Welcome to Three Doorways to Freedom
Welcome to Three Doorways to Freedom
Welcome to the course on the three doorways to liberation. This is a very undertaught aspect of the Buddhist path. This is what makes this course unique. We'll be examining three particular dimensions of the Buddha's teaching. To do this, we have to return to some fairly basic teachings before moving into areas that are not explored so often.
The Buddha named three hallmarks of existence—impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and impersonality—as the givens of our lives. What is a lot less known is that he identified the workings of ignorance, which is what stops us from acknowledging, reconciling, and finding constructive responses to these hallmarks. The teaching on the vipallasas (the distortions of mind) identifies both the areas where this ignorance takes hold in our system and the errors we commit under the sway of these distortions.
Having these distortions pointed out to us allows us to bring to bear the practices of mindfulness, wise investigation, reflection, and meditative stillness on the problem of ignorance.
This is very powerful. It enables us to walk through the three doorways of liberation. There is the promise that if we practice with these hallmarks of existence in a particular resolute, courageous, and consistent way...
Then we have a possibility to turn these hallmarks of existence into the doorways of liberation.
Understanding is the practice
A big part of the methodology that we'll be using is closely examining each of the terms that we're looking at. So there will be a close examination of the three characteristics and the distortions of mind. As a consequence of this, of course, we'll be looking a lot at ignorance.
Now, why am I saying this? I'm saying this because we may think, "When are we going to get to the practical stuff of liberation? Well, I think part of the Buddha's methodology—let alone our methodology—was that you actually have to have a deep understanding of this.
This is the practice. The understanding is the practice.
I think this is important. We are actually beginning to open our eyes, and in opening our eyes, we see what we're engaged in. This is a really important part of what we're doing.
Meditations and reflective exercises
Now, throughout the course there will be practical teachings. There will be daily practices that we can do, where we engage with particular exercises that we set for you, and there will be meditations throughout. But please bear in mind that part of the methodology is this deep understanding of the actual constituents of this path to awakening.
The reason for the why of understanding is really important because you actually may be doing something, and you might be doing it in a way that is "correct," but you really have no clue as to why you're doing it and why you're doing it in this particular order. What we're trying to do is exemplify what the Buddha's teaching is by saying...
You have to really deeply understand the problem—and where we are within that problem—in order to be able to effectively walk the path.
A promise to you
We want to make a promise that if we introduce a concept that you may not be familiar with, we will try to give the best possible translation, to give you maybe a flavor of the etymology, and to point out the placement of this concept in Buddhist teaching. We will also tease out the practical and contemporary implications of this concept.
So when we introduce concepts, we will explain them, we will translate them, we will identify their role and function in Buddhist teaching, and we will tease out the implications of understanding these concepts and applying them in our lives.