Move Toward the Absolute Truth

Summary

The talk presents a detailed teaching on the core of Buddhism, emphasizing that the heart of the Buddha’s message is not reincarnation, karma, or retribution as commonly assumed, but the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. The speaker situates the discussion in the context of a Sangha gathering at the Full Moon Meditation Hall in New Hamlet during a winter retreat, and uses the occasion to clarify Buddhist doctrine in relation to earlier Indian traditions such as Brahmanism, Vedantism, the Upanishads, and Jainism. A major theme is the distinction between Buddhist and non-Buddhist understandings of samsara, soul, and liberation. The speaker explains that Brahmanical traditions often assume an eternal, separate soul or Atma that migrates through rebirths until it reunites with Brahma. By contrast, Buddhism rejects the idea of a permanent self while still affirming continuity, causality, and karmic retribution. The speaker repeatedly stresses the formula “not the same, not different,” using examples such as a child becoming an adult, milk becoming cheese, and the relationship between the person who creates karma and the person who receives its result. This is presented as the Middle Path, avoiding both eternalism and nihilism. The talk then turns to karma as action and retribution as fruit, explaining that karma operates through three channels: thinking, speech, and bodily action. The speaker also distinguishes individual karma from collective karma, and individual retribution from collective retribution. Everyday examples are used to show how a shared environment can produce different experiences for different people, such as sitting in the same Dharma hall or riding in the same car. These examples reinforce the idea that Buddhist causality is subtle, relational, and context-dependent. Another central section explains the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path as practical, experiential teachings rather than beliefs in a deity or spirit. The Eightfold Path is described as a path of correct practices, beginning with Right View. Right View is not merely an opinion; it is a deep seeing that transcends fixed notions and dualities. The speaker links this to mindfulness and concentration, explaining that sustained mindful practice leads to deeper insight and clearer vision. The Five Precepts are also presented as concrete guidelines that support freedom rather than external commandments imposed by a higher power. The talk repeatedly contrasts conventional truth and absolute truth, drawing on the doctrine of the Two Truths. On the conventional level, suffering is distinct from happiness, self is distinct from other, and this is distinct from that. On the deeper level, however, these opposites interpenetrate. The speaker uses many analogies to illustrate this: the left and right sides of a sheet of paper, the father and son relationship, the recto and verso of a page, and the relationship between suffering and happiness. Suffering is not denied; rather, it is seen as the condition through which happiness can be understood and cultivated. The speaker also invokes Prajnaparamita literature, which appears to negate the Four Noble Truths, and explains that such statements only make sense when read through the lens of absolute truth. The discussion expands into a comparison with modern science, especially classical Newtonian physics and quantum physics. The speaker uses the wave-particle duality as an example of how reality cannot always be captured by rigid either-or categories. David Bohm’s ideas of explicate order and implicate order are introduced to support the Buddhist insight that apparent separateness conceals deeper interconnection. This is linked to the Buddhist teaching of interbeing, where each thing contains all others in a hidden, mutually dependent way. The latter part of the talk shifts to scriptural study and a gatha from a sutra, focusing on the critique of self-nature. The speaker explains that if something is produced by conditions, it cannot possess an independent self-nature. Flowers, babies, and milk are used as examples to show that all phenomena arise from causes and conditions and therefore lack fixed essence. This supports the Buddhist doctrine of non-self and impermanence. The speaker also uses Nagarjuna-like dialectical reasoning to show that being and non-being, self and other, and existence and non-existence are all conceptual extremes that must be transcended. Finally, the talk closes with a commemorative reflection on the root teacher of the speaker’s temple lineage. The speaker recounts the life of a patriarch who left a royal temple, chose a simple life in the mountains, cared for his mother, and rejected grandeur in favor of simplicity and practice. This figure is honored as a source of continuation for the present Sangha and temple community. The closing remarks connect the lineage, the practice of walking meditation and shared meals, and the sense of continuity among teacher, disciples, and community.