Summary | Setting in Motion the Dharma Wheel

So what good is all this talk about suffering and the way out of suffering? Now that you know what suffering is, I hope that knowledge can help you. I hope you also have an understanding of the three seals of the Dharma–suffering, impermanence and no-self. But it is my experience that many disciples and students, both lay and monastic, have heard all this over and over again, and yet continue to experience suffering. I often find myself listening to their complaints and asking, ”Why don’t you practice the Buddhadharma?” And they will say, “Practice? l know all about practice. l know about suffering, l know about impermanence, and I know about emptiness, and l know about no-self. Despite all this I am still angry and vexed.” This is actually the state of affairs with most. We find ourselves knowing all these things yet cannot help being vexed. Why is that? Because our fundamental ignorance has not been uprooted. We are still controlled by greed, hatred, and delusion, so we still undergo suffering. We know we are ignorant yet we persistent in our ignorance, and that is true ignorance.

Seeing all of you come here to hear me talk about suffering makes me very happy, and being so happy, I was carried away talking about suffering, suffering, suffering. This means that with your permission, I’ll have to continue talking about the Four Noble Truths next week. Even though our subject is suffering, I am happy to talk about it. And there are more wonderful things to follow such as the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering and, finally, the way out. This will make me very happy. (Laughter and applause) A sutra (pali:sutta) is a recorded discourse or teaching of the Buddha; a shastra is a treatise or commentary on a sutra, or aspects of a sutra. Shastras are more commonly associated with the later Sanskrit (Mahayana) canon, as opposed to the earlier Pali canon.

Mahayana school of thought founded by the Indian masters Nagarjuna and Aryadeva (2nd century C.E.) which refrains from asserting extreme positions, such as not asserting either the existence or non-existence of things.

Mahayana school of thought founded by Indian masters Maitreyanatha, Asanga, and Vasubandhu (5th century C.E.) in which the central notion is that all experiences are ‘mind-only,’ i.e., outside the knowing process, there is no reality; thus the world is a construct of the mind.

Of the five traditional schools (‘houses’) of Cha–Tientai, Huayan, Fayen, Linji, and Caodong–only the latter two still exist. These two correspond to the Rinzai and Soto sects of Zen.

The three-fold aspect of suffering is expounded in the Visuddimagga (The Path of Purification, by Buddhagosa (5th century C.E.)

Samsara is the cycle of birth and death that sentient beings transmigrate through, and is associated in Buddhism with nirvana, the state of transcendence from samsara.

Sanskrit: trishna, Pali: tanha, literally ‘thirst,’ ‘grasping,’ ‘craving.’

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