The Three Trainings In Buddhism
Category: Uncategorized
Trinlay Rinpoche
The Three Trainings
TR 2022 TK1C – 3 Trainings – Ethical Discipline
TR 2022 TK1D – 3 Trainings 2 – Meditation and Wisdom
Raw computer generated transcript
So, all in all, uh, if we were to summarize, uh, the methodology of the Buddha, we can, uh, divide it into what is known as the three trainings. Uh, one concerns our behavior, uh, how we interact with others, the choices we make in, in life. And this is based on the understanding of causality. Uh, it’s not based on, uh, hmm, uh, cultural customs. So we have here, uh, ethical discipline in Buddhism, and it’s important here to distinguish ethical dis discipline from a set of cultural morals. Uh, for example, uh, in the West or another culture, we may have, uh, customs of how it is, uh, good to behave. Uh, it’s not based on that. It is based on the understanding of causality between certain actions in their outcomes in this life and in future lives. And there are short-term and long-term outcomes. And so, uh, the Buddha set out, uh, guidelines of how one should live a li our life. And one of the principle points here is known as the path of the middle way. And this middle way, uh, avoids two extremes. One way of living our life is mainly, uh, looking at just pleasure, uh, consumption. The pursuit of, uh, worldly goals of wealth, power, renowned pleasure.
Those, uh, are from bud’s understanding, uh, all ephemeral, all wealth. The end, the finality of all wealth is loss. The finality of all union is separation. The finality of all, uh, elevation is fall. Uh, the finality, uh, of all construction is ruined, so to speak. You know, everything is ephemeral. None of these worldly pursuits, um, can bring us anything, uh, substantial, lasting. They are, uh, interlinked with hardship. They’re deception. Uh, trying to get them is a hardship. Once having them to maintain them is hardship, and they will inevitably fall away. And there is, uh, hardship in its loss. So this is just the, the nature of things as they are ephemeral, impermanent, not not lasting.
So dedicate our life and to just pursue that is really, so to speak, an extreme. And on the other hand, there are a number of, um, conducts, uh, where we may think of it as spiritual and beneficial, but our, uh, uh, a futile hardships that don’t have any outcome. But, uh, bringing us difficulty such as, uh, extreme acetic practices that the Buddha himself had first prior to becoming a Buddha as Sharma he had injured. And so to avoid those two extremes, uh, the middle path is a path where one does take care of one’s body, of one’s con ordinary condition, but not attached to that in particularly. But where one focuses principally on developing the qualities of our mind. And the essence of this, uh, way of living is to avoid harm, harm to others and to oneself. So it’s a truly, in this sense, a path that is characterized by the pursuit of peace, uh, peace with others.
Peace also within, uh, one uses our life, our body as a support to develop our inner qualities for this body is also ephemeral. It’ll decay we’ll have to die, while the qualities of our mind, uh, cannot be, we cannot be separated from those. So developing those, uh, is a much more important. Uh, so this is, uh, known as the middle way, uh, the, the path that avoids, uh, you know, what is harmful to us or to others. This may entail also at some points to when facing aggressivity, when freezing hardship to be able to deal with that. So when you are insulted not to insult intern, when you’re harmed to
Not harm in return, uh, so avoid, if you’re not able to benefit others, at least try not to harm others. And avoiding to harm others does not, um, entail that that harms you. That’s also the best protection for yourself. Uh, so this is a, uh, important aspect that is common to all Buddhist traditions, is, uh, ethical conduct. And this is considered a support for contemplative practice. For example, you may, uh, think that, oh, I don’t need to have ethical discipline. I can just simply sit and meditate, uh, and then go about my life as usual without being careful about my behavior, how I interact with others. The, the risk is if you don’t follow ethical discipline, then you may soon find yourself in conditions where you do not have the opportunity to meditate and to practice at all that discipline, that ethical discipline creates the frame and the foundation for, uh, contemplative and meditative practice. So it’s in that sense, very important and, uh, cannot be separated from, uh, meditation and wisdom.
You are maybe already familiar with aspects of meditative practice, but that is the second set of training ethical disciplines. The first, uh, called in Sanskrit, Sheila, and the second, uh, <inaudible>, uh, which aims at, uh, mastering one’s own mind. And so here, uh, our mind usually is, uh, distracted easily, uh, many by many thoughts, past experiences, memories of the path, our hopes and expectations, uh, drive our mind, agitate our mind, uh, constantly. And this is, uh, being distracted, being basically here, being agitated. Uh, the mind, uh, through the past experiences or expectations has difficulties to remain serene, remain peaceful, and that agitation hinders the abilities of the mind. When the mind is unable to stay focused and calm, it cannot achieve its full potential. It is, uh, always, uh, limiting itself by the agitation.
Um, when we are, our minds are not agitated. Our minds are often in a state of dullness. Uh, we are, uh, asleep. Uh, we, uh, are absent-minded. Those are other forms of distractions. So, uh, the, the term here, samadhi, uh, in Sanskrit, um, comes from, uh, two, two terms. Sam in d uh, Sam means, uh, stillness in D is holding, holding, holding the stillness of the mind or it’s peace. And the, um, here too, one me, one can speak of the middle path. And that one avoids on one hand the constant distraction of agitations. And on the other hand, uh, dullness of the mind. So some of the, uh, uh, is here seen in this middle way, avoiding these two extremes. Uh, the extreme of
Agitations is not just simply our thought process in general, it’s also all the afflictive states of mind. For example, desire, jealousy, pride, hatred. All of these are states of mind that when experienced unwellness emerges and when followed, they lead to making our life more difficult, more problematic. Uh, they spoil our relations with others. And so meditation, uh, is to help us, uh, calm these afflictive states of mind. So, uh, they are not able to overpower us when we let our mind just go, uh, in its habitual patterns. It is as if these afflictive states of mind have, uh, a will of their own and carry us. Although we do not want the outcome of conflict, our anger brings us into conflict, although we do not want the outcome of unsatisfaction or desire brings us into, uh, unsatisfaction. So being able to understand how these work and how to deal with this, how to, uh, dissipate these afflictive states of mind, work with them, anticipate them, is also part of, uh, the practice of samati. In essence, uh, samadhi is to achieve, uh, the ability for the mind to rest still.
And this stillness is peace. And with this stillness comes also clarity. It’s not the peace as in a drowsy state or in a sleepy state. It’s a state that is also, uh, characterized by great clarity of mind. And with these two come also, uh, inner wellbeing that is much greater than any form of wellbeing that may come from sense. Pleasure. And so these are the, uh, three kind of characteristics of qualities of the stillness here. Of course, there are different degrees that one can achieve. Uh, but in general, the point is to try to achieve a state of stillness whereby it is effortless. And here the capacities of our mind are accrued. They’re, they’re, they become fully functional. So
We have a much greater ability to discern, to understand, to observe. And the point, uh, of samadhi here is mainly to sustain Nia or what we call wisdom. So without, uh, samadhi, it’s difficult to truly actualize Nia. And so in these three trainings in Buddhism, the most important one is that of wisdom. Uh, ethical discipline alone, uh, or combine or meditation alone, or these two combined cannot lead to the discovery of the Buddha or awakening and overcoming the overcoming of conditioned existence and suffering that cannot lead. Uh, only wisdom can. Wisdom is the most important aspect of the practice. It is the, the heart of the practice in Buddhism. And wisdom is, there’s nothing about it that is related to belief, uh, or to dogma of any sort. It is really, uh, seeing, observing reality as it is the reality of our phenomena, the reality of our mind as it is wisdom, uh, ultimately, uh, is developed in combination with, uh, somebody.
However, to approach this, uh, we rely, uh, principally on, uh, our discursive mind, our capacity to think, observe, analyze. And so there is a aspect of, uh, practice and also can be associated with contemplative practice of, uh, reflecting on certain subjects. Uh, it’s not just sitting there not thinking about anything. You have to use your capacity to analyze and think about where, what is the mind, where is it? Uh, what are, uh, phenomena, uh, uh, where is the substantiality of these things or not. So there are a number of philosophical inquiries, um, that are, that, uh, that his teachings invite us to, um, pursue. And these will help us understand better what our mind is, how it functions, what reality is, and will lead us progressively to have an insight into the fundamental, uh, reality of our mind.
