[Discussion-AZC] Practice Period: 8-fold Path

[Kojin John Dinsmore]

This Saturday we begin a five-week Practice Period (ango) at Austin  
Zen Center. This is a period in which we invite our sangha members to  
apply themselves to practice and study a bit harder. With that in  
mind, we are offering additional zazen and opportunities for study  
each week at the Center. The Practice Period will begin on Saturday  
with a one-day sesshin, and end August 2 on the last day of a seven- 
day sesshin.  You can also take the Practice Period to heart at home.
	See: http://www.austinzencenter.org/azc/PracticePeriodSchedule.html

This Practice Period will have a theme: the Noble Eightfold Path,  
which is the primary teaching of the Buddha on living a Buddhist  
life. The Buddha outlined the eight folds in the very first breaths  
of his very first lecture, known as the First Turning of the Wheel. I  
invite you, over the course of these five weeks, to become intimate  
with each fold of the Eightfold path, and to come to a general  
understanding of how to realize it in your life.

This Saturday morning the regular lecture will introduce the  
Eightfold Path and many of the lectures throughout the Practice  
Period will consider various aspects of the Eightfold Path. These  
lectures will also appear on the Audio page of our Web site. A list  
of readings on the Eightfold Path will be posted in a couple of days,  
Anyone is invited to join the small group in the library during  
scheduled study periods to focus on this topic. After this Saturday  
the 8:30am Saturday discussion group will resume, and offer an  
opportunity to bring your experiences and questions about integrating  
the Eightfold Path into your life. Let's all become experts on the  
Eightfold Path!

If you are not inspired yet, the following is the First Turning of  
The Wheel, the words of the Buddha shortly after his enlightenment:

Thus I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Benares  
in the Deer Park at Isipatana (the Resort of Seers). There he  
addressed the bhikkhus of the group of five.

"Bhikkhus, these two extremes ought not to be cultivated by one gone  
forth from the house-life. What are the two? There is devotion to  
indulgence of pleasure in the objects of sensual desire, which is  
inferior, low, vulgar, ignoble, and leads to no good; and there is  
devotion to self-torment, which is painful, ignoble and leads to no  
good.

"The middle way discovered by a Perfect One avoids both these  
extremes; it gives vision, it gives knowledge, and it leads to peace,  
to direct acquaintance, to discovery, to nibbana. And what is that  
middle way? It is simply the noble eightfold path, that is to say,  
right view, right intention; right speech, right action, right  
livelihood; right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.  
That is the middle way discovered by a Perfect One, which gives  
vision, which gives knowledge, and which leads to peace, to direct  
acquaintance, to discovery, to nibbana.

"Suffering, as a noble truth, is this: Birth is suffering, aging is  
suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and  
lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; association with  
the loathed is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering,  
not to get what one wants is suffering — in short, suffering is the  
five categories of clinging objects.

"The origin of suffering, as a noble truth, is this: It is the  
craving that produces renewal of being accompanied by enjoyment and  
lust, and enjoying this and that; in other words, craving for sensual  
desires, craving for being, craving for non-being.

"Cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, is this: It is  
remainderless fading and ceasing, giving up, relinquishing, letting  
go and rejecting, of that same craving.

"The way leading to cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, is  
this: It is simply the noble eightfold path, that is to say, right  
view, right intention; right speech, right action, right livelihood;  
right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

"'Suffering, as a noble truth, is this.' Such was the vision, the  
knowledge, the understanding, the finding, the light, that arose in  
regard to ideas not heard by me before. 'This suffering, as a noble  
truth, can be diagnosed.' Such was the vision, the knowledge, the  
understanding, the finding, the light, that arose in regard to ideas  
not heard by me before. 'This suffering, as a noble truth, has been  
diagnosed.' Such was the vision, the knowledge, the understanding,  
the finding, the light, that arose in regard to ideas not heard by me  
before.

"'The origin of suffering, as a noble truth, is this.' Such was the  
vision... 'This origin of suffering, as a noble truth, can be  
abandoned.' Such was the vision... 'This origin of suffering, as a  
noble truth, has been abandoned.' Such was the vision... in regard to  
ideas not heard by me before.

"'Cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, is this.' Such was the  
vision... 'This cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, can be  
verified.' Such was the vision... 'This cessation of suffering, as a  
noble truth, has been verified.' Such was the vision... in regard to  
ideas not heard by me before.

"'The way leading to cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, is  
this.' Such was the vision... 'This way leading to cessation of  
suffering, as a noble truth, can be developed.' Such was the  
vision... 'This way leading to the cessation of suffering, as a noble  
truth, has been developed.' Such was the vision... in regard to ideas  
not heard by me before.

"As long as my knowing and seeing how things are, was not quite  
purified in these twelve aspects, in these three phases of each of  
the four noble truths, I did not claim in the world with its gods,  
its Maras and high divinities, in this generation with its monks and  
brahmans, with its princes and men to have discovered the full  
Awakening that is supreme. But as soon as my knowing and seeing how  
things are, was quite purified in these twelve aspects, in these  
three phases of each of the four noble truths, then I claimed in the  
world with its gods, its Maras and high divinities, in this  
generation with its monks and brahmans, its princes and men to have  
discovered the full Awakening that is supreme. Knowing and seeing  
arose in me thus: 'My heart's deliverance is unassailable. This is  
the last birth. Now there is no renewal of being.'"

That is what the Blessed One said. The bhikkhus of the group of five  
were glad, and they approved his words.

Now during this utterance, there arose in the venerable Kondañña the  
spotless, immaculate vision of the True Idea: "Whatever is subject to  
arising is all subject to cessation."

When the Wheel of Truth had thus been set rolling by the Blessed One  
the earthgods raised the cry: "At Benares, in the Deer Park at  
Isipatana, the matchless Wheel of truth has been set rolling by the  
Blessed One, not to be stopped by monk or divine or god or death- 
angel or high divinity or anyone in the world."

On hearing the earth-gods' cry, all the gods in turn in the six  
paradises of the sensual sphere took up the cry till it reached  
beyond the Retinue of High Divinity in the sphere of pure form. And  
so indeed in that hour, at that moment, the cry soared up to the  
World of High Divinity, and this ten-thousandfold world-element shook  
and rocked and quaked, and a great measureless radiance surpassing  
the very nature of the gods was displayed in the world.

Then the Blessed One uttered the exclamation: "Kondañña knows!  
Kondañña knows!," and that is how that venerable one acquired the  
name, Añña-Kondañña — Kondañña who knows.

Thanks,
Kojin

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