depends on the presence of craving and clinging. In and of itself, the experience of a promotion might be agreeable/good. Yet, what would make it _suffering_ is co-arisen craving. Even an Arahant has good and bad experiences, he just does not suffer, as there is no longer any craving and with that missing, there cannot be any suffering. If you want to rpactice in such situations, you could contemplate them as impermanent. Normally we can only really rejoice in such experience because we ignore/look away from that fact
Wouldn't it be fair to say that one can have at least some *genuine* insight into what suffering is and how it comes about even if they still are quite incapable of dealing with the situation? An analogy being addictive behaviors: many people do realize their addiction to some extent, can't really quit (or can't quit once and for all), until they can - once they figure out the whole process that fuels the addiction and make the necessary effort to undo that process. One the one hand, the latter is when they truly *understand* the addiction; on the other hand, there was some understanding even before that, and while it might not have been the final, breakthrough-grade understanding, it was extremely important in that without realizing the fact of them being addicted in the first place, they would never have made any effort at all to change things.
I would say that a person might have an _intellectual_ understanding of drugs of any kind leading to bad things... but that is not what suffering really is. Suffering here and now is precisely due to _craving here and now_ - people tend to orient towards sense objects as the source of suffering. The look in all places but they never _rightly_ look "behind" so to speak. People _do_ very much suffer and that is something they understand, but they do _not_ understand what they suffer, what they suffer from, and how that can be dealt with. If they knew any of that, they would immediatly stop suffering
My experience has been that after many addictions , rhe last one was food . when I was 20 years old into full solitary retreat , my addictions vanished by only practicing and nothing else .. I did not need to worry about addictions they progressively were falling apart and I was feeling light and kind of free . Nevertheless , when I left the retreat, the addictions did not come back but the emotions became the next addiction to release. And that also happens thanks to practices for exemple of the 5 Dhyani Bouddhas .. It really works , practice produces results.
@@RajiMudra Practice indeed does produce results (as e.g. indicated in the hen & eggs simile)! And "Right Noble practice" produces the highest results. Until one has full confidence that it is 100% impossible for addictions to resurface, there is still work to do
I think that insight into the four noble truths is just one insight: freedom from suffering. Seeing that suffering and craving are one and the same thing, you abandon it (craving). To me, that moment of insight is steam entry if you really saw it with clarity. If you have really seen, how could you forget it? But, as he mentions, you will also see how cultivating the abandonment of craving leads to suffering no longer arising in your experience. Thus showing that the cure offered by the Buddha does in fact work.
The only way to answer that question in a satisfying manner is by undergoing the gradual training. The question you ask is precisely answered "in a satisfying manner" upon Stream Entry. Stream Entry is exactly the "point" where you find a final answer to that question. Yet, I can tell you what it is not. Suffering is (ultimately) _not_ due to circumstances being bad. It is _not_ due to not being calm enough. It is _not_ a lack of formal meditation. It is _not_ a lack of good feeling. it is precisely and only the presence of craving here and now that makes you suffer here and now. Yet, seeing and understanding that immediately has you stop the vast majority of that process. You notice that suffering is something you yourself are DOING and as such, you discontinue that doing _here and now_ - it is _not_ something with a delay or soemthing. If you would truly understand that for the time of a finger snap, suffering would be more or elss "behind you" by conventional means. But for most people, suffering is not over at all
it sounds like you are saying what it is though. You are saying suffering is craving. do you think the buddhist community is mystified on that point? @@TheDhammaHub
@@TheDhammaHub Can you elobrate what you said in terms of physical suffering. For example I know a child who is suffering due to blood cancer (Lymphoma) Surely that suffering is not due to craving. How is cessation from such physical suffering possible ? I would love to have buddhist insights in this scenario.
@@hatebreeder999 I would invite you to differentiate between "pain" and "suffering". The pain can indeed not be avoided but the _suffering_ that arises on account of that pain is "optional" in the sense that there is a gradual training that allows you to remove this part of the equation. "Pain" would be a physical phenomena that is inseperable from experience. However, _suffering_ is in your "attitude" of aversion towards e.g. that pain The part that is most uncomfortable when we get sick or hurt is the suffering. The pain in itself becomes more akin to "raw input data" when the suffering is gone. Sadly, children below a certain age are usually not able to undergo the necessary training...
I'm currently a Samanera in Thailand that teach the absorption jhanas. However, I'm practicing Ayya Khema's jhanas. Piti is very strong. Do you know of any monasteries in Asia or Europe that practice her style of jhanas? Thank you.
I am afraid I currently know of no monasteries. You could try and look at a few retreat centers like "Buddha Haus" or "Haus der Stille" in Germany though
I feel there is suffering in search of the Jhanas. It’s a spiritual craving. I got obsessed with Jhanas after my first experience. It was profound but I fell off the path by trying to chase it again. Wrong view. You just need the eightfold path and just let the jhanas unfold naturally.
I'm 74. I agree with Nietzsche on the matter of suffering. It's a way to betterment. " To perceive is to suffer "_ Aristotle " All is flux " Heraclitus. Craving is immaturity. Word salads aren't necessarily true. 🤔
i understand the first three but not the fourth. I love buddhism and listen to a lot of dhamma talks but to me there is no way to liberation. Like jiddu krishnamurti said : "truth is a pathless land". To me with the fourth noble truth, you're still given a list of what you should and shouldn't do in order to get liberated just like any other religion. that's just my point of view at the moment and it may evolve. And enlightenment isn't the end of suffering even the buddha who was a "buddha" obviously was still experiencing suffering so many contradictions in buddhism in the end. but i still enjoy wisdom teachings.
I think the problem might be a missing distinction between _pain_ and _suffering_ - the Buddha very much experienced pain but never suffering. Suffering in your "attitude" towards what you experience. "Pain" or "disagreeableness" is built into experience and cannot be removed. Buddhism is "special" in that regard that the list of dos and don't is _not_ something universal, but something deeply personal/individual. Many things that are bad for _you_ are not necessarily bad for me. Good and bad or wholesome/unwhoelsome are determined my the presence of _craving_ and craving is your attitude towards things^^ That said, seeing this distinction requires quite a bit of training and taming of the mind (as in, you basically have to cultivate the 4th Noble Truth to see this for yourself). yet, complete freedom from suffering _is_ possible.
@@TheDhammaHub also i don't understand why many buddhist teachers claim they are not enlightened while they are. If enlightenment is something impossible to attain then of course they aren't. But if it is possible why do they say they aren't. it's silly. And there are plenty of non buddhist people over the internet who say they got enlightenened and without feeling superior, it's just something that happened to them without asking for anything. eckhart tolle for example is one of them. it happened to him overnight suddenly, so i don't know...this whole idea of needing to do very specific things in order to get it, is non sense to me. ramana maharshi said also basically that it's god's grace sorry for my english it's not my native tongue
They are called "the four noble truths" because they are a concise summary of Buddha's ethical theory. So if people have a hard time understanding it there would be something wrong with his simplification. On the contrary, It should be four main ideas. 1. All life is suffering. 2. The cause of suffering is craving and ignorance about how everything is connected and we aren't just autonomous individuals. 3. it is possible to transcend suffering. 4. Following the right ethical path, the eightfold path of Buddha will help. So, what's so hard about understanding that? Buddha had a good reason for simplifying everything down to four truths to make it easier to understand! Don't complicate things!
When the Buddha talks about "understanding" the usually means "directly knowing/seeing/experiencing". To know the 4 Noble Truths is not an intellectual understanding of the concept but the culmination of their continuous implementation for a long time. The Buddhe was _very_ explicit about the fact that one who has seen the 4 Noble Truths in this way is basically free from suffering except for 7 tiny grains of sand. If a persons understanding of the 4 Noble Truths is "not like that", then it is not the understanding talked about in the Suttas^^
@@TheDhammaHubIn other words, it's harder than it looks. So the four noble truths are there to draw people in with their initial simplicity, like a hook, but once they bite, they may find it to be hard work to keep going?
@@earthjustice01 I would really call them the "first goal" of the practcie and not so much a "hook". They are indeed _simple to formulate_ but incredibly _hard_ to implement. Depending on the details of the formulation, they provide a very accurate description of what must be understood to abandon suffering. In a sense, you realize that "you yourself have been doing your own suffering all along" and hence understand a way to stop it. I guess what gets most people "hooked" is the realization of how confined they really are when things get bad and how they know no escape at all. When someone comes along that seems trustworthy and tells them there is indeed a way out, that would be motivating^^
you likely point out how nobody gots it nevertheless we do listen to you and maybe maybe maybe we are not linear but have moments .. because the goal itself ends up being obstacle in the path if craving to the precision becomes a craving among many others that make me busy in distraction from the cessation .. oulala Sam & Sara . Anyway : happy 2024 and Thank You .
It is not nobody, some people do indeed get it and strive rightly. Yet, msot of us have a number of wrong views we have to overcome before a breakthrough is possible
My Dhamma Book (also available on Paper): drive.google.com/file/d/1d8VYL5iOi76u1AEmyI7iGpgPP3T5FaNa/view?usp=sharing
My Almanac (also available on Paper): drive.google.com/file/d/1VzAw8zHdhOsDDUzPEubTN64qhVmQhZ0m/view?usp=sharing
True Dhamma Lecture: ua-cam.com/video/-uoZ3IgtEeQ/v-deo.html
Dhamma Hub Discord: discord.gg/AcDwZ78ybn
Reading your Dhamma book right now. Thank you.
Thank you for your teaching and wishing you great 2024.
Ven. Ajahn Chah said: Every time you suffer, ask yourself : "What am I craving ? "
hi, i was one of your first subs. kinda stopped watching the videos but im happy to see youre still posting after all this time, and yes i am watching this video :) thank you for the teachings
i personally find it helpful to pay attention to not just the various translations of the second noble truth, like you mentioned here, but also the first one. it helps me make sense of the fact that pleasure can feel like suffering, too. it is unstable. it is dissatisfying. it lacks the profound harmony and peace found in clarity and insight.
I would even go one step further, pleasure always _is_ suffering, at least if it is of the sensual kind, which it is for any worldling =) It is just that we overlook the large drawback in favour for the "little gratification" there is. In essense, going for a sensual pleasure makes the _pain of craving_ for that pleasure go away.
Very well presented as usual. Thank you.
I just came across your channel, someone mentioned it on HH channel. I like your clear presentation and summaries! Regarding the simile of obesity, I get the point, but the thing is that the idea is to completely uproot the defilements, never able to arise again. An obese person could get obese again, they haven't uprooted their unskillful behavior. Thank you!
That is exactly what I said at the end (either in this video or the one on Upadana), I compared obesity with _virtue_ where the defilements can come back. At the end, I explained that the further _understanding_ that your behavior leads to obesity would be necessary to fully remove it (which would be akin the the understanding of dependent origination). Sometimes I only partially repeat a simile^^
@@TheDhammaHub Right, thanks for the quick response! That seems right indeed. Next time I will listen better. ;)
@@Danny-no5dx It might very well be that I was not clear enough!
When one experiences a pleasant feeling and delight in it. Does one suffer at the same moment or does one suffer later when the circumstances that induces that feeling changes?
The suffering always coexists together with craving. The feeling itself is not the problem and is not the source of suffering. You would suffer _in the moment_ when/if the feeling is "not enough" (you crave more)
@@TheDhammaHub do you mean when one delight in the feeling and crave for more, one suffers? Or does delighting and craving for more always co-exist?
Can one takes delight but not crave for more and thus don't suffer?
@@yhseow delighting and craving are more or less the same thing. As soon as you want more or delight in a prospect of something, you suffer in the very same moment. We just have a habit of looking awax from it and instead focus on the "reward at the end" of out delight and fail to see the pain here and now.
Say it a person gets a promotion and is praised by his superior. He feels very happy about it. Is that delighting and suffering happening at that very moment? How should one practice on such occasion that will induce joy?
@@yhseow That very much depends on the presence of craving and clinging. In and of itself, the experience of a promotion might be agreeable/good. Yet, what would make it _suffering_ is co-arisen craving. Even an Arahant has good and bad experiences, he just does not suffer, as there is no longer any craving and with that missing, there cannot be any suffering.
If you want to rpactice in such situations, you could contemplate them as impermanent. Normally we can only really rejoice in such experience because we ignore/look away from that fact
Wouldn't it be fair to say that one can have at least some *genuine* insight into what suffering is and how it comes about even if they still are quite incapable of dealing with the situation? An analogy being addictive behaviors: many people do realize their addiction to some extent, can't really quit (or can't quit once and for all), until they can - once they figure out the whole process that fuels the addiction and make the necessary effort to undo that process. One the one hand, the latter is when they truly *understand* the addiction; on the other hand, there was some understanding even before that, and while it might not have been the final, breakthrough-grade understanding, it was extremely important in that without realizing the fact of them being addicted in the first place, they would never have made any effort at all to change things.
I would say that a person might have an _intellectual_ understanding of drugs of any kind leading to bad things... but that is not what suffering really is. Suffering here and now is precisely due to _craving here and now_ - people tend to orient towards sense objects as the source of suffering. The look in all places but they never _rightly_ look "behind" so to speak.
People _do_ very much suffer and that is something they understand, but they do _not_ understand what they suffer, what they suffer from, and how that can be dealt with. If they knew any of that, they would immediatly stop suffering
My experience has been that after many addictions , rhe last one was food . when I was 20 years old into full solitary retreat , my addictions vanished by only practicing and nothing else .. I did not need to worry about addictions they progressively were falling apart and I was feeling light and kind of free . Nevertheless , when I left the retreat, the addictions did not come back but the emotions became the next addiction to release. And that also happens thanks to practices for exemple of the 5 Dhyani Bouddhas .. It really works ,
practice produces results.
@@RajiMudra Practice indeed does produce results (as e.g. indicated in the hen & eggs simile)! And "Right Noble practice" produces the highest results. Until one has full confidence that it is 100% impossible for addictions to resurface, there is still work to do
Ok what is suffering and craving actually then? What is everyone wrong about, and why?
I think that insight into the four noble truths is just one insight: freedom from suffering. Seeing that suffering and craving are one and the same thing, you abandon it (craving). To me, that moment of insight is steam entry if you really saw it with clarity. If you have really seen, how could you forget it?
But, as he mentions, you will also see how cultivating the abandonment of craving leads to suffering no longer arising in your experience. Thus showing that the cure offered by the Buddha does in fact work.
The only way to answer that question in a satisfying manner is by undergoing the gradual training. The question you ask is precisely answered "in a satisfying manner" upon Stream Entry. Stream Entry is exactly the "point" where you find a final answer to that question.
Yet, I can tell you what it is not. Suffering is (ultimately) _not_ due to circumstances being bad. It is _not_ due to not being calm enough. It is _not_ a lack of formal meditation. It is _not_ a lack of good feeling. it is precisely and only the presence of craving here and now that makes you suffer here and now. Yet, seeing and understanding that immediately has you stop the vast majority of that process. You notice that suffering is something you yourself are DOING and as such, you discontinue that doing _here and now_ - it is _not_ something with a delay or soemthing. If you would truly understand that for the time of a finger snap, suffering would be more or elss "behind you" by conventional means. But for most people, suffering is not over at all
it sounds like you are saying what it is though. You are saying suffering is craving. do you think the buddhist community is mystified on that point? @@TheDhammaHub
@@TheDhammaHub Can you elobrate what you said in terms of physical suffering. For example I know a child who is suffering due to blood cancer (Lymphoma) Surely that suffering is not due to craving. How is cessation from such physical suffering possible ? I would love to have buddhist insights in this scenario.
@@hatebreeder999 I would invite you to differentiate between "pain" and "suffering". The pain can indeed not be avoided but the _suffering_ that arises on account of that pain is "optional" in the sense that there is a gradual training that allows you to remove this part of the equation. "Pain" would be a physical phenomena that is inseperable from experience. However, _suffering_ is in your "attitude" of aversion towards e.g. that pain
The part that is most uncomfortable when we get sick or hurt is the suffering. The pain in itself becomes more akin to "raw input data" when the suffering is gone.
Sadly, children below a certain age are usually not able to undergo the necessary training...
I'm currently a Samanera in Thailand that teach the absorption jhanas. However, I'm practicing Ayya Khema's jhanas. Piti is very strong. Do you know of any monasteries in Asia or Europe that practice her style of jhanas? Thank you.
I am afraid I currently know of no monasteries. You could try and look at a few retreat centers like "Buddha Haus" or "Haus der Stille" in Germany though
I feel there is suffering in search of the Jhanas. It’s a spiritual craving. I got obsessed with Jhanas after my first experience. It was profound but I fell off the path by trying to chase it again. Wrong view. You just need the eightfold path and just let the jhanas unfold naturally.
I'm 74. I agree with Nietzsche on the matter of suffering. It's a way to betterment.
" To perceive is to suffer "_ Aristotle
" All is flux " Heraclitus.
Craving is immaturity. Word salads aren't necessarily true. 🤔
i understand the first three but not the fourth. I love buddhism and listen to a lot of dhamma talks but to me there is no way to liberation. Like jiddu krishnamurti said : "truth is a pathless land".
To me with the fourth noble truth, you're still given a list of what you should and shouldn't do in order to get liberated just like any other religion. that's just my point of view at the moment and it may evolve.
And enlightenment isn't the end of suffering even the buddha who was a "buddha" obviously was still experiencing suffering so many contradictions in buddhism in the end. but i still enjoy wisdom teachings.
I think the problem might be a missing distinction between _pain_ and _suffering_ - the Buddha very much experienced pain but never suffering. Suffering in your "attitude" towards what you experience. "Pain" or "disagreeableness" is built into experience and cannot be removed.
Buddhism is "special" in that regard that the list of dos and don't is _not_ something universal, but something deeply personal/individual. Many things that are bad for _you_ are not necessarily bad for me. Good and bad or wholesome/unwhoelsome are determined my the presence of _craving_ and craving is your attitude towards things^^
That said, seeing this distinction requires quite a bit of training and taming of the mind (as in, you basically have to cultivate the 4th Noble Truth to see this for yourself). yet, complete freedom from suffering _is_ possible.
@@TheDhammaHub also i don't understand why many buddhist teachers claim they are not enlightened while they are. If enlightenment is something impossible to attain then of course they aren't. But if it is possible why do they say they aren't. it's silly. And there are plenty of non buddhist people over the internet who say they got enlightenened and without feeling superior, it's just something that happened to them without asking for anything. eckhart tolle for example is one of them. it happened to him overnight suddenly, so i don't know...this whole idea of needing to do very specific things in order to get it, is non sense to me. ramana maharshi said also basically that it's god's grace
sorry for my english it's not my native tongue
They are called "the four noble truths" because they are a concise summary of Buddha's ethical theory. So if people have a hard time understanding it there would be something wrong with his simplification. On the contrary, It should be four main ideas. 1. All life is suffering. 2. The cause of suffering is craving and ignorance about how everything is connected and we aren't just autonomous individuals. 3. it is possible to transcend suffering. 4. Following the right ethical path, the eightfold path of Buddha will help. So, what's so hard about understanding that? Buddha had a good reason for simplifying everything down to four truths to make it easier to understand! Don't complicate things!
When the Buddha talks about "understanding" the usually means "directly knowing/seeing/experiencing". To know the 4 Noble Truths is not an intellectual understanding of the concept but the culmination of their continuous implementation for a long time. The Buddhe was _very_ explicit about the fact that one who has seen the 4 Noble Truths in this way is basically free from suffering except for 7 tiny grains of sand. If a persons understanding of the 4 Noble Truths is "not like that", then it is not the understanding talked about in the Suttas^^
@@TheDhammaHubIn other words, it's harder than it looks. So the four noble truths are there to draw people in with their initial simplicity, like a hook, but once they bite, they may find it to be hard work to keep going?
@@earthjustice01 I would really call them the "first goal" of the practcie and not so much a "hook". They are indeed _simple to formulate_ but incredibly _hard_ to implement. Depending on the details of the formulation, they provide a very accurate description of what must be understood to abandon suffering. In a sense, you realize that "you yourself have been doing your own suffering all along" and hence understand a way to stop it.
I guess what gets most people "hooked" is the realization of how confined they really are when things get bad and how they know no escape at all. When someone comes along that seems trustworthy and tells them there is indeed a way out, that would be motivating^^
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.@@TheDhammaHub
you likely point out how nobody gots it nevertheless we do listen to you and maybe maybe maybe we are not linear but have moments .. because the goal itself ends up being obstacle in the path if craving to the precision becomes a craving among many others that make me busy in distraction from the cessation .. oulala Sam & Sara . Anyway : happy 2024 and Thank You .
It is not nobody, some people do indeed get it and strive rightly. Yet, msot of us have a number of wrong views we have to overcome before a breakthrough is possible
#1; you have to wipe four times to be sure that three times is enough.
Or was that Confucius?