Dhammapada Verse 290: Profound Happiness

0:04Today we're looking at Dhammapada verse 290, which reads as follows. Mata sukha parityaga, paseche vipulang sukhang. Chaje mata sukhang dhiro, sampasang vipulang sukhang. Which means, if one should see that by giving up a limited happiness, there should be a profound happiness, a wise one would give up the limited happiness, seeing clearly the profound happiness. So this verse was taught during the events surrounding the Ratana Sutta, which is a very famous Buddhist Sutta.

1:28And the story surrounding it is a very famous story in Buddhist culture. The story goes that in Vesali, a town in India, a city in India at the time of the Buddha, there was a great famine. Vesali was a rich and prosperous city with kings and with a king and princes and rich and poor. But somehow there came to be a famine and the crops wouldn't grow and People went without food. And so to begin with, the poor people started to perish and the bodies started to pile up.

2:25And as a result of the bodies piling up, apparently it attracted evil spirits. This is what the text says. I don't know exactly how we'd understand that today. People would probably be skeptical of the presence of evil spirits, which apparently caused further death. So I don't know if it was demons actually eating people, or you could say evil spirits is something a little more psychological. But the deaths just kept piling up. I think probably there was some superstition as well.

3:01People thinking it was evil spirits when it could have just been disease. But that's the story. But with the evil spirits, with the great number of deaths, nothing to do really with the evil spirits. There, of course, it was compounded with further death because with bodies piling up and nowhere to safely dispose of them, We know from modern science that this is a recipe for disaster and an increase in sickness ends up turning into a plague. And so more and more people died as a result.

3:37It was a real tragedy. A famous story that we hear about as being a real case of immense suffering and a real sense of urgency and a need to do something. Of course, they didn't have the benefits of modern science to cure the diseases in any way, But they had other means. They began to ask the question of what could be the cause. Perhaps karmically there was some cause. Maybe the king was unrighteous. When the king is unrighteous, sometimes the kingdom begins to suffer.

4:25But they found that that wasn't the king. The king was apparently a pretty good king. And so they started to think of how could they figure out a solution for this? They couldn't blame the king. They couldn't just get rid of the king and bring a new one because the king hadn't really done anything wrong. So the different people had different suggestions. This would have been a council of the king and the princes and the ministers. Some of them said that they should make a big sacrifice.

4:58Some of them said they should seek out the various teachers, spiritual teachers, religious teachers at the time. There were these six famous teachers in that area of India. But someone mentioned that there was someone who was said to be a fully enlightened Buddha and they should really go and ask him. Probably he could help. And when they heard this, they all thought, oh, that's a good idea. Maybe we should do that. And I asked, where is this fully enlightened Buddha staying?

5:28I found out that at that time, the Buddha was staying in Weluwana, the bamboo grove in Rajagaha, being attended upon by King Bimbisara, who was a Buddhist and a Sotapanna, and a great king. And so they made a decision to send a minister to request the King to invite, request King Bimbisara to invite the Buddha to come to Vesali to do something. Surely a fully enlightened Buddha could do something to dispel this terrible plague that was ravaging the city.

6:16So they went to Rajagaha and they went to see Bimbisara and they paid respect to him and asked him to please request the Buddha to come. King Bimbisara refused and he said, go ask him yourself basically. He said, you guys are smart, you can figure out a way to get him to come. And they did. They went to see the Buddha. They invited the Buddha to Vesali. And the Buddha immediately saw that this would be a really important event. It was worth going, obviously, to alleviate the suffering and that he would truly be able to help the situation.

6:58So they received his consent and they returned back to to let the king and the ministers know. Meanwhile, Bimbisara came to see the Buddha and said, Is it true, Venerable Sir, you're going to travel all this way to Vesali? And the Buddha said, Yes, it's true. And then King Bimbisara, Well, then wait for me to prepare the road for you, prepare the way for you. And King Bimbisara did a really fairly incredible thing. He leveled the entire path, entire road, removing any kind of pothole or any kind of bramble or any kind of obstacle on the entire path, which was, well, quite a distance.

7:42I can't remember the distance, but the distance from Rajagaha, if you've ever been there, it's a long drive from Rajagaha north to Vesali, across the river, the Ganga river, a long, long road. Many, many, like 100 miles or 200 miles or something like that. I don't really know. And not only that, he calculated how long it would take the Buddha to travel. And at every day's travel, he erected a rest house. a place for the Buddha to stay the night on his journey and to receive him with food and with bedding and to receive all the monks, the 500 monks or however many monks that would follow him.

8:34And not only that, but along the path, the whole way, hundreds of miles or kilometers, the distance, he placed flowers along the path. And not only that, but when the monks were finally ready to travel, he had his ministers hold umbrellas over their heads for the whole journey. So it became this huge to-do. This is what the story says. It's kind of important for the verse. The verse is sort of based on the fact that King Bibi Sara did all this. And so the Buddha traveled all that way.

9:14And for those who know the story of the Ratnasutta, when the Buddha arrived at Vesali, the rain immediately began to pour, washing away many of the dead bodies and much of the disease, cleansing the city. Sort of coincidentally, at the moment that the Buddha stepped across the river and entered into the area of Vesali, Then he sent Ananda with a bowl of water and he taught Ananda the Ratnasutta. And Ananda went through the city and pouring the water as a symbolic gesture, reciting the Ratnasutta, which is basically just a recitation of the virtues of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha.

10:01Not really deep teaching, but as more of a teaching of of faith, you know, that inspirational teaching meant to remind people of the three treasures, the great things that exist in the world, the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. And so this happened. And as a result of reciting the Ratana Sutta, the evil spirits were dispelled, the diseases were all cured, miracles occurred, according to the text. I mean, whether it happened exactly like that, it's just that we know that sometimes these texts embellish what actually happened.

10:40So something happened and quite likely the inspiration and just the greatness of the Buddha traveling there and the emotional benefit of having the Buddha go and to teach and just hearing about the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha was a real support for the beleaguered city and aided in the recovery. Along with of course the less tangible benefits tangible in the sense that things that we as human beings wouldn't be able to see like devas who got involved causing the rain to pour and that sort of thing which you sometimes see in very strange circumstances where there was this one time when we were in Thailand where it was an incredible drought and all the monks got together.

11:33I was there, the monks got together and there was this ceremony that they normally do at that time because it's usually quite dry where we pay respect to the Buddha and we pay respect to the senior monks and there's this really traditional ceremony of paying respect and as soon as it started at the very moment Where the ceremony began, there was a sudden downpour and the whole area was just drenched and washed clean of all the dust and all the filth and the heat was abated and the drought was over.

12:13So this kind of thing is certainly seems to be possible. Anyway, so it happened and the Ratna Sutta became a symbol of this sort of protective or beneficial text. where by reciting it, great things could happen. So it became a text that was quite often or is often recited for this sort of benefit of curing sickness and relieving drought or dispelling evil spirits. It can be a little bit superstitious where people believe that it somehow has magical properties, perhaps beyond what it actually has.

12:55That being said, the greatness of the sutta to inspire and to remind of good things is certainly very real. And so there certainly is benefit to reciting it no matter what you believe about evil spirits or devas or anything like that. But that's not where this verse comes from. The verse comes as a result when the monks later on, after the Buddha had returned to Vedawan, I think, the monks were sitting around discussing just the greatness of the Buddha and appreciating the greatness of this event, how the Buddha was so great and that the devas and the king and everyone was so supportive of the Buddha that they caused all of these things to occur.

13:53There was the how Bimbisara prepared the road and there's other things that I didn't mention about devas and nagas and all sorts of very exceptional occurrences in regards to in relation to the teaching of the Ratnasutta. And the Buddha came and asked them what they were talking about. And they said this, and the Buddha said, Oh, well, it wasn't really because of any of that, that those miraculous things occurred and that series of events occurred.

14:26It's actually because of something that happened very far in the past. And so that's where our verse comes in, where the Buddha told the story of the past. And he said, in the past, there was a Brahmin. And this Brahmin had a son. The son's name was Susima. The father's name was Sanka, I think. Anyway, the father sent the son to Varanasi, another big city in the time of the Buddha, to study with the Brahmins there. And the son went to learn this religious teaching of the Brahmins, but he couldn't.

15:08understand a goal or an end to it. He couldn't understand the end of the teaching. He said, I've understood the beginning, I've understood the middle, meaning I've understood the preparation, I've understood the practice, but I don't understand what it leads to. What is the goal of the spiritual life, of religious practice? Why are we doing all of these things? And the Brahmins said, well, we don't know this either. And so they sent him, they said, but look, there's these supposed enlightened beings living in Isipatana, this deer park near Varanasi.

15:40Why don't you go ask them? Maybe they can help you. So he went to see these, what we call Pacheca Buddhas. these beings that were indeed truly enlightened, and they had become enlightened by themselves. They weren't able to teach like the fully enlightened Buddha, but they were able to teach basic goodness, basic religious practice. And so this Brahmin youth, Susima, he went to see these Vajayaka Buddhas. And he asked them, you know, he said, look, I've been studying the teachings of the Brahmins and I understand what it's for, but I don't understand what it leads to.

16:19Do you know what the goal of the holy life, the goal of religious practice is? And they said, yes, we know. Well, please, can you teach me? And he said, well, they said, well, we only teach those who are in our brethren, those who have left the home life, those who have taken up the ascetic life. basically those who are monks or ascetics. And he said, well then fine, I will join you. And so they gave him the ordination in their community and they taught him whatever they knew, whatever they could.

16:56It doesn't really say what they taught, the point that this text makes is that it wasn't because not not because of what he was taught but because he had the capacity to join them and to become one of them he actually became a Pacheco Buddha himself he became a Buddha as a result of his own perfections he wasn't able to be taught the way but he was able for himself to figure out and realize the truth of suffering and the cessation of suffering and became a Pacheco Buddha but because of his karma he wasn't able to be to live a long life he passed away quite soon afterwards and his father came looking for him and found that he had passed away, he asked, you know, was it this Brahmin?

17:47Have you heard of this Brahmin youth who came here looking for teaching? He said, oh yes, he left the home life and became an ascetic. And as we understand, he became enlightened. And they had erected a chaitya, like a big gravestone, but something that is used to honor those who are worthy of honor. out at the city gate and they said, we have just interred his ashes. He has been cremated and put in this Jaitiya. Oh, and the Brahmin was very sad, but also very inspired and took himself to the Jaitiya and saw that it was not being very well taken care of and so he determined himself to take care of the Jaitiya and to respect his son and the greatness of what his son had done.

18:49And so he cleared away all of the weeds and all of the brambles and so on. He carried sand in his robe and poured sand and spread sand to make it all nice and clean. He erected a parasol and flags and He poured down water all around to make it look nice. And paid respect to his son as an enlightened being. And the Buddha said, it's because of all of this, because of that simple fact, simple act, simple series of acts, that all of those things occurred.

19:32Because that Brahmin was the Bodhisattva. The Buddha said, I was that Brahmin, father. who paid respect to my own son, who had become an enlightened being. And it was because of that, that all of these things happened because the reason why Bimbisara leveled the road is because I had leveled that area around my son's grave and so on and so on. And then the Buddha taught this verse. So it's a little bit, it takes some explaining. because it seems somewhat disjointed, because the verse doesn't really speak to that series of events.

20:14But I'll try and explain what's going on here, starting with the story. The story of the Ratna Sutta is very famous. Let's look at the sort of lessons that we can hope to take from it. The first lesson in regards to the story is that bad things happen. So it's not really related to the verse or the lessons that the Buddha taught, but just taking in the experience. of a plague and great suffering and death for the whole city and how they couldn't find a solution.

20:59They couldn't find a cause. They couldn't even understand that it was some sort of bad karma by one person or by many people or by the city as a whole. This sort of thing just sort of happened. It's a reminder for us that life is not always the way we would hope it would be, that bad things happen to us. Bad things are an aspect of human existence that we have to confront and acknowledge the existence of things like famine and plague and sickness and disease.

21:45It's sort of a reminder, again, as we've been talking about week after week, that we have to be able to broaden our horizons and not focus so much on pleasure, focus so much on temporary, meaningless goals and ambitions. We have to ask ourselves whether we're prepared for the inevitability of good and bad things occurring. Are we ready for the uncertainty? Are we ready for anything that might come our way? Something to think about, a reminder that such things have the potential for happening.

22:31A reminder that even though for many of us bad things are not happening and it seems like the world is in a good state and our life is paved smooth like the road that the Buddha traveled to Vaisali. But in fact, these things do happen. We read about them on the news. They happen all over the world. They happen at all times. and they could very well happen to us. So it's a question we ask ourselves whether we are spiritually, psychologically, emotionally able to deal with great suffering and sickness and death, which can absolutely occur.

23:13It's not that we have to be pessimistic thinking that it will occur, have to ask ourselves whether we are strong whether our minds are free from the triggers that would cause us great emotional stress if bad things were to happen if we were to lose the ones we love or if our own health was to fail if we were to experience physical and physical suffering and environmental stress and trouble The second lesson from the story that is really what is supposed to be taken from the Rātana Sutta in general is the power of words, and more importantly, the power of truth.

24:03So the idea behind the Rātana Sutta and its power is that each verse in the Rātana Sutta where it talks about the virtues of the Buddha, the virtues of the Dhamma, the virtues of the Sangha, you can read it if you want, is that it's an observation of truth and it's a powerful truth. It's not just the truth that the sky is blue or grass is green. It's the truth that the Buddha is unparalleled. The Buddha is the greatest and that the Dhamma is unmatched.

24:35There is no greater practice than the practice of the Dhamma. And that one who practices the teaching, the Sangha, is unparalleled as well, is unmatched. worthy of respect. It's truly someone who is worthy of respect. So it's the power of this truth is said to be something that you can determine for yourself and use to strengthen your determination saying that through this power may there be well-being. ... ... ... ... ... May there be well-being as a result of this determination or this speech of truth and the greatness of this truth.

25:37And why that's important to us is a little bit, for a little bit of a different reason, a little bit of a different nature. When we practice mindfulness, when we focus on every moment, this is in a similar way, a parallel, what we're doing at every moment of our practice of mindfulness. So when we walk, stepping right, stepping left, when we say that to ourselves, we as well are determining or invoking the truth. And this is the whole of the base of the nature of the practice of mindfulness.

26:17Our practice is based on this idea that we are reinforcing the truth. And this is the kind of thing that creates strength of mind, it creates clarity of mind. And it has very much a parallel in this idea, this sort of a superficial practice of some kind of religious practice of determining the Buddha is great, the Dhamma is great, the Sangha is great. It may not seem very significant, but it has a profound effect. on your mind in terms of strengthening it and creating courage and confidence.

26:50And so it has a parallel with this deeper practice of mindfulness, where you invoke the truth and create a state of mind that is clear, sees things as they are without doubt, without without any kind of confusion or complexity. It's a very simple experience. The foot is moving, the stomach is rising, seeing is seeing, pain is pain, thinking is thinking and so on and so on. This is a very important part of the Buddha's teaching. Obviously, the practice of mindfulness is very core, but it's the kind of thing that you see resonate in many facets of the Buddha's teaching.

27:33So, something that can help us understand how the Ratana Sutta events occurred, why it was so powerful, why it was so moving, why it was able to benefit so many people, and why they use the Ratana Sutta even today, and suttas like it. Because they talk about the truth and they talk about profound and important truths. And when you speak the truth, it has power. And this is an aspect of why mindfulness practice is so powerful and so effective. Because it straightens the mind.

28:07The mind that is usually judging things and manipulating things and trying to see things in a favorable way to get what we want or to not get what we don't want. Mindfulness breaks through all of that and just says, seeing is seeing, pain is pain, without trying to judge or fix or manipulate or control things. This is something that you can see in the Ratanasutta as well. The third lesson that we get from the story is the power of good deeds, just as a reminder that not only the practice of meditation, but all of the many good deeds that we might perform have resounding effects into the future.

28:52So the Buddha, as he often did, was reminding his students of how the good deeds that we have done in the past have an effect on us in the present. So all of these simple good deeds of paying respect to Pacheco Buddha, which again have a lot to do with the practice of reciting the Ratanasutta. When people recite the Ratanasutta, they consider it to be a great deed because they are paying respect to the Buddha when they do that. They're remembering and revering the greatness of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha.

29:26And that in and of itself is a good deed. But how people will sweep out the area around the Chaitiya, the area around the Bodhi tree, how they will offer flowers to the Buddha, all of these things are... a mimicking of the practices that the Buddha enjoined upon us. Any kind of good deed that you can do which relates to respect, reverence, that relates to the appreciation of good qualities. Even this Brahmin who appreciated his son who was a Pacheco Buddha, who was an enlightened being.

30:01That's a great deed, something that benefited him. and brought fruit in future lives as well. So that's, I think, what we can gain from the story. What we gain from the verse, the verse is very simple, but first we have to talk about how it relates to the story. So I sort of stopped explaining when we got to the end of the story, and the story ends with this Brahmin, offering this worship and respect to the Pacheco Buddha, who had been his son. And then the Buddha saying that this caused all of these great things to happen in the future.

30:50And then teaching this verse saying, if you give up a If by giving up a limited happiness you will attain a profound happiness, you should give up. A wise one would give up the limited happiness, seeing that there is a greater happiness to be gained. So how it relates, I think, you have to understand how the Buddha taught. He didn't teach for passing along information. He taught as a means of guiding his students to become free from suffering. So most likely this is the teaching that would benefit his audience most.

31:33But what he was saying, he was pointing out that this is the greatness of good deeds and the greatness of wholesomeness and of the religious and spiritual practice, even just venerating and paying respect to those worthy of veneration. But more generally, all of the good deeds that the Bodhisatta and the Buddha did from the moment that he made a determination to become a Buddha, all throughout his existence, life after life, as he cultivated all of the ten perfections, as he gave charity, as he practiced ethics and morality, as he practiced kindness and equanimity, as he cultivated effort and wisdom, as he cultivated equanimity, all of the many good qualities that the Buddha cultivated.

32:30All of this was that which led to true and profound happiness, the happiness of full enlightenment. But it meant that he had to give up so much. And again, this was a teaching that most likely was of great benefit to his audience and is of all the things you could ever take out of this story I think the best that you could take out of it that it doesn't directly relate to all the things I was talking about regarding the story of the Ratana Sutta but when you look at it from the perspective of the Buddha what you see is the path of a Buddha all of the work that he has done that led up to this where he was able to just walk into a city and have the entire famine and plague and suffering just wash away.

33:23is the great and wonderful quality of being a Buddha and the great happiness that comes. It's just such a more profound happiness than what ordinary worldlings normally look for. So it's just a remark upon how great is the cultivation of perfection and the cultivation of goodness and the cultivation of the Dhamma. So he wasn't specifically talking about the stories. He was pointing out that it's just a great thing to give up the things that we'd normally cling to, to strive for something greater, because this is the result.

34:02Look, this is what happens. These great things happen as a result. But as to the verse, the verse is really the best lesson that we can take away from this. I mean, this is again, this is what the Buddha actually taught as opposed to all of the events surrounding the story of the Ratana Sutta. He taught this very simple but very profound teaching that there are two kinds, there are two general kinds of happiness. There is limited happiness and there is profound happiness.

34:30And obviously, if we compare the two, we should prefer that which is profound. The distinction is this. Happiness or what we normally call pleasure is something very easy to attain, something that you can seek out, something you can grasp at, something you can cultivate. quite simply quite easily there are many ways to do this and this is what we call limited happiness it's limited because it's limited to the effort that you put into it the exertion the work the the the events that trigger it it arises and it is truly and and really and truly happiness.

35:16It is happy. A person who experiences this has a happy feeling. That feeling is happy. There is nothing you can say bad about the feeling itself. The problem is that it's limited. It's limited to, again, when you experience that. Well, the real problem is that by seeking out this happiness, you enter into a life which has a limited amount of happiness, is what it means. So because you like this happiness and you prefer this happy feeling, any time or any moment or any period that you don't experience it, you, of course, conversely, feel stress and dissatisfaction and a yearning for attaining it.

36:16And because it's only happy when it's triggered, when you actually experience it. So it could be the happiness that comes from food or the happiness that comes from music or the happiness that comes from romance or sexual experiences or any kind of physical comfort or physical pleasure, any pleasure of the five senses. because it only comes triggered by those things, it doesn't actually constitute true happiness. So a person who is devoted to this sort of happiness can ask themselves, am I as a result of this truly happy?

36:53Or you can ask of this person because the person themselves will be so mired in this and devoted to this pleasure and the seeking out of this pleasure, they may not be able to answer for themselves. But if you ask yourself, a drug addict or someone who is addicted to sensuality, are they truly happy? The honest answer is that most of the time they are struggling. Most of the time they have to engage in activities in order to just accumulate the resources in order to obtain this limited momentary pleasure.

37:29So, they have to get a job, they have to get into debt, and they have to engage in relationships where there is a mutual clinging and a mutual craving. where the people you engage with want something from you. So you want something from them, they want something from you. And because you're engaging with people who also want something, as the Buddha said, there is often conflict, there is often suffering. This is a big part of Buddhist theory of why we undertake the practice of something greater, why we try to give up and strive to give up worldly pleasures.

38:03Because of this incredibly limited aspect that the happiness actually has, the incredibly limited part it plays in our lives, that most of our lives is then in stress and worry and discomfort and striving for this limited moment of pleasure. So, profound happiness, the happiness that the Buddha enjoined us to find is what you might think of as a sense, a general sense of happiness, when a person can say they are happy. Normally we talk about it as being at peace because it's hard to put a sort of a tangible quality to it.

38:47It may not be a happy feeling or a pleasurable feeling, but nonetheless, a person would very much be able to say they are much happier than before when they were obsessed and devoted to seeking out pleasure. They were in so much stress. craving and yearning and feeling disappointment and worry and fear of loss and displeasure when they felt discomfort or pain or any unpleasant sensation, that they're so much happier and have so much peace when they give that up.

39:19This is Buddhist theory at a very basic level, the difference between two types of happiness. And in Buddhism, we're not denouncing happiness, but we are denouncing this limited happiness. In other words, any happiness that you cling to. In fact, any real happiness that you can say is a happy feeling, a pleasurable feeling. The problem isn't in those feelings themselves. The problem is in the devotion to them. And they're the kind of thing that you don't have to reject experiencing, but you have to give up.

39:51You have to be willing to give up the pursuit of these things that can't possibly satisfy us because they are not permanent, they are not constant. And they come along with so much baggage of having to go into debt and engage in relationships of mutual manipulation and conflict. So the Buddha said a wise person will be able to see the difference. The wise person is the one who undertakes the practice of the Dhamma. Those people who practice the Dhamma do so because of this wisdom where they appreciate the difference.

40:30the distinction between seeking out pleasure in a worldly sense and finding peace and happiness from renunciation and from letting go because when you let go and are no longer dependent that things must be this way and can't be this way and this will make me happy but this will make me unhappy you find true happiness you find you become happy you can say because there is no dependency There is no push and pull. There is no vulnerability. So that no matter what you experience or don't experience, the mind is at peace and the mind is free and the mind is without any stress or suffering.

41:17So a very simple teaching, there's not a lot to understand, but certainly something to remember. We're not denouncing happiness, but in Buddhism, the idea is to find a greater happiness. And we can take the Buddha's life and the history of the Buddha and how he became enlightened as an example. We can engage ourselves in any form of spiritual practice, always reminding ourselves that all of our many spiritual practices, religious practices, any kind of practice that is for a greater good, to make us a better person, to cultivate wholesome qualities, powerful spiritual qualities of mindfulness and all of the others of effort and confidence and patience and wisdom and focus.

42:11all the many good qualities that we can cultivate, all the many good religious practices that can help us cultivate them. This is something that a wise one prefers and will lead us to true wisdom and true peace, happiness and freedom from suffering. So that's the Dhammapada for today. Thank you for listening.