Details

The Four Seals of the Dharma 1a

Teachers:

Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche

Collection:

Foundations of Buddhism

Location:

Gomde Germany-Austria

Translator:

Catherine Dalton

Length:

Full Length Session

Features:

Subtitles ,
Transcripts

Excerpt

This session introduces the Four Seals of Dharma, emphasizing the impermanence of conditioned things and the suffering of defiled phenomena. It also explores the crucial role of qualified teachers, the preciousness of human life, and the transformative power of compassion to overcome nihilism and global suffering.

Description

The Four Seals of Dharma emphasize the teachings of past, present, and future Buddhas, highlighting the nature of Dharma as knowledge of outer phenomena, inner mind, and the path to liberation. Essential to this path is recognizing the preciousness of human life, the necessity of a qualified teacher-student relationship, and the role of analysis and logical investigation in understanding the Four Seals. The first two seals affirm that all conditioned things are impermanent and that all defiled phenomena are suffering, insights that were confirmed through dialogue with scientists. The session concludes with an exploration of nihilism, the degeneracy of the Kali Yuga, and the importance of compassion, unbiased love, and the Bodhisattva path in averting future global suffering.

Related Course Info

The Four Seals of Dharma
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche guides us through the essential points of the Four Seals of Dharma:
- All Conditioned Things are Impermanent.
- All Defiled Things are Suffering
- All Phenomena Are Empty and Devoid of Self
- Nirvana is Peace

Video

Audio

01:05:29

Autoscroll:

The Budhas of the past, The Buddha of the present, The Buddha of the future, what did they teach? They teach the Dharma, 'Chod' in Tibetan, Dharma in Sanskrit. And what does that mean? Actually, there are 10 different meanings of this word Dharma. But to make it very simple and easy to understand, we can say that Dharma includes a presentation of outer perceived objects, a presentation in great detail, as well as a presentation of the inner perceiving mind, including the main primary mind and subsidiary mental states, as well as a presentation of the path that leads to liberation and omniscience and how to traverse that path. All of this is taught extremely clearly in the Dharma. So we can say that the Dharma is actually what we can come to know, what we ought to know. And it includes teachings and presentation on all of the phenomena of samsara, nirvana and the path. If we don't know the Dharma, then we don't know what we ought to know, what we can come to know. And it is for this reason that we study the Dharma, because otherwise we remain confused about what there is to know. That is why we learn the Dharma, but when we learn the Dharma, we also put it into practice, we must. The function of Dharma learning is to practice, that's why we learn the Dharma, so that we can actually apply it in practice. And so when we do that, actually anyone who puts the Dharma into practice can, through their practice, achieve liberation and omniscience. And the reason for this is because all sentient beings have the same basic nature. It's called Buddha nature, the element of Buddha nature.
The Buddha with his omniscient wisdom saw that there are billions of world systems, from among them one is ours, it's called Jambudvipa. And here in this world there are many, many kinds of beings who have minds. Some have two legs, some have four legs, some have many legs, some live in the forest, some live in water, some have form and some don't have a form. Among all of these countless beings living in our world, we are human beings. And in the Buddhist teachings it is taught that to have not just an ordinary human body, but a precious human body, means having the 18 freedoms and advantages that we call that which constitutes a precious human birth or a precious human life. This is the best human form to have for Dharma practice. And we can establish that through direct experience, we can see that directly in our experience, we can examine that. We don't have to get into a lot of detail, but you can read the texts that get into the details that talk about how to investigate and examine whether or not we have a precious human birth. But we do, all of us here, we do have this. Not only do we have the cause of awakening which is Buddha nature, but we also have the support which is a human body endowed with the 18 freedoms and advantages. And we also have the condition which is having met a spiritual teacher. This is something that's extremely important to meet a spiritual teacher and in particular a qualified spiritual teacher. When we meet a teacher it's important from the student side for us to check. Is this person a qualified teacher or not? That's a question. That is the job actually of a disciple to investigate, when meeting the teacher, whether that teacher is qualified. And in this way the student must examine the teacher, but the teacher must also examine the student, in both directions. The qualities of an authentic or genuine teacher are, there are certain qualities that constitute a genuine teacher, or an authentic teacher in the general vehicle of Buddhism. There are other qualities that constitute a genuine teacher according to the Mahayana and in the Vajrayana as well. We can check to examine does the teacher have the qualities that constitute an authentic Vajrayana teacher. And so from the side of the teacher also, it's important to examine whether the student has the correct qualities. Does the student have, what kind of Buddhism or what type of teaching is the student even interested in in the first place? And what would be the most suitable for that particular student? Would it help him or her to teach the general vehicle of the Buddha Dharma? Or would it be more appropriate for that particular student to learn the Mahayana? Or might that student be someone who is an appropriate recipient for the ripening empowerments, the liberating instructions, teaching the tantras, bestowing empowerment, or giving the pith instructions too? Might the student be someone who is a correct, or appropriate recipient of the Vajrayana teachings? So this is the job of the teacher and the student to investigate, to check, examine one another. And in this way then, we can say that the relationship between student and teacher is something that's very, very important. And examining from both sides is very important. In the world, in our lives, having a spiritual teacher is very important, but there are very few. It is very rare to find a genuine, authentic, qualified spiritual teacher in this world. It is likewise rare for there to be a student, who is properly qualified. And for that reason, there's not so many who attain accomplishment. Having a qualified teacher is so important. A qualified student is so important. The relationship between teacher and student is an essential one if we are interested in attaining liberation and omniscience.
From the side of the disciple, from the disciple's perspective, it is important for the student first, to be skilled in examining the teacher. Next, the student needs to be skilled in following the teacher, relying upon them. And then finally, the student must be skilled in receiving the qualities of abandonment and realization, that are present within the teacher's mindstream, receiving those qualities into oneself. The student must be skilled in that. It's important for a student to have those skills. From the teacher's side, first the teacher must examine the student. And then next, the teacher needs to determine how can I teach that person such that what I teach fits with their perspective in order to liberate their mindstream. That's the teacher's responsibility. And if the teacher does not teach in such a way that the student's mindstream is liberated, then the teacher has not fulfilled their responsibility. That is the teacher's responsibility. And if the student does not follow the teacher in such a way, that the student gives rise to the qualities of realization that are present in the teacher's mind, then the student has not followed the teacher properly. That's the responsibility of the student. This is something that's extremely important, actually. Because if that doesn't happen, then the teacher doesn't really help the student. And if that doesn't happen from the student's side, then the student didn't really follow the teacher properly. This relationship is really important, and important things are worth repeating. In Tibet, for example, there are many different topics of knowledge that can be studied, like grammar and astrology and medicine and so on. And if someone is very learned in those topics, then if you say, is that person learned, then the answer will be yes. Very learned in medicine, astrology, or whatever it may be. When it comes to the Dharma, you can also say, is that person learned? And the answer may be yes. But then the question comes. Is their mind tamed? Are they tamed? And if the answer is yes, then we know, oh, that's a real practitioner. Then they're a real practitioner, actually. Then that person must have given rise to realization through their practice. But without that, actually, just having learning in the Dharma, even if someone is very learned in sutra and tantra, and can explain it very clearly, and maybe debate very properly and perfectly, and even compose texts, just that does not mean that they are tamed. They have to be tamed in order to be a truly qualified teacher. Just learning does not qualify someone as a teacher in the context of Dharma. And so it's very important to investigate and examine the qualities of a teacher. The student has to do that. The teacher must examine the qualities of the student. And it is because a qualified teacher can give instruction that leads to freedom, to liberation. That is why we respect the teacher so much. That's the basis of the genuine regard, high regard, within which we hold a Dharma teacher. That's why we regard them in that way. We say that the unsurpassed teacher is the Buddha. There are lots of teachers in this world. And the followers of those teachers, if they put into practice in the various religious traditions, what those teachers have taught in different religions, and when people put those teachings into practice, then they are benefited by those teachings. That's why it's important for us to respect religion. We should respect religions because religions help people. They help people, benefit people. But here in this particular context, we are talking about the Buddhist teachings. And it is said actually that the unsurpassed teacher is the Buddha. And the Buddha actually has incredible qualities. The quality of wisdom, of love, his awakened activity, as well as his capacity for protection, to protect. And we can investigate and examine and see that the Buddha actually has all of these excellent qualities. There is a tradition of examining, investigating, examining the teacher to determine the qualities that are present. Those who follow the Buddha are the Sangha. And in particular, if we think about our spiritual teachers, who are also followers of the Buddha, then what kind of qualities do they have? What kind of qualities does a spiritual teacher have? If we just think about it for a moment, if we spend time with a virtuous friend, then what happens is that we ourselves tend towards virtue. If we, on the other hand, spend time around someone who engages in evil deeds, non-virtuous actions, then there is definitely the possibility that we too might get caught up in engaging in non-virtue. We might become like them. So when we spend time around a good person, that makes us a good person. It makes us a better person. And when we spend time around someone, who is not a good person, we have to be careful. We might become like that. It matters actually who we spend our time around. And so if we spend time around a teacher who is full of compassion, who is full of altruism, whose mind is full of love and care, then when we rely upon such a person as a teacher, then we too develop those very same qualities of love and compassion and altruism and care. And so it is very important in this way, right? The teacher, who the teacher is, is important. To spend time around a virtuous companion is important. What did the Buddha teach? If the unsurpassed teacher is the Buddha, what did he teach? As the great master Nagarjuna said, the Buddha has taught the Dharma in terms of the two truths, the relative truth of convention and the ultimate truth, the truth of the ultimate nature. So there are these two truths and our problem, our confusion, is that we look at the way things appear and we think that that's how they actually are. That is confusion, that is delusion. To look at the apparent mode of things, the way things appear to us, and to somehow have the idea, this is how these things really are. That's our delusion, that's our confusion. And we spend our time so busy physically, verbally and mentally, so busy chasing after all sorts of things based on this kind of confusion, based on this delusion of perceiving the way things look, the way things appear, and having the idea, the confused misperception that that's how they actually are. In short, if we were to say, what is the Buddhist teaching in short? Well, the Dharma. And the Dharma is the unsurpassed protection. The unsurpassed protection, the ultimate protection comes from the Dharma. What does it protect us against? The Dharma protects us from karma, from the negative emotions and from delusion. It protects us from these things. And it is through coming to understand the way things actually are, right? We said that the Dharma teaches us the way things are. And if we can come to understand and learn the way things are, and then put those teachings, those instructions into practice, then we can clear away our delusion. We can remove our confusion. We can clear away the darkness of dualistic ignorance. And we can allow for the illuminating wisdom or wakefulness to unfold. So, if we want to say, what is the Buddhist teaching? What is the Dharma? We can say that it is all condensed into four statements, four summaries: The Four Seals of the Pure View. And so today and over the coming days, I will share the instructions and teachings on these four seals with you.
First in Kathmandu and then later in Boston, I had some conversation with a group of scientists. And we needed a basis for that conversation. We needed a foundation for the conversation about Buddhism. So then I thought, well, we need something that we can really come to, we can use in order that they can come to understand the Buddha Dharma very well, but in a very short time. And so they could have an understanding of Buddhism, first just roughly, gradually in more detail, and finally have a really deep, good, detailed understanding of the Buddha Dharma. So I thought, what should we talk about? What should we use as the basis for this discussion? And then these four summaries, four seals of the Dharma came to mind. And so I thought, how should I share that with them? And how can I express that to them? First through the words of the Buddha himself. What did the Buddha himself say? We speak about what we call the authentic words of the Buddha, the valid words of the Buddha. And what did the Buddha say with regard to this? He said, all conditioned things are impermanent. So then we have to check, we have to examine that a little bit, right? Can I find a conditioned thing that is not impermanent? Is there such a thing? Is it possible for there to be such a thing? We have to check and check and check, examine. That's our responsibility here. And when we do that, when we really examine this, we find that, in fact, it is the case that all conditioned things have the nature of being impermanent. All conditioned things are like this. And all of this, of course, know this on a very coarse level. We're aware of this. But we have to investigate in a careful and detailed way. Really examine. And in order to do that, in order to understand that in a very detailed way, we have to really do some investigation, some real examining. Not just leave it at the statement that the Buddha himself made, but rather use our own logic and reasoning to analyze. We should do that and it's reasonable, actually, for us to do that.
We can rely upon the authentic words of the Buddha and then apply also the authentic reasoning, logic or reasoning, investigation or examination. And in general, we can say that we can learn and reflect because human beings actually have a particular kind of intelligence that allows us to examine, to really learn and contemplate and use analysis. We have this kind of naturally occurring intellect. And actually there's two kinds of intelligence. One is just a natural intelligence and then another is learned. We can learn things and learn them, know them through learning. But human beings in general have kind of a natural capacity to know. We have a natural kind of intelligence. We can talk about things and understand each other and have some discussion and conversation. We have the capacity to do that. And so when we say, when I said to this group of scientists, ok, all conditioned things, if you consider as the subject, all conditioned things, they are impermanent because they don't have the opportunity to remain unchanging even for an instant. They don't have a chance to remain unchanging even for an instant. And when I said this to them, they thought about it and said, yes, we agree 100%, actually. We absolutely agree that that's the case. In particular this point about conditioned things don't have the chance, they do not remain the same even for an instant. This is something that they were able to understand, that made sense to them actually, this group of scientists. And we can actually get into even more detail. We can take it even further than that. But this point at least, just leaving it here for now, this point they said, yes, we really get it. Conditioned things don't remain the same even for a single instant. And that's something that's very important, right? Within the Buddhist teachings, these four summaries of the Dharma are very, very important. And this is the first one. All conditioned phenomena are impermanent. And so among these four, already in discussion with this group of scientists, we were able to agree fully on the first point among the four.
So what about you? Have you thought about this? Have you contemplated the fact that all conditioned things are impermanent? Have you contemplated that? Have you thought about the fact, have you thought about all conditioned things being impermanent and have you thought they don't remain the same even for a single instant? Has that thought come to you, that these things actually don't remain the same even for a single instant? And if it hasn't, if you haven't had that experience, when you hear it right now, do you have the feeling that, yeah, that's true. Conditioned things are not permanent. They don't remain the same even for an instant. Do you feel like that? Any doubt?
That's a coarse level and there's really no doubt about that, right? When we get in more detail into the analysis, it becomes a little bit more difficult.
So then the second point that the Buddha made, as he said that all defiled things are suffering. And if we check, if we examine this point, this is how I do it, right? My way of investigating, examining. It's all defiled phenomena are suffering because they have the nature of the three types of suffering. That's their nature. And so I shared this also with the scientists. They said, yes, we agree a hundred percent. We totally agree on this point too. What about you guys? What about you, right? I think most of you believe in science. If from one side, you follow the scientists, right? On one side we actually are. We're all followers of scientists. They make stuff and we enjoy it, right? In the world, the majority, more than religion, believe in science. Science is a new religion. Science is shake(ing) religion, believe or faith, shake. Not only humans believe shake, the whole world is shake(ing). The whole world is good sight, bad sight. Good sight, unusual. Things are great. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty floors of buildings exist. Now soon taxi will fly in the air. Five star hotel airplane will fly. Why we need this all? So, so greedy. Extremely greedy. Everything taken out. Future empty. Saying we love our children. We love our future generation. Destroying future. So, now...
All defiled phenomena are suffering. They have the nature of the three kinds of suffering. The three kinds of suffering are the all-pervasive suffering of being conditioned, the suffering of change, and the suffering of suffering. You can learn about that in detail. It's in Buddhist texts. There are so many of them that are translated and very clearly present the details of these types of suffering. It's not hard to understand, actually. It's explained in great detail. It's pointed out very clearly in the Buddhist teachings, these points. In fact, the Buddha Dharma is a pointing out, an introduction. It points something out to us. What does it point out? It points out the truth. It indicates the truth. That's what Buddhism does.
The most important point, though, among these four is the third one. And that is, what the Buddha said, is that all phenomena are empty and devoid of self. So, if we apply analysis, logic to that point, all phenomena are empty and lack of self. They are empty because they are empty of a creator. They lack a creator. And there is no singular, lasting, and independent self. So when we shared this, when I shared this with a group of scientists, they said, yes, all phenomena are empty and interdependently originated. Yes. We agree on that point, actually, on the emptiness and interdependent origination, dependent origination of all phenomena. Yes, we accept that. When it comes to the question of the self, and the question of ego clinging, and the question of the wisdom that realizes the absence of a self, at this point we're still having a conversation about that. We haven't resolved it. We're still in conversation. Conversation is going very closely. And I am quite, quite admiring. They are very open-minded and very smart. And they really want to develop whatever is harmless, harmless. They worry. So, there's one word. We know this many, many years before. Of course, we've never said this word. They say, Is, is.... (are we) leading to nihilism? Isn't it? So what do you guys think?
Are we leading to nihilism? Isn't it? Isn't that what's happening? Are we leading to nihilism?
So, what I keep saying these days, we really need to respect religion. Any religion.
Any religion tradition. In that way with any religion, says, teaching all, saying, don't hurt, be patient, help to others. Is wonderful words. So, Now,
Maybe, I am quite right.
If we just look around at the world around us, and really check the situation that we find ourselves in in the world, this time is called the Kali Yuga. Kali Yuga. Kali here has the sense of time and also black, right? The Kali Yuga, the dark times, the bad negative times. We call this age the degenerate age. And we can say that what we see in this degenerate age are degenerate or vile views. And what is the vile view that we find in the world? It's nihilism, a nihilistic view. At the time when the Buddha lived in the world, I think I'm right in saying that India is the richest country when it comes to philosophies, to philosophical systems. In fact, at the time of the Buddha, it said that there were 360 different philosophies that could be named and described, right? You know, whether how profound the explanation is or not, we can set that aside. How extensive the explanation is or not set that aside. 360 different philosophies that actually we can talk about what they adhere to. That's quite an extensive system, right? In terms of philosophies, that's quite a lot of philosophies, philosophical systems. But in short, we can say that there are five. The Samkhya, the Nyaya, the Vaisheshika and the Jain. And then on top of these four, the next one is called the Charvakas. It's different than the other four. The Charvaka system is different. It is a philosophy and what does it believe? There's no karmic cause and effect. There are no past and future lives. There are no hells. There is no heaven, right? That is the belief system of the Charvakas. That is their philosophy. And look around the world these days. What belief system is quite prevalent, spreading quite a lot? This very system, this very perspective, it's spreading and increasing in the world. And if people fall under the sway of that kind of belief system, right? Thinking there's no lower realms, there's nothing like hell, then there's no fear to avoid, that would cause someone to avoid engaging in negative actions, right? Oh, death, you know, that's just like blowing out a candle. It's just like a puddle of water drying up. There's nothing that happens. It doesn't matter what we do. That kind of belief. That is the belief of the Charvaka philosophical system from ancient India. And we can say that that is a vile belief. That is a degenerate view. It's okay to say that. It is that. And the second issue, the second situation that we find ourselves in in this world is that there are also these degenerate or vile substances that exist in the world. And you can say substances, you know, this starts with chemicals, pollution, right? And if you think about it, we talked about the Kali Yuga, the dark age. Actually, the color of a lot of this kind of pollution and so on is dark, actually, black. And, you know, I've been thinking lately when I look around in the world that these days people are really more and more into wearing black. Everybody wants to wear black. Everyone likes black. Especially this year I went to Hong Kong and I looked around. It used to be that people were all different kinds of colors, lots of different things. This year somehow everyone was black. They built everything inside, outside, dark, dark, black, black. I thought this is a sign, actually. It's a sign, right, of the dark times. But here the degenerate or vile views here, this is a reference to the nihilistic view, the nihilistic view. And then the vile substances, we can say it starts with pollution, right? Pollution, chemicals, that's kind of on a smaller level. But all the way up to and including atomic weapons, nuclear weapons, chemical bombs, right? These kinds of things. These are vile substances and these exist in the world. They are there. They are there in the world. And if someone who holds a nihilistic view uses those kind of vile substances, then that's very dangerous. That's the cause of illness, famine, war in our world. It comes from people, people's characters, right? People's characters, their idea thinking, I have to win, you must lose, I must win, I will win. The degree to which that kind of view is stronger and stronger and stronger, the anger connected with that, stronger and stronger and stronger. The more strong someone's anger is, the more harmful their actions are going to be. And that's the situation actually. Now in the world we have these weapons, they exist in the world that could destroy the entire world, reduce it completely to ashes. Those kind of weapons exist in our world, they're here. And so isn't holding the correct view important? Can't you see how important it is to hold a view that is genuine and that does not fall into nihilism? That's important. It's really important for this reason. And that's why all religions are beneficial actually. It doesn't matter what religious, any religious tradition is of benefit, because it doesn't fall into that wrong view, that nihilist view. So here in this particular religion, the Buddhist teachings, that is the topic here, then the view is that all phenomena are emptiness, they're empty and lack of self. Understanding that view properly is difficult and that's why people spend years and years studying, years and years studying the Dharma. But not just learning, right? It's not just that as Buddhists we learn the view. We actually engage in virtuous actions physically, verbally and mentally, in order to bring both our body and our mind into a state of naturalness. And we train in being careful and conscientious and practicing actually the study, contemplation and meditation of the Buddha Dharma with care and conscientiousness, mindfulness. And then if we do that, then there's a result. There is a result that comes from training in this way. So to understand or to ascertain that all conditioned things are impermanent, it's not actually that difficult. It doesn't require that much examination and investigation. To ascertain that defiled phenomena are suffering or painful, it also doesn't require that much investigation or examination. But to understand that all phenomena are empty and lack self, this actually when we examine that point in more and more detail, that's actually why we have different teachings, Dharma teachings, the first turning of the wheel of Dharma, the intermediate turning of the wheel of Dharma, the final turning of the wheel of Dharma. This is increasingly detailed, increasingly profound presentations on this very topic actually. And again, if we want to avert war and famine and pandemic in our world, if we want to prevent that from unfolding in the future, then how can we do that? What's the method? The method is love and compassion. Love and compassion, there's nothing else that can have that effect, that can really do that in our world. And when we talk about compassion here, we're talking about unbiased compassion, unbiased, truly unbiased compassion. Where do we find teachings on truly unbiased compassion? In the Buddha Dharma, in the teachings of the sacred Dharma. It's presented very clearly. And in particular, when it comes to the conduct of a Bodhisattva, a Bodhisattva's actions involve considering oneself as less important, and considering others as more important than oneself. And not just that, but actually having the confidence, the belief that all beings have been my mothers and fathers, all sentient beings are my parents, and that I should not harm anyone, including friends, strangers, and enemies. We should harm no one. So that kind of belief system, that kind of action, if that spreads and flourishes in the world, that will bring real, true peace to our world. And until that happens, it's difficult to find real peace in the world. Just think about it for a minute. It makes sense, doesn't it?

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The Budhas of the past, The Buddha of the present, The Buddha of the future, what did they teach? They teach the Dharma, 'Chod' in Tibetan, Dharma in Sanskrit. And what does that mean? Actually, there are 10 different meanings of this word Dharma. But to make it very simple and easy to understand, we can say that Dharma includes a presentation of outer perceived objects, a presentation in great detail, as well as a presentation of the inner perceiving mind, including the main primary mind and subsidiary mental states, as well as a presentation of the path that leads to liberation and omniscience and how to traverse that path. All of this is taught extremely clearly in the Dharma. So we can say that the Dharma is actually what we can come to know, what we ought to know. And it includes teachings and presentation on all of the phenomena of samsara, nirvana and the path. If we don't know the Dharma, then we don't know what we ought to know, what we can come to know. And it is for this reason that we study the Dharma, because otherwise we remain confused about what there is to know. That is why we learn the Dharma, but when we learn the Dharma, we also put it into practice, we must. The function of Dharma learning is to practice, that's why we learn the Dharma, so that we can actually apply it in practice. And so when we do that, actually anyone who puts the Dharma into practice can, through their practice, achieve liberation and omniscience. And the reason for this is because all sentient beings have the same basic nature. It's called Buddha nature, the element of Buddha nature.
The Buddha with his omniscient wisdom saw that there are billions of world systems, from among them one is ours, it's called Jambudvipa. And here in this world there are many, many kinds of beings who have minds. Some have two legs, some have four legs, some have many legs, some live in the forest, some live in water, some have form and some don't have a form. Among all of these countless beings living in our world, we are human beings. And in the Buddhist teachings it is taught that to have not just an ordinary human body, but a precious human body, means having the 18 freedoms and advantages that we call that which constitutes a precious human birth or a precious human life. This is the best human form to have for Dharma practice. And we can establish that through direct experience, we can see that directly in our experience, we can examine that. We don't have to get into a lot of detail, but you can read the texts that get into the details that talk about how to investigate and examine whether or not we have a precious human birth. But we do, all of us here, we do have this. Not only do we have the cause of awakening which is Buddha nature, but we also have the support which is a human body endowed with the 18 freedoms and advantages. And we also have the condition which is having met a spiritual teacher. This is something that's extremely important to meet a spiritual teacher and in particular a qualified spiritual teacher. When we meet a teacher it's important from the student side for us to check. Is this person a qualified teacher or not? That's a question. That is the job actually of a disciple to investigate, when meeting the teacher, whether that teacher is qualified. And in this way the student must examine the teacher, but the teacher must also examine the student, in both directions. The qualities of an authentic or genuine teacher are, there are certain qualities that constitute a genuine teacher, or an authentic teacher in the general vehicle of Buddhism. There are other qualities that constitute a genuine teacher according to the Mahayana and in the Vajrayana as well. We can check to examine does the teacher have the qualities that constitute an authentic Vajrayana teacher. And so from the side of the teacher also, it's important to examine whether the student has the correct qualities. Does the student have, what kind of Buddhism or what type of teaching is the student even interested in in the first place? And what would be the most suitable for that particular student? Would it help him or her to teach the general vehicle of the Buddha Dharma? Or would it be more appropriate for that particular student to learn the Mahayana? Or might that student be someone who is an appropriate recipient for the ripening empowerments, the liberating instructions, teaching the tantras, bestowing empowerment, or giving the pith instructions too? Might the student be someone who is a correct, or appropriate recipient of the Vajrayana teachings? So this is the job of the teacher and the student to investigate, to check, examine one another. And in this way then, we can say that the relationship between student and teacher is something that's very, very important. And examining from both sides is very important. In the world, in our lives, having a spiritual teacher is very important, but there are very few. It is very rare to find a genuine, authentic, qualified spiritual teacher in this world. It is likewise rare for there to be a student, who is properly qualified. And for that reason, there's not so many who attain accomplishment. Having a qualified teacher is so important. A qualified student is so important. The relationship between teacher and student is an essential one if we are interested in attaining liberation and omniscience.
From the side of the disciple, from the disciple's perspective, it is important for the student first, to be skilled in examining the teacher. Next, the student needs to be skilled in following the teacher, relying upon them. And then finally, the student must be skilled in receiving the qualities of abandonment and realization, that are present within the teacher's mindstream, receiving those qualities into oneself. The student must be skilled in that. It's important for a student to have those skills. From the teacher's side, first the teacher must examine the student. And then next, the teacher needs to determine how can I teach that person such that what I teach fits with their perspective in order to liberate their mindstream. That's the teacher's responsibility. And if the teacher does not teach in such a way that the student's mindstream is liberated, then the teacher has not fulfilled their responsibility. That is the teacher's responsibility. And if the student does not follow the teacher in such a way, that the student gives rise to the qualities of realization that are present in the teacher's mind, then the student has not followed the teacher properly. That's the responsibility of the student. This is something that's extremely important, actually. Because if that doesn't happen, then the teacher doesn't really help the student. And if that doesn't happen from the student's side, then the student didn't really follow the teacher properly. This relationship is really important, and important things are worth repeating. In Tibet, for example, there are many different topics of knowledge that can be studied, like grammar and astrology and medicine and so on. And if someone is very learned in those topics, then if you say, is that person learned, then the answer will be yes. Very learned in medicine, astrology, or whatever it may be. When it comes to the Dharma, you can also say, is that person learned? And the answer may be yes. But then the question comes. Is their mind tamed? Are they tamed? And if the answer is yes, then we know, oh, that's a real practitioner. Then they're a real practitioner, actually. Then that person must have given rise to realization through their practice. But without that, actually, just having learning in the Dharma, even if someone is very learned in sutra and tantra, and can explain it very clearly, and maybe debate very properly and perfectly, and even compose texts, just that does not mean that they are tamed. They have to be tamed in order to be a truly qualified teacher. Just learning does not qualify someone as a teacher in the context of Dharma. And so it's very important to investigate and examine the qualities of a teacher. The student has to do that. The teacher must examine the qualities of the student. And it is because a qualified teacher can give instruction that leads to freedom, to liberation. That is why we respect the teacher so much. That's the basis of the genuine regard, high regard, within which we hold a Dharma teacher. That's why we regard them in that way. We say that the unsurpassed teacher is the Buddha. There are lots of teachers in this world. And the followers of those teachers, if they put into practice in the various religious traditions, what those teachers have taught in different religions, and when people put those teachings into practice, then they are benefited by those teachings. That's why it's important for us to respect religion. We should respect religions because religions help people. They help people, benefit people. But here in this particular context, we are talking about the Buddhist teachings. And it is said actually that the unsurpassed teacher is the Buddha. And the Buddha actually has incredible qualities. The quality of wisdom, of love, his awakened activity, as well as his capacity for protection, to protect. And we can investigate and examine and see that the Buddha actually has all of these excellent qualities. There is a tradition of examining, investigating, examining the teacher to determine the qualities that are present. Those who follow the Buddha are the Sangha. And in particular, if we think about our spiritual teachers, who are also followers of the Buddha, then what kind of qualities do they have? What kind of qualities does a spiritual teacher have? If we just think about it for a moment, if we spend time with a virtuous friend, then what happens is that we ourselves tend towards virtue. If we, on the other hand, spend time around someone who engages in evil deeds, non-virtuous actions, then there is definitely the possibility that we too might get caught up in engaging in non-virtue. We might become like them. So when we spend time around a good person, that makes us a good person. It makes us a better person. And when we spend time around someone, who is not a good person, we have to be careful. We might become like that. It matters actually who we spend our time around. And so if we spend time around a teacher who is full of compassion, who is full of altruism, whose mind is full of love and care, then when we rely upon such a person as a teacher, then we too develop those very same qualities of love and compassion and altruism and care. And so it is very important in this way, right? The teacher, who the teacher is, is important. To spend time around a virtuous companion is important. What did the Buddha teach? If the unsurpassed teacher is the Buddha, what did he teach? As the great master Nagarjuna said, the Buddha has taught the Dharma in terms of the two truths, the relative truth of convention and the ultimate truth, the truth of the ultimate nature. So there are these two truths and our problem, our confusion, is that we look at the way things appear and we think that that's how they actually are. That is confusion, that is delusion. To look at the apparent mode of things, the way things appear to us, and to somehow have the idea, this is how these things really are. That's our delusion, that's our confusion. And we spend our time so busy physically, verbally and mentally, so busy chasing after all sorts of things based on this kind of confusion, based on this delusion of perceiving the way things look, the way things appear, and having the idea, the confused misperception that that's how they actually are. In short, if we were to say, what is the Buddhist teaching in short? Well, the Dharma. And the Dharma is the unsurpassed protection. The unsurpassed protection, the ultimate protection comes from the Dharma. What does it protect us against? The Dharma protects us from karma, from the negative emotions and from delusion. It protects us from these things.
And it is through coming to understand the way things actually are, right? We said that the Dharma teaches us the way things are. And if we can come to understand and learn the way things are, and then put those teachings, those instructions into practice, then we can clear away our delusion. We can remove our confusion. We can clear away the darkness of dualistic ignorance. And we can allow for the illuminating wisdom or wakefulness to unfold. So, if we want to say, what is the Buddhist teaching? What is the Dharma? We can say that it is all condensed into four statements, four summaries: The Four Seals of the Pure View. And so today and over the coming days, I will share the instructions and teachings on these four seals with you.
First in Kathmandu and then later in Boston, I had some conversation with a group of scientists. And we needed a basis for that conversation. We needed a foundation for the conversation about Buddhism. So then I thought, well, we need something that we can really come to, we can use in order that they can come to understand the Buddha Dharma very well, but in a very short time. And so they could have an understanding of Buddhism, first just roughly, gradually in more detail, and finally have a really deep, good, detailed understanding of the Buddha Dharma. So I thought, what should we talk about? What should we use as the basis for this discussion? And then these four summaries, four seals of the Dharma came to mind. And so I thought, how should I share that with them? And how can I express that to them? First through the words of the Buddha himself. What did the Buddha himself say? We speak about what we call the authentic words of the Buddha, the valid words of the Buddha. And what did the Buddha say with regard to this? He said, all conditioned things are impermanent. So then we have to check, we have to examine that a little bit, right? Can I find a conditioned thing that is not impermanent? Is there such a thing? Is it possible for there to be such a thing? We have to check and check and check, examine. That's our responsibility here. And when we do that, when we really examine this, we find that, in fact, it is the case that all conditioned things have the nature of being impermanent. All conditioned things are like this. And all of this, of course, know this on a very coarse level. We're aware of this. But we have to investigate in a careful and detailed way. Really examine. And in order to do that, in order to understand that in a very detailed way, we have to really do some investigation, some real examining. Not just leave it at the statement that the Buddha himself made, but rather use our own logic and reasoning to analyze. We should do that and it's reasonable, actually, for us to do that.
We can rely upon the authentic words of the Buddha and then apply also the authentic reasoning, logic or reasoning, investigation or examination. And in general, we can say that we can learn and reflect because human beings actually have a particular kind of intelligence that allows us to examine, to really learn and contemplate and use analysis. We have this kind of naturally occurring intellect. And actually there's two kinds of intelligence. One is just a natural intelligence and then another is learned. We can learn things and learn them, know them through learning. But human beings in general have kind of a natural capacity to know. We have a natural kind of intelligence. We can talk about things and understand each other and have some discussion and conversation. We have the capacity to do that. And so when we say, when I said to this group of scientists, ok, all conditioned things, if you consider as the subject, all conditioned things, they are impermanent because they don't have the opportunity to remain unchanging even for an instant. They don't have a chance to remain unchanging even for an instant. And when I said this to them, they thought about it and said, yes, we agree 100%, actually. We absolutely agree that that's the case. In particular this point about conditioned things don't have the chance, they do not remain the same even for an instant. This is something that they were able to understand, that made sense to them actually, this group of scientists. And we can actually get into even more detail. We can take it even further than that. But this point at least, just leaving it here for now, this point they said, yes, we really get it. Conditioned things don't remain the same even for a single instant. And that's something that's very important, right? Within the Buddhist teachings, these four summaries of the Dharma are very, very important. And this is the first one. All conditioned phenomena are impermanent. And so among these four, already in discussion with this group of scientists, we were able to agree fully on the first point among the four.
So what about you? Have you thought about this? Have you contemplated the fact that all conditioned things are impermanent? Have you contemplated that? Have you thought about the fact, have you thought about all conditioned things being impermanent and have you thought they don't remain the same even for a single instant? Has that thought come to you, that these things actually don't remain the same even for a single instant? And if it hasn't, if you haven't had that experience, when you hear it right now, do you have the feeling that, yeah, that's true. Conditioned things are not permanent. They don't remain the same even for an instant. Do you feel like that? Any doubt?
That's a coarse level and there's really no doubt about that, right? When we get in more detail into the analysis, it becomes a little bit more difficult.
So then the second point that the Buddha made, as he said that all defiled things are suffering. And if we check, if we examine this point, this is how I do it, right? My way of investigating, examining. It's all defiled phenomena are suffering because they have the nature of the three types of suffering. That's their nature. And so I shared this also with the scientists. They said, yes, we agree a hundred percent. We totally agree on this point too. What about you guys? What about you, right? I think most of you believe in science. If from one side, you follow the scientists, right? On one side we actually are. We're all followers of scientists. They make stuff and we enjoy it, right? In the world, the majority, more than religion, believe in science. Science is a new religion. Science is shake(ing) religion, believe or faith, shake.
Not only humans believe shake, the whole world is shake(ing). The whole world is good sight, bad sight. Good sight, unusual. Things are great. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty floors of buildings exist. Now soon taxi will fly in the air. Five star hotel airplane will fly. Why we need this all?
So, so greedy. Extremely greedy. Everything taken out. Future empty. Saying we love our children. We love our future generation. Destroying future. So, now...
All defiled phenomena are suffering. They have the nature of the three kinds of suffering. The three kinds of suffering are the all-pervasive suffering of being conditioned, the suffering of change, and the suffering of suffering. You can learn about that in detail. It's in Buddhist texts. There are so many of them that are translated and very clearly present the details of these types of suffering. It's not hard to understand, actually. It's explained in great detail. It's pointed out very clearly in the Buddhist teachings, these points. In fact, the Buddha Dharma is a pointing out, an introduction. It points something out to us. What does it point out? It points out the truth. It indicates the truth. That's what Buddhism does.
The most important point, though, among these four is the third one. And that is, what the Buddha said, is that all phenomena are empty and devoid of self. So, if we apply analysis, logic to that point, all phenomena are empty and lack of self. They are empty because they are empty of a creator. They lack a creator. And there is no singular, lasting, and independent self. So when we shared this, when I shared this with a group of scientists, they said, yes, all phenomena are empty and interdependently originated. Yes. We agree on that point, actually, on the emptiness and interdependent origination, dependent origination of all phenomena. Yes, we accept that. When it comes to the question of the self, and the question of ego clinging, and the question of the wisdom that realizes the absence of a self, at this point we're still having a conversation about that. We haven't resolved it. We're still in conversation. Conversation is going very closely. And I am quite, quite admiring. They are very open-minded and very smart. And they really want to develop whatever is harmless, harmless. They worry. So, there's one word. We know this many, many years before. Of course, we've never said this word. They say, Is, is.... (are we) leading to nihilism? Isn't it?
So what do you guys think?
Are we leading to nihilism? Isn't it? Isn't that what's happening? Are we leading to nihilism?
So, what I keep saying these days, we really need to respect religion. Any religion.
Any religion tradition.
In that way with any religion, says, teaching all, saying, don't hurt, be patient, help to others. Is wonderful words. So, Now,
If we just look around at the world around us, and really check the situation that we find ourselves in in the world, this time is called the Kali Yuga. Kali Yuga. Kali here has the sense of time and also black, right? The Kali Yuga, the dark times, the bad negative times. We call this age the degenerate age. And we can say that what we see in this degenerate age are degenerate or vile views. And what is the vile view that we find in the world? It's nihilism, a nihilistic view. At the time when the Buddha lived in the world, I think I'm right in saying that India is the richest country when it comes to philosophies, to philosophical systems. In fact, at the time of the Buddha, it said that there were 360 different philosophies that could be named and described, right? You know, whether how profound the explanation is or not, we can set that aside. How extensive the explanation is or not set that aside. 360 different philosophies that actually we can talk about what they adhere to. That's quite an extensive system, right? In terms of philosophies, that's quite a lot of philosophies, philosophical systems. But in short, we can say that there are five. The Samkhya, the Nyaya, the Vaisheshika and the Jain. And then on top of these four, the next one is called the Charvakas. It's different than the other four. The Charvaka system is different. It is a philosophy and what does it believe? There's no karmic cause and effect. There are no past and future lives. There are no hells. There is no heaven, right? That is the belief system of the Charvakas. That is their philosophy. And look around the world these days. What belief system is quite prevalent, spreading quite a lot? This very system, this very perspective, it's spreading and increasing in the world. And if people fall under the sway of that kind of belief system, right? Thinking there's no lower realms, there's nothing like hell, then there's no fear to avoid, that would cause someone to avoid engaging in negative actions, right? Oh, death, you know, that's just like blowing out a candle. It's just like a puddle of water drying up. There's nothing that happens. It doesn't matter what we do. That kind of belief. That is the belief of the Charvaka philosophical system from ancient India. And we can say that that is a vile belief. That is a degenerate view. It's okay to say that. It is that. And the second issue, the second situation that we find ourselves in in this world is that there are also these degenerate or vile substances that exist in the world. And you can say substances, you know, this starts with chemicals, pollution, right? And if you think about it, we talked about the Kali Yuga, the dark age. Actually, the color of a lot of this kind of pollution and so on is dark, actually, black. And, you know, I've been thinking lately when I look around in the world that these days people are really more and more into wearing black. Everybody wants to wear black. Everyone likes black. Especially this year I went to Hong Kong and I looked around. It used to be that people were all different kinds of colors, lots of different things. This year somehow everyone was black. They built everything inside, outside, dark, dark, black, black. I thought this is a sign, actually. It's a sign, right, of the dark times. But here the degenerate or vile views here, this is a reference to the nihilistic view, the nihilistic view. And then the vile substances, we can say it starts with pollution, right? Pollution, chemicals, that's kind of on a smaller level. But all the way up to and including atomic weapons, nuclear weapons, chemical bombs, right? These kinds of things. These are vile substances and these exist in the world. They are there. They are there in the world. And if someone who holds a nihilistic view uses those kind of vile substances, then that's very dangerous. That's the cause of illness, famine, war in our world. It comes from people, people's characters, right? People's characters, their idea thinking, I have to win, you must lose, I must win, I will win. The degree to which that kind of view is stronger and stronger and stronger, the anger connected with that, stronger and stronger and stronger. The more strong someone's anger is, the more harmful their actions are going to be. And that's the situation actually. Now in the world we have these weapons, they exist in the world that could destroy the entire world, reduce it completely to ashes. Those kind of weapons exist in our world, they're here. And so isn't holding the correct view important? Can't you see how important it is to hold a view that is genuine and that does not fall into nihilism? That's important. It's really important for this reason. And that's why all religions are beneficial actually. It doesn't matter what religious, any religious tradition is of benefit, because it doesn't fall into that wrong view, that nihilist view. So here in this particular religion, the Buddhist teachings, that is the topic here, then the view is that all phenomena are emptiness, they're empty and lack of self. Understanding that view properly is difficult and that's why people spend years and years studying, years and years studying the Dharma. But not just learning, right? It's not just that as Buddhists we learn the view. We actually engage in virtuous actions physically, verbally and mentally, in order to bring both our body and our mind into a state of naturalness. And we train in being careful and conscientious and practicing actually the study, contemplation and meditation of the Buddha Dharma with care and conscientiousness, mindfulness. And then if we do that, then there's a result. There is a result that comes from training in this way. So to understand or to ascertain that all conditioned things are impermanent, it's not actually that difficult. It doesn't require that much examination and investigation. To ascertain that defiled phenomena are suffering or painful, it also doesn't require that much investigation or examination. But to understand that all phenomena are empty and lack self, this actually when we examine that point in more and more detail, that's actually why we have different teachings, Dharma teachings, the first turning of the wheel of Dharma, the intermediate turning of the wheel of Dharma, the final turning of the wheel of Dharma. This is increasingly detailed, increasingly profound presentations on this very topic actually. And again, if we want to avert war and famine and pandemic in our world, if we want to prevent that from unfolding in the future, then how can we do that? What's the method? The method is love and compassion. Love and compassion, there's nothing else that can have that effect, that can really do that in our world. And when we talk about compassion here, we're talking about unbiased compassion, unbiased, truly unbiased compassion. Where do we find teachings on truly unbiased compassion? In the Buddha Dharma, in the teachings of the sacred Dharma. It's presented very clearly. And in particular, when it comes to the conduct of a Bodhisattva, a Bodhisattva's actions involve considering oneself as less important, and considering others as more important than oneself. And not just that, but actually having the confidence, the belief that all beings have been my mothers and fathers, all sentient beings are my parents, and that I should not harm anyone, including friends, strangers, and enemies. We should harm no one. So that kind of belief system, that kind of action, if that spreads and flourishes in the world, that will bring real, true peace to our world. And until that happens, it's difficult to find real peace in the world. Just think about it for a minute. It makes sense, doesn't it?

17:23

Autoscroll:

The Budhas of the past, The Buddha of the present, The Buddha of the future, what did they teach? They teach the Dharma, 'Chod' in Tibetan, Dharma in Sanskrit. And what does that mean? Actually, there are 10 different meanings of this word Dharma. But to make it very simple and easy to understand, we can say that Dharma includes a presentation of outer perceived objects, a presentation in great detail, as well as a presentation of the inner perceiving mind, including the main primary mind and subsidiary mental states, as well as a presentation of the path that leads to liberation and omniscience and how to traverse that path. All of this is taught extremely clearly in the Dharma. So we can say that the Dharma is actually what we can come to know, what we ought to know. And it includes teachings and presentation on all of the phenomena of samsara, nirvana and the path. If we don't know the Dharma, then we don't know what we ought to know, what we can come to know. And it is for this reason that we study the Dharma, because otherwise we remain confused about what there is to know. That is why we learn the Dharma, but when we learn the Dharma, we also put it into practice, we must. The function of Dharma learning is to practice, that's why we learn the Dharma, so that we can actually apply it in practice. And so when we do that, actually anyone who puts the Dharma into practice can, through their practice, achieve liberation and omniscience. And the reason for this is because all sentient beings have the same basic nature. It's called Buddha nature, the element of Buddha nature.
The Buddha with his omniscient wisdom saw that there are billions of world systems, from among them one is ours, it's called Jambudvipa. And here in this world there are many, many kinds of beings who have minds. Some have two legs, some have four legs, some have many legs, some live in the forest, some live in water, some have form and some don't have a form. Among all of these countless beings living in our world, we are human beings. And in the Buddhist teachings it is taught that to have not just an ordinary human body, but a precious human body, means having the 18 freedoms and advantages that we call that which constitutes a precious human birth or a precious human life. This is the best human form to have for Dharma practice. And we can establish that through direct experience, we can see that directly in our experience, we can examine that. We don't have to get into a lot of detail, but you can read the texts that get into the details that talk about how to investigate and examine whether or not we have a precious human birth. But we do, all of us here, we do have this. Not only do we have the cause of awakening which is Buddha nature, but we also have the support which is a human body endowed with the 18 freedoms and advantages. And we also have the condition which is having met a spiritual teacher. This is something that's extremely important to meet a spiritual teacher and in particular a qualified spiritual teacher. When we meet a teacher it's important from the student side for us to check. Is this person a qualified teacher or not? That's a question. That is the job actually of a disciple to investigate, when meeting the teacher, whether that teacher is qualified. And in this way the student must examine the teacher, but the teacher must also examine the student, in both directions. The qualities of an authentic or genuine teacher are, there are certain qualities that constitute a genuine teacher, or an authentic teacher in the general vehicle of Buddhism. There are other qualities that constitute a genuine teacher according to the Mahayana and in the Vajrayana as well. We can check to examine does the teacher have the qualities that constitute an authentic Vajrayana teacher. And so from the side of the teacher also, it's important to examine whether the student has the correct qualities. Does the student have, what kind of Buddhism or what type of teaching is the student even interested in in the first place? And what would be the most suitable for that particular student? Would it help him or her to teach the general vehicle of the Buddha Dharma? Or would it be more appropriate for that particular student to learn the Mahayana? Or might that student be someone who is an appropriate recipient for the ripening empowerments, the liberating instructions, teaching the tantras, bestowing empowerment, or giving the pith instructions too? Might the student be someone who is a correct, or appropriate recipient of the Vajrayana teachings? So this is the job of the teacher and the student to investigate, to check, examine one another. And in this way then, we can say that the relationship between student and teacher is something that's very, very important. And examining from both sides is very important. In the world, in our lives, having a spiritual teacher is very important, but there are very few. It is very rare to find a genuine, authentic, qualified spiritual teacher in this world. It is likewise rare for there to be a student, who is properly qualified. And for that reason, there's not so many who attain accomplishment. Having a qualified teacher is so important. A qualified student is so important. The relationship between teacher and student is an essential one if we are interested in attaining liberation and omniscience.
From the side of the disciple, from the disciple's perspective, it is important for the student first, to be skilled in examining the teacher. Next, the student needs to be skilled in following the teacher, relying upon them. And then finally, the student must be skilled in receiving the qualities of abandonment and realization, that are present within the teacher's mindstream, receiving those qualities into oneself. The student must be skilled in that. It's important for a student to have those skills. From the teacher's side, first the teacher must examine the student. And then next, the teacher needs to determine how can I teach that person such that what I teach fits with their perspective in order to liberate their mindstream. That's the teacher's responsibility. And if the teacher does not teach in such a way that the student's mindstream is liberated, then the teacher has not fulfilled their responsibility. That is the teacher's responsibility. And if the student does not follow the teacher in such a way, that the student gives rise to the qualities of realization that are present in the teacher's mind, then the student has not followed the teacher properly. That's the responsibility of the student. This is something that's extremely important, actually. Because if that doesn't happen, then the teacher doesn't really help the student. And if that doesn't happen from the student's side, then the student didn't really follow the teacher properly. This relationship is really important, and important things are worth repeating. In Tibet, for example, there are many different topics of knowledge that can be studied, like grammar and astrology and medicine and so on. And if someone is very learned in those topics, then if you say, is that person learned, then the answer will be yes. Very learned in medicine, astrology, or whatever it may be. When it comes to the Dharma, you can also say, is that person learned? And the answer may be yes. But then the question comes. Is their mind tamed? Are they tamed? And if the answer is yes, then we know, oh, that's a real practitioner. Then they're a real practitioner, actually. Then that person must have given rise to realization through their practice. But without that, actually, just having learning in the Dharma, even if someone is very learned in sutra and tantra, and can explain it very clearly, and maybe debate very properly and perfectly, and even compose texts, just that does not mean that they are tamed. They have to be tamed in order to be a truly qualified teacher. Just learning does not qualify someone as a teacher in the context of Dharma. And so it's very important to investigate and examine the qualities of a teacher. The student has to do that. The teacher must examine the qualities of the student. And it is because a qualified teacher can give instruction that leads to freedom, to liberation. That is why we respect the teacher so much. That's the basis of the genuine regard, high regard, within which we hold a Dharma teacher. That's why we regard them in that way. We say that the unsurpassed teacher is the Buddha. There are lots of teachers in this world. And the followers of those teachers, if they put into practice in the various religious traditions, what those teachers have taught in different religions, and when people put those teachings into practice, then they are benefited by those teachings. That's why it's important for us to respect religion. We should respect religions because religions help people. They help people, benefit people. But here in this particular context, we are talking about the Buddhist teachings. And it is said actually that the unsurpassed teacher is the Buddha. And the Buddha actually has incredible qualities. The quality of wisdom, of love, his awakened activity, as well as his capacity for protection, to protect. And we can investigate and examine and see that the Buddha actually has all of these excellent qualities. There is a tradition of examining, investigating, examining the teacher to determine the qualities that are present. Those who follow the Buddha are the Sangha. And in particular, if we think about our spiritual teachers, who are also followers of the Buddha, then what kind of qualities do they have? What kind of qualities does a spiritual teacher have? If we just think about it for a moment, if we spend time with a virtuous friend, then what happens is that we ourselves tend towards virtue. If we, on the other hand, spend time around someone who engages in evil deeds, non-virtuous actions, then there is definitely the possibility that we too might get caught up in engaging in non-virtue. We might become like them. So when we spend time around a good person, that makes us a good person. It makes us a better person. And when we spend time around someone, who is not a good person, we have to be careful. We might become like that. It matters actually who we spend our time around. And so if we spend time around a teacher who is full of compassion, who is full of altruism, whose mind is full of love and care, then when we rely upon such a person as a teacher, then we too develop those very same qualities of love and compassion and altruism and care. And so it is very important in this way, right? The teacher, who the teacher is, is important. To spend time around a virtuous companion is important. What did the Buddha teach? If the unsurpassed teacher is the Buddha, what did he teach? As the great master Nagarjuna said, the Buddha has taught the Dharma in terms of the two truths, the relative truth of convention and the ultimate truth, the truth of the ultimate nature. So there are these two truths and our problem, our confusion, is that we look at the way things appear and we think that that's how they actually are. That is confusion, that is delusion. To look at the apparent mode of things, the way things appear to us, and to somehow have the idea, this is how these things really are. That's our delusion, that's our confusion. And we spend our time so busy physically, verbally and mentally, so busy chasing after all sorts of things based on this kind of confusion, based on this delusion of perceiving the way things look, the way things appear, and having the idea, the confused misperception that that's how they actually are. In short, if we were to say, what is the Buddhist teaching in short? Well, the Dharma. And the Dharma is the unsurpassed protection. The unsurpassed protection, the ultimate protection comes from the Dharma. What does it protect us against? The Dharma protects us from karma, from the negative emotions and from delusion. It protects us from these things.
And it is through coming to understand the way things actually are, right? We said that the Dharma teaches us the way things are. And if we can come to understand and learn the way things are, and then put those teachings, those instructions into practice, then we can clear away our delusion. We can remove our confusion. We can clear away the darkness of dualistic ignorance. And we can allow for the illuminating wisdom or wakefulness to unfold. So, if we want to say, what is the Buddhist teaching? What is the Dharma? We can say that it is all condensed into four statements, four summaries: The Four Seals of the Pure View. And so today and over the coming days, I will share the instructions and teachings on these four seals with you.
First in Kathmandu and then later in Boston, I had some conversation with a group of scientists. And we needed a basis for that conversation. We needed a foundation for the conversation about Buddhism. So then I thought, well, we need something that we can really come to, we can use in order that they can come to understand the Buddha Dharma very well, but in a very short time. And so they could have an understanding of Buddhism, first just roughly, gradually in more detail, and finally have a really deep, good, detailed understanding of the Buddha Dharma. So I thought, what should we talk about? What should we use as the basis for this discussion? And then these four summaries, four seals of the Dharma came to mind. And so I thought, how should I share that with them? And how can I express that to them? First through the words of the Buddha himself. What did the Buddha himself say? We speak about what we call the authentic words of the Buddha, the valid words of the Buddha. And what did the Buddha say with regard to this? He said, all conditioned things are impermanent. So then we have to check, we have to examine that a little bit, right? Can I find a conditioned thing that is not impermanent? Is there such a thing? Is it possible for there to be such a thing? We have to check and check and check, examine. That's our responsibility here. And when we do that, when we really examine this, we find that, in fact, it is the case that all conditioned things have the nature of being impermanent. All conditioned things are like this. And all of this, of course, know this on a very coarse level. We're aware of this. But we have to investigate in a careful and detailed way. Really examine. And in order to do that, in order to understand that in a very detailed way, we have to really do some investigation, some real examining. Not just leave it at the statement that the Buddha himself made, but rather use our own logic and reasoning to analyze. We should do that and it's reasonable, actually, for us to do that.
We can rely upon the authentic words of the Buddha and then apply also the authentic reasoning, logic or reasoning, investigation or examination. And in general, we can say that we can learn and reflect because human beings actually have a particular kind of intelligence that allows us to examine, to really learn and contemplate and use analysis. We have this kind of naturally occurring intellect. And actually there's two kinds of intelligence. One is just a natural intelligence and then another is learned. We can learn things and learn them, know them through learning. But human beings in general have kind of a natural capacity to know. We have a natural kind of intelligence. We can talk about things and understand each other and have some discussion and conversation. We have the capacity to do that. And so when we say, when I said to this group of scientists, ok, all conditioned things, if you consider as the subject, all conditioned things, they are impermanent because they don't have the opportunity to remain unchanging even for an instant. They don't have a chance to remain unchanging even for an instant. And when I said this to them, they thought about it and said, yes, we agree 100%, actually. We absolutely agree that that's the case. In particular this point about conditioned things don't have the chance, they do not remain the same even for an instant. This is something that they were able to understand, that made sense to them actually, this group of scientists. And we can actually get into even more detail. We can take it even further than that. But this point at least, just leaving it here for now, this point they said, yes, we really get it. Conditioned things don't remain the same even for a single instant. And that's something that's very important, right? Within the Buddhist teachings, these four summaries of the Dharma are very, very important. And this is the first one. All conditioned phenomena are impermanent. And so among these four, already in discussion with this group of scientists, we were able to agree fully on the first point among the four.
So what about you? Have you thought about this? Have you contemplated the fact that all conditioned things are impermanent? Have you contemplated that? Have you thought about the fact, have you thought about all conditioned things being impermanent and have you thought they don't remain the same even for a single instant? Has that thought come to you, that these things actually don't remain the same even for a single instant? And if it hasn't, if you haven't had that experience, when you hear it right now, do you have the feeling that, yeah, that's true. Conditioned things are not permanent. They don't remain the same even for an instant. Do you feel like that? Any doubt?
That's a coarse level and there's really no doubt about that, right? When we get in more detail into the analysis, it becomes a little bit more difficult.
So then the second point that the Buddha made, as he said that all defiled things are suffering. And if we check, if we examine this point, this is how I do it, right? My way of investigating, examining. It's all defiled phenomena are suffering because they have the nature of the three types of suffering. That's their nature. And so I shared this also with the scientists. They said, yes, we agree a hundred percent. We totally agree on this point too. What about you guys? What about you, right? I think most of you believe in science. If from one side, you follow the scientists, right? On one side we actually are. We're all followers of scientists. They make stuff and we enjoy it, right? In the world, the majority, more than religion, believe in science. Science is a new religion. Science is shake(ing) religion, believe or faith, shake.
Not only humans believe shake, the whole world is shake(ing). The whole world is good sight, bad sight. Good sight, unusual. Things are great. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty floors of buildings exist. Now soon taxi will fly in the air. Five star hotel airplane will fly. Why we need this all?
So, so greedy. Extremely greedy. Everything taken out. Future empty. Saying we love our children. We love our future generation. Destroying future. So, now...
All defiled phenomena are suffering. They have the nature of the three kinds of suffering. The three kinds of suffering are the all-pervasive suffering of being conditioned, the suffering of change, and the suffering of suffering. You can learn about that in detail. It's in Buddhist texts. There are so many of them that are translated and very clearly present the details of these types of suffering. It's not hard to understand, actually. It's explained in great detail. It's pointed out very clearly in the Buddhist teachings, these points. In fact, the Buddha Dharma is a pointing out, an introduction. It points something out to us. What does it point out? It points out the truth. It indicates the truth. That's what Buddhism does.
The most important point, though, among these four is the third one. And that is, what the Buddha said, is that all phenomena are empty and devoid of self. So, if we apply analysis, logic to that point, all phenomena are empty and lack of self. They are empty because they are empty of a creator. They lack a creator. And there is no singular, lasting, and independent self. So when we shared this, when I shared this with a group of scientists, they said, yes, all phenomena are empty and interdependently originated. Yes. We agree on that point, actually, on the emptiness and interdependent origination, dependent origination of all phenomena. Yes, we accept that. When it comes to the question of the self, and the question of ego clinging, and the question of the wisdom that realizes the absence of a self, at this point we're still having a conversation about that. We haven't resolved it. We're still in conversation. Conversation is going very closely. And I am quite, quite admiring. They are very open-minded and very smart. And they really want to develop whatever is harmless, harmless. They worry. So, there's one word. We know this many, many years before. Of course, we've never said this word. They say, Is, is.... (are we) leading to nihilism? Isn't it?
So what do you guys think?
Are we leading to nihilism? Isn't it? Isn't that what's happening? Are we leading to nihilism?
So, what I keep saying these days, we really need to respect religion. Any religion.
Any religion tradition.
In that way with any religion, says, teaching all, saying, don't hurt, be patient, help to others. Is wonderful words. So, Now,
If we just look around at the world around us, and really check the situation that we find ourselves in in the world, this time is called the Kali Yuga. Kali Yuga. Kali here has the sense of time and also black, right? The Kali Yuga, the dark times, the bad negative times. We call this age the degenerate age. And we can say that what we see in this degenerate age are degenerate or vile views. And what is the vile view that we find in the world? It's nihilism, a nihilistic view. At the time when the Buddha lived in the world, I think I'm right in saying that India is the richest country when it comes to philosophies, to philosophical systems. In fact, at the time of the Buddha, it said that there were 360 different philosophies that could be named and described, right? You know, whether how profound the explanation is or not, we can set that aside. How extensive the explanation is or not set that aside. 360 different philosophies that actually we can talk about what they adhere to. That's quite an extensive system, right? In terms of philosophies, that's quite a lot of philosophies, philosophical systems. But in short, we can say that there are five. The Samkhya, the Nyaya, the Vaisheshika and the Jain. And then on top of these four, the next one is called the Charvakas. It's different than the other four. The Charvaka system is different. It is a philosophy and what does it believe? There's no karmic cause and effect. There are no past and future lives. There are no hells. There is no heaven, right? That is the belief system of the Charvakas. That is their philosophy. And look around the world these days. What belief system is quite prevalent, spreading quite a lot? This very system, this very perspective, it's spreading and increasing in the world. And if people fall under the sway of that kind of belief system, right? Thinking there's no lower realms, there's nothing like hell, then there's no fear to avoid, that would cause someone to avoid engaging in negative actions, right? Oh, death, you know, that's just like blowing out a candle. It's just like a puddle of water drying up. There's nothing that happens. It doesn't matter what we do. That kind of belief. That is the belief of the Charvaka philosophical system from ancient India. And we can say that that is a vile belief. That is a degenerate view. It's okay to say that. It is that. And the second issue, the second situation that we find ourselves in in this world is that there are also these degenerate or vile substances that exist in the world. And you can say substances, you know, this starts with chemicals, pollution, right? And if you think about it, we talked about the Kali Yuga, the dark age. Actually, the color of a lot of this kind of pollution and so on is dark, actually, black. And, you know, I've been thinking lately when I look around in the world that these days people are really more and more into wearing black. Everybody wants to wear black. Everyone likes black. Especially this year I went to Hong Kong and I looked around. It used to be that people were all different kinds of colors, lots of different things. This year somehow everyone was black. They built everything inside, outside, dark, dark, black, black. I thought this is a sign, actually. It's a sign, right, of the dark times. But here the degenerate or vile views here, this is a reference to the nihilistic view, the nihilistic view. And then the vile substances, we can say it starts with pollution, right? Pollution, chemicals, that's kind of on a smaller level. But all the way up to and including atomic weapons, nuclear weapons, chemical bombs, right? These kinds of things. These are vile substances and these exist in the world. They are there. They are there in the world. And if someone who holds a nihilistic view uses those kind of vile substances, then that's very dangerous. That's the cause of illness, famine, war in our world. It comes from people, people's characters, right? People's characters, their idea thinking, I have to win, you must lose, I must win, I will win. The degree to which that kind of view is stronger and stronger and stronger, the anger connected with that, stronger and stronger and stronger. The more strong someone's anger is, the more harmful their actions are going to be. And that's the situation actually. Now in the world we have these weapons, they exist in the world that could destroy the entire world, reduce it completely to ashes. Those kind of weapons exist in our world, they're here. And so isn't holding the correct view important? Can't you see how important it is to hold a view that is genuine and that does not fall into nihilism? That's important. It's really important for this reason. And that's why all religions are beneficial actually. It doesn't matter what religious, any religious tradition is of benefit, because it doesn't fall into that wrong view, that nihilist view. So here in this particular religion, the Buddhist teachings, that is the topic here, then the view is that all phenomena are emptiness, they're empty and lack of self. Understanding that view properly is difficult and that's why people spend years and years studying, years and years studying the Dharma. But not just learning, right? It's not just that as Buddhists we learn the view. We actually engage in virtuous actions physically, verbally and mentally, in order to bring both our body and our mind into a state of naturalness. And we train in being careful and conscientious and practicing actually the study, contemplation and meditation of the Buddha Dharma with care and conscientiousness, mindfulness. And then if we do that, then there's a result. There is a result that comes from training in this way. So to understand or to ascertain that all conditioned things are impermanent, it's not actually that difficult. It doesn't require that much examination and investigation. To ascertain that defiled phenomena are suffering or painful, it also doesn't require that much investigation or examination. But to understand that all phenomena are empty and lack self, this actually when we examine that point in more and more detail, that's actually why we have different teachings, Dharma teachings, the first turning of the wheel of Dharma, the intermediate turning of the wheel of Dharma, the final turning of the wheel of Dharma. This is increasingly detailed, increasingly profound presentations on this very topic actually. And again, if we want to avert war and famine and pandemic in our world, if we want to prevent that from unfolding in the future, then how can we do that? What's the method? The method is love and compassion. Love and compassion, there's nothing else that can have that effect, that can really do that in our world. And when we talk about compassion here, we're talking about unbiased compassion, unbiased, truly unbiased compassion. Where do we find teachings on truly unbiased compassion? In the Buddha Dharma, in the teachings of the sacred Dharma. It's presented very clearly. And in particular, when it comes to the conduct of a Bodhisattva, a Bodhisattva's actions involve considering oneself as less important, and considering others as more important than oneself. And not just that, but actually having the confidence, the belief that all beings have been my mothers and fathers, all sentient beings are my parents, and that I should not harm anyone, including friends, strangers, and enemies. We should harm no one. So that kind of belief system, that kind of action, if that spreads and flourishes in the world, that will bring real, true peace to our world. And until that happens, it's difficult to find real peace in the world. Just think about it for a minute. It makes sense, doesn't it?

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