Joy At Last To Know
There Is No Happiness In The World
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A Talk On The First Three Noble Truths
by
Ajahn Brahmavamso
(This is an edited version of a talk given during the 1999 Rains Retreat at Bodhinyana Buddhist Monastery, near Perth, Western Australia)
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NAMO TASA BHAGAVATO ARAHATO SAMMASAMBUDDHASSA.
This evening I want to talk about the Four Noble Truths (suffering, its cause, its ending and the path leading to its ending). Towards the end of any retreat, whether it is a three-month rainy season retreat or a shorter one, it”s worthwhile to bring the meditator”s attention to the core teaching of the Lord Buddha. Bringing the attention to this marvelous and profound teaching might be sufficient to take the meditator just that one step into full awareness, full knowledge and full realisation of the Dhamma. Thereby you might see what the Lord Buddha saw under the Bodhi tree. This will qualify you to enter the stream and to make the transition to the Noble Person (Ariya-puggala) - that is, seeing this very profound and powerful teaching of the Four Noble Truths. Obviously, it”s important to first know those Four Noble Truths theoretically, and each one of you here has that theoretical knowledge. I am going to try to build upon and deepen that knowledge in this talk.
Joy at Last
As I was about to give this talk I brought to mind a well-known picture of my teacher, Ajahn Chah (a Thai meditation master), in his first monastery in England. In this picture, he has his arms raised above his head in imitation of a statue from another monastery. Beneath this statue it says, "Joy at last to know there is no happiness in the world".
I”m going to start from there because so often in our practice and in our lives we are seeking for happiness in the world. We seek for happiness in so many areas and in so many ways, always seeking in the wrong place. Eventually we realise that not finding happiness in these places doesn”t mean there is something wrong with us. It doesn”t mean we are incompetent or hopeless. Insight will show us that there is no way anyone can find happiness in the place we were looking. The mind realises that the world can only be dukkha (suffering). The wise person, instead of being distressed by that suffering and wallowing in it, contemplates what the Lord Buddha says about suffering, the Four Noble Truths. That means, they seek to understand this whole process of suffering.
Sometimes the suffering can be raw, going deep into the bones, even deeper than the bones, right to the very source of what we think we are. It goes so deep and can cause so many problems. It”s such a relief to find out that this is par for the course, that there”s nothing wrong with this. This is the nature of the world. What do we expect
Sometimes we go about with the false expectation that if we”re clever enough, if we”re smart enough, if we keep all the rules and do all the right things, somehow we can have a happy life. Sometimes we think everybody is happy but me. Often people in this monastery think, "I bet everybody in this monastery has experienced Jhana (meditative absorption) but me". What we need to understand is that there is nothing special with us, and that as we practise in this monastery these are things which everyone has to deal with. Ajahn Chah said that when we first come to a monastery, when we first start to practise in the true way, we can expect suffering. We”re going against the stream, and we can expect to feel the pressure of the defilements just in the same way as when we go against the wind we can feel the force against our bodies. This is a sign we are gett…
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