Today I want to make the final aim of Buddhist practice clear. What exactly do we mean by a Buddha, an awakened person, or an arahant? What must one know, and what must one do, to reach that aim? We cannot follow a path while remaining vague about its destination. I therefore begin with three questions. What did a Buddha awaken to? What changes after awakening? What must we do if we are to become Buddhas?
The Buddha’s foundational awakening was dependent arising
What did Siddhartha Gautama understand that enabled him to see the world directly, open the eye of wisdom, and no longer become submerged in suffering? According to the Buddha’s teaching, the most important foundation of that awakening is dependent arising.
Dependent arising means that things arise in relation. “When this arises, that arises; when this does not arise, that does not arise” describes a temporal and causal sequence. If two events have no relation, one can occur or not while the other moves independently. If that event occurs because this one occurred, however, a relationship joins them.
“When this exists, that exists; when this is absent, that is absent” concerns a relation of existence. If that can exist only when this exists, they are logically or spatially connected as well. Dependent arising lets us see both temporal causation and correlations of existence.
In familiar Korean language, beans grow where beans are planted, and red beans grow where red beans are planted. Red beans do not emerge from a planted soybean. Seed and fruit, cause and result, are related. The law of cause and effect is rational and scientific. Because all of the Buddha’s Dharma rests on dependent arising, Buddhism can be described in that sense as rational and scientific.
Impermanence and non-self become visible through dependent arising
Impermanence and non-self emerge from the insight that everything arises in relationship. Nothing exists alone and independently. To lack independence means being affected by other things; what is affected cannot remain eternally unchanged. It must change.
A rock on a mountain seems forever the same, yet wind and rain wear it away. The sun and moon appear to rise in the same way, but they too change. Around 2,500 years ago, when people could scarcely explain thunder and lightning, the Buddha used dependent arising to understand this principle of the world. It was an immense insight.
When impermanence and non-self are clearly known, the fires of desire, anger, and ignorance and the fires of conflict and struggle go out. The three poisons fade, along with the thought “I am the best” and the urge to display and embellish the self. This is what the Buddha awakened to.
Awakening extinguishes the fires of mind
What changes, then, after awakening? First, the mind becomes at ease. Desires, cravings, mistaken ideas, and unwanted trains of thought continually arise and move through a human mind. In an awakened person these settle; the mind becomes open, empty, and quiet.
This is nirvana, called the peace of nirvana in a traditional Chinese expression. The fires of greed, ignorance, anger, superiority, ego, and attachment to oneself have gone out. It is also a state in which there is nothing further to seek about awakening. This does not mean that there is nothing left to learn about the world. We must continue learning knowledge throughout life. It means that the mind ceases running endlessly after some other thing that will deliver awakening.
Dukkha means both pain and dissatisfaction
The Pali word close to what Buddhism calls pain and suffering is dukkha. It includes both distress and the condition of being unsatisfied. One root form of suffering is the inability to be content with what is present.
The suffering of not obtaining what one seeks works in the same way. I want wealth, success on an exam, employment, a desirable partner, or some achievement, and I suffer because it is not obtained. But when the very compulsion to seek disappears, this suffering loses the place on which it stands.
A condition without a thing one must accomplish is called the unconditioned or action without grasping. It does not mean doing nothing. One may finish university and enter further study, seek employment, start a business, or work. But if I act with the mind that says I can be satisfied only after I obtain the result, the whole present remains unsatisfactory. When I do what fits my present circumstances without clinging to the achievement, I can be happy even while studying.
With twenty-five subscribers, one can still act like a channel with a million
At the time, my YouTube channel had twenty-five subscribers, and I regarded even that number as remarkable. Of course it would be good to have a million someday. Yet if I spend the entire journey thinking, “I still have only twenty-five; not even one joined today,” I cannot be happy before reaching the million. Many beginning YouTubers collide with this impatience and lose in their own minds before their content has time to grow.
When seeking does not dominate the mind, I can have twenty-five subscribers and still give everything to a video as though I already had a million. I can establish a goal and act without clinging to the idea that its result must complete me. This is action without grasping. An awakened person no longer seeks something in order to make the self complete. It does not mean a human becomes factually flawless; the mind’s attempt to fill an imagined deficiency has ended.
Knowing impermanence brings us into the present
This is connected with both impermanence and non-self. I, those I love, my parents, spouse, and friends will die. Because I know this, I can be present in this moment without trying to obtain a guarantee beyond it.
We grieve when a parent dies. I was deeply sad when my father died, and I will be sad when my mother dies. But my mother cannot remain with me forever. That must be known as it is if I am not to fall into groundless suffering. When a child dies, the parent’s heart feels as if it rots away, but my child alone cannot be exempt from death.
Seeing things as they are can sound cruel. Yet the feeling that a fact is cruel belongs to human emotion and should be distinguished from seeing the fact itself. A person who sees as it is is a Buddha; because of that seeing, the person does not become entirely buried in pain or continue seeking something eternal.
A Buddha observes not only the world but one’s own body and mind
A Buddha is one who always sees directly, both the world and oneself. If we roughly distinguish a person into body and mind, a Buddha does not lose sight of either mental or physical condition.
If my back hurts but I keep saying, “I will just finish this,” and remain in the same posture, the back may eventually be damaged. If I am berated at work and repeatedly absorb the stress without looking at it, stomach illness or another disorder may follow. Such a person is failing to see the conditions of one’s own mind, body, and emotion.
Direct seeing recognizes, “My back hurts. I should not continue in this posture. I need exercise.” When we see correctly, we can stand correctly. A Buddha is a person who does not lose sight of the present conditions of body, mind, and world.
Observing body, feeling, mind, and phenomena is the fourfold establishment of mindfulness
The way to become a Buddha is to see the world according to dependent arising. To understand that everything arises in relation and is impermanent and without self, we observe body, feeling, mind, and phenomena. Body is the physical organism. Feeling includes the various sensations received by body, sense organs, and mind. Mind is the current mental condition. Phenomena or Dharma refers to the principles through which oneself and the world move. Seeing these four is the four establishments of mindfulness, an insight practice.
This practice follows what a Buddha ordinarily does. After becoming a Buddha, one does not live unaware of how one’s own body, mind, and feelings move. One observes without losing what is received and what happens in the world. Following that life is itself the method of practice.
Calm and insight open the eye of wisdom
Concentration practice helps us approach a mind that does not miss the present. The practice of stopping and calming and the practice of observing are spoken of together as tranquility and insight. In morality, concentration, and wisdom, morality is the ethical discipline required on the path. One cannot harm others and cultivate a malicious mind while claiming awakening. Concentration settles the present mind; wisdom sees body, feeling, mind, and phenomena—oneself and the world—as they are.
Wisdom is obtained through observation, through direct seeing. The path toward Buddhahood proceeds through the practice of calming and the practice of insight.
Awakening moves from mind into body and life
When one becomes a Buddha, the mind changes, and that change also affects the body. One begins observing the body, and as the mental life changes, effects upon the body and surrounding people gradually change as well. Even entering an initial concentration and first awakening through Buddhist study can make a person feel that life is changing dramatically.
When mind and body change, the way one lives changes. The method is not a hidden secret. It is the observation a Buddha already performs: reflecting everything in the world as it is and not losing sight of it. The answers to what a Buddha is, what the Buddha awakened to, what changes, and what we must do all converge upon this direct seeing.
This article was edited by AI solely from the supplied video captions and description. No external sources were used.