Today I want to offer an alternative interpretation of the second noble truth – how this truth is taught in the ancient teachings of the Buddha. The more common modern version is that craving is the cause of suffering. The more common teaching in the ancient texts is that the second noble truth involves seeing the arising of suffering – seeing the appearance of it – without any explanation for why it is there.
The search for reasons and causes is bit challenging at times, and can lead us astray. That search takes us away from the simplicity of our experience in the moment. There is certainly a time and place to look for causes – for why things happen. It is a wise life that understands conditionality and causes. But it is also one that lends itself to thinking a lot, reflecting, and analyzing.
The satipaṭṭhāna practice moves us towards abiding more and more in direct experience. In direct experience, the idea of causality becomes less important. You can still see it sometimes, in the moment. You can see, "Oh – there, I was grasping at something in the moment, and I saw there was suffering in that grasping".
So you can see the causality there. But there is another way of seeing, and that is simply to see that suffering arises, and suffering ceases. It appears and disappears. The suttas emphasize the insight into the arising and passing of many, many things – not just suffering. Suffering is like an umbrella term, perhaps, for all the things we become aware of. We see the arising and passing of the aggregates, the arising and passing of the faculties, the arising and passing of perceptions, and the rising and passing of thoughts and feelings.
The suttas emphasize the arising and passing of things – their arising and ceasing. The simplicity of that experience is particularly valuable in the deep concentrated practice of satipaṭṭhāna. In ordinary states of consciousness – the world of cause and effect – thinking about things is a very common phenomenon. But as the mind gets quieter and quieter, more and more focused, and clearer and clearer, it is not inclined to look at experience through the lens of analyzing, finding reasons and causes for what is going to happen. Instead, the mind inclines towards just the simple experience in the moment of the river of change flowing by.
I want to say again what I have said before: that, coming as the last exercise of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, I think we can assume that this exercise on the Four Noble Truths represents a deep and mature level of practice. It is not easy to come into this level of seeing and insight as a beginner. We get a sense of this from the refrain for each exercise, which talks about this very thing. For each of the things we are looking at – the phenomena of the body, phenomena of feelings, and phenomena associated with the mind – to see them arise and pass. The aggregates, the hindrances, the fetters, the seven factors of awakening –with all these, at some point, what we are seeing is their arising and passing. This is what is emphasized in the refrain.
Sometimes you start seeing it so quickly that the text says, “Seeing arising, seeing ceasing”, and then it says, “Seeing arising and ceasing”. The arising and ceasing happen very fast. In deep, settled practice, the moment- to- moment experience of direct experience comes and goes. When suffering arises in that context, it is not overwhelming. It is not so difficult, because it does not persist. It comes and it goes. It might reappear quickly.
There might be disorientation, because we live in a world where we expect things to be constant. We want to hold on to certain things in order to be oriented by knowing ourselves and the world around us – to know we are safe by knowing that certain ideas are settled. So there might be a period of disorientation for some people as the mind gets quieter and quieter in meditation. Then, the usual ideas of self – the things we are holding onto or depending on – are no longer available, because they require some level of constancy in order to hold on to them. But when things come and go, there is a whole different way that we are asked to relate to experience.
To see the arising of suffering is to see its contingent nature – to see it is not permanent. It is not solid. We can see that it arose from a time and a place – a situation – where it did not exist before it arose. When we see it cease, we know that there will come a time when it will no longer be there. That seeing begins to loosen up the grip of the mind, or the resistance of the mind – the fear of the mind. We start appreciating that the emptiness and the freedom of it all – the lack of that constancy – is not something to be worried or upset about, or to cling to.
This deeper seeing of things arising and ceasing – their constant inconstancy – begins to loosen up the grip of some of our deepest attachments. We had to let go of a lot of attachments to get to this level of meditation. A lot of our preoccupations fall away as we get concentrated and settled. What is left are some of the deepest attachments – attachment to self, and even attachment to life itself. Those are all ways of interfering with the flow of change and becoming the flow of change.
As things begin to loosen up, get massaged, relaxed and let go of, then at some point, something in the mind gives way. Maybe it is a little bit like you are standing in a river, and the river is flowing. You are walking deeper and deeper into the river. It is not dangerous. There is a current, but you know how to swim. You can feel the river flowing against your body more and more, as you walk out into the river deeper and deeper and deeper. You begin to feel like you are very light and you are floating. It feels very comfortable. But it gets deeper and deeper, until you get to a place where it is deep enough that you are not touching the bottom. Suddenly, the gentle current picks you up and starts carrying you down the river. As we let go more and more into the flow of change, there comes a time when the bottom is not there, and we can start being carried in the current – carried in the stream. This is the meaning of the Buddhist idea of stream entry. The word for “stream” (sotā) means “current”. It means entering the current. This refers to the current of change that is always here. I like to think of it as the current of non-clinging, non-grasping, not holding on to anything, but beginning to flow in a dharma current. The dharma flow starts flowing through us, because the dharma current that we are in is the current of non- clinging and non -grasping. This begins to carry us on a dharmic path – in a dharmic life. There might be disorientation, because we live in a world where we expect things to be constant. We want to hold on to certain things in order to be oriented by knowing ourselves and the world around us – to know we are safe by knowing that certain ideas are settled. So there might be a period of disorientation for some people as the mind gets quieter and quieter in meditation. Then, the usual ideas of self – the things we are holding onto or depending on – are no longer available, because they require some level of constancy in order to hold on to them. But when things come and go, there is a whole different way that we are asked to relate to experience.
Sometimes you start seeing it so quickly, that the text says, “Seeing arising, seeing ceasing”, and then it says, “Seeing arising and ceasing”. The arising and ceasing happen very fast. In deep, settled practice, the moment- to- moment awareness of direct experience comes and goes. When suffering arises in that context, it is not overwhelming. It is not so difficult ,because it does not persist. It comes and it goes. It might reappear quickly. There might be disorientation, because we live in a world where we expect things to be constant. We want to hold on to certain things in order to be oriented by knowing ourselves and the world around us – to know we are safe by knowing that certain ideas are settled. So there might be a period of disorientation for some people as the mind gets quieter and quieter in meditation. Then, the usual ideas of self – the things we are holding onto or depending on – are no longer available, because they require some level of constancy in order to hold on to them. But when things come and go, there is a whole different way that we are asked to relate to experience. To see the arising of suffering is to see its contingent nature – to see it is not permanent. It is not solid. We can see that it arose from a time, a place, a situation where it did not exist before it arose. When we see it cease, we know that there will come a time when it will no longer be there. That seeing begins to loosen up the grip of the mind, or the resistance of the mind – the fear of the mind. We start appreciating that the emptiness and the freedom of it all –the lack of that constancy – is not something to be worried or upset about, or to cling to. This deeper seeing of things arising and ceasing –their constant inconstancy –begins to loosen up the grip of some of our deepest attachments. We had to let go of a lot of attachments to get to this level of meditation. A lot of our preoccupations fall away as we get concentrated and settled. What is left are some of the deepest attachments – attachment to self, and even attachment to life itself. Those are all ways of interfering with the flow of change and becoming the flow of change. As things begin to loosen up, get massaged, relaxed and let go of, then at some point, something in the mind gives way. Maybe it is a little bit like you are standing in a river ,and the river is flowing. You are walking deeper deeper in the river. It is not dangerous. There is a current, but you know how to swim. You can feel the river flowing against your body more and more, as you walk out into the river deeper and deeper and deeper. You begin to feel like you are very light and you are floating. It feels very comfortable. But it gets deeper and deeper, until you get to a place where it is deep enough that you are not touching the bottom. Suddenly, the gentle current picks you up and starts carrying you down the river. As we let go more and more into the flow of change, there comes a time when the bottom is not there, and we can start being carried in the current – carried in the stream. This is the meaning of the Buddhist idea of stream entry. The word for “stream” (sotā) means “current”. It means entering the current. This refers to the current of change that is always here. I like to think of it as the current of non-clinging, non-grasping, not holding on to anything, but beginning to flow in a dharma current. The dharma flow starts flowing through us, because the dharma current that we are in is the current of non- clinging and non -grasping. This begins to carry us on a dharmic path – in a dharmic life. And so, this, the third noble truth is a truth of this ceasing of suffering. And it means both the the seeing together the arising and ceasing the in constant change and coming and going. But it also represents at some point when the mind the bottom of the river is out of reach falls away. It there's a more dramatic ceasing that goes on. And and now it's a ceasing that changes things. So for example, In the analogy of going in the river, when you're no longer touching the bottom and no longer keeps you kind of stationary, then the current has a chance to carry you. And so it marks a very important change in going across the river. And so going into the river. And so the third noble truth involves not just seeing the arising of ceasing of things that constant coming and going, but it's when we really become the coming and going relax into it, that there is a a more complete, ceasing, that is more than just the particulars of the moment, but as seizing that feels just much more holistic, more inclusive. And, and this, you know, is, is changes kind of the whole flow, the whole current a whole understanding of what satipatthāna Practice is. And I'll talk more about that tomorrow. So, so the second noble truth has two meanings, and both of them are good. They're in. They have their value in different contexts, often much more ordinary states of mind. Seeing cause for suffering is very helpful. In deep meditative states of mind, looking for a cause it just keeps the mind busy. And there we want to deep meditative. We want to just kind of rest in the current, the arising and passing of direct experience. That's only possible. If we have some level of stability and concentration that we can, we can, we're not distracted, we don't wander off and thought, we're really here. And then we see the we're living in a rising and ceasing. And now the second noble truth is the rising, seeing the rising. And the third, Noble Truth is really appreciating the ceasing the passing. First initially kind of just as it comes and goes, the ceasing comes and goes, until finally the seizing becomes much more comprehensive. And then that opens the door understanding for the fourth Noble Truth, the Eightfold Path, and that will be the topic for tomorrow. So thank you very much