The First Turning of the Dharma Wheel: Four Noble Truths, the Suffering of Suffering, and the Eighteen Sufferings

The 18 levels of hell correspond to the 18 sufferings of human life — the hellish lessons that match each one.

In the Deer Park, the Buddha gave his first teaching to the five bhikṣus — the First Turning of the Dharma Wheel.What is the Dharma Wheel?In the sūtra tradition, "First Turning of the Dharma Wheel" means: I am beginning to transmit the Dharma, turning the wheel of transmission.The Japanese today are researching Buddhism back to its most original form, because the later Buddhism has been edited and revised by many hands, and many sūtras were made up by people who borrowed the Buddha's name.The Japanese are sharp — when they research something, they insist on finding the original.Much of what came later was written by later people and stamped with "the Buddha said." The Buddha has been wronged over and over — for more than 2,000 years he has carried many pots that weren't his to carry.Why?Many of those words aren't his.There are many sūtras forged under the Buddha's name.Someone writes "the Buddha said…" and people believe it.He never protested — the Buddha can't protest.He has carried many false charges and misled many beings.So many people who study Buddhism end up with no direction — they don't know what they're studying, what they're practicing.They talk about chanting the Buddha's name — chant it to what end?Can you attain it or not?They end up studying Buddhism and looking like nothing in particular.Whomever you try to imitate, in the end what you look like is still just you.That's my own way of putting it.

Chanting, studying, and practicing the Buddha — those are only reference points for the process.You cannot become the Buddha.You cannot become Prince Siddhārtha.You will not become him.If you study a successful entrepreneur, you cannot become Terry Gou, you cannot become Wang Yung-ching — impossible.You learn the method, not the mold.If you copy the mold, you'll fail.

So many people out there "practicing Buddhism" today — "look at me, I practice, I study." What is that?Surface.You're just a parrot.You copy what others say, copy their winning formula.But copying someone's formula — will it work?No, because the success has already been used up by them, and they're willing to tell you only the method.A real winning formula — do you think they'd just hand it over?A restaurant has a wonderful hotpot broth.I tell the boss, "This is delicious, give me the secret recipe." Will he?That's what makes his money — of course he won't.But Dharma is compassionate; it tells you the method for liberation from suffering.But how, in practice, you use methods to shift your own state — not everyone can grasp that.Take the Heart Sūtra: so many people lecture on the Heart Sūtra, but how many turn it into inner practice, into a method for finding themselves?Very few.Most just recite line by line and explain line by line.That's why some things can be taught and some can't — people's capacities differ.With a primary-school student, you teach at the junior-high level, no higher.With a university student, you teach at the graduate level, and they go, "Wow, amazing!" If you teach a university student junior-high material from a junior-high textbook, will they bother with you?They'll think your theory is beneath theirs — how are you going to spread the Dharma to them?You can't.You have to raise your own level before you can save those below you.People already above your level — how are you going to save them?If they don't save you, that's already good.Right?

So your belly has to hold a lot of Dharma, a lot of concepts.Only after you've learned can you save the ignorant.Their fault is ignorance — they don't know.They don't know how to practice because they don't understand past lives and future lives, this suffering of saṃsāra.When he lives in the moment of awakening, from that state he sees that past, present, and future are linked, forever turning on the wheel, unchanged.

It's like when I teach you to read a natal chart: everyone's chart just spins on that one sheet of paper.The ignorant only ask, "Is it good or bad?Will I make money?" Someone with a little insight gets the chart and sighs — if life is already on this paper, what's the meaning?If the future is already written, what's the meaning?Someone with more awakening asks: why does this chart even exist?Why is it set?Why are past events on it, future events on it, present events on it — why?I refuse to accept it.My life should not be preordained.That is higher insight.So how do I change the now?Your conduct — change it from this moment.The present can turn.Forget past, forget present, forget future — if you can awaken in this moment, the rest of your life is liberated.If you can't awaken now, then tomorrow, next year, ten years from now, up to the day you die, you'll still be stuck in the same place.In Zen the sudden shout and the stick-blow mean: no future life, no past, right now you must see it clearly.If you see it now, you don't need to care about past or future — it's through.What else is there to mind!And the natal chart?I don't mind it.I already know the meaning of life isn't on this paper — it isn't the business of Tanlang-huaji or Wuqu-huaji.Those are worldly matters.Understand?What's on the chart is worldly matters.There are only three kinds of people whose charts can't be read: the person of great joy, the person of great goodness, and the practitioner — the real practitioner, not someone who talks practice while his heart does worldly business.

These three kinds, their charts can't be read.A practitioner — Tanlang-huaji, you're tangled in romance?I've purified my six senses, why would Tanlang-huaji touch me?What romantic entanglement?I have no romantic affairs — so Tanlang-huaji has nothing to work on.

"Oh, you suffer over money, Wuqu-huaji, your money turns to water." I'm a practitioner.I live on alms.If there's affinity to eat, I eat; if not, I don't.If still no food, I eat nettles like Milarepa.What has Wuqu-huaji got to do with me?Nothing.The reading doesn't apply.Nothing to do with me, nothing happens.Everything to do with you, everything happens.Hear that line?"Abide nowhere" — the Diamond Sūtra is right back.

"Abide nowhere and all afflictions are extinguished" — gone.No more problems grow.This is "cessation." So in the Four Noble Truths — Suffering, Origin, Cessation, Path — how do you cut off, extinguish?The simplest line is the Diamond Sūtra's "Abide nowhere." My mind will not sit here and be tortured.This matter has nothing to do with me.Nothing.The trouble starts when you grip it, refuse to let go — then the thing comes, the affliction comes, the suffering comes, because you care.You care about everything, and all the afflictions and all the pain arrive.I don't care — the eight winds don't move me, nothing disturbs me.That is practice.Practice shrinks problems to nothing.No practice turns no-problems into problems, big problems, inescapable problems.That is the difference.

So in my practice I never put down two books: the Diamond Sūtra and the Heart Sūtra.Because no one truly reads the Diamond Sūtra, and no one knows how to use the Diamond Sūtra for practice.The greatest merit of the Diamond Sūtra: just teaching the four-line verse of the Diamond Sūtra is immeasurable merit.Which four lines?"All conditioned phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow; like dew, like lightning — contemplate them thus." I think four isn't enough.Add "Abide nowhere and give rise to the mind." Now it's standard, now it's complete.

If you often say to your karmic creditors: "Ah, everything past is like dew, like lightning — you and I must both see it this way, you let go, I let go.Otherwise, if you kill me in this life, next life I become a ghost and come back for revenge.Our saṃsāra never ends.You kill me, I kill you.How will we ever finish?You can't leave this world, neither can I.We go on turning, go on demanding payment — you keep killing me, I keep killing you.Do you find this interesting?" Pull your karmic creditor aside and talk it through.He'll say, "Yes!What's the point of all this killing?" Immediate awakening, immediate liberation."No problem, here's a gift, I'll recite a sūtra for you." Isn't that liberating your karmic creditors yourself?Liberating your own suffering yourself?Problem solved.Isn't that how it works?

So Dharma must be practiced alive, straight into the heart, not just on the lips.Someone chants and you chant along, feeling very grand — "I'm a Buddhist." You recite a liturgy — "I'm a Vajrayāna practitioner." So what?You're nothing at all.Why?What comes out of your mouth has no Dharma in it.What's in your heart can't liberate suffering.What you do can't help beings.Then what kind of Buddhist disciple are you?None at all.

So I hope the disciples of our Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara maṇḍala will fill themselves with Dharma.On January 1 I told Sister Chien, we are going to make a big change — one, we'll strengthen the supplemental Dharma education.So I'll make time to teach you what the Buddha called the "Treasury of the True Dharma Eye." The real meaning of studying Buddhism, not the dressed-up worldly packaging — real, beautiful, true.What can it bring me?I just said.It can clear away afflictions, clear away ignorance that shouldn't be there, clear away the eight sufferings, and let you understand what life means from birth to end.So hold on to what I'm teaching today.If you see through it right now, your life changes.

How does life change?From the moment you see through.How does fate change?From the moment you take in what I just said.Otherwise there will never be a day of change — you'll keep living on that one sheet of chart paper.Because we just studied Zǐwēi Dǒushù, I'm telling you: you'll live on this chart forever, turning without stop.So I say three kinds of people don't need a chart read and can't have theirs read: the greatly evil, the greatly good, and the practitioner.Looking is meaningless.I said it again — "Ah, I?Abide nowhere." My mind is in another dharmadhātu.My mind is not in the worldly.Everything happening to me is worldly, nothing to do with me.Who is my business?The devas are my business.

So Maitreya teaches the devas, Śākyamuni taught humans.Why?Teaching humans is the hardest, and it is the greatest merit.To turn the ignorant into the awakened, to make them understand, to lead them to liberation, to show them how to end the pain of life — hard, because people have so many levels.Especially in India, where many were illiterate.To get through, you'd wait until the end of time.How many beings to save?The first person he met, he couldn't get through."What do you say?" Can't understand.Repeat until he can.Take Sister Yu-hsuan — she started from the first Zǐwēi class and by now she understands.Right?Saying you don't understand is normal.Saying you do, I say you're a genius, your wisdom is first-class.Not understanding is normal.

So the foundation must be laid, classes must be attended, education must be learned, Dharma must be supplemented, practice must be done.Practice what?Practice your mind to "abide nowhere." That's success.Then on to the next stage.All worldly matters are inside the eight sufferings.All twelve palaces of the natal chart sit inside the eight sufferings — not one palace is clean and beautiful.You say, "My such-and-such palace is best, I'll live off this one." Wrong.Look at the opposite palace — a malefic star shoots across.It won't let you have it that good.There's always a malefic.You cannot just enjoy that one palace.

So the rich have marriage problems, the rich have problems with their children, the rich have body problems.Some extremely rich people sit on golden toilets with beauties around them day and night — dead at how old?Maybe in their fifties.Kidney failure.They're rich alright, but is their fate good?Not necessarily.Our fates are bad, but we are devilishly free, right?Want to look at flowers, want to feed pigs, go.Go anywhere, free and easy.They have money, but their lives are in suffering, not in joy.What does life really want?To be free and easy — that's the real thing.If you're not free and easy, you're no different from an animal — hunting food to fill the belly, selling your days to earn food.Working to feed the body, breaking the body, earning to repair the body, turning without stop.Then you make a few kids to "help" — they work you to death.Earn to feed them, earn to educate them.The grown kids are undutiful, break your heart.Everything is suffering.Not one thing isn't.

So, to treat yourself a little better, you look for ways to escape suffering.That's Dharma.Early India: 99% in pain.The poor were many, the rich a handful of nobles, most people in slavery, worked to death like oxen and horses, skin and bone, no food, no clothes.The Buddha looked and saw life was this.The ratio was that bad — this is suffering.So he began asking: where does suffering come from?Why this kind of pain?From where?He went into meditation to think.Think what?Past, present, future.Why are people split into rich and poor?When he awoke he saw: it's causes and conditions.Suffering, Origin, Cessation, Path — these four, their causes and conditions are all "Origin," which is the gathering of causes and conditions."Cessation" is their disappearing.

So Suffering, Origin, Cessation, Path — it starts with Suffering.Then Origin — the gathering of all causes and conditions that produce your present family, your present affairs, everything around you.Then Cessation — removal, all gone.Then Path — nature, return to nature.Dharma is all "Path." You must clearly realize all of life through these four, from Suffering all the way to Path.Daoism says: in the end everything births a yang or a yin; yang and yin meeting produces the two forces and four images, from which everything comes, and in the end everything returns to Dao.What is Dao?Nature.What is that?"Originally there is not a thing — where could dust alight?" You stir it up, the dust comes.Don't stir, and all things don't move, still.Dust rises because you walk; if you don't walk, dust won't fly up, right?So, originally not a thing, where could dust alight.Many Zen verses say the same: don't move.Not "don't move" meaning sit still all day — "the mind doesn't move." So in Vajrayāna we say: a mind firm as vajra.Not rigid, not hard.It means my mind will not be moved by anything outside — that is "abide nowhere." Remember this line.Whatever you meet, you must "abide nowhere" to escape suffering.If the mind follows appearances, you'll never finish — every day the heart wants to buy this and that, endless, no stopping.The result of endless wanting is you spend all your money; when the money's gone you grind to earn more; you sell your life to earn, to feed the desire to buy.Suffering never ends.

So in Suffering-Origin-Cessation-Path, from Suffering to Cessation, you're being told how to cut off suffering.In Vajrayāna we use Chöd — the Black Wrathful Ḍākinī Chöd — for the "cutting" practice, cutting off the body's cravings.Cut the body, cut emotions, cut saṃsāra, cut desires — all cut off.

What's trendy now?"Danshari" — cut, let go, leave.When to cut?You must be clear.Cut at the wrong moment, no good.Cut too early is also no good — long nights breed dreams, strands can't be severed.So when and how to cut must be clear-cut."Cut" has two meanings: cut off, don't touch; and cut open to see.Is the watermelon ripe?Can you tell?You must split it to see if it's sweet and ripe.That's "cut" as seeing clearly.So two meanings — cut off, and see clearly.If you don't see clearly, how will you cut off anything?

Now open this page.Up top: the Buddha teaching the bhikṣus — the great teacher of mankind, Śākyamuni, awoke and became Buddha.He awakened.What does "awakened" mean?Thought it through.Don't treat these terms as untouchable."Awakened" means thinking clearly about why you're born into the human world, why you're moving around in this world, what your final purpose is, where you really go, what you really do after you end.Understand it all — that's realizing the Way.

After awakening, at a place in India, the Deer Park, he had only five listeners.Five bhikṣus.Worse than me — I have more than ten, he had five.He too was in hard circumstances, giving the first human teaching.

Why the "first human teaching"?I said teaching comes in two kinds: teaching to the devas, and teaching to humans.The Buddha was teaching humans.Maitreya teaches the devas — his audience is the eight classes of divine beings, immortals, gods, bodhisattvas of the first bhūmi, arhats.That's called resident deva teaching — body in meditation, often ascending to the heavens to teach.So are we close to the heavens?When we die, eyes close and bye — we go straight there, right?That's not hard.But do you have the capacity to teach the devas?You don't.Humans don't even listen to a human teacher — teach the devas?When sentient beings can't be awakened by what you say, where else do you go to teach?

So his first human talk — to humans — he couldn't teach the common people either.They wouldn't understand.So he first taught the five bhikṣus following him.He gave the First Turning Dharma.What is this called?The Four Noble Truths.Whether sūtra school or tantra, the Four Noble Truths are the most important Dharma laid down in the First Turning.Remember — these four are the Four Noble Truths.Four — four stages.Noble — the sages or great foreseers are called noble.Truth — the real meaning, not false, real.

Four lines: Suffering, Origin, Cessation, Path.Four stages.

Last time with the Heart Sūtra I said: a baby's face when born — isn't the layout of its features already "ku," suffering?Have you seen?Draw a circle for the face, a cross for the eyes, another cross for the nose, then a mouth: "ku" (bitter).Birth, see the face — crying with eyes shut, a cross: born landing in suffering.Who suffers?He suffers, and dad and mom start suffering too.From a lump of flesh to this grown — how much suffering?All suffering together.Mom cries, baby cries, dad cries bewilderedly — he hasn't tasted the bitter fruit yet.When his wife gives birth, dad is thrilled, mom is in agony.He hasn't thought: this lump of flesh — how long will I be pinching it?Doesn't realize.Later he knows.The child knows: finished, this life will be bitter, how did I end up here?Already a pile of suffering.That's the initial suffering.

So first: "Suffering — one must know it." This is the first line he laid down.Because without correct understanding of the real conditions of life, there's no chance to escape pain.You have to know what suffering is before you can escape it.In Zǐwēi, you have to know each star's traits before you can read a chart.So you must recognize where suffering comes from.Hence the first line: "Suffering — one must know it." You should know suffering.

So what is suffering?Suffering means being pressed, afflicted.In modern words: stress, mood, happy or not, having or not, comparison, discrimination — all suffering.The moment you compare — "you have, why don't I?Why is his prize bigger, mine smaller?Someone serves rice; his bowl bigger, mine smaller.The boss favors him, not me." At work your colleague is tight with him, and when passing out candies they skip you — ever had that?Everyone gets one and they jump right over you.Right — your heart lights up.Every tiny thing is suffering.Even this trifle is suffering.

So why do we create suffering?Because I can't see past it, can't let it pass.Why do I care about one candy?If I want candy I'll buy a big bag after work and eat happily.Why should I care that one candy was missed?Your heart sits on that candy, tortures you — maybe for three days, a week, you can't put it down, because you feel they looked down on you.So this one suffering tangles you for a long time.But you can't tell anyone, "My mind has been tortured this long over a candy" — they'd laugh you to death.You dare not say, you cannot be free of it.Why?No way.One missed candy and you suffer long.Life has far more suffering than one missed candy, right?

Every event comes from this "heart." So the character 苦 (ku, suffering) — add 心 (heart) under it and it becomes 若 (as in 般若, prajñā) — wisdom.Use the heart to feel this suffering and it becomes prajñā.If you add "heart" to "bo-re" (prajñā), it becomes wisdom — use the heart to feel why I am entangled by this suffering.So we pursue suffering, meaning: the thing that gives you affliction, puts pressure on you, won't let you let go, you cannot sever — that's what we mean.It refers to our helpless being, caught in saṃsāra of birth-and-death in the three realms, pressed by the states of impermanence.

So suffering is a phenomenon of all this world.Because you are a worldly person, your accepting this suffering is "normal." Why do we strive to practice?I hope my heart doesn't turn in the worldly.My heart leaves the world, isn't tangled by suffering.That is what we strive for.Practicing in the red dust is good practice.The red dust rolls on.You can't say "I'm different from everyone." Impossible.But your heart can be different.My body is in the red dust, going with the flow — that's where we live, going with the flow.Fitting in: I have to go along to live.If I don't go along, people cast me out, dislike me, and I feel bitter.That's the helplessness of fitting in.Playing a role on cue, playing whatever the film needs — helplessness.Playing — playing what?Falsely satisfying others so they're pleased and you can live a little better.

I used to challenge this often — why should I please you, read your face, right?So I chose freelance work.Why?I refuse to live my whole life reading faces.I have backbone.Yes — angry, I sweep my sleeve and go.The great chiliocosm is so vast — why should I be bound by you?Who are you to me, by what right do you bind me, by what right do you manage me?These people have no right to manage me, no right to constrain me.Because I am at ease, I don't create suffering with them.Plainly put: I don't give a damn about you.Who are you?Big officials, rich people — I don't look at any of them.Not that I despise them.Your money is your business, nothing to do with me.So to this day I can't find a patron.I'm not fit to look for patrons.To them I'm "there and not there." You know my character — "there and not there" doesn't bother me.You live in a palace — your business, nothing to do with me, right?I don't have to flatter you, say pretty things to you.So I can't find patrons.I don't put them in my eye.Being carefree is my greatest freedom.

That's your fate, that's how you live, that's your well of joy.Who is it tied to?To yourself, right?Whether life is good — you know.Painful or not — you know.The joy in your heart — you know.What you want — you know.Who else can know what you want?Your husband doesn't know what you want.Your children don't know what you want.What do you really want?Your wife doesn't know what you want.Only you know.So create the state you want — that is "at-ease."

Guanzizai Bodhisattva — Avalokiteśvara "at-ease." Learn from this Bodhisattva.At ease, unbound, unrestrained, free and easy, laughing across the rivers and lakes."The world is high, the road is long — brothers need not see me off." A truly fine line — that kind of freedom, that nature.Yes, don't see me off, no weeping, no need, right?"Wave a sleeve and carry away not a wisp of cloud" — free and easy, no regrets.That's how to live life.

Children have their own karmic affinity.My father told me early: "Grandchildren have grandchildren's fortune, don't fear them doing hard labor.I will give you nothing — you won't starve, you have your own merit, you'll be better than me." Hard, yes — because he really gave me nothing.I truly started from empty hands.He was free and easy!I feel I didn't rely on home, and I'm free too.Right — grandchildren have grandchildren's fortune.You only need to raise them: you made them, you're responsible, raise them up, that's enough.They have their own merit.He finds a wife, she her husband — people have their own families.Why hang suffering between you?It's bottomless.

So slowly learn "cut, let go, leave." That is not heartlessness, not severing.The heart doesn't move, isn't dragged.Learn to repair your heart back to steady stillness, unshaken — that's beautiful.That's what practicing Dharma is for.Sometimes to "learn Buddha" is this — the Buddha is not shaken by anything in the world, and I learn his spirit.Yes, bodhisattva-heart.I learn from the bodhisattva — compassion for beings, but I don't leap into beings.

So real compassion versus fake compassion is clear.Real compassion doesn't cling, and doesn't refuse to let go.Real compassion goes, no need to look back.Willing to give — doesn't mind how much, doesn't mind how much I own.Give when it should be given; after giving, don't turn around waiting for "thank you." Some people, after giving, won't leave.Why?Because you haven't thanked me.That's fake compassion.So compassion has true and false, and wise versus foolish compassion — be clear.There is sowing in good field or in poor field — don't sow wrong, don't be mis-compassionate.Compassion needs wisdom.Don't pointlessly spend a pile of money to build a glittering temple like a tourist site — is that real or fake compassion?Not real.That household has nothing to eat, right?If you converted that into rice to feed them for ten years, that is real compassion.So distinguish.We're talking here about suffering as the phenomena of this world.

Line five: all phenomena of the world are "normal," and our eating bitterness seems normal too.What looks pleasurable now carries the trait of suffering — it triggers the suffering that follows.Even if what we meet is good, what comes after is sure to be bad.What you now have, you will certainly lose.In this world there is no eternal having.Having is pleasure, losing is grief.We often say "a child with a mother is a treasure" — yes, while the mother takes care of him, it's happiness.But one day she leaves, the child is in pain.The gap between joy and suffering cuts the heart.If a mother doesn't dote on the child to the point of overflowing happiness, then when she passes, the child's pain won't be so sharp.And when she goes, her pain will be knife-sharp too — why abandon the beloved child?So the final result for both is what?Suffering.Suffering of mutual harm, all of your making.Neither cultivates well — the child doesn't, the mother doesn't.If you want both not to fall into suffering, when the child is small, slowly teach him about attachment to such things.That's better for him.

When he loses you, he can still live happily.When you lose him, you won't be unable to let go and keep turning in saṃsāra because you loved him too much.A hundred years on, the child dies.Because the child was so attached to mother but his spiritual nature was insufficient, he can only be reborn as a dog.Next life, to be loved by you, he becomes your pet dog.Bathes with you, sleeps curled on your bed, eats Sheba daily, is groomed monthly — ten thousand plus a month — exactly as you doted on the child.So now people call dogs "son," girls "baby," and their parents "the old man." Isn't that right?Today's young dote on dogs more than anything, more filial to them.Toward dad and mom they're annoyed like at a stray dog.Reversed — going out they push a stroller with a dog in it, while dad and mom can barely walk and they won't lend a hand.Won't even help, would rather carry the dog.Every day dog in arms — will they hug dad and mom?Say "Dad, I love you, Mom, I love you"?Never.They kiss that dog all day.Will they tell mom "Mom, I love you, baby, I love you" — one look, it's the dog.That's how it is.Love the dog.

So we say: all world's phenomena are suffering.On the surface it looks like joy, but inside it's bitter medicine wrapped in sugar — and it triggers continuously.If we're intoxicated by temporary joy and don't know the real nature of these sufferings, it's very dangerous, the aftermath unspeakable, because it continues.In Dharma, suffering is divided into the three sufferings or the eight sufferings.In the Heart Sūtra I already covered the eight.Everyone recite them: "Birth, old age, sickness, death, parting from the loved, not getting what one wants, meeting the hated, blazing of the five aggregates." Where should you put these?Think them through in meditation.Just reciting the eight is useless.

You must think from the heart: from rebirth and birth to now, I have met pleasing and displeasing things, happy and unhappy, things I gained and lost, loved ones lost, friends gone — from suffering to gain to loss, think through it all, and let change arise in the heart.All the meetings and partings of the world — behind every joy is suffering, after suffering a little joy, during joy already suffering.There's no way to cut it.Then I think about others: do they go through the same?Yes.The things I speak of, I've been through them.When you listen, haven't you been through the same?Gotten things, lost things, gotten feelings, lost feelings, gained love, lost love, gained kin, lost kin — haven't you been through these griefs too?You have.Everyone is the same.Everyone's suffering is the same, right?Not that I'm different — I just haven't finished my practice.I'm the same as all of you.I speak Dharma to you hoping I learn too, and you learn too.

If I had never endured suffering, how would I know yours?Not knowing yours, how would I speak it to you?Everyone knowing the state of suffering, its start, its end, and the method to resolve it — this is practicing Dharma.Then you gradually leave suffering and gain joy.Joy not momentary — eternal.Why?Because suffering, for me, no longer exists.Only joy remains, abiding in great bliss.In Vajrayāna we say "abiding in great bliss." When?In meditation.When you reach a certain level, eyes bright, moving about, heart abiding in great bliss — because the mind is unshaken, well guarded, no one can hurt it, nothing can hurt it, returning to purity.

So our practice is a return to the origin — back to my innocent, unhurt time, like childhood, so happy, no further hurt, well guarded.That is the mind abiding in great bliss — the Heart Sūtra's abiding in great joy.In Dharma, these are "three sufferings" and "eight sufferings." I just read the eight.The three sufferings: "the suffering of suffering, the suffering of change, the suffering of conditionedness."

First, "the suffering of suffering." Already bitter, and doubly bitter — the suffering of suffering.These are the suffering causes we meet now, pressed by pain.Pain born from adverse circumstances, suffering giving birth to more suffering — hence "suffering of suffering." More suffering created out of suffering, because there's no joyful cause in your heart.Everything that touches you is suffering piled on suffering.Every being knows this — it's the easiest form of suffering to recognize, because in the state of suffering, whatever you see is suffering, right?

Mood bad, nothing looks good.The rose blooms beautifully — in a bad mood, it looks dull, you want to cut it down.Mood good, even grass looks lush and lovely.You'd sing "I come from the mountain carrying orchid grass…"

Mood bad, those are weeds.Mood good, little grass is tough, wind can't knock it down — you say happy things, right?Who's wrong?Is the grass wrong?No.Who's wrong?You.Nothing in the ten thousand things is wrong; you produced the "right" and "wrong," right?So in the end blame who?No one's wrong.People?You're not wrong either.Where does your "wrong" come from?Because I don't like what you did — so I think wrong.The "wrong" births affliction, pain arrives, right?If you do your thing, I do mine, no trouble.

All things are nothing to do with you — originally nothing to do.It's your discriminating mind that births suffering, right?So this "suffering within suffering" is called the suffering of suffering.Every being knows it, the easiest in suffering to recognize, because we live in it.

Second, "the suffering of change." Though we're in favorable conditions, carrying a joyful state, the affliction when it disperses and parts.This suffering looks joyful on the surface, but because our mind is attached and greedy for pleasure, when the pleasant meets impermanence — unscheduled — it rises, you fall into pain.So it too has the trait of suffering.Whenever you hold, you must remember the losing.What you have, you will certainly lose.Impossible to own forever.So all things in the world — from your birth — you hold only the right of use.Whether you bought it or someone gave it, you only have use-rights, not ownership.

Since only use-rights, why care?Let me ask: you're renting an apartment?If you rent, would you spend a fortune to deck it out in gold?You wouldn't, because it's someone else's.So you have use-rights, not ownership.All things in the world are being used — you can never take anything away.Only use-rights, never ownership."Forever" is your selfish, mental assumption that this is "mine."

So we spend money to buy another's life, right?Buy a live fish for 200 to kill — the fish's life for your 200.You think because you have money you can buy its life, right?If the fish had wisdom it would say: what do I have to do with you?Why 200 for my life?By what right?200 and you can kill a life — what the hell kind of thing is a human?One living thing has enormous impact on another.You buy my life for 200, kill me.What if the fish had wisdom?

So everything — think clearly now.Nothing is yours, nothing is owned, you only have use-rights.Then your heart eases.The child born is not yours, not owned.Your child goes out — "you can't go, you're mine." Child wants to marry — "you can't marry someone else, you're mine." Possible?No.You only get to enjoy the family bond.One day affinity ends, he is someone else's, not yours.Same with husband and wife, same with houses, same with everything around you.When affinity ends, not one is yours — only use-rights.Husband and wife are use-rights too.Affinity ends, you can't even use anymore — right?Love gone and still able to use?Can't even touch.So anything feels like "having" only while affinity holds.No affinity, no having.Understand up to here?Only while affinity holds do we feel we have.Once affinity ends, neither party lets the other hold.That simply divides life.

Take it lightly.All matters — you only have use-rights.To understand suffering, start from my plain language — distinguish "owning" from "using." Then you won't mind things, people, affinities so much.You distance from suffering a bit; suffering won't be so bitter.Remember this.This friend and I are close — why did we rip the face?Because the friend is not your property.You only had the use of your mutual affinity for that span.Why fallout?Affinity ended.Ended — let it go, you can't hold.

So Tanlang-huaji is like this — affinity rising and falling, can't let go, dragged on.Spouse palace with Tianxing, can't let go, dragged on.Spouse palace broken, can't let go, dragged on.When Jumen comes, cut, let go, leave.So many things aren't about "should I or shouldn't I" — all depends on affinity.Many take refuge and don't come to learn, listen, or attend class — the same, affinity rising and falling.You willing to learn — also affinity rising and falling, this one just lasts longer.Of course now our good affinity lasts longer, bad affinity shorter — but good or bad, all are "karmic affinities" because all have entanglement.An old Zen master said: "Good affinity or bad, both are karmic affinity, because there's always entanglement — all entanglement."

Today we only cover suffering of suffering, saying first that in Dharma suffering is divided into three or eight.The three: suffering of suffering, suffering of change, suffering of conditionedness.Keep this sheet.Whatever I say, take notes, record.Share with your friends, family, relatives.All of this you can pass along in my meaning.Don't fret.If someone has depression, bipolar, can't think things through, use these words to tell them: all sources of suffering are because your heart is hung there.Why not hang your heart elsewhere?Then the suffering will gradually vanish.If you keep caring about it, the more you look at the wound, the more it hurts; the more you watch the nurse, the needle, the more it stings.Turn your head away, don't look — it's just a bee sting.Isn't that so?

So if you mind it, it exists; if you don't, it doesn't.The method of leaving suffering is to pull the heart out, put the heart somewhere else to handle it.Once this becomes habit, when the body is about to break, at death, if the heart is still inside the body, you'll enter saṃsāra, because it will feel all the hate, love, grudges, suffering stored in the body's memory, and fall into the bardo.If in the final moment the heart has already moved — "never mind, this is only a stinking sack, a shell like clothes, slip it off and change into another set" — then the heart won't torture and ache along with the body, and won't fall into bardo.Smile and "return to the nine springs" happily, less likely to fall into bardo.If you carry love-hate-passion-vengeance into the springs, you re-enter saṃsāra.So the heart decides whether to become Buddha or to go to hell.Handling the heart well is the most important.

To handle the heart, you must listen — listen a lot to Dharma like this.Best to record and listen again and again.What is that?Educating my heart.Education isn't just "you understood today, done." Repeat and repeat so your brain, your heart accepts it — then awakening.If the brain and heart haven't said "ah, so that's it," that's not yet awakening.The heart must suddenly produce a line: "Ah, so that's it, now I know." That means your heart has awakened.It tells you itself.Receiving "so that's it" is awakening.Even the Buddha sitting in meditation reached it this way — we call it realization.Realization — you don't fly up, you don't grow four or eight arms, no!Just inside the heart appears, "Ah, so that's it, the world is just like this, life is just like this.I get it!" That's awakening.After understanding, the brain begins to open up — from 5% to 50% to 80% to 100%.Not only do I understand life, I understand the whole earth's evolution, the source of life, the galaxy, that Mars really had people — not only Earth — I understand how all the planets operate.I get it!That's awakening.Not just "I get the lead singer," "I get sūtra recitation," "I get computers." Not those.Real understanding is understanding the whole universe's mystery, the whole arc of life, the whole process of becoming human, understanding devas and the underworld, everything — that's true understanding.

Once you understand that much, your pain almost ceases, because pain exists only in this three-dimensional space.Pass beyond 3D, into 4D or 5D, and there's no such sensation.So suffering is a sensation, produced by the place you're in.Change the place, and suffering is not suffering.The environment, the location, the space determine the feel of suffering.Switch into another spacetime where this sensation isn't needed, and suffering doesn't even exist.What suffering?The deva realm runs on telepathy — no flesh body.No flesh body, no birth-old-sickness-death, no cold, heat, suffering, no cold-and-hunger suffering, no love-and-courtship suffering, no parent-child suffering, no "cut-let-go-leave" suffering.None of these, because they have no such sensations, right?They let themselves dwell in great bliss.No sensations of suffering.

So what do we practice now?To that degree, that state, that environment — the deva realm, right?Don't come back as a human, don't become pig or dog — all these are in 3D.Lower environments?Underground.Underground how many creatures?Dig casually, earthworms.Deeper, bugs.Deeper, different creatures.Sea surface, shallow sea, deep sea, deepest sea — totally different.In the deep sea no light, a dark world.Below the earth's crust, magma — a world of fire.Every level has creatures.We just live on earth's surface.Second layer, third, fourth, fifth — the core — all have creatures.The deeper, the clearer the sensation of suffering.So hell most easily feels suffering.Why?The 18 levels of hell, on earth's eighteenth surface layer, are the hell world.All hell worlds feel suffering — the knife-mountain stair, the cart-crushing pass — all these let you feel suffering again and again, because you didn't finish practicing suffering, so you must come back.That's "huaji" — must return to feel suffering.The 18 levels of hell's suffering is the suffering we didn't finish in human life, didn't see through — back to hell to taste no-sensation, no sensation.

Indian ascetics training austerities also drive themselves to no-sensation, eliminating the feel of suffering — a very passive approach.Austerities train the body not to feel pain, but that suffering still exists, because suffering comes from the mind, not the body.Body no sensation, heart still feels.These aren't the right methods.

So where is hell?18 layers.18 layers meaning?Suffering exhausted.Exhausting the heart's suffering is in hell; parting the heart from suffering is in heaven.So why do we practice to resolve suffering, to leave suffering and gain joy?Leave the suffering world — you won't go to hell.Hell is the source of suffering, the appearance of suffering.So the "Bee-Needle Hell" — those who get injections daily in hospitals, that's the Bee-Needle Hell, bodies punctured all over.And drug users with needles all over — that's the Knife-Peak Hell.Not finished with practice, where do you go after death?Bee-Needle Hell.Tens of thousands of bees stinging on and on.So practicing out of the gate of hell is practicing suffering to exhaustion and cessation.

I'm telling you the truth: if you don't remove this suffering, you'll absolutely fall into one of the 18 passes of the 18th hell.Peel the sufferings off one by one and you leave the 18 exhaustions of hell.Understand?This is heavy, remember it.To not enter hell, cultivate off and remove the 18 kinds of suffering.If you keep even one, you must enter the corresponding one of 18 hells and continue practicing there, continue grinding on that suffering.This is the secret of secrets.Write it down.No one has said this before.Memorize it.

Are we supposed to let our children go through those sufferings?No way — grandchildren have grandchildren's karma.Your own family is the hardest to save.If today you know what I'm teaching — the bloody horrors of hell — you should turn back, not let him enter the 18 states of suffering again.Not eight — I'm saying 18.The 18 levels of hell describe 18 kinds of inner torture in a human — not just eight.If you keep one suffering as you die, that one suffering pulls you to its corresponding hell.So we don't yet rush to resolve these 18 sufferings — where's the time?Your children never come to listen; they don't know; they slowly walk toward these 18 hells of suffering.Only you can hear me, and you can't go back and teach them — they won't listen.You just watch them walk into that trap, helpless.

So sūtra school and tantric school differ hugely.Sūtra-school disciples' children all take refuge in the master — the whole family.In sūtra school, holidays, the whole family goes to see the master.Like Master Guang-ching's disciples, most families all take refuge.Here, not.Our second generation doesn't know me when they see me.Your parents see me and don't dare say "this is my guru" in front of several disciples — they don't dare.So those second-gens don't know me.That's their loss, their parents' loss, their children's loss, and my disciples' loss.Because without the wisdom to listen to me teaching — this is a secret no one has told before.I'm telling you now: not 8 but 18.If any one suffering corresponds with hell, you'll go to that one of the 18 and continue.Understand?18 sufferings.

So to not enter hell's gate, remove these 18 sufferings.You've never heard this.Most hear eight sufferings; now extended to 18.Now you know: "Ah, so hell is where those who can't be freed from these 18 states, and those who inflicted 18 sufferings on others, are kept." Finally the secret of hell is spoken — the 18-level secret.So those who gossip and criticize go to Tongue-Cutting Hell.This work wasn't done — all day gossiping about others, others gossiping about him, endless.This suffering gets resolved in hell.You didn't finish practice, so Tongue-Cutting Hell for the double-tongued.Daily tongue pulled out, cut, pulled out, cut again.Ghost-wardens on shifts — only ghost-wardens have shifts.Pulled out and cut, grown back, pulled out, cut again, slowly cut, so painful — do you turn mute?No, tomorrow it grows out, next shift pulls and cuts again.Tens of thousands of times, many lifetimes.Some re-born 500 times, 200 lifetimes 200 years re-born — just keep cutting.

So to leave the state of suffering, go look at how the 18 hells are structured.Not one may you enter.So this is also the best target of repentance — 18 gates of hell.And to practice to liberation from suffering, you must practice to not enter these 18 hells.That's how.Today's teaching is excellent.Listen to the recording again and again.Urge your family.This is real, not spoken normally — because I've been there and seen the actual conditions, that's why I'm telling you.By how old are you only now hearing?Hurry and practice.To hear this once in a lifetime — truly fortunate.

Excerpted from a teaching by Master Urgyen Topden Rinpoche on 2020-12-26.