25
Aug
Wisdom Talks 17 – The 4 Ultimate Buddhist Concepts
In this episode of Wisdom Talks John Barter continues reflecting upon the sets of 4 teachings or practices of the Buddha by looking into ‘The 4 Ultimate Buddhist Concepts”.
In this Episode:
- Understanding ‘The 4 Ultimate Buddhist Concepts’
- No-Self (Anatta)
- Emptiness (Sunyata)
- Suchness (Tathata)
- True Reality (Atammayata)
- No-Self: The idea that self or soul is not only a false and imaginary belief, with no corresponding objective reality, but is also harmful from an ethical point of view. For it produces such harmful thoughts of I, me, and mine, selfish desires, attachments, and all other unwholesome states of mind (dhamma).
- Emptiness: Also known as voidness, openness, spaciousness or calmness. The absence of identification of self and of disturbances and clutter in the mind.
- Suchness: The Suchness of the moment, the as-is-ness. A positive joy or delight in, it is what it is, and it can be Ok. A realisation that can bring a sense of ease.
- True Reality: To “see things as they really are”. The non duality of things. While things exist, they are ultimately “empty” of any existence on their own. When we are freed from slavery of the mind, when we feel no compulsion to rely upon and attach to things, when we don’t judge them, don’t even think of them, as “positive” and “negative”, we have atammayata – true reality.
- They are challenging concepts pointing to the ultimate thing – Enlightenment or Nibbana.
