Tuesday, March 30, 2010

- Some Dharma

I have had some good contact and quite a bit of input from Varasahaya and Vipulakirti relating to my scribbling on dharmic and Dharmic which has occasioned further reflection on my part. I was aware that I hedged around attempting a definition of Dharma and perhaps I was not as precise as I should have been. The main point I’d like now to say about what I said there is that Wordsworth’s words could be said more accurately to express something of the spiritual experience rather than be taken to express something of the Dharma.

What I didn’t say and which I think Vipulakirti amply furnishes is that to be fully Dharmic all four Noble Truths have to be present:

the truth of suffering/unsatisfactoriness,

the truth of the causes of suffering/unsatisfactoriness,

the truth of the cessation of suffering/unsatisfactoriness (Nirvana) and

the truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering/unsatisfactoriness.

Furthermore, Vipulakirti quoted an exchange between the Buddha and Mahaprajapati Gautami, which I find both useful and illuminating which goes something like this:

Lord, what is your teaching? There are so many different versions, so many interpretations. How are we to know what is the correct one? How are we to know what you really, truly taught? What is the criterion of your teaching, your Dharma?"

The Buddha's reply was quite unambiguous. He said,

Whatever conduces to purity, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to freedom, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to decrease of worldly gains and acquisitions, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to simplicity, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to contentment, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to individuality, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to energy, that is my teaching.
Whatever conduces to delight in good, that is my teaching.

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Bahiya of the bark garment, after asking three times, gets a teaching from the Buddha in which the Buddha says "In the seen only the seen, in the heard only the heard, in the imagined only the imagined and in the cognised only the cognised."