260518 Right Questions, in the Right Order \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu \ \ Dhamma Talk

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:04]There's a version of quantum mechanics that focuses less on the nature of reality out there and more on the process of how you try to find answers about reality, the questions you ask.

[00:00:17]As I say, depending on what you want to know you have to learn how to ask the right questions and in the right order.

[00:00:30]It's kind of like 20 questions.

[00:00:34]You have to start out with general questions and work your way down.

[00:00:39]And the Buddha teaches of something very similar.

[00:00:41]What he calls appropriate attention.

[00:00:44]It's a matter of focusing on the questions that are most useful for putting an end to suffering.

[00:00:51]And some of these are worth attending to others are not worth attending to.

[00:00:54]And even those that are worth attending to you have to ask them in the right order.

[00:00:59]The number of questions the Buddha actually puts aside as being irrelevant to the quest of putting an end to suffering.

[00:01:06]Is the world eternal? Is the world not eternal?

[00:01:09]Is it finite or infinite?

[00:01:12]Is there a soul that's the same thing as a body or is it different from the body?

[00:01:17]What about a awakened person after death? Does that person exist, not exist, both, neither?

[00:01:23]The Buddha refused consistently to answer these questions.

[00:01:28]Apparently they were the hot questions of philosophy in that time.

[00:01:32]He said they weren't worth asking, weren't worth answering.

[00:01:35]Because they came from the wrong state of mind and they encouraged the wrong state of mind.

[00:01:40]There are others he put aside as well.

[00:01:41]Is universal oneness or is it multiplicity?

[00:01:47]Do I exist? Do I not exist?

[00:01:50]What am I? How am I?

[00:01:53]These are questions the Buddha simply put aside.

[00:02:00]>> But in some cases that might be a surprise. The question who am I, what am I? Many people say that is the question that would ask.

[00:02:06]Try to answer but no, he put it aside.

[00:02:08]He said it's not worth paying attention to.

[00:02:12]As for the right questions and the right order in which to ask them, the best way to figure that out is to look at his first two sermons.

[00:02:22]The one on the four noble truths and the one on the three characteristics of the three perceptions.

[00:02:28]It's worth to note that the one on the four noble truths comes first.

[00:02:37]He starts out by saying that the path he teaches is for the sake of the deathless and for the sake of unbinding.

[00:02:44]So he establishes the purpose first.

[00:02:50]And then what path serves that purpose?

[00:02:52]Starts out with right view. This is where he brings in the four noble truths.

[00:02:58]The truth about suffering, its cause, the cessation of suffering and the path to its cessation. So the questions here of course are, well, what is suffering?

[00:03:08]What is its cause?

[00:03:10]What is its cessation and how to bring about that cessation?

[00:03:16]He defines suffering as the five clinging aggregates. Notice he's not saying life is suffering or he doesn't say just there is suffering.

[00:03:25]Five clinging aggregates.

[00:03:28]Now in the transcript of the talk that we have now, he doesn't explain that. Perhaps all we have is an outline of the talk.

[00:03:35]But then he goes through the aggregates of form, feeling, perception, fabrication, and consciousness.

[00:03:41]Clinging is clinging to these things in any four ways.

[00:03:44]Either through the desire for sensual fantasies, the desire for views, clinging in terms of habits and practices, the way things should be done.

[00:03:57]Or clinging in terms of your sense of yourself.

[00:04:02]That clinging to those aggregates.

[00:04:06]That's suffering. What is the cause of suffering? There's three kinds of craving for sensuality, for becoming, for not becoming.

[00:04:15]There's another place where the Buddha equates clinging with passion and desire. desire Another place where he equates craving with passion and desire.

[00:04:25]So, what's the difference?

[00:04:27]The difference is it's indicated by the Pali names for these truths.

[00:04:32]Craving is tanhā. It can also mean thirst.

[00:04:35]Clinging, upādāna, can also mean feeding.

[00:04:39]So, you're thirsting for something, that's the cause, and then you find something start feeding on it. There's still some craving, passion and desire in the clinging as you're holding on and feeding.

[00:04:50]What's the cessation of suffering?

[00:04:52]Cessation is the remainderless dispassion for that passion and desire.

[00:04:59]Notice that remainderless. He's talking about the total end here.

[00:05:03]And the path to the total end is the eightfold path starting with right view and ending with right concentration.

[00:05:10]So, what do you do with these things?

[00:05:11]That's the next question once you've got these terms down and can identify them within you. What's the next step?

[00:05:19]Well, start with identifying them within you.

[00:05:23]And then you realize there are duties.

[00:05:24]You're supposed to comprehend the suffering and then in other words, see that yes, there is clinging to aggregates wherever there's suffering.

[00:05:33]You abandon the cause.

[00:05:37]You realize the cessation and you do that by developing the path.

[00:05:45]And given that craving and clinging are very closely related, the Buddha says have some suitas where he says that when you've got the five aggregates, what you abandon there, you abandon the passion and desire for them.

[00:05:58]In other words, you comprehend the total package of suffering.

[00:06:04]But then within that suffering, there's the craving.

[00:06:07]That's what you abandon.

[00:06:08]So, you don't abandon form, feeling, etc. You abandon the passion and desire for them.

[00:06:14]And it goes to consciousness as well.

[00:06:17]Cuz the consciousness in the aggregates is conditioned, fabricated.

[00:06:23]It's an object for clinging. So, there's going to be some suffering if you cling to that consciousness.

[00:06:29]Whether that consciousness is perceived as being limited or unlimited, as long as it's conditioned, there's going to be suffering there.

[00:06:39]So, whatever passion and desire you have for that, you've got to abandon.

[00:06:45]So, that's setting up the framework.

[00:06:47]These are the four truths. This is what you should do with them.

[00:06:52]Based on hearing this, one of the five brethren who were listening gained the stream entry.

[00:07:00]And then soon after that, after the Buddha explained some of the details of these truths and their duties, the remaining four of the brethren gained stream entry as well. Then, the Buddha brought up the issue of inconstancy, stress, and self in the second second sermon. This is important to notice.

[00:07:20]Sometimes you hear it said that when you gain stream entry, you see there is no self, and that's the end of the problem of of self.

[00:07:27]And there have been people in the past who actually gained stream entry thought that it wasn't because they still had a lingering sense of self.

[00:07:39]As the suitas has explained elsewhere, you no longer equate your sense of self with the aggregates or define a sense of self or the aggregates, but there still is a lingering sense of self up in up until total awakening.

[00:08:00]What stream entry involved was seeing the deathless.

[00:08:05]Seeing what was not subject to arising passing away.

[00:08:08]Seeing that everything that is subject to arising is subject to passing away, but that thought occurs to you naturally only if you see something that is not subject to arising and not subject to passing away.

[00:08:23]And the story about the center Mogallana after gaining stream entry, yes, he had seen the deathless.

[00:08:28]So, you see the deathless.

[00:08:30]And then the question about the three characteristics comes up.

[00:08:33]I've gone through the canon trying to find passages where people listen to the Buddha's teachings on the three or actually the perceptions.

[00:08:41]There's only one case where a monk listened to that and gained stream entry.

[00:08:47]You can imagine that he had already heard the four noble truths. So, he knew the context why the Buddha would teach these three perceptions.

[00:08:55]It's part of the duties for the four noble truths.

[00:09:00]If you really want to totally abandon craving you focus on the things that you crave.

[00:09:08]And you see that they're inconstant.

[00:09:11]And in their inconstancy, there's stress.

[00:09:15]And because they're inconstant, there's then the question is, are they worth claiming as you or yours? Claiming as self? And the answer is no. It's a value judgment.

[00:09:28]So, when you understand the questions that these perceptions are supposed to answer and the order in which those questions are asked, then you get the most use out of them.

[00:09:35]So, instead of trying to track down, do I have a self, do I not have a self?

[00:09:40]Or trying to claim that I saw myself disappear, or I saw that they didn't have any self to begin with.

[00:09:48]You've asked the questions in the wrong order, and you're coming up with the less useful less useful information.

[00:09:54]The most useful stuff is are they worth clinging to, these aggregates?

[00:09:59]And this is a large sort of framework for all the various ways in which you might look at them and say, "No, they're not worth it."

[00:10:06]There's another list where the Buddha says there's quite a few variations on inconstancy, stress, not self.

[00:10:17]Including a cancer and dart.

[00:10:20]Empty.

[00:10:22]All comes down to basically the same thing. They're not worth it.

[00:10:25]Whatever happiness they provide, whatever pleasure they promise.

[00:10:30]It's all going to go away.

[00:10:35]Now, if there were not that third noble truth, you might say, "Well, even though it goes away, I like it.

[00:10:42]It's good enough for me."

[00:10:44]But there in the background from those earlier questions the Buddha's saying there is a possibility of the total end of suffering.

[00:10:53]Compared to that possibility and here we had the if I had already seen that that first glimpse of the deathless they can see that whatever else they might cling to, whatever else they might crave, it's not worth it. It's getting in the way of the total realization of that cessation of suffering.

[00:11:14]So, when you ask the right questions in the right order you get the most use out of them.

[00:11:22]So, be very careful about the questions you ask as you practice.

[00:11:27]And when you're asking a question, ask yourself, "What what question lies behind this?

[00:11:31]Is there a deeper question that this is supposed to serve?

[00:11:36]When you get things lined up like this, then your inquiries become most fruitful.

[00:11:48]And they really do serve the purpose for which the boy started asking these questions to begin with.

[00:11:53]We can sit around and talk for a long long time about whether there is a self or there is not a self and what kind of experience would prove the answer one way or the other.

[00:12:01]You have lots of discussions on that.

[00:12:03]But the discussions lead nowhere.

[00:12:07]But you actually take these teachings and turn them inside, use them to comprehend suffering, use them to abandon craving, then you get the best use out of them.