SN 12.18 Timbaruka Sutta - Timbaruka

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

Welcome to Buddha Sangha.

Today we will do one of the most interesting teachings of the Buddha.

He taught on the dependent origination.

And we will do a sutta that covers this.

So it is from the Samyutta Nikaya.

Sutta number 12.

18.

12th is the Nidana Samyutta which is the connected discourses on causation.

Number 18 is Timbarukkha.

At Savatthi,

Then the wanderer Timbarukkha approached the Blessed One and exchanged greetings with him.

When they had concluded their greetings and cordial talk,

He sat down to one side and said to him,

How is it Master Gautama,

Are pleasure and pain created by oneself?

Not so Timbarukkha,

The Blessed One said.

It's an interesting question.

We all want to know how did I create this pain or pleasure for my own self?

But Buddha says,

It is not so.

This is a wrong understanding that I have created pain or pleasure.

Then Master Gautama,

Are pleasure and pain created by another?

Not so Timbarukkha,

The Blessed One said.

So obviously we want to know if I didn't create this pain or pleasure that I am experiencing,

Then is it created by another?

But Buddha said,

That is not true.

Then Master Gautama,

Have pleasure and pain arisen fortuitously,

Being created neither by oneself nor by another?

Not so Timbarukkha,

The Blessed One said.

This is also a question that arises in us.

If pain and pleasure was not created by me,

If it was not created by another,

Then maybe there is some fortune fairy or some god or some angel sitting up there in the clouds that sends pain or pleasure my way.

But Buddha said,

It is not so.

How is it then Master Gautama?

Is there no pleasure and pain?

It is not that there is no pleasure and pain,

Timbarukkha,

There is pleasure and pain.

Then is it that Master Gautama does not know and see pleasure and pain?

It is not that I do not know and see pleasure and pain,

Timbarukkha,

I know pleasure and pain.

I see pleasure and pain.

Whether you are asked,

How is it Master Gautama,

Are pleasure and pain created by oneself or are they created by another or are they created by both or are they created by neither?

In each case you say,

Not so Timbarukkha.

When you are asked,

How is it then Master Gautama,

Is there no pleasure and pain?

You say,

It is not that there is no pleasure and pain,

Timbarukkha,

There is pleasure and pain.

When I asked,

Then is it that Master Gautama does not know and see pleasure and pain?

You say,

It is not that I do not know and see pleasure and pain,

Timbarukkha,

I know pleasure and pain.

I see pleasure and pain.

Venerable Sir,

Let the Blessed One explain pleasure and pain to me.

Let the Blessed One teach me about pleasure and pain.

Timbarukkha is totally confused.

We also have these notions that the enlightened people do not experience pleasure and pain.

They don't know pleasure and pain.

But Buddha wipes away even that wrong understanding.

He says that even the enlightened one knows pleasure and pain,

Sees pleasure and pain.

Let's see what the Blessed One had to teach Timbarukkha now.

Timbarukkha,

If one thinks the feeling and the one who feels it are the same,

Then one asserts with reference to one existing from the beginning.

Pleasure and pain are created by oneself.

I do not speak thus.

So the first thing that pleasure and pain are created by me only.

What does this imply?

That I am the doer and I am the experiencer.

Is this a correct understanding?

It's wrong.

Because many times we don't do things but things happen.

So many things are not in our hands.

And on the other hand,

There are so many times that we decide to maintain a happy state of mind and even amidst the most difficult situations prevailing externally,

Internally we do not suffer.

So we do not experience that pain.

Have these two been experienced by all of you?

Right?

So it is incorrect to say I am the doer and I am the experiencer.

So this first paragraph where it says that I am responsible or pain and pleasure are created by oneself or by me is wrong,

Is a wrong understanding.

But Timbarukha,

If one thinks the feeling is one,

The one who feels it is another,

Then one asserts with reference to one stricken by feeling.

Pleasure and pain are created by another.

Neither do I speak thus.

Now if you take the second scenario that someone else is the doer and I am the experiencer.

Somebody else does things but I am the one who is the victim.

I experience it.

This is also wrong understanding.

This is also not true.

Without veering towards either of these extremes,

The Tathagata teaches the Dhamma by the middle.

The Tathagata means the one who has reached it.

Tath Agata.

The one who has reached the Tath.

Tath is the other shore or the one who has attained the highest.

And he teaches by the middle path.

Basically he does not teach the extremes.

With ignorance as condition,

Volitional formations come to be.

What is ignorance?

I am not aware that by doing something wrong,

Doing something unwholesome,

I cause suffering to my own self.

By lying,

By cheating,

I think that I get something from somebody else.

So really I am profiting.

But I don't see the truth that by lying,

By cheating constantly in my head,

I am suffering reeling in that thought.

And I do not find myself to rest in that inner silence,

In that inner being.

And that is what causes stress.

So in the long run,

I may have profited externally through money or through name,

Fame or whatever political position.

But internally,

I have actually encountered a loss.

When I am ignorant,

I cannot see the internal loss.

I have only seen the external gain monetarily or socially.

This is called ignorance,

Where one side of the coin is not apparent to me.

So I am an ignorant person.

I only see the external side,

But I don't see the internal side.

So let's go back to that sentence.

With ignorance as condition,

Volitional formations come to me.

When I am ignorant,

I do not know the higher truth.

For example,

I have experienced in the past that through lying and cheating,

I make extra thousand dollar profit.

So this information that by lying and cheating,

I make thousand dollar profit gets deposited in my memory as an impression.

I realize that by lying and cheating,

I make profit in the external world.

But I do not realize that in my inner world,

I am restless.

Something pinches me inside every now and then when I remember that I cheated or I lied to get this extra thousand dollars.

So that pinch is not letting me rest in the inner silence of my being.

I do not understand this.

I take it as the way of life or everybody does the same.

I only give importance to the external prominent sign of profit either monetarily or socially.

And I ignore the inner pinch that comes from the lying or cheating.

Therefore,

What happens is that volitional formations come to me.

What is a volitional formation?

Volitional means out of my own will.

Formation is an impression created in my memory box.

That little information that by lying and cheating,

I can make thousand dollar more profit gets deposited as an impression in my memory box.

And in future,

When the chance comes again for a similar opportunity to make that extra thousand bucks,

This impression knocks my door again.

And I cheat again.

I lie again.

So ignorance.

Ignorance of what?

That there is something that I'm missing on the internal side,

That internal piece,

That internal silence because of externally doing an unwholesome act.

This is ignorance and this ignorance is the condition for this volitional formation or this impression in my memory box that by lying and cheating,

I can get some profit.

It does not get deposited in words.

You understand what I'm saying?

It's a formation.

It is an impression in the mind.

This impression then kicks in again as thoughts in future.

This impression kicks in as emotions in future.

It is buried somewhere in the deeper corners of the mind.

And this is what really determines my nature.

This is who I become.

So volitional formations need a condition and that condition is ignorance.

So the first part is very clear.

With ignorance as condition,

Volitional formations come to be.

With volitional formations as condition,

Consciousness comes to be.

Whenever you see a dot dot dot,

We need to refer back to the previous sutta.

So here in this case,

We will turn back to the sutta on page 533.

The last paragraph,

Second line.

With volitional formations as condition,

Consciousness comes to be.

So what is consciousness?

Consciousness is of six types.

Eye consciousness,

Ear consciousness,

Nose consciousness,

Tongue consciousness,

Body consciousness and mind consciousness.

Consciousness here simply means cognition.

The eye cognises sight whenever there is a particular form that appears.

The ear consciousness cognises sound whenever there is a sound.

Similarly the others.

So for consciousness to arise,

There has to be a condition.

A saṃkhāra or impression or volitional formation kicks in a thought that by lying and cheating you got 1000 dollars the last time.

So the mind consciousness comes up.

So for the mind consciousness to come up,

An internal stored impression from the memory was required for the first thought to come up.

So mind consciousness first just cognises this impression from the past.

With consciousness as condition,

Name and form.

Simply the job of eye consciousness is to see the form and recognise it.

Whenever I recognise the form that has appeared in front of the eye,

I say this is a hand.

The form of the hand is there and its name,

The hand.

So for name and form to appear or basically perception to appear,

That is saṃkhāra to appear,

The condition required is cognition or consciousness.

You can use consciousness or cognition interchangeably.

Only when I cognise something will I make a judgement about its name and form.

If I have not cognised the data,

I will not be able to perceive its name or form or even give its name or form.

With name and form as condition,

The six sense bases come to be.

What are the six sense bases?

Sight,

Sound,

Smell,

Taste,

Touch and thought.

So basically sight can come only when there is eye consciousness and there is a form.

Then only can the process of seeing or sight happen.

Similarly,

When there is an ear consciousness and there is an object called the sound,

Then only the hearing can happen.

The base of hearing can happen,

The base of sound can happen.

Similarly,

Only when there is the body consciousness and there is an external object,

Then only the process of touch can happen or the base of touch can exist.

Same for smell and taste and for thought.

So with name and form as condition,

The six sense bases come to be.

Very clear?

With the six sense bases as condition,

Contact comes to be.

So what is required for contact?

Let's take the simple example of you looking at me.

First your eye consciousness comes up,

There is an object,

The computer screen in front of you or the TV screen in front of you or Ekta sitting in front of you.

So you have a name and form in front of you,

You have the eye consciousness and the sense base of eye,

The organ eye or the entire process of sight happening.

So three things are required,

Your eye,

The eye consciousness and the form.

Because of all three,

Contact comes to be.

With contact as condition,

Feeling comes to be.

The moment you see me on the screen or you see me in front of you,

What happens?

There is a feeling of I like or I dislike.

This feeling of I like or dislike has come through the process of vision.

So therefore it is the eye feeling.

Similarly for all of the other sense bases.

With feeling as condition,

Craving comes to be.

Once you have a feeling,

I like it,

What happens?

Does it stop at I like it?

For example,

You see your favourite chocolate ice cream sitting in the freezer and that feeling comes of liking it.

It's a pleasant feeling,

You feel it all over the body,

It does not come up as words in the mind.

It's just a very pleasant sensation felt all over the body.

Yes,

What happens?

Then there is a craving that develops in the mind,

I want to eat that chocolate ice cream.

So with feeling as condition,

Craving comes to be.

Very clear?

With craving as condition,

Clinging comes to be.

Do you stop at craving and that reminder that I have put on too much weight,

I should abstain from eating the chocolate ice cream.

You go back to your work,

Your cooking or cleaning or doing your things.

Has the craving gone away?

No.

There is a lot of work happening in the background.

What does that work?

All the justification,

Why that chocolate ice cream is good for you and it will help you come into a happier mood.

And how you will be able to work even better,

Cook even better,

Clean even better.

All kinds of justifications are going on in the head.

Yeah,

That clingy,

Clingy,

Clingy thing is going on in the background.

So with craving as condition,

Clinging comes to be.

With clinging as condition,

Existence comes to be.

Existence here means I cling,

I cling,

I cling to that ice cream and I ate it finally.

What happens?

Existence means becoming,

It happening.

Yeah?

So whatever really you crave for and you cling to,

That materialises.

Finally you eat that chocolate ice cream.

In fact you had decided to just eat one chocolate ice cream,

You will end up eating two,

Two cones from the freezer.

Yeah?

Existence comes to be or becoming comes to be.

With existence as condition,

Birth comes to be.

So with you finally eating that chocolate ice cream and breaking your diet,

What happens?

What is born?

That extra little fat on the hips or a little extra love on the paunch.

With birth as condition,

Ageing and death,

Sorrow,

Lamentation,

Pain,

Displeasure and despair come to be.

Yes?

And because you don't fit into those genes,

There is a lot of pain,

There is a lot of lamentation,

Sorrow,

Regret.

We all know the story.

So this is the dependent origination.

These are the 12 links of dependent origination.

You can actually see them happening in day to day life,

In everything that you do.

Though I changed several examples in my explanation,

You will see that you can apply it in every little thing that is happening in your life.

From a chocolate ice cream to cheating for money to cheating on your spouse to doing anything unwholesome at work,

In the family,

In your spiritual sangha or even just in your mind.

Any unwholesome thought always leads to birth of negativity and finally there is pain,

There is lamentation,

There is sorrow,

There is despair.

Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering.

This because is called dependent origination.

So we go back to our original sutta of timbharuka.

Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering.

But with the remainderless fading away and cessation of ignorance comes cessation of volitional formations.

So obviously when you recognise that this ignorance of mind where I just kept looking at the external profit and ignored the internal peace,

The internal silence.

When this ignorance is seized,

When it goes away and you recognise this truth,

Then there is cessation of that negative formation in the memory that said cheat,

Cheat,

Cheat,

You will get $100 more.

This impression which was there in the memory is erased.

So the moment ignorance seizes,

This impression seizes,

This sankhara seizes,

This volitional formation seizes to be.

With the cessation of volitional formations,

Cessation of consciousness.

So the moment that impression is gone,

The mind consciousness will not arise for even thinking of cheating in the future.

We turn back to the first sutta again.

This time on page 534.

With the cessation of volitional formations,

Cessation of consciousness.

With cessation of consciousness,

Cessation of name and form.

So then the $1000 bill is not floating in my mind's eye.

There is no more name and form.

With the cessation of name and form,

Cessation of six sense bases.

So obviously I did not go into the thought base.

With the cessation of the six sense bases,

Cessation of contact.

So obviously if there is no eye consciousness and there is no name and form,

There is no contact.

So with the cessation of six sense bases,

There is the cessation of contact.

With the cessation of contact is the cessation of feeling.

So obviously if I don't come into contact with the ice cream sitting in the fridge,

There is no pleasant feeling in the whole body.

Or if I don't come into contact with that negative impression of lying and cheating from the past and no mind consciousness arises,

There is no form of $1000 floating in front of my mind's eye,

Then obviously there is no contact.

And if there is no contact,

There is no feeling of the pleasant feeling that I get from seeing the $3000.

With the cessation of feeling,

Cessation of craving.

Obviously there is no pleasant feeling,

So there is no craving.

I want it is not there.

With cessation of craving,

There is cessation of clinging.

If I want it,

I want it,

I want it is not there.

There is no clinging or justification in the mind.

Why it is a good thing to want it and why it is a good thing to get it,

So there is no clinging.

With the cessation of clinging,

Cessation of existence.

So obviously there is no more cheating.

You do not land up in that situation where you lie or cheat.

And with cessation of existence,

Cessation of birth.

Basically no bad outcome is born out of cheating because you didn't cheat in the first place.

So there is cessation of birth.

And therefore there is cessation of ageing,

Death,

Sorrow,

Lamentation,

Pain,

Displeasure and despair.

So basically there is no more sorrow.

Is this very very clear?

Dependent origination.

One leads to the next,

Next leads to the next,

Next leads to the next,

Next leads to the next.

That is why it is called dependent.

And this originates from that,

This originates from that,

That originates from that.

If one exists,

The other exists too.

If one ceases,

The other ceases too.

This is a dependent origination.

Now let's go back to the page.

I go for refuge to Master Gautama and to the Dhamma and to the Bhikkhu Sangha.

From today,

Let Master Gautama remember me as a lay follower who has gone for refuge for life.

It was a beautiful teaching for the lay followers like us.

Homework for you today,

Very important.

You write down the links of dependent origination and start seeing them in your own cravings and aversions that arise.

Start seeing how they are manifesting,

How really they manifest into something and that gives birth to the outcome that you experience from that craving or aversion.

Write down a few examples and experiment with the truth.

Do not believe me,

Do not believe the Buddha.

You experiment for yourself and come to your own truth.

Apu Vibhu Bhagavat.

Be your own light.

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