So, what exactly is this "path to liberation"? Well, the sources tell us it's an inner journey, a spiritual path that guides us towards a state of pure happiness, known by names like liberation, enlightenment, or nirvana. Think of it as the ultimate goal, the permanent cessation of suffering. This isn't just about finding temporary relief from problems; it's about solving our human problems at their very root and discovering the real meaning of life. Why is such a path necessary? It seems we need it because, despite all the amazing advancements in technology and material progress in the modern world, human happiness hasn't kept pace, and suffering and problems still abound, perhaps even increasing. The sources suggest this is because the real cause of happiness and suffering isn't found in external things, but within our own minds. When things go wrong, we tend to blame the situation itself, but the teachings explain that our problems actually come from our mind, specifically from negative states of mind, or delusions. If we could respond to difficulties with a peaceful or positive mind, they wouldn't feel like problems; they might even become opportunities for growth. Since problems arise from how our mind responds to difficulties, the solution lies in transforming our mind. The sources emphasize that suffering and problems are states of mind, or unpleasant feelings, that come mainly from delusions like attachment and self-grasping ignorance. Attachment makes us suffer when we lose things we cherish or when our wishes aren't fulfilled. Self-grasping, a fundamental ignorance, is described as a wrong awareness that mistakenly believes we and everything else exist inherently or truly, and this distorted view is the basis for all other delusions like anger and attachment, leading to endless problems and suffering. It's like self-grasping is a poisonous tree, delusions are its branches, and sufferings are its fruits. The path to liberation, then, is the method to gain control over our mind, overcome these delusions, and find freedom. It's the "Dharma," Buddha's teachings, described as the supreme protection from suffering. Without controlling and abandoning our delusions, permanent liberation from suffering is impossible. Now, how do we embark on this path? A foundational teaching introduced in the sources is Buddha's Four Noble Truths. These are called 'noble truths' because they are considered superior and non-deceptive instructions. Let's look at them: 1. **You should know sufferings:** This isn't just acknowledging that we have physical or mental pain. It means deeply understanding the sufferings of this life and, crucially, the potential for endless suffering in future lives. Why is this important? Because truly knowing suffering inspires a strong wish to be free from it, not just for now, but permanently. This intense aspiration is called renunciation. This profound wish motivates us to use our precious human life wisely, preparing for the freedom and happiness of countless future lives, which the sources highlight as the greatest meaning we can find. Imagine dedicating your energy not just to the fleeting comforts of this one short life, but to securing endless future happiness – isn't that a powerful shift in perspective? The sources gently caution against focusing solely on the problems of this life, comparing it to the limited perspective of animals concerned only with the present moment. 2. **You should abandon origins:** This refers to the root causes of suffering, primarily our delusions like attachment, anger, and self-grasping ignorance. The sources make it clear: we sincerely want to avoid suffering, but we often don't think about abandoning the very things that create it – our delusions. Since delusions are the origin of all our problems and sufferings, we must control and abandon them to attain permanent liberation. Self-grasping is highlighted as the principal origin, the fundamental reason we experience so many problems in life after life. So, a key part of the path is recognizing, reducing, and ultimately abandoning this ignorance. 3. **You should attain cessations:** This means achieving the permanent cessation of suffering. While we might experience temporary relief from suffering now and then (like a healthy person experiencing a temporary cessation of sickness), this isn't enough because suffering will inevitably return in this life and in future lives. Samsara, the cycle of existence, is characterized by the endless experience of sickness, ageing, death, and rebirth. The goal is to attain permanent freedom, the state of nirvana or liberation, just as Buddha did. The sources note that temporary efforts to solve external problems like poverty or disease are valuable, but they can't bring permanent freedom from suffering in all lives. This encourages us not to be satisfied with temporary solutions but to apply great effort for lasting peace. 4. **You should practise the path:** This isn't a physical road, but an inner, spiritual path leading to liberation and enlightenment. The sources explain that this path can be summarized into the three higher trainings: higher moral discipline, higher concentration, and higher wisdom. Why "higher"? Because they are specifically motivated by renunciation – that sincere wish for permanent liberation from suffering. These three trainings are presented as the actual method we need to practice. Let's unpack these three key trainings: - **Higher Moral Discipline:** This is about abandoning inappropriate actions, maintaining pure behavior, and acting with virtuous motivation. It's incredibly important because it helps prevent future problems for ourselves and others by making our actions pure. It's described like the earth that supports spiritual growth. Moral discipline helps prevent gross distractions, laying a foundation for deeper spiritual practices. Training in this means becoming deeply familiar with practicing moral discipline, driven by the desire for liberation. - **Higher Concentration:** This training is about preventing distractions and focusing the mind on virtuous objects. You can imagine how hard it is to accomplish anything, spiritual or otherwise, when your mind is constantly jumping from one thing to the next. Concentration helps prevent subtle distractions and makes progress in Dharma practice much easier and quicker, especially when combined with moral discipline. Training involves becoming deeply familiar with this ability to focus, again motivated by renunciation. Meditation is the main cause of mental peace and involves concentrating on virtuous objects. The sources describe two types: analytical meditation (contemplating teachings to reach a conclusion) and placement meditation (single-pointed concentration on that conclusion or virtuous state). Even simple breathing meditation can help calm the mind and reveal that inner peace is possible without relying on external things. - **Higher Wisdom:** This is a virtuous, intelligent mind that helps dispel confusion and deeply understand profound objects. The sources distinguish it from worldly intelligence, which they say can be deceptive. Wisdom is like an inner guide, helping us see things clearly, including the connection between our actions and experiences (karma) and even past and future lives. The most profound object of this wisdom is emptiness – not nothingness, but the real nature of all phenomena, which lack inherent existence. Training in higher wisdom means meditating on this wisdom realizing emptiness, motivated by renunciation. The sources state that this wisdom realizing emptiness is the _only_ direct method for completely eradicating delusions and suffering. The sources use a helpful analogy to show how these three trainings work together: Moral discipline is like our body, concentration is like our hands, and wisdom is like a saw. By using all three together, we can cut down the "poisonous tree" of self-grasping ignorance (the root), which automatically causes the branches (other delusions) and fruits (sufferings and problems) to cease completely. This leads to the permanent cessation of suffering – liberation or nirvana. Beyond the Three Higher Trainings, the sources also present another way to structure the path, described as the "Three Principal Aspects of the Path," based on teachings from Je Tsongkhapa. These three aspects are: 1. **Pure Renunciation:** This is the strong wish for liberation, overcoming attachment to the fleeting pleasures of samsara, both in this life and future lives. It arises from contemplating how hard it is to find this precious human life, how quickly we die (impermanence), the results of our actions (karma), and the pervasive suffering of samsara. When renunciation is strong, the desire for worldly pleasures diminishes, and a longing for liberation is present throughout the day and night. 2. **Completely Pure Bodhichitta:** While renunciation is essential for our own liberation, the sources say it's not enough to attain the perfect happiness of unsurpassed enlightenment. For that, we need bodhichitta, the supreme, spontaneous wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of _all_ living beings. This profound compassion is generated by contemplating the suffering of all sentient beings, recognizing them as our kind mothers trapped in the endless cycle of suffering. 3. **Wisdom Realizing the Way Things Are:** Even with renunciation and bodhichitta, the sources explain that we cannot cut the root of samsara without wisdom realizing the ultimate nature of things, which is emptiness. This involves realizing dependent relationship – understanding that things arise in dependence on causes and conditions, meaning they lack independent, inherent existence. This wisdom sees that dependent appearance (how things seem to exist) and emptiness (how they actually exist, lacking inherent nature) are not separate, but arise simultaneously. This understanding destroys grasping at things as truly existent and frees us from extreme views. These frameworks show different ways of understanding and practicing the path, highlighting the essential components needed for liberation. A crucial practice discussed extensively in the sources is **patience**. It's presented as the main opponent to anger, which is described as incredibly destructive, ruining our peace, leading to suffering, and destroying our spiritual progress and accumulated merit (good fortune). Patience, on the other hand, is considered a great virtue. The sources identify three types of patience that are essential for the path: 1. **The patience of voluntarily accepting suffering:** This means willingly accepting unavoidable suffering, hardship, or disappointment. It involves remembering that suffering in samsara is the result of our own past actions and is unavoidable. By accepting suffering patiently, we prevent unhappy thoughts and anger from arising, maintain inner peace, and can even purify negative karma. This practice reveals the true nature of our trapped existence in samsara and helps us develop renunciation. It's not passive; it's an active stance against our reactive delusions. The capacity for this patience grows with practice, allowing us to face greater difficulties with a calm mind. 2. **The patience of definitely thinking about Dharma:** This involves using our understanding of profound Dharma teachings, particularly on emptiness and dependent relationship, to deepen our experience of patience and overcome anger. When we suffer, our self-grasping is often strong, making it easier to identify and analyze, which can deepen our understanding of emptiness. By seeing that people and situations that harm us are not independent agents but arise from causes and conditions and are under the power of delusions, we can prevent anger. Analyzing the situation – who is getting angry? What is anger? – can reveal their lack of inherent existence, undermining the basis for anger. 3. **The patience of not retaliating:** This is about overcoming the desire for revenge when someone harms us. It's cultivated by combining patient acceptance with compassion. We see the person harming us as deluded and suffering themselves, acting without freedom under the control of delusions. We also see the harm we receive as the ripening of our own past karma, not the fault of the other person. By not retaliating and accepting the harm patiently, we purify our negative karma and create immense positive potential (merit). Seen in this light, the person who harms us becomes a benefactor, providing the essential opportunity to practice patience, a crucial virtue for enlightenment. This patience pleases the Buddhas and helps us progress towards enlightenment. The sources strongly emphasize that merely intellectual understanding of these teachings is not enough; they must be put into practice. It's like a sick person reading medical instructions without taking the medicine – it won't bring a cure. Sincere practice, training the mind, is the key to achieving inner peace and overcoming problems. Meditation is presented as the primary tool for this mental training, cultivating peaceful states and eradicating delusions. Understanding the nature of the mind itself is also highlighted as vital. The mind is described not as the brain, but a formless continuum that perceives and understands, capable of travelling vast distances instantly. It exists on gross, subtle, and very subtle levels, with the very subtle mind continuing from one life to the next and having the potential to transform into a Buddha's omniscient mind. Recognizing that happiness and suffering are states of mind, and that delusions are the cause of suffering, shifts our focus from trying to change the external world to working with our inner world. Related to the mind's continuum are past and future lives, which the sources assert exist and are crucial to understand for the path to liberation. The process of death, intermediate state, and rebirth is likened to sleeping, dreaming, and waking, helping to illustrate how the mind leaves one body and goes to the next. Understanding that future lives are endless, unlike this short one, underscores the urgency of using our present precious human life to secure future happiness and liberation. The role of others on the path is also significant. The Spiritual Guide is considered indispensable for guidance until enlightenment. Furthermore, sentient beings – all living beings – are profoundly important. They are seen as equally worthy of respect as Buddhas from the perspective that they are causes of our enlightenment and are the objects of the Buddhas' limitless love and care. By acting as objects for our practice of virtues like giving and patience, sentient beings allow us to accumulate merit and progress on the path. The practice of universal love and compassion towards them is seen as the perfect way to repay the kindness of the Buddhas. Ultimately, the path to liberation is about recognizing that our problems stem from our own deluded minds, particularly self-grasping ignorance. It involves training the mind through practices like the three higher trainings and meditation, cultivating essential qualities like renunciation and bodhichitta, and developing wisdom that realizes the ultimate nature of reality (emptiness). Patience is crucial for transforming difficulties and dealing with delusions, especially anger. By sincerely applying these teachings, we can purify our minds, overcome suffering, attain permanent peace, and ultimately help others do the same. This isn't a simple journey, and it takes effort and perseverance, especially in facing ingrained habits like anger. But the sources assure us it's possible, as shown by practitioners throughout history. The rewards – permanent freedom from suffering and the ability to truly benefit others – are immeasurable. There's so much more to explore on this path! You might wonder: - How exactly do you develop renunciation or bodhichitta through meditation? - What are the specific stages involved in training in higher concentration and wisdom? - How can one identify and work with self-grasping ignorance in daily life? - What does meditating on emptiness feel like, and how does it dismantle delusions?