The Three Principal Aspects of the Path Part 2

Welcome back to this series on one of my favorite Buddhist texts, "The Three Principal Aspects of the Path." If you missed part one, I'd recommend starting there, as it lays essential groundwork for what we're exploring today. But either way, you're welcome here.

I chose this text because it's remarkably complete—presenting the entire Buddhist path in just 14 verses. It's non-sectarian, meaning practitioners from any lineage can find something valuable here. And despite its brevity, it offers profound wisdom. You get a big bang for your buck, as they say.

Reviewing the Foundation

Let me briefly recap what we covered in part one. We explored the background of this text and its author, Lama Tsongkhapa, one of the most revered figures in Tibetan Buddhism. He founded the Gelugpa tradition and is known as an emanation of Manjushri, the Buddha of wisdom. Though often pigeonholed as a scholar, Tsongkhapa was primarily a meditator who spent countless hours, months, and years in retreat.

We also introduced the three principal aspects of the path: the cultivation of renunciation mind, the cultivation of aspirational bodhicitta, and the cultivation of wisdom in the form of emptiness. These three aspects essentially lead us to freedom from a Buddhist perspective. As we realize them—as we become them—we move closer to awakening.

In the last episode, we examined the first verse, which included Tsongkhapa's promise to compose this text. Today, we're continuing with verse two and beginning our deeper exploration of renunciation mind.

How to Listen to the Dharma (Verse 2)

Here's verse two:

"You who are unattached to samsara's pleasures and strive to make full use of the freedom and advantages, you who follow the path delighting all the Buddhas, Fortunate ones, listen well with a clear and open mind."

When I first encountered these kinds of verses, I didn't pay much attention to the instructions about how to listen. I thought, "Great, great, let's get to the main part." But over the years, I've realized this is quite important.

Some of the language here can sound quite religious. If you have a slight allergy to that, I recommend using the language as questions rather than statements. Dig into what these words might mean instead of assuming. Not that this text is dogmatic, but sometimes we can take it that way. I think it's much more useful to read these lines with curiosity: "What does that really mean? What is he pointing to? How do I bring this into my practice?"

The Ideal Practitioner

Right away, someone might think, "Well, I'm very attached to samsara's pleasures, so maybe this text isn't for me." But Tsongkhapa is describing the ideal practitioner here. I don't know about you, but I'm probably not an ideal student—I'm an aspiring one, and I'm fine with that. What "unattached to samsara's pleasures" means to me is that I'm working towards that.

For those unfamiliar with this language, "samsara" is a big word because it basically represents life—our current state of perceiving, experiencing, thinking, and feeling. When we initially come across this term, it sounds like bad news. But as with many things in Buddhism, there's bad news that opens up good news. Once we recognize a problem, we can remedy it. We can actively do something else.

The translator chose the word "pleasures" here. I prefer "satisfaction"—we can't find lasting satisfaction in samsaric mind. And since we're entering the renunciation verses for the next few episodes, I want to emphasize: we have to come back to our own experience, to our side of the street.

When we hear about samsara, we might think of it as something outer. Yes, collectively we experience what looks like an outer world with components of samsara, but if we don't get the initial point, the teaching won't land well. The initial point is this: the mind is churning, circling on itself again and again, and we're repeating habits and behaviors that don't lead to genuine satisfaction.

This doesn't mean we can't enjoy a good meal—it just means we're going to be looking for another one at some point. What's unique about the Buddhist path is that it seeks resolution for that lack of fuller satisfaction and peace, which from a Buddhist perspective is our nature. It's not some heaven we go to. It's our own nature of mind.

Freedoms and Advantages

The verse continues: "strive to make full use of the freedom and advantages." This points to a deeper teaching on what we call a precious human rebirth. Basically, our human life and body are incredibly useful vehicles for attaining enlightenment if we wish. This is considered unique because there are other circumstances—like the animal kingdom—where beings don't necessarily have the freedoms and advantages to practice the dharma.

Now, some people get upset at this comparison. It doesn't mean animals are bad or that we have the right to demean them. Actually, because of this we should have more compassion for them and try to help them. We're just recognizing the opportunity we have.

These freedoms and advantages are traditionally listed as eight freedoms and ten advantages. The freedoms are circumstances we're not in—bodies and births that would make dharma practice impossible, or states of mind that would make it incredibly difficult. The ten advantages include both universal factors (a Buddha has taught, the dharma exists, practitioners are still attaining realization, resources are available) and personal ones (having interest in this, seeing value in practice and study).

You can search for these lists online if you're interested, but the basic point is simple: we can use our human life in a positive way, so we should strive to.

Avoiding the Three Faulty Vessels

The verse ends: "Fortunate ones, listen well with a clear and open mind." This last line points to something I didn't take seriously at first but have come to see as quite important. It has to do with avoiding what's traditionally called the three types of faulty vessels.

The first is being like a leaky vessel. If you pour water into a cup with a hole in it, all the water goes out. This means listening to a dharma teaching but immediately forgetting it and not applying it. This is a challenge for all of us unless we're taking notes, so we often need to listen to the dharma again and again.

The second is being like a vessel turned upside down. If the cup is upside down, we can't pour water into it. This is something we can work with actively. It falls into the category of either not being interested (though if you're reading this, that's probably not the case) or having too much doubt.

When we study the dharma, healthy skepticism is welcome. This is what Tsongkhapa means by a "clear and open mind." "Clear" means actually analyzing what you're hearing, contemplating it. "Open mind" means not too much doubt. What's too much doubt? When we're already closed to something. Our doubts come and then we shut down.

What I usually say is that doubt itself isn't a problem, but when we allow doubt to stop us—when it stops an inquiry or process of curiosity—then it becomes harmful. We can't move forward. Maybe skepticism is a better word. Healthy skepticism says, "I'm not sure about this, but I'll continue the path of inquiry. I'll continue to listen, learn, and investigate."

This is very important. As the Buddha said, we should investigate his teachings like we would test a piece of rock to see if it's gold. We cut it, rub it, burn it, wash it. We do the same with the dharma. We don't blindly believe what we're hearing, but we also don't stay blind in our own doubt. There are two extremes here.

The third is being like a dirty vessel. You can pour water into this cup, but it has dirt at the bottom, so the water becomes dirty immediately. This has to do with wrong motivation—learning dharma just to grow your ego, debate others, or prove them wrong. The motivation isn't correct because the person isn't interested in using the dharma to look at their own beliefs and clinging, to remove the causes of suffering from themselves.

In a modern way, this relates to holding beliefs quite strongly. If we're inflexible with those beliefs, then when we mix the dharma with that, everything gets murky, and we might go in the wrong direction.

How do we avoid this? We keep a clear and open mind. Through mindful awareness—and this is actually a practice—we learn to watch our judgments, thoughts, and beliefs. This is so helpful because it's not just about believing something else; it's about seeing our own beliefs and what kinds of beliefs we hold. Sometimes we're not even aware they're there. They can be quite unconscious.

A lot of meditation is about understanding and seeing our own judgments and thoughts. I'm not saying it's usually pleasurable, but it's necessary, because then we can change, we can transform. So again: bad news—"I've got all these judgmental thoughts." Good news—"I can change them." We have to balance bad news with good news.

Introducing Renunciation Mind (Verse 3)

Let's move on to verse three, which sets up our exploration of renunciation mind. I learned from one of my teachers, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, to add the word "mind" here. He doesn't just refer to developing renunciation—he says "renunciation mind." That struck me as very skillful.

Renunciation isn't just a physical and verbal act. It's a state of mind we're developing—actually, many different kinds of states of mind—but basically a mind that is becoming more and more exhausted with the status quo of how and what we seek happiness in.

We need to slowly start seeing through study, meditation, and contemplation: "Oh wow, a lot of my habits and what I look to for happiness actually don't produce that." Then we start to develop a sense of exhaustion with the status quo of how we think, believe, act, and speak. But this comes from the mind first.

Otherwise, if we just say "renunciation," we might think it means going to live in a hole somewhere on a mountain. But if we don't change our mind, that's not necessarily useful. It can actually become harmful if we don't change our mind first.

Here's verse three:

"Whilst lacking pure renunciation, there's no way to pacify the continual thirst for pleasure in the ocean of samsara, and since all living beings are bound by their craving for existence, you must begin by finding the determination to be free."

What Does Freedom Mean?

Let's start with the good news at the end of the verse. What does freedom mean? We're going to unpack this as we continue in the text, especially when we get to the verses on emptiness. But first, the way we work with freedom within the renunciation mind teachings is more or less just seeing where we're getting caught.

This is a step-by-step process for most of us. I don't know if it's even possible to see all the places we get caught—I find new ones every day. There needs to be a little humility here, and I'd even venture to say some playfulness. We need open-mindedness, definitely compassion and kindness toward ourselves, because when we question in this area, we start to see patterns we're not going to like. We see what's causing our suffering, but we also see habit patterns we're attached to, that we like, that we don't want to give up.

My whole approach is compassion for all of that—having kindness, love, warmth toward ourselves. There also needs to be energy toward changing, but also patience and forbearance to do this over our lifetime. For most of us, this isn't something we unwind in a short period. If you can, wonderful—I rejoice. There are practitioners who had that kind of merit and karma who could quit samsaric behaviors pretty quickly. But for most of us, this is challenging. We need kindness, courage, forbearance, and consistency.

What works well for me is focusing on this determination to be free—starting to see where I'm getting stuck in my emotions and thoughts. Generally, where do we get stuck? We start with our afflictive emotions: the way we misperceive ourselves and others, the aversion that arises because of that, clinging (this verse mostly refers to clinging), attachment, jealousy, and pride. These are the main five afflictive emotions that more or less run our behaviors, all based on trying to remedy fears we have and trying to meet expectations of what we think will bring happiness. All five are built on hope and fear, expectation and fear.

The Path Forward

How do we move toward renunciation? We start to question in gentle ways what's actually providing happiness for us. This isn't an exercise of "My car really sucks, so I need a new one" or "My partnership isn't working out, so I need a new one." It's not talking about that. It's talking about the underlying afflictions of aversion and clinging themselves. It's a deeper dive, and this takes time.

We find the determination to be free by seeing more and more of the dissatisfaction involved in these everyday experiences. As I said before, it doesn't mean we can't enjoy life. We can enjoy the cake, the food, the beautiful view at the beach. It just means we're understanding this is temporary satisfaction, and we're not looking to it to provide long-lasting happiness. This is a subtle point.

We can still be with life, but we start to look at it differently. And what do we do instead? We practice the dharma. We develop bodhicitta. We develop meditative awareness, compassion, loving-kindness, and we cultivate wisdom. It's not like we just give up something and we're left with nothing. No—it actually moves us toward cultivating constructive things.

In the foundations of Buddhism, we're taught to abandon what causes harm and move toward virtue that causes happiness—not fleeting happiness, but more lasting happiness. But we have to learn what that is. As we learn what that is, we also begin to reduce our energy and enthusiasm for fleeting happiness. If it comes, great, but we don't put as much energy into it.

The Continual Thirst

Going back to the beginning of the verse: "While lacking pure renunciation, there's no way to pacify the continual thirst for pleasure in the ocean of samsara." If we don't look at this, we're going to continually be bound by our habit patterns. We need to question at some point: "Is this habit pattern serving me for long-lasting happiness or not?"

What does renunciation mind do? It resolves this continual thirst because we can see we're on this wheel, repeating the same thing again and again. As we get older, this not only gets exhausting, but it can get darker. We can become depressed because we never get what we want. We thought we wanted something, but when we got it, it didn't prove as fulfilling as we thought.

We realize, "Okay, that's not the end-all." We just have to realize that itself is a dead end, but that opens up a whole other possibility through contemplating, studying, and realizing the dharma through meditation.

Bringing in Bodhicitta

The verse continues: "And since all living beings are bound by their craving for existence, you must begin by finding the determination to be free." It's already bringing in bodhicitta, this altruistic mind that we're not only interested in understanding the causes of suffering and removing them for ourselves—we're also interested in helping others.

But if we don't do our own work, how are we going to help others in this process? We're going to be bound and caught in our own samsaric circling mind, in harmful patterns that don't go anywhere—they just lead to dead ends. If we continue that, how can we serve others? We can't. Or rather, how we serve them will be very limited.

So Tsongkhapa is already bringing in this idea of thinking about renunciation mind not just as a process for oneself, but how we free ourselves to open up more space to be a truly helpful person in the world, toward our families, friends, and communities. As awakening approaches, we become even more beneficial to them.

Seeing Beyond the Shell Game

We're just starting to introduce renunciation mind—what it means, why we'd want to develop it. Basically, because we want to remove the causes of suffering. We want to understand that there are certain causes of dissatisfaction and suffering we're creating, and we might not even recognize what the real foundational problem is.

We're looking everywhere: "I need to change my job. I need to move. I'm not in the right place. I need to change my diet." Not saying those things are bad to do—it's just that we're always doing these small remedies trying to get a big result, but all it does is shift things around.

I often think of those shell games that were popular in the 1980s. They'd have three cups, and you had to pick the right cup, but the dealer knew how to trick you and would get your money. I see my dukkha and suffering as a shell game where it's just shifting around. But now we're talking about going beyond the shifting.

If you're new to this, this is a big idea. I'm not expecting you to understand it right away. I didn't at the beginning, and I'm still trying to understand and practice it. But that's the point. We have to start seeing, "Okay, I'm doing these movements that seem like I'm looking for a big result, but actually it's just shifting the suffering around." I end one suffering, like having an old car, and start a new one with a new car. Sure, there's that moment of "New car, amazing!"—but then the car is old at some point not so long in the future.

A Good Kind of Downer

Yes, these renunciation mind teachings can be a bit of a downer, but it's a good downer because we have to understand the predicament and start to feel some exhaustion with it. By seeing a dead end, we can actually see the road that will not be a dead end, that will lead to genuine freedom, as the end of this verse says—"finding the determination to be free."

That's the whole point of the renunciation mind teachings. We see, "Okay, this isn't working out, this shell game, this shuffle game of samsara. What can I do instead?" And that's what the whole Buddhist path is. It's the "What can you do instead."

Thanks so much for joining me in this exploration. In the next part of this series, we'll continue deeper into the renunciation verses and see how these teachings continue to unfold. Until then, may your practice bring you closer to that determination to be free.