This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Four Noble Truths: Samudaya (5 of 5) Becoming and Not-Becoming

So with this talk, we come to the fifth of the five talks on the second noble truth, part of a four-week series on the Four Noble Truths. As I said yesterday, the primary reference point for many of the interpretations of the Four Noble Truths, as they come down to us through the ages, is what appears in what's called the Buddha's first sermon. Mostly, some of the popular interpretations don't really take in all that is said in the teachings there. For the second noble truth, they often stop and say that craving—thirst, taṇhā^[1] in Pali—is the cause, condition, source, or origin for suffering.

That's a very useful interpretation. As I've been saying, just having that idea can help people investigate their lives very effectively and see where craving or strong desire causes limitations, challenges, and distress. However, this idea that it's the cause is almost one way of making logical sense of this explanation that says, "the noble truth of the arising of suffering is craving." So people deduce, "How is it that craving causes the arising of suffering? Well, it must be the source, it must be the origin."

However, as I said yesterday, the full explanation is that it's craving that leads to rebirth, or re-becoming literally. What the text is explaining is not the source, the origin, or the cause of all suffering that humans have, but the original cause from a previous lifetime. Because there was a craving for rebirth, you don't get born into the world of suffering unless you crave to be born again. So in this interpretation, the idea is to become free of rebirth by becoming free of that craving for rebirth.

This formulation of the Four Noble Truths almost certainly didn't come from the Buddha in the way it's been formulated. It probably was composed maybe 100 years after his life, perhaps at a time when the idea of rebirth became increasingly important in Buddhism in a way that doesn't really represent how important it was in the earliest period. But still, it gives us this wonderful interpretation that craving is the cause of suffering. Sometimes that's very useful, but sometimes that interpretation gets in the way. It leads to too much analysis and trying to figure things out.

Some of the other interpretations—conditionality and especially inconstancy—show that the noble truth of the arising of suffering is simply the arising, how it appears. There is something about seeing something appear where there's space; there's a recognition that there can even be a sense of independence from it. "It's there and I'm here; we're not the same thing." It's the beginning of a process of becoming freer of suffering. So in a sense, rather than solving suffering and figuring it out, it's learning to have a different relationship to suffering by seeing it as arising and ceasing, coming and going.

The explanation that craving gives rise to rebirth actually continues as a second half, which I would like to refer to today and offer an interpretation which maybe is a nice segue into what we could do next week.

As I said yesterday, I'm reading Bhikkhu Bodhi's^[2] translation. He uses the word "origin" for samudaya^[3]. The word that means arising, he translates as origin. Now we understand why he does that, because it's this original craving that gives rise to birth.

"Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving that leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there." First, to say this craving is accompanied by delight and lust: I think the idea in the ancient world is that this original craving that leads to rebirth, that fundamental drive to be reborn, is a kind of lusting or wanting of pleasure, delighting in the world so we want more of it. That is one of the fundamental concerns of early Buddhism—this idea of not having that kind of desire for the world, that just delighting and relishing in it keeps us going in the cycles of rebirth.

And then it goes on and says, "that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination." Bhikkhu Bodhi has this big word "extermination." That's sounding a little bit dangerous, and even a little bit violent. The literal word for existence and extermination is bhava and abhava^[4]. Bhava means becoming, and that's a difficult word in English. Many people translate it as existence, but becoming is a constantly dynamic process of coming into being. We are participating in a constant process of coming into being. And then abhava is not-being, not-becoming, so not having that process continue. It's not exactly not existing, but no longer contributing to this becoming.

With the idea of rebirth, there is the framework for this interpretation. When it says that there is the craving for sensual pleasure, that's really deep in human beings. The desire for pleasure is deeper than most people realize. Some people are a little bit put off by the constant early Buddhist emphasis on being trapped or caught by sensual pleasures—the craving for sensual pleasures being a problem. But sensual pleasure means any movement towards comfort, any movement towards any kind of pleasure. Not just the more dramatic ones of an epicurean enjoying food or sex, but many of the small ways people live their lives. Many people live their lives oriented around making themselves more comfortable—how we sit in a chair, how we sit at a table, or we might buy food that we don't have to pay more for than we absolutely have to because we get pleasure from it. We might buy clothes that are more than what we need because we get pleasure from it. Receiving pleasure from experience is a really deeply ingrained thing in human nature. It can be one of those things that people crave, and in craving, they suffer. They feel frustrated, upset, and driven by the next becoming and not-becoming.

Some people translate this almost as identity—forming an identity of who we are, creating a sense of "I am this," or creating a sense of "I'm not that." This kind of non-identification with something. You see it in simple ways; the clothes people choose to wear sometimes have to do with forming an identity, becoming something for other people. Whereas some people have the opposite—they don't want to become.

For example, there are some people who are very happy to have logos of their college or high school on their sweatshirt. They've assumed that identity, they become a person from that school, or their sports team, or their favorite company. And then there are people, and I fall in this camp (I have a little bit of a tendency to this abhava, non-becoming), who really don't want to wear anything that has a logo on it. It's very rare you'll ever see me do this. I'm not particularly proud of this tendency, but it's maybe a little bit this movement of "I don't want to be that."

So in this rebirth, the wanting to be reborn can be a desire for becoming, to exist again. The paradox here is that the craving for non-becoming, non-existing, because it's craving, is also a cause to be reborn. In other words, if a person doesn't want to be reborn, the craving not to be reborn paradoxically is what gets them reborn because craving is such a strong drive and push.

In my teachings and my practice, it's very rare that I'm making much reference to rebirth. It's not really an important part of what I feel like I want to teach or part of my own practice. But I offer you what is in the traditional texts so you understand the full range of what goes on with these Four Noble Truths and all the different interpretations of them. I am partial to the interpretation of this rebirth, or becoming and non-becoming, as not being about being reborn one lifetime after another, but about being reborn moment by moment. There is a constant movement we have of craving for pleasure or avoiding discomfort, a movement of becoming something, assuming an identity, asserting ourselves as being someone, or the opposite—not wanting to be, hiding, shutting down, or avoiding something.

This constantly identifying and then disidentifying can be an incessant form of suffering. It's an ongoing manufacturing, constructing, and preoccupation for human beings. We don't have to live with an incessant preoccupation, an addiction even for some people, for pleasure. An addiction to identity, to self, to being someone, to having a clearly constructed sense of self that we present to the world, or a clearly constructed idea of what we don't want to present to the world and hide from.

When we learn to sit still in meditation—and that's why I did the meditation today on the stillness of the mind—we see that when the mind moves, it's often because it wants and doesn't want. It wants becoming or doesn't want becoming. Even that feeling of not wanting, or non-becoming, is being trapped in the cycles of becoming, craving, and suffering.

The interesting question, and this is the question that I'll leave here for today, is: if becoming is a source of suffering, and the opposite, non-becoming, is a source of suffering, what's the solution? What's the third option? If non-becoming just creates more becoming, more ongoing creation, what is the third option? I think Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation of "existence" and "extermination" is a little bit difficult to work with, but anyway, what's the alternative to existing and exterminating, ending? Is there a third option? And that will be the topic for the third of the Four Noble Truths for next week.

Community Announcements

A couple of things I want to say quickly. I'm very much appreciating all of you who are coming and joining and saying hello, and I think some of you are starting to feel a sense of community just from the chat box there. I thought that perhaps next week at the end of our Friday session, those of you who would like to could switch to a Zoom meeting. I'll post the Zoom account in the chat box so it's not discoverable by the rest of the world. If you would like to have a little town meeting, global meeting, and talk about things or ask some questions that way, we can do that. We can also do some breakout groups where some of you have a chance to meet some of the others who have been doing this for many weeks, to see what the value is of coming together a little more fully as a community. So we'll do that at the end on Friday.

Now if any of you would like to stay on, I'll try to take maybe 15 minutes or so if you have any questions you'd like to ask about this Four Noble Truths stuff or anything. I will try my best to track the questions here. The Zoom account we have is big enough for 500 people, so I'm hoping that's plenty and that everyone who wants to come at that particular time can. We'll keep doing it periodically, so if you miss it, it's okay. Very nice that people are appreciating this idea of doing it.

Q&A

Could you please clarify if there's a difference between abhava and vibhava?

Oh, vibhava. You know, it's possible I was wrong about the Pali. It could be that's bhava and vibhava in this particular text. I don't really know if there's a difference. "Vi" is maybe a more emphatic "non." "A" is just "not." Maybe "vi" has a little more to do with a craving for not existing, so maybe that's why Bhikkhu Bodhi translates it as extermination. I'll look into it. I think many years ago I researched this. Thank you for bringing it up.

Have you written about the Four Noble Truths as you are discussing them today in any of your books?

No, not in any of my books. I've written some draft scholarly articles on this topic. Part of the purpose of this is that some of what you heard from me this week is a relatively new idea that I've come up with over the last ten years of doing some real in-depth research into the suttas. So I've done drafts of what I hope to be serious scholarly articles laying out very clearly how this is the case in the suttas. It seems that some of this interpretation about the Four Noble Truths being insight into inconstancy has been overlooked. Even though now that I see it there, it's like this open secret in the texts. Hundreds and hundreds of times the text talks about seeing the arising of X, the ceasing of X, and the practice leading to the cessation of X. And it's clearly synonymous with seeing the appearance and disappearance, the arising and passing of things, seeing inconstancy. This has really been held out to be the liberating insight.

Because the Four Noble Truths have been the predominant way of understanding the central teachings of Buddhism, that's been projected back onto the earliest texts, and we've actually missed seeing what the real liberating insight is that's emphasized in the texts. I've laid this out very carefully, but it's not really ready to share with people because I need to work on it more, and a Dharma teacher doesn't have much time for that. When I have some more time, I'll do it.

I love this one: "The idea of craving for non-becoming creates becoming makes me giggle. I struggle not to move because I'm more used to moving meditation with yoga. This is helpful."

I'm so glad you liked it. I just liked the lighting; I figured out how to create a little barrier for it. I don't know if you noticed that earlier because I was almost blinded by it.

I hear aspects of dependent origination in this talk on the second noble truth, specifically links 8 and 11. Can you comment on the relationship of these two teachings?

Yes, this is one of the reasons why some people have the conditionality interpretation of the second noble truth, because it's very similar to what goes on in the twelvefold sequence of dependent arising of suffering. In it, sense contact has to come first. That sense contact is a condition for there being either pleasure or pain, comfort or discomfort. That pleasure or pain is the condition for the arising of craving, what we're talking about in the second noble truth. Without some kind of pleasure or pain or discomfort, there won't be any craving.

That craving is a condition for clinging. Craving is one thing, and when it gets translated into doing something about it, it's clinging, holding on. And that leads to becoming (bhava), and bhava leads to birth, and birth leads to sickness, old age, grief, lamentation, pain, distress, and so forth. So it's very closely connected.

In fact, the Buddha only has five different interpretations of the Four Noble Truths. There are basically three different categories of them, but one of them defines the second noble truth as the twelvefold sequence of dependent arising. The whole twelve, not just the end of it, is the arising of suffering. And then the third noble truth is the reverse of dependent arising, the twelvefold sequence of cessation, dependent cessation. So there, the second and third noble truths are clearly connected to the teachings of dependent arising.

Inconstancy is also translated as impermanence?

Yes, the most common way in English of translating anicca^[5] is as impermanence. The issue around translating it as impermanence is many people will interpret it to mean that something exists now, but it's not going to always exist; it's impermanent, so sooner or later it's no longer going to exist. The day is impermanent because by the night it'll be gone. Mountains are impermanent because in a few hundred million years some of these mountains will have washed away. The sun is impermanent because in a few billion years it'll blow up and disappear.

But what the Buddha is talking about is how things appear and disappear. He uses a lot of different words in Pali that are synonyms of appearing and disappearing, coming and going, arising and passing. It's really clear this is what he means: this ongoing inconstancy of things. That means that things don't have to disappear and end once and for all. Days are inconstant—they come and go, and they'll come and go as long as the sun is in the sky. The fundamental liberating insight is this arising and passing. So probably "inconstancy" works better. What's being negated with the "a" on anicca—nicca actually means constancy, so it makes sense to translate it that way.

Did you say yesterday that craving refers more to rebirth than worldly craving?

Yes, I said that yesterday in relationship to a very particular teaching about the Four Noble Truths. There is one interpretation that is solidified in a text usually referred to as the Buddha's first sermon. It's almost certain the Buddha had a first teaching, but that this particular text is his first teaching is very unlikely. One of the reasons it's unlikely is that parts of this text point to teachings about the Four Noble Truths that I'll be talking about later in this series.

If he said it at this very first teaching, if it was important, you'd expect that he would say it again later. In fact, the Buddha is very repetitive in the suttas. He teaches things over and over again in exactly the same way, in exactly the same words. So if this teaching was really his first teaching and important, you'd expect it would reappear, but it hardly ever appears again in the suttas, maybe in one or two other places in passing. Chances are this represents a later interpolation into the suttas. Not everything attributed to the Buddha is likely to have been his teachings.

This idea that the second noble truth involves a craving that leads to rebirth is not exactly an interpretation—though that's what it's become—for the early texts, it's an elaboration that when someone becomes fully awakened as a Buddha, they will not be reborn, and the reason they're not being reborn is because the specific craving that leads to rebirth has ended. It's not really referring to ordinary worldly craving. For those of us interested in how we suffer from day to day, all these other interpretations of the Four Noble Truths are much more useful, rather than being fixated on this idea that craving leads to rebirth.

So I have a phone call at 8 o'clock, a meeting with someone. I love these questions.

Isn't it impossible to not be becoming?

Well, that's the cliffhanger I'm ending this talk on today. Next week we'll talk about the alternative to becoming and not-becoming as we talk about the third noble truth. So thank you so much, everyone, and I look forward to our time next week and setting up the Zoom for Friday. Thank you. [Laughter]