Kopan Course No. 26 (1993)

By Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Kopan Monastery, Nepal (Archive #971)

Lamrim teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the 26th Kopan Meditation Course, held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in Nov–Dec 1993. Highlights include teachings on tonglen (taking and giving) in Lecture 4, a meditation on emptiness in Lecture 8, and teachings on karma and the four suffering results of nonvirtuous actions in Lecture 11 and Lecture 14. Lightly edited by Gordon McDougall.

Go to the Index page to view an outline of topics and click on the links to go directly to the lectures. You can also download a PDF of the entire course.

3. Suffering and Its Cause

December 4, 1993

The suffering of samsara

Think this way. Other sentient beings’ minds are completely overwhelmed by ignorance, anger, attachment—the three poisonous minds—and so forth, by the many wrong concepts, the many hallucinations. Their minds are completely possessed or completely controlled by these delusions, by these disturbing thoughts. Due to ego, the self-cherishing thought, and karma, actions, motivated by ignorance, anger, attachment and so forth, they constantly experience the three types of suffering without a break. There is not a single second’s break from the suffering; they are constantly attacked by it, constantly having to experience the suffering of pain and the suffering of change—the temporary samsaric pleasures that appear as pleasure but which do not last.

Why [are samsaric pleasures still suffering]? Because although their nature is still suffering, it is too small to be unnoticeable as such. The suffering has not developed to the stage where it is noticeable, so it is labeled “pleasure” and it appears as pleasure. Then, by clinging to that samsaric pleasure, being attached to it, as if it were real, pure happiness, again the attachment clings to this samsaric pleasure, these feelings which appear as pleasure, and that attachment becomes a chain, tying us to samsara, to the suffering realm. It’s like chains that bind a big bundle of [branches from a] thorn bush to the naked back of a person. Or like having to carry a huge load of burning wood chained to the bare body.

With this hallucinated mind, we can’t discover that this “pleasure,” the suffering of change, is suffering. We have not discovered it by hearing the teachings of the Buddha, the Omniscient One, and through analysis and meditations on the Buddha’s scientific teachings. I don’t think it’s scientific in the Western sense, but it is still scientific. It’s not necessary that something is only scientific if it is in a Western book by Western scientists. I don’t think that is necessary. There is the Buddha’s science, the Omniscient One’s science, where he gives scientific explanations to so many things that have not yet been explained in Western culture, in Western scientific books. Even though Western science is developing every year, getting deeper and deeper, getting better and better, there are still so many things they haven’t yet discovered or explained, things that people are learning through their own experiences, through analysis, through meditation, by studying and learning more and more.

The three types of suffering

The realizations of lamrim are science because they come about through a lot of checking analysis, and by doing this correctly when all the causes and conditions come together, it leads to realizations. Most of the meditation we do is analytical meditation, checking meditation, that leads to the discovery, the conclusion, the realization, such as realizing the ultimate nature of the I, realizing the ultimate nature of the body, the mind, phenomena and so forth. Doing extensive analytical meditation leads us to realizing our own samsara, how we always have to experience the suffering of pain, the suffering of change and pervasive compounding suffering, the three types of suffering.

Pervasive compounding suffering refers to these aggregates, this consciousness, the contaminated seed of disturbing thoughts that gives rise to all the delusions. The delusions in turn motivate actions, karma, that leave imprints on the mental continuum, then the imprint manifests, materializes. The imprint is like a seed that becomes a sprout and then a plant. The imprint manifests and the future samsara, the suffering realm, is actualized. So, the aggregates of this present life’s samsara become the cause, the creator, of our future lives’ samsara. They create our future lives’ samsara. The aggregates have that function; that is their nature, compounding our future lives’ samsara, which is why it is called pervasive compounding suffering.

Anyway, I forgot why I was talking about this. [Student: Generating bodhicitta.] That’s a very good one to hear! [General laughter]

What I was trying to say was this: by listening and reflecting, by meditating on the instructions, the Dharma, we need to analyze whether this samsaric pleasure is pure happiness or not. Doing that, we can discover that it is not pure happiness, that it is hallucinated pleasure, and that the basic feeling on which we label “pleasure” is simply a suffering feeling compounded by the present action. Whatever we are doing—eating, sleeping, walking, working, whatever—compounds the feeling. At first the suffering is unnoticeable but when we continue the action this feeling becomes stronger, grosser, and when this feeling is developed its suffering nature becomes noticeable. After it becomes gross and is noticeable to the mind due to the continuation of the action, at that time it becomes the suffering of pain. From the three types of sufferings of samsara it becomes the suffering of pain.

It is the same feeling, which should be discomfort, but at first the discomfort is so small, so subtle that is unnoticeable. When the same continuation of feelings of discomfort become grosser, later we generate aversion for it. It is the same thing, but at the moment the discomfort is unnoticeable, and because we label it “pleasure” it appears as pleasure. Then, by clinging, by being attached to that feeling, it again becomes the cause of samsara.

The cause of samsara

When we analyze the evolution of samara using the twelve links, there are three delusions and two actions. The original delusion is ignorance, not knowing the ultimate nature of the I, the hallucinatory mind. The other two are craving and grasping. This causes the two actions, karma and becoming.

Karma is the action that is motivated by ignorance, the hallucinated mind that apprehends that the I exists from its own side. This is completely contradictory to the wisdom realizing the ultimate nature of the I, the wisdom that realizes that the I does not exist at all from its own side. This is the truth, and the way the hallucinated mind of ignorance thinks of the I is false. [The ignorance that is the first of the twelve links is] that particular ignorance.

The reason I’m trying to explain this is because the action motivated by that particular ignorance—apprehending the I in a way that is completely contradictory to reality—this action, which is called karma, compounds our future life’s samsara.

The second action, becoming, comes from the imprint, the seed, left on the continuation of the consciousness by the karma motivated by ignorance. Through craving and grasping, it becomes ready to bring the future result, samsara, just as water, soil, minerals, heat and so forth make a seed ready to become a sprout and a plant.

So, these three delusions (ignorance, craving and grasping) and two actions (karma and becoming) are regarded as the cause of samsara, of being attached again to samsaric pleasure, to these temporary pleasures. This becomes the cause of again creating the cause of samsara, and so it becomes a chain, tying us again to samsara. Then we experience the same problems, the same sufferings that we have experienced numberless times in the past, from the beginningless rebirths.

Experiencing samsaric pleasures is not the problem; the problem is clinging onto them. When we cling onto them, that becomes the problem. If we could experience samsaric pleasures with a free mind, with a renounced mind, there would be no danger. But the minute when we cling onto them, it becomes a problem.

In the same way, having a friend is not the problem, but clinging onto that friend without loving kindness and compassion, that’s the problem. When there’s no loving kindness or compassion, only attachment, when the motivation is only ego-driven, only the self-cherishing thought, that becomes a problem. Many other things are the same as this.

When we meditate on the lamrim, it is not saying that we cannot [experience happiness]. It is not saying that. We try to realize, to discover, how [clinging to samsaric pleasure] is in the nature of suffering. In reality, it is in the nature of suffering, so we try to realize it as it is. It is not something that although it is pure happiness, we are trying to see it as suffering—it’s not like that. It’s not as if it were something that was pure happiness, but we try to look at it pessimistically, as if everything was bad.

First of all, it is a hallucination. It is not like that in reality. Second, if we don’t realize the reality, then, with our hallucinated mind we get attached to it, thinking it is pure happiness. Then, this attachment becomes an obstacle to achieving greater happiness, everlasting happiness, liberation from attachment, ignorance, anger and so forth—from all the delusions and their causes, from the whole of suffering, including the cycle of death and rebirth, old age, sicknesses and all the many problems between death and rebirth that we have to experience one after another or at the same time, like a shower of rain or like a waterfall.

Being attached to small pleasures becomes an obstacle to achieving this everlasting freedom, this great freedom, the cessation of all suffering and its causes. Not only that, to achieve great liberation, we even need the cessation of the imprint left by the concept of the hallucinated mind, the concept of true existence, this ignorance. So attachment becomes an obstacle to great liberation, the peerless happiness of full enlightenment.

If this is our aim—the everlasting happiness of liberation, then the peerless happiness of full enlightenment—we must free ourselves of obstacles caused by attachment clinging to samsara, to the temporary samsaric pleasures that are only in the nature of suffering. If this is the goal we want to achieve, we need to practice this meditation and discover that this attachment is in the nature of suffering. By discovering this, our mind becomes liberated from the attachment that clings to samsara.

We need to understand there is a greater happiness

That becomes the solution, the path that can free our mind from obstacles. Then, without obstacles, we are able to achieve greater happiness and peace, the pure happiness of liberation from samsara and the peerless happiness, full enlightenment, for the sake of sentient beings. This is the purpose we have to meditate in this way.

However, if we are not looking for this achievement, if pure happiness, liberation and full enlightenment are not what we are concerned about, if what we are looking for is just temporary samsaric pleasures that are in the nature of suffering, then in that case it’s different.

Anyway, since we are all looking for happiness, it is just a question of not being aware that there is a greater happiness, a pure happiness we can achieve. It is just that we are not aware that there is a better life than this, there is a better achievement than this, there is better happiness than this. It’s just a question of whether we know there is a greater happiness, a better quality of life than this, that we can achieve.

Basically it’s like this. However, even if these things are explained, and a person is introduced to the details of how this greater happiness can be achieved—all the steps, all the process of the mental development to achieve this—that doesn’t mean that everyone can understand it or have faith in it.

It’s like the example of a fly caught in a container in the room. The fly wants to get out; it’s trying very hard to get out, so we try to help it escape, to catch it without endangering it, without harming it. But somehow, no matter how much we try, the fly runs away. It cannot understand what we are trying to do, that we are trying to help, and it gets more scared. It is a fly, not a person, so it cannot understand we are trying to help and it has the complete hallucination that it is being harmed, so it gets scared and runs away from our help as much as it can.

What makes the fly run away from our help? We’re trying to help the fly but it cannot understand at all. At same time, it has the completely wrong view that it is being harmed by us. It sees what is happening as harm, that there is some terrible harm happening to it, so it runs in the wrong direction, to where there is no escape. Or if it is in a container with a big hole at the top where it could go through, and the hole is opened all the time, somehow it never flies up there but always go round and round and round. The hole is right there, so close, and it would only take one attempt to escape but somehow it takes ages! What is it that makes it unable to see this hole that is right there, that makes it just goes round and round in order to get out? The wish is the same—to be out, to be free—but the view is completely wrong and so the action, the method of escaping, is completely wrong, keeping it there, inside the container.

In the same way, even if we were to explain in detail how to transform the mind into happiness, not everybody could understand it. Even if they heard all the methods, we can’t expect everyone to understand or have faith in them.

My conclusion is that even if somebody says they don’t care about these things—liberation from samsara, peerless happiness, enlightenment and so forth—generally, since everybody is looking for happiness, it is natural from the heart, we all want lasting happiness, greater happiness. That is natural. Since the aim of life is looking for happiness, trying to achieve happiness, it is natural to look for greater happiness and lasting happiness.

Even if they are not aware, even if due to ignorance they don’t know there is such a thing as liberation or enlightenment that they can achieve, in their everyday life they want the happiness that can last longest, that is the highest. If they did know about liberation and enlightenment, they would attempt to achieve this.

Only when we are enlightened can we be the perfect guide

In order to offer this service of bringing all living beings to the peerless happiness of full enlightenment, first we ourselves should be a perfectly qualified guide, having ceased all the mistakes of the mind, both the disturbing-thought obscurations and the subtle obscurations, the subtle imprints I explained before, the dualistic view, the hallucination that is projected by these subtle imprints. Not only should we have completely ceased all the mistakes of the mind, we should have completed all the realizations.

In this way, we will have perfect power and an omniscient mind that directly perceives all the past, present and future—all of existence—and is able to directly see every living being’s karma, the characteristics of their mind, their wishes, their level of intelligence, and so forth. We can perceive everything directly and know all the various methods that suit all the living beings who have different karma, different characteristics, different intelligence. Even to guide one sentient being from happiness to happiness, we need to reveal various methods as that sentient being’s mind develops. Even for that we need an omniscient mind, otherwise there is the danger of making mistakes guiding other sentient beings. We also need perfect power to be able to reveal the best methods, with the holy body, holy speech and holy mind manifesting in innumerable forms, in billions and billions of forms, in order to reveal the various methods, and having completed the mind training in compassion toward all living beings.

All those qualities of the holy body, holy speech and holy mind are extensively explained in the philosophical text, the Abhisamayalamkara, [Ornament of Clear Realizations by Maitreya] that is an extensive explanation on how to proceed through the five paths and the ten bhumis in order to achieve full enlightenment. In the eighth chapter, there’s an extensive commentary of the four kayas, the qualities of a fully enlightened being.

This is similar to a doctor who, in order to cure every patient from their disease, needs to have perfect qualifications. The doctor must have the understanding and be able to make the diagnosis without mistakes. They must be able to recognize all the diseases and their causes and conditions, and not only that, they must know how all those diseases can be treated. The doctor is then able to offer whatever treatment can cure the patient’s disease. And, if somebody wants to become a perfect doctor, they need to be trained by somebody who is already a perfect doctor. The teacher must first of all have all the qualifications.

The paths of the lower and middle capable beings

In order to perfectly do all these services for other sentient beings without any mistakes, first we ourselves need to achieve full enlightenment and that depends on actualizing the steps of the path to enlightenment. Achieving full enlightenment doesn’t happen without cause. We need to practice and actualize the graduated path of the three capable beings: the graduated path of the lower capable being, the middle capable being and the higher capable being.

The lower capable being is the practitioner whose attitude is free from the attachment clinging to this life, which is the source of all the problems of this life and the problems that will come after this life. As such a practitioner, we are free from the attachment clinging to the comfort and happiness of this life, power, reputation, the comfort of food and clothing. We seek the happiness of future lives, the body of the happy migratory being.

In order to achieve that, we not only have refuge, relying on the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha from the heart, we also protect our karma by realizing the shortcomings of the ten nonvirtuous actions and the benefits of the ten virtuous actions. With that understanding, we live in morality by avoiding the ten nonvirtuous actions, the fundamental actions that harm ourselves and others, and we live in morality by practicing the ten virtuous actions. Living purely in this morality causes us to achieve the body of a happy migratory being in the next life, as a deva or a human being.

On the basis of the attitude of the lower capable being, we develop the mind that wishes to leave samsara behind, to become free from the attachment clinging onto samsara and samsaric perfections, the temporary pleasures that I explained yesterday which are, by analyzing, only suffering. [This is the graduated path of the middle capable being.]

What we discover is only suffering. There is no pure happiness. With an attitude like this, we seek liberation from samsara for ourselves. In order to achieve that, we practice the path of the three higher trainings: the higher training of morality, the higher training of concentration and the higher training of wisdom. These trainings are called “higher” because we have refuge in our heart, relying on the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. With the mind that has refuge, practicing morality becomes higher, concentration—calm abiding, shamatha—becomes higher and great insight, wisdom, becomes higher.

I would like to clarify this. With the attitude of the middle capable being, our mind is free from the attachment clinging to samsara. It is the mind that has renounced samsara, that has aversion to samsara, seeing the whole of samsara like being in a nest of poisonous snakes or like being in the center of a raging fire. Think of how dangerous it would be to be caught in the nest of a poisonous snake or the unbearable suffering of being caught in the very center of a raging fire. That is how it is. There is not one minute or even one second of rest or happiness. Being in samsara is exactly the same.

We are not aware of this, but this is how it is in reality. We don’t feel this way now because of the great pile of hallucinations we live with. Because of not having done continual meditation on how samsara is in the nature of suffering, we are unable to believe that what appears to us is this great pile of hallucinations. We believe all these false views are truth.

The suffering of samsara appears as pleasure. These aggregates, the association of this body and mind, that are causative phenomena, as well as the sense enjoyments, the samsaric perfections, surrounding people, material objects and so forth—everything that is by nature impermanent appears to us as permanent and we believe that they are true. While the I, the aggregates and all samsaric perfections are completely empty of existing from their own side, there is the hallucination, the appearance of inherent existence, and we believe this is true. And we see this body that is the container of so many dirty things as clean. Whatever comes out of this body is only dirty. If it goes onto the floor, we have to immediately wash the floor. It is something we are unable to touch. However, while the body has this dirty, impure nature, we have the hallucination that it is clean.

Like this, there are so many hallucinations. We live our life with all these hallucinations, believing that they are all true. On one hand, we believe all those false appearances are true, while on the other hand, we almost feel that which is true to be nonexistent. It as if the truth for our mind does not exist. As the Guru Puja says, we look at samsara as a beautiful park. Holding onto all these appearances that are hallucinations as the truth, as reality, we are blocked from seeing the reality, how the nature of samsara is suffering.

Because of that, delusions arise. Attachment clinging to samsaric perfections arises. Because it is a wrong view, that attachment not only cannot free us from the suffering of samsara, it always causes us to continuously get caught in samsara.

So, the attitude of a middle capable being is to renounce the whole of samsara, which means renouncing all samsaric perfections. Our aggregates in the desire realm depend on having desire for sense pleasure through having met external sense objects: form, sound, smell, taste and tangible objects. The mind of a middle capable being has not only renounced this samsara of the desire realm by realizing how it is totally in the nature of suffering, but has also completely renounced all four categories of the form realm, with the stabilized concentration that is developed through the six comprehensions.

The form realm beings see the desire realm sense pleasures as very gross and only suffering by nature. They see that life in the desire realm is short and has many diseases and many problems, whereas life in the form realm is much longer, with more peace. By looking at its many qualities, by training the mind in this way—seeing the form realm as having many qualities and the desire realm as only having shortcomings—they renounce the desire realm’s sense pleasures and seek peace only through meditation.

However, [they then come to see that] even the form realm is only in the nature of suffering, [so they seek] the formless realm, where there is no physical form, only consciousness. Beings seeking to become formless realm beings renounce even the form realm’s peace, even the pleasure developed through meditation, looking at it as a shortcoming. By looking at the quality of the formless realm with its four states—limitless sky, limitless consciousness, nothingness and the tip of the samsara—they aspire to achieve the formless realm through meditation.

After they have achieved the first level, limitless sky, they see that the second level, limitless consciousness, is better; it has more peace and better quality than limitless sky. In that way, their mind becomes detached from the first state and they achieve the state of limitless consciousness.

Then again, they get bored with that, seeing its shortcomings, and they look at the qualities of the next level, nothingness. By reflecting in this way, they achieve nothingness. Then again, when they compare nothingness to the tip of samsara, they see the shortcomings of nothingness and the qualities of the tip of samsara. By reflecting in this way, they achieve the tip of the samsara, the fourth level of the formless realm.

There is no higher level within samsara than the tip of the samsara. Therefore, there is nothing to compare it with, to realize how the tip of samsara is still in the nature of suffering. There is no higher level within samsara to aspire to, looking at its qualities and causing the mind to become detached from the tip of the samsara by realizing how that is still suffering.

These beings have detached minds; they have an attitude that has renounced any attachment to the desire realm’s sense pleasures and even the pleasure, the peace, derived from the meditation in the form realm. They have even renounced the previous three categories of the formless realm by looking at their shortcomings. There is renunciation. Their mind is detached from the whole of the desire realm, the form realm and the three lower categories of the formless realm, but there is no higher state in samsara to compare to the tip of the samsara, so while there is renunciation of all the rest, there is no way to generate renunciation of the tip of samsara.

During this time, there is no visible delusion arising; there is no visible, strong attachment or anger and so forth. That makes them believe they have achieved liberation. But this is only for a period of time, it is not forever. They will not be able to stop visible delusions arising forever.

On the other hand, whether through the five paths of the Lesser Vehicle or the Mahayana, we can attain the renunciation of the whole of samsara, the mind that is detached from samsara’s desire realm, form realm and formless realm, including the tip of the samsara, by realizing how the whole of samsara is only in the nature of suffering. Only when we have this renunciation to the whole of samsara have we entered the first of the five paths, the path of merit, [and then progress through] the path of preparation, the right-seeing path, the path of meditation and the path of no more learning, which is nirvana [when the five paths are part of an individual practitioner’s practice.]

We not only need to have renunciation of samsara, we also have to realize emptiness, which we do on the third path, the right-seeing path. We achieve the concentration that is the unification of shamatha and great insight, emptiness. We are able to have the experience of rapturous ecstasy through this special concentration, the unification of shamatha and great insight, by doing analytical meditation on emptiness.

Before actualizing the right-seeing path, we remove the hundred and twelve disturbing-thought obscurations. Then, by achieving the path of meditation, we completely remove even the seed of the disturbing thoughts, which gives rise to the delusions. Only then do we achieve the sorrowless state, the path of no more learning. Only then do we achieve the nirvana of the sorrowless state, the cessation of the entire suffering and its causes. Because the seed of the disturbing thoughts is completely removed, it becomes impossible for delusions to arise again; it becomes impossible to experience suffering again.

The being who has achieved the tip of samsara cannot realize how the tip of samsara is in the nature of suffering, so there is no renunciation of the whole of samsara. Because of that, there is no way to enter the path to liberation. However, because there is no visible delusion arising, they believe that they have achieved liberation from samsara. Then, when the karma to be in that state finishes, when they see they have to reincarnate again in the lower realms, heresy arises. Seeing what they thought of as liberation was flawed, they then believe that there is no such thing as liberation. This is a wrong concept.

The path of the higher capable being

The attitude of the middle capable being is renouncing the whole of samsara: the desire realm, the form realm and the formless realm, by realizing that all of samsara is in the nature of suffering, like being in the center of a fire. With this attitude, as a middle capable being we seek liberation for ourselves alone. In order to achieve this, we practice the three higher trainings.

Now, the higher capable being completely abandons the thought of working for the self. Instead, our attitude is seeking enlightenment in order to benefit all other living beings. In order to achieve that, we practice the Mahayana path with the six paramitas and so forth.

Based on the attitude of the middle capable being, the mind which is detached from the whole of samsara, on top of that, there is bodhicitta, completely renouncing the thought of working for the self and only developing the thought of working for other sentient beings. Having bodhicitta, we practice the three higher trainings and the six paramitas and achieve the ten bhumis.

On the top of that, there are the various practices within tantra. For example, in highest tantra, there are two stages, the generation stage and the completion stage.

There is one thing I didn’t mention. If we haven’t realized emptiness, even before entering the Lesser Vehicle path to achieve liberation, the first path, the path of merit, has three levels: the small, middle and great path of merit. We need to realize emptiness during the second path, the path of accumulation, before entering the right-seeing path.

I think we’d better have lunch.

Next Chapter:

4. Tonglen Practice »