First Discourse of the Buddha at Deerpark - Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta

So here we are at what's known as Isipatana, also known as Deer Park. This is Deer Park. This is where all of the animals used to stay and so on. Now, the word Isipatana also comes from the Sanskrit Rishi Patana, and it's very important to understand that. I'll explain why as we continue in the suttas, because today we are going to be reading from the sutta that took place right here, and it is Samyutta Nikaya 56.11, Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dhamma. Thus have I heard. On one occasion, the Blessed One was dwelling at Baranasi in the Deer Park at Isipatana.

There, the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus of the group of five thus: Bhikkhus, these two extremes should not be followed by one who has gone forth into homelessness. What too? The pursuit of sensual happiness in sensual pleasures, which is low, vulgar, the way of worldlings, ignoble, unbeneficial; and the pursuit of self-mortification, which is painful, ignoble, unbeneficial. Without veering towards either of these extremes, the Tathagata has awakened to the middle way, which gives rise to vision, which gives rise to knowledge, which gives rise to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to nibbana. So here the Buddha is talking about two extremes. One is the path of sensuality and the other is the path of austerities and asceticism.

So in the first path, we basically pursue sensual pleasures for the sake of sensual happiness, sensual gratification. When we talk about sensual gratification, we're talking about the five physical sense spaces, which is the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the body. Pursuing sensual pleasures in that way, the mind attaches itself to the body as a sense of self and takes this body as me, mine, myself, to such an extent that in the pursuit of those sensual pleasures, it can create disharmony, and that disharmony arises from breaking the precepts in the pursuit of those sensual desires, in the pursuit of gratifying those sensual desires. So that's one extreme. The other extreme is asceticism, which is painful. Asceticism is basically disregarding the body altogether.

In one case, you are holding tightly to the body, holding tightly to the senses. In the other, you are completely disregarding it to the point that you don't care whether it dies or not, whether it lives or not. And all kinds of ascetic practices can be done. The Buddha, before he became the Buddha as the Bodhisattva, went through a bunch of different ascetic practices. He went through the practices of staying up all night with little sleep, eating very little food, having very little water, to the point of no water and no food at all, and he emaciated himself to a point that he was basically on the verge of death. Realizing this, he said, this is not the way to enlightenment, not the way to true happiness.

So previously we were in Bodhgaya, and we were in what is Uruvela, which is the ancient name for Bodhgaya. And there we came across the Pragbodhi cave, which is where the Buddha spent six years in austerity and ascetic practices. And then from there we went to Sujata Kuthir, which is where Sujata offered the Bodhisattva the bowl of kheer, rice pudding. He took it, and after taking it, the five companions of his saw that and said the practice is now in vain.

He has broken the practice. He has left the practice, abandoned the practice, and therefore they abandoned him, saying that he has now gone into leading a more luxurious life. So they left him, but he ate and he strengthened himself again. He took some kusa grass for sitting, went to the Bodhi tree and meditated. And then he attained full enlightenment. That means that he went through the process of the jhanas. At the fourth jhana he went and looked into his past lives, having seen dependent origination through his past lives. He then went into seeing the arising and passing away of beings, had a full understanding of rebirth and karma, and then ultimately attained the knowledge of the destruction of the taints, in other words becoming an arahant, but more than that becoming a Buddha, and more than that becoming a Sammasambuddha, one who is self-awakened, fully awakened through his own practice, and has now tread the real path, the true path to happiness.

And in doing so he is known as the Tathagata, one thus gone or one thus come, the pathfinder, one who has shown the path to enlightenment. And so after enlightenment he then contemplated dependent origination, and so for 49 days, seven weeks, he went through a process of walking up and down contemplating dependent origination, contemplating different aspects of reality and karma, as we saw, all the different places, the first week to the seventh week, and then made his way down here to Isipatana, the deer park. His five companions, well before that he went to go, and on the way there was a man, and he saw him gleaming and shining and saying, who are you, what have you done, and who is your teacher? And the Buddha, now that he is the Buddha, says there is no teacher. I am the supremely fully awakened one, the Tathagata, the one who has found the path. That was a little too much for that guy, so he shook his head and walked away. He came back later on as a disciple, but much later on.

The Buddha realized he couldn't speak in those terms and had to tone down some of the things that he was saying. And before he taught as well, Sahampati Brahma came to him and requested that he start teaching. But the Buddha said that this way of dependent origination, this realization, this knowledge, this experience is very subtle, very deep, very vast. But the Brahma basically said there are those beings with little dust in their eyes, there are those beings who could possibly understand it, and so for their sake please go and teach. And the Buddha made that choice to teach. This happens with every Buddha: a choice has to be given to teach or not to teach, and the process of making that choice and deciding to teach is his first act of compassion after becoming a Buddha. And so the wisdom has come, but now the compassion is applying that wisdom in action, and then those who are willing to learn, teaching to them.

So having done all of that, he goes here, he comes here, sees the five companions. They see him walking and they said, there he is, the one who left our path, and we shall not stand up for him, we shall not offer him water, we shall not offer him any food or place to sit or anything. But as he approached closer and closer and closer, sir, one by one, one of them went out to fetch water, the other placed a seat for him, the other prepared some food, the other made a way, and they all bowed because of the power of his influence. They call it prabhava in Sanskrit, that is, his radiance, was such that, or his charisma was such that it caused them to actually act in that way. And so they made a seat for him ready, and he sat down, and they asked him, what is it that you have learned?

And so now this is the sutta, here we are. So he talked about the two extremes, but there is a middle path, there is a middle way. Just like at the Pragbodhi cave, having realized that when you have a stringed instrument, and if it's too loose, you can't play it, and if it's too tight, it will break. It has to be just the right balance in order to make a melody. There too there needs to be a balance between a luxurious life and an austere life.

which means you do require some comforts. The body requires some level of comfort, some level of ability to sit properly in meditation, and then go deep into the mind, letting go. Then at that point of the five sense bases and coming to the sixth sense, which is the mind, and then coming into meditation, and now coming into the middle path. And what, bhikkhus, is that middle way awakened to by the Tathagata, which gives rise to vision, which gives rise to knowledge, which leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to nibbana? It is this Noble Eightfold Path, that is: right view, right intention, right speech, right action,

Once you understand the Eightfold Path and then you truly apply it in your daily life, you are treading closer and closer to full awakening, until it becomes the automatic way in which the body and mind function. Which means, first and foremost, you have to understand what this path is. First and foremost, you have to understand what this path leads to. On a conceptual, mental level, we understand right view as being twofold.

The first aspect of right view is a mundane right view, which is that there is meaning in giving, there is meaning in doing certain kinds of practices, in other words there is rebirth, there is a give-and-take, there is an exchange of karma, there is action and consequence to that action, there is mother and father. This is very important, it's not to be glossed over, because even if our parents have been abusive, even if our parents have been unloving, even if our parents have not given us what we expect of them as children and as their adult children, the fact is they gave us the gift of life. That in itself is grateful to be got it to be grateful enough for, doesn't mean that you have to accept the abuse, doesn't mean that you have to say, okay, I love you no matter what, and so on.

That doesn't mean that. It just means I acknowledge that you gave me life in this world so that I could have the opportunity to experience nibbana, and I thank you for that, right? That in itself is a worthy cause for gratitude. Then, that there are those who have taken the practice and led, that has led to complete awakening, full awakening, arahants. And so that there are our hearts in the world, there are those teachers who understand this path and can teach, and that there is this world and the other. Now, there are different multiple ways of understanding this: there is this world and the other.

One way of understanding it is that there is this world in terms of a human existence, and there is another world, which is heaven and hell and so on. But there's another interesting interpretation of that, which is that there is this world, which is the five sense bases. This world that we experience is through the five sense bases. Everything we experience right now is a result of causes and conditions, and those causes and conditions are namely the six sense bases and contact. Contact gives rise to feeling. Feeling, or vedana, which is experience.

Everything you're experiencing, the sound of my voice, seeing me here, listening to the birds, all of this is feeling. All of this is a result of contact with the sixth sense base or the five sense bases. But the other world is the world of jhana. There is the sensual realm, and there's the Brahma realm. On the external aspect of it, there are the five physical sense bases, and the internal is that there is the mind that can lead you to the jhanas and lead you to nibbana. So this is the mundane right view. The super mundane right view happens as a result of continually practicing the Eightfold Path, and you come back and you realize through right insight and right liberation

the right view, which is the understanding of the Four Noble Truths. We'll get into the Four Noble Truths, but the way to see it is you have to first understand what suffering is. You have to abandon the causes and conditions of that suffering, namely craving, ignorance and conceit, and you have to realize for yourself nirodha, that is nibbana, that is the cessation of suffering through the perfection of cultivating the Eightfold Path. This is the super mundane right view. Now let's get into the next part. Once you have your right view, using that right view, you come into what is wrong intention and right intention. Wrong intention is comprised of three aspects. Holding on to things.

Taking things personally. Not allowing things to be as they actually are. Having ill-will towards others and having cruelty. The opposite of that is right intention, which is nekkhamma, or renunciation. Non-ill-will, which is cultivated through loving-kindness, and non-cruelty, which is cultivated through compassion. What is nekkhamma? What is renunciation? Renunciation is saying, this is not me, this is not mine, this is not myself.

Coming to that point where you allow things to be as they are and don't get caught up in them. There's every right to change things that you see, but getting caught up in them, getting disturbed by them because you take them personally, is a wrong intention. The ultimate right intention is to take refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. It's called saranagati, or sharanagati.

Sharanagati has been translated as surrender, but I would say we shouldn't call it surrender. We should say taking refuge, resting in the Nama. Oftentimes you have heard Bhante Vimalaramsi say, now I've said it too, which is: if you take care of the Dhamma, the Dhamma takes care of you. And how do you take care of the Dhamma? First and foremost, stop worrying about things, stop trying to fix things which can't be fixed in your own particular way, letting go of any expectations, letting go of any attachment to an outcome for the actions that you have. And this is all possible

through the destruction of conceit, through letting go of taking things personally, through letting go of saying that this is me, this is mine, this is myself. Once you have that, then everything else falls into place. When everything else falls into place, you naturally have loving-kindness, you naturally have compassion, you naturally have joy, you naturally have equanimity, you naturally have right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right collectedness.

If you just rest and don't worry about anything, easier said than done, for everybody. But if you take ultimate refuge in the Dhamma and accept everything as karma, and you know the key to karma, which is contact, and you understand the key to karma, which is that there is old karma and there is new karma, then you understand that everything that is experienced is all a result of old karma, a result of previous actions. It's a consequence.

And so, in trying to change it and trying to fix it and trying to do anything with it, you're taking it personally and you're causing new karma to arise. And that new karma arises when you have the link of craving arise, dependent upon feeling. But within that feeling, the seven underlying tendencies: the underlying tendency towards ignorance, craving, towards aversion, towards doubt, towards views, towards conceit, or I should say wrong views, and towards bhava, that is, the desire to become something.

When that is activated through any kind of experience and you latch on to it, then there is full-blown craving or aversion or identification, which then gives rise to clinging, which then gives rise to becoming, which then gives rise to birth, of action, which gives rise to suffering. If you just understood this part, then you would come to that point which is taking refuge. The deepest meaning of that is full acceptance of reality as it actually is, non-reactivity to anything, from the sense of wanting to change it, allowing it to be, and then seeing in your own mind, is there any kind of agitation?

And then letting go of that agitation. That is the first aspect of right intention in action. The second aspect is non-ill-will. Non-ill-will obviously means that you don't have any aversion towards anyone or anything, even towards yourself. If there is any doubt in yourself, if there is any kind of self-hatred, if there's any kind of self-esteem issues, if there's anything that says I'm not good enough, that level of self-aversion can be fixed through forgiveness, forgiving oneself and forgiving others, who have caused this experience to be. And from there, naturally, loving-kindness happens towards oneself and towards others.

When you have that, you realize that anything that you do should be done for the benefit of yourself and for others. That which is fully wholesome, wholly wholesome and wholly beneficial, is that which makes us feel good, which makes us feel happy, and makes others feel happy. If there's only one and not the other, then it's incomplete. For it to be fully wholesome, it has to be something that makes you feel good as a result of making others feel good, or having felt good, sharing that feeling with others. And that is a practice of generosity. It can be mental generosity, emotional generosity, it can be physical generosity, whatever it might be, verbal generosity, just a smile. So that cultivates loving-kindness. And then cruelty, having non-cruelty. What is cruelty? When you recognize the suffering in yourself, and you know how painful that is in your own mind, but don't recognize the suffering in others, and therefore when you are in an experience of conflict between yourself and others

and you need to be proven right, and in that process of trying to be proven right you inflict pain on others, verbally, mentally, to the extreme physically, that means you do not fully recognize the suffering in the other person. The reason the other person is lashing out is because they are experiencing suffering, and then to add fuel to the fire is to add further suffering to them, and that is cruelty. But having compassion is the recognition of the suffering in your own self and the suffering in others. Letting go of the suffering in yourself and trying to help others come to a point where they have no suffering. That doesn't mean that you become a crutch for them.

What it means is that you are there to help them come out of the suffering in their own terms, so that they have their own evolution, so that they have their own insights, so that they develop their own action through their own speech and actions. So this is compassion, which cultivates non-cruelty. Once you have that right intention of letting go, having loving-kindness, having compassion, then automatically you have right speech. Right speech is refraining from abusive speech, harsh speech, false speech, gossip, unnecessary speech. In other words, use the acronym THINK: think before you speak. Is it the right time to speak or is it the wrong time to speak? What you are going to say, do you know it to be honest or not? What is the intention behind what you want to say? Is it necessary and beneficial for all parties concerned, for you to say what you want to say? And can you say it with kindness? Even if you have to be stern, you can still be kind about it.

And that also is in tandem with right action. Right action is keeping the precepts: refraining from harming any living beings, refraining from taking what is not given, refraining from sexual misconduct, refraining from intoxicants. Now, that is in right mindfulness as well, but I'm going to put it here in right action. And that leads to right livelihood. So right livelihood is all about doing things that cause yourself happiness and others happiness. It's not about causing pain to others or to yourself. That's right livelihood. Right effort is fourfold.

You are preventing the arising of unwholesome states from arising. You are abandoning the already arisen unwholesome states. You are generating wholesome states of mind, and you're maintaining those wholesome states of mind. So, in other words, this is what we would call the six Rs. But really, within those six Rs you have these components of recognizing, releasing, relaxing, re-smiling, and returning to your object, and repeating whenever necessary. These are the six Rs.

That leads to right mindfulness. Right mindfulness is the ability to observe how mind's attention moves from one thing to the other. How mind's attention moves from one thing to the other means paying attention, having presence of mind. At the very foundation of that is being able to settle into the mind, and then come to a point where you see things as they actually are. So that is propagated through, or facilitated by, yoniso manasikara, which is proper attention, or attention rooted in reality.

Once you have that, your mind settles down even further and you have a level of collectedness, and you come into what is right samadhi, and you get into the jhanas, and that right samadhi then leads you to full knowledge of the Four Noble Truths. So this is the Eightfold Path that the Buddha talks about. Now, because this is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering, union with what is displeasing is suffering, separation from what is pleasing is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering. In brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.

So the first noble truth of suffering, suffering really, the word dukkha, it just basically means a level of discomfort, a level of discontentment with things. It's where when you have let's say a bus or a car or a chariot and one of the wheels is not properly aligned and you feel that. Like when you go to Walmart for example and you have that shopping cart, one of the wheels is always kind of like loopy. That's dukkha, that's the literal meaning of dukkha. So dukkha means basically birth in the sense of we have taken rebirth so many times and we have done the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. That's the definition of insanity. In our one life itself we have the same kinds of habit patterns, the same kinds of relationships that are detrimental to us, same kinds of situations that are unbeneficial for us, until we learn to let go.

Aging is suffering. Obviously we know that on a physical standpoint that aging is suffering, illness is suffering, not getting what one wants is suffering. So there are these three kinds of dukkha. There is the dukkha dukkha, which is the physical dukkha of the body: aging, illness, birth, death. There is the viparinama dukkha, where what you wanted you don't get, and what you do get is not what you wanted.

And then there is the sankhara dukkha, which is clinging to the five aggregates. Clinging to the five aggregates means taking one or more of the aggregates personally, which leads to craving, conceit. There is craving, from craving there is suffering. Now, this bhikkhus, is a noble truth of the origin of suffering. It is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there, that is craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination. So there are these three kinds of craving: sensual craving, taking any of the sense bases personally and having aversion or craving in relation to them; craving for existence means I need to do something, I need to become something; craving for non-existence is I don't want this anymore, I don't want this life anymore, I don't want this job anymore, I don't like being here anymore. These are the different kinds of craving that craving is dependent upon that self-image, which is the conceit.

That conceit is dependent upon the ignorance, and that is the ignorance of not being mindful in every moment as things arise and pass away. And that ignorance is also the ignorance of the four noble truths. Now, this bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering. It is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, non-reliance on it. That is nirodha. Dukkha nirodha, tanha nirodha: the cessation of suffering is a cessation of craving.

Every time you recognize the craving arising, every time you recognize taking things personally and then you let go of it, right there and then you experience nirodha, dukkha nirodha, tanha nirodha. Right there and then you experience a mundane level of nibbana. When you let go, your mind is no longer relying on the craving. Your mind is free from craving.

Your mind is without any craving. And in the ultimate non-reliance on craving is to experience full awakening. There, the arhat's mind experiences the third noble truth 24-7. There may be bodily pain. There may be illness. It can be aging. There can be death. But the mind experiences total equanimity. It's totally unaffected by that. Now, this bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering.

It is this noble eightfold path that is right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right collectedness. This is the noble truth of suffering. Thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, this is very important to understand. This is the first time the Buddha has talked about the four noble truths, unheard before in that eon, in this eon, when the Buddha came. There arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

This knowledge and vision arose in me. Unshakeable is the liberation of my mind. This is my last birth. Now there is no more renewed existence. So, the three aspects, the three phases and the twelve aspects, which means the first noble truth of suffering, that is there. It is to be understood, and it is to be known that it is understood. The second noble truth of the causes and conditions of suffering, that's the first aspect. That it has to be abandoned is the second aspect, and that it has been abandoned is the third aspect. That the third noble truth of suffering, that is the cessation of suffering, that it is there, that's the first aspect.

That it has to be fully experienced and that it has been fully experienced, these are the three aspects. That there is the noble eightfold path, this is the fourth noble truth, that's the first aspect. That it has to be fully cultivated and that it has been fully cultivated, these are the three aspects of that. Once someone fully does this, then their mind is completely liberated and they become an arahat. There is no more rebirth and there is no more coming to any new existence. This is what the Blessed One said. The group of the five bhikkhus delighted in the Blessed One's words, and while this discourse was being spoken there arose in the Venerable Kondanna the dust-free, stainless vision of the Dhamma: whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation.

Kondanna had a wish in his previous lives to become the first stream enterer, and now he had fulfilled it by understanding it from the Buddha himself. There arose the understanding of impermanence, there arose the understanding of suffering, there arose the understanding of what is not self, but not fully, because in the second discourse he understands it fully and attains arahatship. But fully understanding the arising and passing away of things, that whatever is subject to origination is subject to dissolution or to cessation, that is the eye of Dhamma. That is the vision that is opened up, and that is stream entry. And when the wheel of the Dhamma had been set in motion by the Blessed One, the earth-dwelling Devas raised a cry.

Thus, at that moment, at that instant, at that second, the cry spread as far as the Brahma world, and this ten-thousandfold world system shook, quaked and trembled, and an immeasurable, glorious radiance appeared in the world, surpassing the divine majesty of the Devas. I told you that this place is called Isipatana because this is where the rishis, the old ancient sages, would ascend and descend. This was a nexus point, a vortex point, in which all Devas and all beings converge. So it was not only the five bhikkhus who heard this discourse, but all beings, because here in this area, it is, it is a spaceport. It's a stargate from where you can go to other realms. Thus ends this discourse.