NAMO TASSA
BHAGAVATO ARAHATO SAMMA SAMBUDDHASSA

'THE BUDDHIST HOUR'

RADIO BROADCAST

KNOX FM 87.6

Sundays 11:00am to 12:00pm

Knox FM radio broadcast for 3 September 2000

Today's program is entitled: When Will You Find the first type of Wisdom?

There are four parts to this question. The first part deals with the time delay that occurs between something happening and our cognition of that something.

For example, this week we hired electricians to wire in some overhead lights for our new building. These electricians had arranged for three phase power to be connected to our premises last week. This involves installing new power boxes having overload relays to replace the old-fashioned power boxes with fuses.

When a circuit overloads it cuts out within microseconds. With the old system the fuse would heat up and then melt to break the circuit. This might take a second or two to occur. The response time of the new circuit breakers is more than a thousand times faster in producing the result of cutting off power when overload conditions occur.

We say overload conditions occur when the power is cut off.

Yet if we were to express ourselves in more precise terms we would say that the overload conditions appeared instantaneously, and yet the awareness of the condition was detected at a later time.

If we come under stress like a circuit with overload, some become aware of that stress much faster than others and remove themselves by 'cutting off' from the source (the unpleasant mental stimuli).

We may coast along for years bombarded by low level unpleasant feeling without 'cutting off' from the situation simply because we do not have a rapid acting circuit breaker designed within our psyche. We often meet persons who seem to be under overload conditions but they do not appear to take any action to remove themselves from the sources of their troubles.

You probably know persons who have alcohol or drug problems that are causing overload on their systems but have an inability to take sound advice from those that are close to them that would act as a circuit breaker and who can see what the chemicals are doing to their loved one.

Dhamma Teachers are persons who will advise when they see persons who request to be taught approaching lifestyles that will cause overload in the short to medium term. Very seldom will Dhamma Teachers comment on the longer term overload factors that are lying ahead of a person.

In Buddha's day there was a King who sought advice from the Buddha. This King did many good works throughout his kingdom and was generally well liked by his subjects. One day, after the King had visited the Buddha and paid respect and did offerings to the Monks accompanying the Buddha, the Buddha told his Monks that the King had wasted his whole life. The Monks asked the Buddha why that was so. The Buddha explained that the King had murdered his father to become the King and the karmic consequence of such a great crime was that when the King dies in this life he would be born in Avici Hell next life. Avici is the bottom-most hell of eight hells and is called 'Unceasing Hell', and it lasts a world cycle. The life span of these hells is described in the Abhidharmakosha as follows:

Fifty human years is equivalent to one day in the life of the lowest of the six heavens of the realm of desire. In this manner they live for five hundred years. The second heaven is twice as long as this. Understand that one day in the first hot hell, 'Reviving Hell', is equivalent to the life span of the lowest heaven, and that the next five hells are correspondingly as long as the next five heavens.

There can be no 'greater overload' than to be born in the bottom-most hell of the longest duration. This was a case where the Buddha commented on the longer term effects of overload.

We always cause our own overloads whether we know it or don't know it. We cause ourselves to overload by pursuing unwise action such as stinginess, greed, jealousy or hate. There are ways out of some types of causes and effects but for a few great errors there is no 'circuit breaker' or way out of the consequences of their actions.

A preliminary wisdom is to understand such matters as causes and effects influencing our short term future.

There are plenty of texts describing the classification of hells which are just part of the suffering of beings who are born in lower births. Obviously the hells have greater suffering than the sufferings of hungry ghosts (preta). Similarly the sufferings of preta are more than the sufferings of animals and the sufferings of human beings are less than the suffering of animals.

The first type of wisdom in Buddha Dharma Wisdom is Stream-enterer (in Pali: sotipan).

This is when something unique happens that has never happened before in your stream (unless you are a bodhisattva), and you experience nibbana - the unconditioned state of mind.

From there you know without doubt the three marks of existence.

Anicca - impermanence

Dukkha - sorrow, suffering, unsatisfactoriness

Anatta - no-self, emptiness

To obtain nibbana, 25 cetasikas must be operating at once.

Bodhisattva Manjusuri

True blessedness extends to those highly and skillfully trained in Vajrayana.

Bodhisattva Manjusuri is one such being, as shown by the following story.

Many years ago, a Chinese monk decided that he would climb a mountain, upon which he would meditate and win Enlightenment. As he was climbing up the mountain, he met on his way an old man: ragged and smelling, disgusting and rude. The old man asked the monk if he was going to climb the mountain. The monk answered that he was. The old man requested that since he was also going up the mountain that the monk could carry his bag for him. The monk, who wanted to have nothing to do with the revolting old man, said that he could not be disturbed as his practice was very important. The old man asked the monk: "Do you have any Vows monk ?"

"Yes I do," said the monk "I have many Mahayana Vows."

"Then you should also have compassion for me and carry my bag" argued the old man.

The monk thought about this and decided that since he had made Vows to help all beings, that he ought to help the old man by carrying his bag. So the monk took the old man's bag (that was as light as a feather) and set off for the mountain peak. The old man followed clumsily up the mountain behind the monk who strode with ease and confidence.

"Slow down, slow down!" he cried out to the monk, "I am an old man! Slow down!"

The old man whinged of his pains and tiredness and directed wrangled remarks at the monk at his disrespect for not thinking of his (the old man's) condition. All of this annoyed the monk immensely. He had no choice but to slow down for the old man, and put up with his rude remarks and complaints.

As the monk and the old man made their way up the mountain (with the old man's complaining growing worse and the monk becoming even more annoyed), the monk noticed that the bag he was carrying was getting heavier; and the higher they climbed, the heavier the bag seemed to become.

After a while the monk began to feel tired. The old man still had things to complain about and shouts of "SLOW DOWN!" still echoed, but the monk had become quite used to this. It was the bag that now concerned him, and even though he would not say it, his shoulders and back began to ache and he longed to sit down and rest.

The next day they set out again. With great effort the monk heaved the bag over his shoulder and in silence he and the old man walked up the mountain face together. As the day went on the bag continued to get heavier and heavier. The Monk pushed on, determined not to let the old man think that he was weak or incompetent.

The bag continued to get heavier and the old man was moving further ahead, having no thought for the Monk who was at this time feeling so worn and exhausted that he thought he might collapse.

"HURRY! HURRY!" cried the old man, who was now looking younger and more fit than the Monk had ever seen him.

By now the bag was so heavy that the monk could no longer carry it. Sore and tired, he dragged it behind him, struggling to make even a metre of progress. He looked up the mountain, and saw the old man scurrying upwards.

The Monk rested for a while, then, gathering up his energy he took hold of the bag and pulled on it. But this time the bag would not move. He tugged and pulled and tried with all his effort to drag it, but to no avail. The bag refused to budge even an inch - the monk collapsed on the ground, he was defeated.

"HURRY! HURRY!" came the old man's voice.

Hearing this, the monk exploded in a rage of anger and screamed so loudly at the old man that instantly he stopped and turned around.

The old man looked astonished: "YOU SAID YOU'D CARRY MY BAG! YOU SAID AT THE BOTTOM OF THE MOUNTAIN THAT YOU WOULD CARRY MY BAG! YOU ARE NOT WORTHY TO BE A MONK, A MAN WHO GOES BACK ON HIS WORD IS A LIAR! YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO THE ORDER!"

But the monk did not reply. He was so exhausted he had not the energy to do so, and he sobbed and sobbed without saying a word.

Seeing this, the old man was disappointed. He stopped for a moment then began to walk towards the monk.

As he passed the monk (who was still crying) he looked down, but did not speak. Slowly, the old man made his way back down the mountain.

Then suddenly the monk looked up.

"HEY!" he called out to the old man, "You forgot your bag!"

"I don't need it" replied the old man in an unconcerned voice.

"But what's in it?" asked the monk.

The old man turned around, picked up the bag with one hand, undid the buckle and tipped it upside down. Rocks of all shapes and sizes came tumbling out of the bag and crashed down the mountain slope. The old man shook the bag two or three times until all the rocks had fallen out and disappeared.

"You mean all that time all I was carrying was just a bag of rocks?!" the monk said in dismay.

"Yes." replied the old man bluntly.

"And now you don't care that you lost them all?"

"No".

In disbelief, the monk fell silent. After a few seconds he looked up at the old man.

"Who are you?" asked the monk.

Just then the old man transformed into the heavenly manifestation of Manjusuri, Bodhisattva of Wisdom, and then just as quickly he disappeared.

Realising the old man was a manifestation of Manjusuri, he saw with great insight how through this whole humiliating ordeal, the old man had served to crush the Monk's fierce pride and conceit. The Monk traveled no further from where he was and vowed then that he would meditate there and then, until he gained enlightenment. Through practice, this vow was realised.

Dana

When persons practising Dana follow the Buddha's advice, the mind becomes clear and cognates the process of cause and effect made by an offering. If at any stage in the process the mind falters, doubt can arise and the mind goes to error.

The Chinese & Vietnamese New Year Visits to the Buddhist Discussion Centre between 19 February and 28 March 1999 showed how Members, holding a minimum of five precepts and practising the five styles of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. have developed, through past causes, the skills to work in self-directed teams (S5 Management) for the 'seamless delivery' of dana to over 900 visitors for the benefit of many beings.

This is Dana - merit making by generosity.

Over time, accumulated merit leads to a knowledge of Buddhist ethics, the economics of wise use of a wealth of material resources, work skills, and a firmer commitment to the deployment of such legacies to bring teachable beings to the Dharma.

As the amount of merit accumulated is increased by the effectiveness of the action, and given the reality of a committed person's time constraints, activities here and elsewhere should be shifted towards utilising the methodologies of an information culture.

The difference between involved and committed Members has been stressed. Having found a right habitat in Upwey, the task of committed Members is to drive the changes needed to maximise their merit making activities at the Centre.

The management of giving (Dana) or helping should not harm oneself or others.

'Dana' means grammatically both giving and gift and liberality (PTS (1979) the tha-Vatthu.footnote 4, p.198). Hence the necessity of retaining the Pali word.

The controverted point is that DANA is (not the gift but) the mental state.

A triple distinction is in reality reduced to two: mental and material. The view held by the Rajagirikas and Siddhattikas recognises the former only.

If dana be a mental state, is it possible to give a mental state away to others? If you assent, you then imply that it is possible to give ANY mental property to others.

It is wrong to say that DANA is a thing to be given.

On Translating Buddhist Sutras

For these reasons, it is better to introduce the word 'Dana' directly into the English language and treat it as an otherwise untranslatable word.

The Five Losses

Venerable Piyasilo (1989) refers to Dao An's theory of the 'five losses'. These refer to the five points in which the meaning of the original was lost through translation. They are losses caused by:

1. reversing the word order,

2. introducing ornate and polished styles (thereby losing simplicity),

3. deleting repetitions (which facilitate ease of memorisation to produce a sound foundation; and, hence additional framing may be built on this pattern),

4. deleting "nested" passages (e.g. a passage within a passage) which can result in loss of meaning, and

5. deleting repetitive commentaries that appear in subsequent passages.

The Three Losses

In addition to the five losses, Dao An further mentions the 'three difficulties' of translation. These are:

1. rendering the 'graceful and inflected Sanskrit' into relatively plain monosyllabic languages,

2. not losing the subtlety of language

3. erroneous translation (this difficulty refers to a need for the Translators' proficiency in the Dharma if they are to effectively transmit the intent of the sutras).

Seven precepts

The following seven precepts should be observed in body, speech and mind:

No Lying

No Killing

No Stealing

No Sexual Misconduct

No Intoxicants that Cloud the Mind

No Slander

No Idle Chatter

***

The tradition says a highly developed practitioner can visualise 10,000

Buddhas in a second or think 10,000 thoughts in a second.

Such statements may be thought as hyperbolic by many Members.

We seek an information explosion managed to supply much information for those with mental calm who can gaze at mandalas of wisdom.

***

For Buddha Dhamma practice we must concentrate on the five controlling faculties needed for practice.

These are sati (mindfulness), samadhi (concentration), viriya (effort or energy), saddha (confidence) and panna (wisdom).

***

His Holiness the 41st Sakya Trizin

Melbourne Tour 1997

His Holiness the 41st Sakya Trizin is the head of the Sakya lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, which is one of the four major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.

His Holiness is the living embodiment of Manjusuri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. He is not a monk and is married with children, and two of his sons accompanied him on his second Australian Tour from March to June, 1997.

His Holiness delivered rare Teachings and a public talk entitled "The Buddha's Path to Freedom" whilst in Melbourne.

The first Teachings were the Initiation of Manjusuri and Medicine Buddha on Saturday 14th June at the Camberwell Civic Centre.

On Sunday 15th June His Holiness gave Teaching on the lineage masters of the Hevajra Tantra and the Triple Vision. These Teachings were held at Richmond Town Hall.

The Teachings given by His Holiness were in both English and Tibetan, and included meditation practices, chanting whilst performing sequences of mudra, and offerings to Manjusuri and Medicine Buddha.

At the end of these rare and difficult Teachings, participants were given the opportunity to make offerings to and receive blessings from His Holiness.

Our Teacher John D. Hughes and many Members of the Buddhist Discussion Members took the opportunity to make special merit during the visit of His Holiness by helping with the organisation of the event, particularly Lynette Lehmann who was on the organising committee.

Julie O'Donnell coordinated efforts to make Manjusuri prayer flags using a woodblock print of Manjusuri.

Fifty prayer flags were hung over the stage during the Initiation, as well as Manjusuri and Medicine Buddha Tankas lent by John D. Hughes.

Many Members helped run our fundraising stalls at the Teachings.

Interview With His Holiness the 41st Sakya Trizin

One Member was honored to interview His Holiness on behalf of our Teacher, John D. Hughes. The interview was held during the intermission at the Sunday teaching on 15th June 1997.

Member: These questions are from my teacher, John Hughes. The first one is: In this Dharma ending age, what is the best practice that you would suggest for people to do?

Sakya Trizin (S.T): I think the, the best teaching is to the mind training teachings, such as like a bodhisattva, and things like that.

Member: The second question: For westerners to cultivate their minds, do you suggest that it is better for them to study science-based disciplines, with their logical vigour, or is it better for them to study humanities (so called soft options), where imagination is stressed, but facts are discounted?

S.T: I think it's both and there are many individuals, and each individual is somewhat different. Some people wish to do thorough studies and gain full knowledge and so forth. For such people of course, science-based study; detailed study is better.

Whereas some people, more practice-orientated people, for them of course, the compassions and things like that, and through this way.

Just like the different medicines and even it is the same disease, because of your individual builds, that different types of medicines required for some people. Even it is the same disease for some people, one medicine is more suitable, whereas for some people another type of medicine is more suitable.

So like that I think you can't say westerners as all together, who can either do that or this, it all depends on the individuals.

Member: The third question: What are the relative advantages of studying Buddha Dhamma in a small temple, with less than twenty people, as opposed to studying in a large temple that has say over a hundred people?

S.T: I think it both has the advantages and disadvantages. When you have a lesser people, of course you get more attention, you can ask your difficult questions, and so in a smaller way, that it has benefit. But also it has a disadvantages, that when you have limited people, then you do not have so much chance to develop more studies.

Whereas in a larger community, it is difficult to get individual attention, so therefore in that regard it is a disadvantage, but it is an advantage in the sense that when you have more people, there will be more ideas and more chance to develop your mind stream.

Member: And the final question is: Do you prefer teaching people with a western cultural background, or those with an eastern cultural background?

S.T: I teach in both, I have no preference. Whoever comes, whether it is a westerner or easterner or whatever, whoever comes for seeking the knowledge, I am happy to teach.

Member: Do you find you need to use a different approach, to teaching?

S.T: Ah yes! I think the westerners are more intelligent and so requires more logical reasons, with the logical reasons that we can teach better in the west.

Whereas in the easterners, already they have a basic belief, in that even though they don't know much about the Dhamma, but in their actual system has the Buddhist ideas like, karma and things like that are obvious, so therefore it is for them, it is an easier base.

Member: O.K. thank you very much for your time.

S.T: O.K. thank you very much.

The Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. extends many thanks to His Holiness for allowing us to conduct the above interview.

***

Our conventional wisdom commits us to a belief that the wakened mind will show itself as an experience.

We are totally convinced that real experience comes from the five senses where: sounds are experienced by hearing, sights are experienced by seeing, food is experienced by tasting, the solidity of the material world is experienced by touching, and fragrances are experienced by smelling.

***

It would be foolish of course to turn all the merit into material comforts in the present because we would be poor in the future. From the Buddha's insight about the nature of reality we can see that it is far wiser to spend part of our good karma to accumulate wisdom, because wisdom and understanding we can carry with us, and wisdom is what will liberate human beings from the clutches of ignorance.

And yet what do most people do? They give an exaggerated emphasis to the material aspects of existence and essentially disregard the cultivation of their minds.

TEN TYPES OF MORAL ACTIONS

These are ways we can increase our store of merit:

1. To abstain from killing.

2. To abstain from stealing.

3. To abstain from unlawful sexual intercourse.

4. To abstain from lying.

5. To abstain from tale-bearing.

6. To abstain from harsh language.

7. To abstain from frivolous talk.

8. Absence of covetousness.

9. Absence of ill-will.

10. Right understanding.

One night, while the Buddha was sitting in meditation under a Bodhi tree, the end of His religious quest was finally achieved. He started to see, like in a mirror, His previous lives, what He had been, the families He had had; He started to go backward in time to see many previous lifetimes to arrive perhaps to the point when it all started. Then He saw the life of other beings similarly, like in a mirror and one thing became clear to him: the plane of existence (out of the five planes of existence) where these beings were reborn from one life to the next was determined by the accumulated effects of the actions in previous lives, in other words their own karma, a word which in Sanskrit means action.

As He progressed through the night He acquired a more detailed understanding of the Law of Karma: He realised the Four Noble Truths and the twelve links of the Law of Dependent Origination which is a more detailed formulation of the working of the Law of Karma and the truth of anatta, the truth that nowhere in the universe there is a self to be found.

Finally when the sun rose, he had become an Enlightened one, he was no longer an individual in the ordinary sense of the word. The point when all learning had stopped, the final destination of his religious quest had finally been achieved.

We can look at this experience as the manifestation of the law of causality in the ethical domain but not as a type of mechanistic causality as it could be inferred from a study of scientific disciplines. This causality is expressed in its standard formulation like this:

"When this is present, that comes to be; from the arising of this, that arises. When this is absent, that does not come to be, on cessation of this, that ceases."

Expressed in another way we could say that certain conditions arise in the presence of concomitant factors; when these factors are not present, those conditions do not arise. It is another way of expressing the relationship of interdependency among phenomena in the universe, in our life. The Law of Dependent Origination is one of the most important teachings of the Buddha and even though the realisation of it depends on the degree of spiritual development, we can at least have an intellectual understanding of it.

According to the Buddha's insight, the existence of every effect depends on some causes or conditions. The cause and the effect are mutually dependent. A distinction needs to be made between a cause and a condition. A cause alone cannot produce the effect, it must be aided by some concomitant condition. For instance, a seed is a cause of a plant, while soil, water, light and manure are its conditions. Without the conditions a seed cannot grow into a plant. Things in the world, both mental and material are conditioned in nature.

The doctrine of dependent origination (Paticca - Samuppada) provided the solution to the problems of old age, disease, death and suffering. Old age, death, despair and the like exist, says the Buddha, because there is birth; if we are born we are subject to suffer.

Why are we born? Because there is a will to be born. Admittedly, the notion that the desire to be born is the cause for birth is rather foreign to our Western intellectual and religious tradition, but we need to remember that the Buddha does not speak out of a theoretical framework. He has no theories to confuse people with, he speaks out of His personal experience, from seeing things directly by insight.

So we are born because there is a will to be born, or a predisposition for becoming? What causes this will to be born? Our attachment (upadana) to the objects of this world is the condition that brings about our desire to become.

Why do we have this attachment? Because of craving to enjoy worldly objects, sights, sounds, tastes, etc. This craving originates from our sense experience or feeling.

Why do we have this feeling? We have feeling or sense-experience because we have sense object contact (phassa). Because of previous experience which is associated with some pleasant feeling, we have the desire to prolong the sensation of enjoyment. But sense experience would only arise at a point where there is the contact of sense organs with objects.

Why do we have this sense-contact? Because we have six sense organs with which we perceive the world - the five senses plus the mind. (The mind is in fact in this system considered a sense organ like the other five and its objects are concepts, the sense of self etc.).

Why do we have these six sense organs? Because we have a psycho- physical organism. This organism can come into existence only if there is initial consciousness of the embryo.

Why do we have this consciousness? Because of the impression left by our past deeds (that is our karma). The impressions which give rise to rebirth are due to ignorance. Therefore ignorance about the true nature of our existence is the root-cause which causes rebirth and therefore allows the miseries of existence to persist.

In other words, it is said that ignorance is the root cause of all suffering. From it spring karmic formations or volitional acts (sankhara). Because of Karmic formations, consciousness arises. This in turn leads to a psycho-physical organism (nama-rupa) which causes the six sense organs to come into existence. These again lead to sense contact, because of which feeling arises. Feeling can be pleasant, unpleasant or neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

From feeling, craving starts, and because of craving, clinging or attachment arise. From clinging or attachment, the will to be born arises. From the will to be born, birth is the consequence. With birth there is old age, grief, lamentation and despair which may be comprehensively termed as 'suffering'. So this is the process that gives origination to the whole mass of suffering.

The important thing to realise here is that this process goes on and has been going on from the beginnings of time and will continue to go on whether there arises a Buddha in the world or not. The role of the Buddha is to understand this process, penetrate its inner workings, discover the way out of this process and announce it to the world and establish a system of teaching, to explain to those who know about suffering and want a way out of it.

It appears from the Tripitaka, that ignorance need not necessarily be the first link in the chain of causation. The doctrine of dependent origination may be represented in four different ways following the Buddha's Teaching:

- It may be ignorance, the first link to the end.

- It may start with feeling (Vedana), the middle link to the end.

- It may start with birth, the end of the link, down to the beginning.

- It may begin with craving, down to the beginning.

The Buddha eventually found out that people were getting confused about the analysis of the causes of becoming, so He started His Teaching from ignorance as the starting point. What He wanted to show is that becoming carried on according to its peculiar law.

Let's examine the various links in more detail:

Ignorance

Ignorance is the absence of knowledge. It prevents an individual from having a correct view of reality. It also prevents him or her from realizing the ultimate truth. It makes an individual see happiness in suffering, good in evil, and vice versa. Moreover, it makes an individual regard the five aggregates to be permanent and the Four Noble Truths to be unreal. It results in attachments to notions of eternalism or nihilism and misunderstanding of the conditioned nature of phenomena.

Karmic formations (dispositions)

These are the impressions or tendencies left in the mind for taking a wrong view of things on account of ignorance. In a wider sense, karmic formations are the forces or volitional activities which create a new existence.

Consciousness

Consciousness in this context corresponds to rebirth-consciousness. It serves as a forerunner of other consciousnesses. In other words when karmic formations with ignorance as condition cause the appearance of rebirth consciousness, the other consciousnesses will succeed it.

Name and Form (psycho-physical organism)

The rebirth-consciousness leads to mind and matter. As already explained, karmic formations having led to the reappearance of rebirth-consciousness, the other consciousnesses will immediately follow. Because of rebirth-consciousness, influenced by ignorance and karmic formations, the psycho-physical organism comes into existence.

Of these two the material components belong to the body. The mental constituents are feeling, perception, and karmic formations. The consciousnesses which come after existence, gradually bring about perception, feeling and fresh impression or thought construction. All of these need the support of the material constituents. The consciousnesses and the psycho-physical organism are mutually interdependent.

Six sense fields

With the psycho-physical organism the six sense organs - the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, touch and mind - come into being. The mind components are the three aggregates; feeling, perception and karmic formations. The sixth sense organ has the mental constituents as condition.

Contact

From the six sense organs six kinds of contact originate.

Feelings

The contact of sense-organs with the external objects creates different feelings in the individual. The kinds of feeling correspond to the number of sense organs i.e. eye-contact-born feeling, ear-contact-born-feeling and so on.

Craving

It is craving which takes consciousness from birth to birth. The craving born out of feelings is the root cause of suffering. There are as many kinds of craving as there are sources. These sources are the six sense-objects: craving born of visible data, that which is born of sound, that which is born of odor, that which is born of flavor, that which is born of tangible objects and that born out of mental objects.

The craving that grows out of the sixth sense object is called craving for sense desire. When it is associated with the belief that the world of enjoyment is eternally existing and creates a desire for future becoming it is called craving for becoming. When it comes out of a nihilistic view it is called craving for non-existence.

Grasping or attachment (upadana)

Four types of attachments, i.e. sense desire attachment, wrong view attachment, rite and ritual attachment and the firm belief that there is a permanent soul or ego and the identification of the ego with one of the five aggregates.

Becoming (the will to become)

Conditioned by attachment becoming comes into existence.

Birth

Death, grief, suffering.

THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS

1. That Life is Suffering.

2. The Causes of this Suffering.

3. The Cessation of this Suffering.

4. The Path Leading to the Cessation of Suffering.

THE EIGHTFOLD NOBLE PATH

1. Right Understanding.

2. Right Thought.

3. Right Speech.

4. Right Action.

5. Right Livelihood.

6. Right Effort.

(a) To prevent the arising of evil and unwholesome thoughts that have not yet arisen.

(b) To discard such evil thought already arisen.

(c) To produce and develop wholesome thoughts not yet arisen.

(d) To promote and maintain the good thoughts already present.

7. Right Mindfulness.

8. Right Concentration.

We hope that this program has thrown some light on the topic of wisdom and karma and hopefully has made you aware of some of the factors which influence our existence as we stumble through life in this complicated business of living.

May you learn the Dharma.

Thank you very much for joining us on the Buddhist Hour and may you be well and happy!

The authors and editors of this radio broadcast are: John D. Hughes, Pennie White and Evelin Halls.

Bibliography

Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd, Buddha Dhyana Dana Review, Volume 7 No. 3, 1997.

Jordan, J., Giles, R. and van Gorkom, N., An Introduction to the Abhidhamma, Dhamma Study Group, Bangkok.

Komito, D.R., Nagarjuna's "Seventy Stanzas". Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, New York, 1987.

H.H. Trizin, S., Chophel, N. S. (1997, 1982) A Collection of Instructions on Parting from the Four Attachments. Sydney, Australia, Sakya Tharpa Ling Tibetan Buddhist Centre, with permission of The Buddha Sasana Society.

Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary, Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Ven. Sayadaw U. Sobhana, An Introduction to Buddha Dhamma, A series of lectures delivered in Burma, 1972.

de S. Wettimuny, R.G, The Buddha's Teachings and the Ambiguity of Existence, Gunasena & Co. Ltd, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

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May You Be Well And Happy