The Four Truths of the Superiors

A guidance discourse by His Eminence Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche

(This guidance discourse was webcast on 24 July 2020, as a part of a series of online guidance discourses,

in July – August 2020, on spiritual practices requested by others.)

(Note: ‘Superiors’ here refer to the practitioners on the path {and the Fully Enlightened Beings—Buddhas}

who have directly realised dependent-arising and emptiness, and it is by the truth or the fact of the standards

of their realisation of suffering as suffering, the origins of sufferings as the origins of the sufferings,

and so on, that the four truths are called ‘the four truths of the superiors’.)

(This Chapter on The Four Truths of the Superiors is an excerpt from

His Eminence Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche’s book Ambrosia of Dharma Discourses, published by Gyuto Tantric Monastery)

There was a directive to speak today, briefly on the four truths. Today is the fourth day of the sixth month in the Tibetan calendar, which is in Tibetan Buddhism the day Buddha gave the teachings on the four truths—turning of the first Wheel of Dharma—to the noble entourage of five,¹ in Vārāṇasī.

The four truths are the foundation and the source of all teachings of Buddha. From the time of becoming enlightened up till passing away, for about forty-five years Buddha gave many teachings at numerous places in India, the teachings comprising of “eighty-four thousand heaps”, and according to the Great Vehicle narrative, “the three series of the Wheel of Dharma”, including the teachings on the Mantra Vehicle. In the description common to all Vehicles within Buddhism, there was only the First Wheel of Teachings, there is nothing said about the other Wheels of Teachings. Yet all the eighty-four thousand heaps of teachings are based on any of the four truths, there is nothing that is outside of the four truths.

That all of Buddha’s teachings are inclusive to the four truths is because, the reason Buddha initially had to become fully enlightened was to liberate sentient beings from sufferings. From firstly generating the enlightenment mind, countless aeons ago, then training on the bodhisattva practices, and attaining full enlightenment, had their cause in the strong compassion, feeling unbearable at sentient beings tormented by sufferings, and aspiring to liberate them, and seeing that only in attaining full enlightenment there would be the capability attributes—all mental flaws removed and possessing all excellent qualities, in the Omniscient Pristine Consciousness—to effortlessly accomplish naturally the needs of each of sentient beings according to their mental dispositions and preferences, by knowing them. As [The Ornament of Thorough Realisation] says, “Generating the mind is for others’ welfare|”,² achieving of Buddhahood is not for oneself. If Buddha was to seek liberation from saṁsāra merely for oneself, there would be nothing insufficient in simply achieving a hearer’s or solitary realiser’s arhat state, where one has eschewed all the mental afflictions and their imprints.

Historically, after birth, Buddha led a householder’s life, and thereafter left the household to be one without a house or home, became an ordained person. The factors for doing so were seeing—when on a tour outside in the kingdom—a sick person, an aged and a dead person. Siddhartha, the Buddha-to-be, saw an aged person, who was very weak, a sick person, who was not able to move about, and a dead person’s corpse being carried with a large number of relatives and people crying. Since Siddhartha had not seen such things before when at the palace, he asked his charioteer what these were and the charioteer responded that the aged had lost all energy through deterioration of the body, and was not able to walk; the sick had lost its health through the body components—the four elements—having declined, and was near to death; and the dead had all its life ceased and was now being carried to be cremated. Siddhartha then asked whether such things happen only to specific individuals or to everybody, and the charioteer gave the reply that all who are born have to die, they cannot remain not-dying, all who are born have to age—if it is someone that dies at young age it would be different—and all who are born have to die sooner or later, that these are uniform to all sentient beings. Siddhartha felt there was no essence with the royal riches and kingdom, and that same night took to a life without a house, from being a householder, thereafter did austere practices for six years, realised the meanings of the profound emptiness and the dependent-links, in the sequential and reverse process,³ thereby attained the Omniscient Pristine Consciousness [Perceiving] the exhausted and the non-arising,⁴ on the fifteenth day of the Vēsakh month, under the bodhi tree at Vajrāsana (Vajra Seat).

After attaining enlightenment Buddha checked whether for whom the teachings—on the process of entering saṁsāra and retreating from it to attain the transcendence—would be of most benefit, and saw the teachings would be greatly beneficial if given to the noble entourage of the five [former practice companions]. Buddha stayed at Varjāsana for seven weeks and then headed to Vārāṇasī, where the entourage of the five were staying at that time, and turned the first Wheel of Dharma, that is, gave the first series of teachings.

The first Wheel of teachings were on the four truths. Here in the present context, “truth” means what is seen as the factual. That is the etymological meaning of the word. In general, when there is the mention of “two truths”, “one truth”, “three truths”, what is true or not true, is explained according to the context. Here the “truth”, when mentioning of “the four truths”, is what is factual, not seeing wrongly, not out of confused vision, rather what is the actual mode of things. In the canonical texts they are called “the truths of the superiors”, which has the meaning that it is not as seen by ordinary beings, rather what is as seen by a superior person, [a person who has directly realised emptiness]. Inclusive to these four truths of the superiors are all phenomena of saṁsāra and the transcendence: everything of the process of entering saṁsāra and its source are inclusive to the truth of suffering and the truth of the source [of suffering], for there is not any phenomenon inclusive to saṁsāra that is not either of the two; on the side of liberation, the transcendence of sorrow (nirvāṇa), there is not any phenomenon not inclusive to liberation that is not either of the truth of the path and the truth of cessation. All phenomena of saṁsāra and the transcendence are inclusive to the four truths. And there is nothing incomplete with the sequence of the four truths in the stages of freeing the trainees (sentient beings) from sufferings and placing them in liberation. The entire Dharma, the teachings, are included in these four truths Buddha taught.

The four truths are the two of the wholly afflicted side, and two of the purified side. The first two are the truth of suffering and the truth of the source [of suffering]. In the truth of suffering are included all phenomena of saṁsāra, the mundane cycle; the truth of source refers to the causes that give rise to the sufferings, the phenomena of saṁsāra. The means for removing the source of sufferings is called the truth of the path. The [state of] having removed, having become parted from, sufferings, by having practised the truth of the path, is the truth of cessation. Applying the example of a patient to the four truths, the majestically inspiring Mētreya says in The Sublime Continuity:

Sickness is to be understood, sickness’s cause is to be eschewed,

Wellbeing is to be attained and the medicine is to be relied upon.⁵

When a sick person is tormented by intense pain, there would be the wish to recover from the sickness; one would need to know the sickness and the cause and factors that gave rise to the sickness. One then has to remove the cause, which is done by the medicine, “the medicine is to be relied upon.” There then would be the wellbeing, the freedom from the sickness. As regards the means sentient beings have to apply to become freed from the samsaric sufferings, [Mētreya continues:]

[One] has to know, eschew, perceive and apply.⁶

Sufferings are to be known, the source [of sufferings] is to be eschewed, the path is to be applied, and the cessation is to be attained.

The truth of suffering

Of the four truths, a suffering, of the truth of suffering, is defined as:

A phenomenon inclusive to saṁsāra, that has arisen from its causal actions (karma) and mental afflictions.

The truth of suffering is of two kinds: the habitat universe and the universe of habitants; sentient beings living in saṁsāra, the mundane cycle, are a truth of suffering, and the habitat universe where they live, produced by karma and mental afflictions, too, is a truth of suffering.

The suffering, in the phrase “the truth of suffering”, is of three types: 1) “the suffering of suffering”, as the scriptures describe, the obvious sufferings that we widely relate to as sufferings; 2) the suffering of change [of pleasures], the contaminated pleasant feelings arisen from karma and mental afflictions, that are widely considered as “pleasant feelings” but that not long before fades (‘perishes’), for they are impermanent, and at the time they fade there is the feeling of suffering; and 3) the pervasive [karmically and afflictively] conditioned suffering,⁷ which refers to the contaminated and [karmically] appropriated aggregates (the entity as a being with the five impure aggregates) that experience and dependent upon which are experienced the suffering of suffering and the suffering of changeable [pleasure]. The pervasive conditioned suffering is the basis of all sufferings.

The mind becoming repulsed by seeing the suffering of suffering is also with animals; the mind becoming repulsed by seeing the suffering of changeable [pleasure] is also with those of outside the path, following a tenet view; the mind becoming repulsed by seeing the pervasive conditioned suffering is only with those, having studied Buddha’s teachings, know exactly the samsaric situation. Until one sees the pervasive conditioned suffering as suffering one has “to know the sufferings”; in the initial Wheel of teachings by Buddha there was the advice, “suffering is to be known”, for there is not-knowing of suffering [from the part of ordinary beings]. It is easy to know the suffering of suffering as suffering; it is slightly difficult to know as suffering the suffering of changeable [pleasure], it is not so difficult to know that, for if someone has their mind directed towards a tenet view, a philosophical understanding, even a little, or someone with an understanding of the path of reasoning (rational thinking), would know the suffering of changeable [pleasure] is a suffering. Except for those with their mind directed towards the Buddhist teachings, it would be difficult to know the pervasive conditioned sufferings—this aggregate (the ordinary mind-body) of the embodiment of the contaminated and [karmically and afflictively] appropriated five aggregates—is a suffering, that it is in the nature of suffering and is the basis of all sufferings. That is why when initially turning the Wheel of Dharma, giving the first series of teachings, Buddha repeated thrice the four truths: First, Buddha said, “This is the superiors’ truth of suffering, this is the superiors’ truth of the source, this is the superiors’ truth of cessation, this is the superiors’ truth of the path”, introducing the four truths, through mentioning by their names. If one wonders whether what kind of path should one be practising to attain liberation freed from sufferings, Buddha then said, “sufferings are to be known”, that one should know the sufferings as sufferings and through that to generate the thought wanting to be freed from them. Once one knows the sufferings, then “the sources [of the sufferings] are to be eschewed”. The way to do that is by meditating on the path of the wisdom realising selflessness, that is directly contrary to the manner ego-grasping, ignorance—the root of all actions and mental afflictions—grasps at [things]; Buddha thus said, “the path is to be meditated on”. When one meditates on the path one would actualise the cessation, “the cessation is to be actualised”. In that way, when mentioning the four truths the second time, Buddha taught the way to practise. During the third time Buddha advised the need to seal all of the four truths with the view of the non-observability of the three avenues: [object, subject and action]; “sufferings are to be known, for there is nothing to be known”, that although one should know the sufferings, there are no sufferings to be known that are intrinsically existent, that they are posited relatively; there is no source [of the sufferings] intrinsically existent to be eschewed, there is no path intrinsically existent to be meditated on, and there is no cessation intrinsically existent to be actualised, that there is no sufferings to be known, the source to be eschewed, the path to be meditated on that are concordant to the manner the innate ego-grasping grasps. When speaking of the four truths the third time Buddha thus taught the entire meaning of emptiness.

When Buddha taught the four truths, beginning with, “this is the superiors’ truth of suffering”, that was the beginning foundation of the spoken teachings (āgama śāsana). During that teaching there awakened the path of seeing (i.e., the direct realisation of emptiness) initially in the mental continuum of Jñānakōṇḍinya, one of the five former practice companions, the noble entourage of the five, thereby the foundation of the realised teachings (the teachings in realisations, adhigama–śāsana) of Śākyamuni the Fourth Buddha, took hold. When Buddha finished repeating the third time all of the noble entourage of the five saw the truth and attained the path of the superiors. All other teachings of the turning of the Dharma Wheel have to be any of the stages of these four truths. For instance, with sufferings, if it is someone that is training on the stages of the path common with the small capable person⁸ one reflects on the obvious sufferings of the three bad wanderings—of the torment realms, mentally anguished and animals—and as the means to become freed from them one relies on the path of observing the morality of eschewing the ten non-virtues, and so forth, thereby attains liberation, of becoming freed of those sufferings. That is the process of the four truths with the practice in common with a small capable person. In terms of training in common with the stages of the path of an intermediate capable person, one generates the thought of renunciation wanting to emerge out of all three sufferings—not just the suffering of suffering, and the suffering of changeable [pleasure], rather that of the pervasive conditioned suffering as well—by feeling that the sufferings are unbearable, and understands that the sufferings have their origins in actions (karma) and mental afflictions, and as the antidotes against them one then trains on the path of realising the meaning of the profound emptiness, thereby attains liberation—hearer’s arhat state, or solitary realiser’s arhat state—of having removed permanently the sufferings, the mental afflictions and their seed. If it is someone training on the path of a great capable person’s, one generates the thought of renunciation with not just one’s sufferings, rather with the sufferings of all sentient beings, and that too with not just the afflictive obscurations, but with the obscurations to Omniscience as well, and as the means to become freed of them one trains on the path of bodhisattva practices—the six perfections, the four attributes of drawing in [sentient beings],⁹ and so on—and attains Buddhahood; that is the way to practise the four truths in the stages of the path of a great capable person.

The sixteen attributes of the four truths

As we discussed earlier, the truth of suffering is defined as, “A phenomenon inclusive to saṁsāra, that has arisen from its causal actions (karma) and mental afflictions”. And it is of two kinds: the habitat universe and the habitant universe. To understand well the truth of suffering there are the four attributes or the aspects with sufferings that one needs to know: impermanent, miserable, (suffering in nature), empty (devoid [of being clean]) and selfless (lacking inherent identity). A principal reason why all phenomena of saṁsāra—the contaminated [body-mind] aggregates, etc.—are sufferings is that they are impermanent, more so the contaminated pleasant feelings are established as suffering by the reasoning that they are impermanent; that they are impermanent is established by the reasoning that they arise occasionally and do not last long, for they are products, [things produced by karma and mental afflictions as their causes and factors]. All contaminated phenomena that are the results of the sources (karma and mental afflictions) are sufferings because they are under the control of karma and mental afflictions, that there is no freedom (self-control), it is all under others’ control, so they are miserable, of suffering in nature. Such an aggregate (contaminated mind-body entity) is filled with ‘uncleans’, that it is devoid of entity as ‘clean’, so it is selfless, lacking self/identity as clean; and that it does not exist from itself as an entity, that it is posited relatively, so it is empty (devoid of self-existence). If one knows well the presentation of these four, one would know well in details the truth of suffering.

When subdivided, the truth of the source [of sufferings] is of two types: the source karma (past actions) and the source mental afflictions. That which actually gives rise to samsaric phenomena is the source karma, that due to committing of actions—virtuous, non-virtuous, neutral—by each of the sentient beings there is recurrent rebirths in samsaric places, the habitats where one is reborn also are formed, and one goes on experiencing sufferings. The karma (past actions) come from the source mental afflictions, of which the principal ones are the three: attachment, hatred and stupor (moha, synonymous with ignorance). Attachment and hatred come from stupor, ignorance. Stupor does not know the manner one exists, one’s mode of existence, it grasps at [the wrong view] that oneself, ‘I’, exists self-standing, not dependent on anything, not as dependently existent, imputedly existent, and due to that grasping at ‘I’ there arises the grasping onto “mine”, “my”, as Candrakīrti said, “At first there’s the clinging to self, [grasping onto it as] ‘I’| And [then] the attachment to things as ‘mine’|”;¹⁰ because of the thought of grasping onto “mine” there arise the thoughts of attachment towards those one considers as of one’ side (dear ones), and hatred towards those of other side, making one commit all kinds of actions (karma)—all the actions, virtuous or non-virtuous, we do as ordinary beings are mostly motivated by any of the three root mental afflictions: attachment, hatred and ignorance; it is difficult for a beginner, an ordinary being, to be doing even a virtuous action that is not out of the mental afflictions. One accumulates karmas in such a way and the karmas get activated by mental afflictions at the time about to die, thereby one takes rebirth, and hence there are continuous sufferings one experiences.

Such source karmas and source mental afflictions—the truth of the source of sufferings—have four attributes: cause, source, strong production and factor. Since they are the causes of all samsaric sufferings, they are the “causes”; because they would keep arising at all places, times and situations, in saṁsāra, they are the “source” (“the source of all”); they produce strongly—strong production—because as long as there are such sources [of sufferings, karmas and mental afflictions], they would not remain not giving rise to their results, just as “an action committed does not go wasted”, that they certainly would produce results; and the manner of producing results is through the mental afflictions awakening the karmas, thus the mental afflictions are the factors [for producing resultant sufferings]. Those four are the aspects of the truth of the source.

There are four attributes or aspects described of the truth of the path: path, achievement, knowledge (perception) and definite deliverance. It is called “path” because there is no other shore of entrance and means for traversing from saṁsāra to liberation, that it is the means by which a person bound to saṁsāra is made to become liberated; it is “knowledge” (perception), for by it one directly sees the meaning of the reality; it is “achievement” because it transforms one’s situation of being with the factors of the mental afflictions and makes it possible to achieve freedom from them; that the path definitely delivers the state of liberation, that when attaining liberation there would be no afflictions remaining to be eschewed, it is “definite deliverance”.

The truth of cessation is the [the state of] having eschewed or having become separated from either afflictive obscurations or obscurations to Omniscience that are to be removed by their respective path in the manner of them not arising again, and most tenets assert it to be an uncompounded phenomenon.¹¹ Since it is [the state of] the context things-to-be-eschewed having become ceased in the manner of not arising again, it is called “cessation”; it is “peace” because it is [the state of] having eschewed mental afflictions and their imprints, the things that otherwise would make one’s continuum non-peaceful (disturbed); it is “excellent”, for there is no more things to be attained, that all that are to be attained are attained completely; it is “definitely emerged” because, with reliance on the path making one to definitely emerge, it is [the state of] having emerged out of all of saṁsāra, afflictive obscurations and obscurations to Omniscience.

The truth of sufferings, that is, the nature of sufferings, is described in the texts as of numerous kinds: the three types of sufferings, the six types of sufferings and the eight types of sufferings, and so on. The principal ones are the three kinds of sufferings, or the two universes of the habitats and the habitants. The truth of the source, that which gives rise to sufferings, is of two parts: a) actions (karma), that actually produce the sufferings, and b) the mental afflictions, which do the awakening (activating) of the karmas, and the source of both of them is ignorance. The truth of the path comprises of the path of seeing and the path of meditative familiarisation; the path of multitude¹² and the path of preparation, which are the paths of the state as ordinary beings, are paths but they do not get to be described as “the truth of the path”. Each of the paths attained of the liberated paths does not have its context things to eschew, yet since it is the result of its uninterrupted path that does the eschewing, so it is a path.¹² If the truth of the path is classified, it would not be not-alright to divide into three kinds: path of seeing, path of meditative familiarisation and path of no-more-training. Cessation is of three types: a) hearers’ cessation, b) solitary realisers’ cessation and c) the Great Vehicle’s cessation, the Non-abiding Sorrow Transcendence, Buddhahood.¹³

In terms of putting into practice, the principal nature of the path is the training in wisdom, that the nature of the path of seeing, the path of meditative familiarisation and the no-more-training path is mainly of wisdom, although both method and wisdom are integral to the path. Because for generating wisdom in one’s mental continuum it has to be preceded by training on meditative concentration, there is the training on meditative concentration. For meditative concentration to arise well in one’s mental continuum it has to be preceded by morality, the training in morality. There is the occasion where the path is explained in terms of the three trainings, there is the context the practice of the path is explained in terms of the path of the three capable persons, and also there is the presentation of the path in terms of traversing it, as the path of the ordinary beings, the path of the superiors and the no-more-training path.

This is a brief presentation of the four truths of the superiors, in the common language, that could be listened to by beginners, those who did not have any training in the major texts. For today we shall stop here.

The video recording, in Tibetan, of this guidance discourse can be viewed at this link:

Notes

pañcakā bhadravargīyā, “group of the five noble [entourage]”; they were Buddha’s initial five disciples, who had earlier done austere practices with Buddha-to-be. The five were Kōṇḍinya (Jñāna~), Aśvajit, Bāṣpa, Mahānāmā and Bhadraka.

अभिसमयालंकार, Abhisamayālaṅkāra, 1:18/a; (sDe dge, bstan ḥgyur, mdo ḥgrel, ja).

The twelve dependent links in the sequential cause to result flow, and the reverse sequence of result from cause origin. The twelve are ignorance, [mental] engagement, consciousness, name and form, sense sources, contact, feeling, craving, appropriating, becoming, birth and ageing or death. The reverse process is to reflect on each of the twelve dependent links arising from the one preceding it, as the source, thus to meditate on ageing or death occurring due to there being birth, and so on.

kṣayajñānam, anutpatādajñānam; knowing the exhausted (perished) and knowing non-arising. It is one of the ten pristine consciousness aspect of the Omniscient mind of a Buddha. Knowing as exhausted (ended) the afflictions that have become exhausted, and knowing non-arising of sufferings that would not arise.

उत्तरतन्त्र, Uttaratantra, 4:55/a-b; (sDe dge bstan ḥgyu, sems tsam, phi). relied upon, or literally, adhere to/apply.

Ibid, 4:55/d.

saṁskāraduḥkatā; lit: produced suffering; conditioned suffering, the suffering of bearing the ordinary five aggregates on which pervades (takes place fully) all sufferings.

See chapter 12, The Three Capable Persons, pp. 407-416; Ambrosia of Dharma Discourses.

catvāri saṅgrahvastūni; the four things for drawing in [sentient beings]: giving necessities, speaking pleasantly, [instructing others] to practise and [oneself] practising accordingly.

मध्यमकावतार, Madhyamakāvatāra, Entry into the Middle, 1:2/a–b; (sDe dge, bstan ḥgyur, dbu ma, ḥa).

a phenomenon not formed out of cause and condition, nor produced by them; asaṁskṛtadharma.

A mental purity that directly overcomes any of the two obscurations (a path that directly abandons its context abandonment objects: any of the two obscurations) is an uninterrupted path; since there is no gap or interruption by another path in-between it and its liberated path, it is called “uninterrupted path”. A liberated path is the newly attained mental purity of having eschewed the context abandonment object: either of the two obscurations.

See Note 13., p.488; Ambrosia of Dharma Discourses.