We finished discussing Lesson 11 of the text of DCB22-Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Heart Sutra: PART TWO-I at our July 6, 2024 ZOOM session. After discussing DCB 11C-“Becoming a Good Person,” we started Lesson 11D “Four Great Elements, Death, &Dreaming.” The Buddha Master gave Himself and a senior disciple as examples of how to do this. The following represent a few of the questions covered.
What happens if you give up on learning the Dharma once you start on this path?
At the last class the Buddha Master warned us that we should
“. . . not even think of learning Dharma or realizing the fruits if you rely on the idea of leaving things to chance! I tell you that would be impossible. . . You will have to use your conduct, your morality, and your character in exchange for learning the Dharma. There is no dissembling or shortcut that will work here.”
He further warned us that if we then give up learning the Dharma:
“That kind of thinking is even more erroneous. If you have that type of mindset, you will descend. You will be very miserable. Besides being unable to attain liberation, even your secular life in this current lifetime will be very pitiful. Just how pitiful it will be is hard to know.“
So what should you do to establish your moral character and be able to learn Buddha Dharma?
“You should rouse your spirit. Why should you rouse your spirit? You should do so to establish your moral character. . . . At the very, very least you should be a good person. You must first have this type of state of mind before you can talk about truly loving living beings.“
What should we do to have good fortune and wisdom?
“As long as you comport yourself well, as long as you cultivate yourself well through continual practice, you, too, can attain very great accomplishment. You, too, can have the karmic reward of good fortune and can have wisdom. All can be perfect with you. . . Learning from Buddha and cultivating oneself must be done in an earnest and down-to-earth manner. One must exert steady efforts and make solid progress. . . as long as we can provide living beings with the benefits they should have, we should strive as best we can to do that.“
What are the two things that can happen to a person when that person dies?
The Buddha Master told us that
“If one has realized the plain dharmakaya while alive, one can abide in nirvana without remaining reliance. Without such realization, although one’s bodily form perishes, returning to emptiness, in reality one’s sprit or consciousness transmigrates into another realm in accordance with one’s karma.“
This answer necessitated revisiting the meaning or concept of “plain dharmakaya” which had been discussed in an earlier session and seeing what happens if you cannot abide in the dharmakaya state of samadhi.
We also discussed the origin of all true teachings of Buddhism in this world and what is Tibetan Buddhism. We also discussed what the four great elements of earth, water, fire, and wind refer to and what happens to them when we die, and dreaming.
Next:
We will continue DCB22 at our July 13, 2024 ZOOM session starting at 9:00 am. We will discuss Lesson 12 “. . . saw that they were all empty. . .”
TO DATE; DCB22-Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Heart Sutra: PART TWO–I and C41-Three Principal Stages & Paths of Buddhist Practice
The recordings of the July 6 DCB22 class are now available. You must be enrolled in DCB22 in one of the membership programs at the LFBCS to access the course materials, questions covered (in parenthesis), and/or the class recordings. Please note that these links will only work if you are logged into LFBCS with your membership identification number AND are enrolled in this class. Please note that Lessons 6A and 6B are part of Course C41.
“Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the prajna-paramita, illuminated the five aggregates, saw that they are all empty, and crossed beyond all suffering and adversity.”
July 6, 2024: Lesson 11D-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Four Great Elements, Death, & Dreaming”, (202-219) and (HERE) for recording of class.
July 6, 2024: Lesson 11C-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Becoming a Good Person”, (193-201) and (HERE) for recording of class.
June 29, 2024: Lesson 11B-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Dual-Use/Two-body Dharma”, (181-192) and (HERE) for recording of class.
April 20, 2024: Lesson 11A.2-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Consciousness”, (171-180) and (HERE) for recording of class.
March 30, 2024: Lesson 11A.1-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Consciousness”, (155-170) and (HERE) for recording of class.
March 23, 2024: Lesson 10B-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Five Aggregates”, (144-154) and (HERE) for recording of class.
March 16, 2024: Lesson 10A-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Five Aggregates”, (114-143) and (HERE) for recording of class.
March 16, 2024: Lesson B.2-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Two Levels”, (108-113) and (HERE) for recording of class.
March 9, 2024: Lesson B.1-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Two Levels”, (87-107) and (HERE) for recording of class.
March 9, 2024: Lesson 9A.3-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Practicing Deeply”, (78-86) and (HERE) for recording of class.
February 24, 2024: Lesson 9A.2-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Practicing Deeply”, (59-77) and (HERE) for recording of class.
February 17, 2024: Lesson 9A.1-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Practicing Deeply”, (51-58) and (HERE) for recording of class.
February 17, 2024: Lesson 8C-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Bodhisattva”, (37-50) and (HERE) for recording of class.
February 17, 2024: Lesson 8B–The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Avalokiteshvara”, (31-36) and (HERE) for recording of class.
February 10, 2024: Lesson 8A-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Text of the Heart Sutra–I, “Avalokiteshvara”, (1-30) and (HERE) for recording of class.
February 3, 2024: Lesson 6B-The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Heart Sutra-Prajna(Wisdom) & Dhyana(Ta), (355-369) and HERE for recording of class.
January 20, 2024: Lesson 6A–The Great Stage–Wisdom Path of the right view of emptiness, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Heart Sutra-Prajna & Dhyana(Ta), (317-354) and HERE for recording of class.
CLICK for article on the entire text of Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Heart Sutra.
CLICK for article with instructions on how to enroll in LFBCS classes and how to register for the 8 ZOOM discussions.
CLICK for article on the last class held on DCB21 and links to videos of all 18 ZOOM class discussions on DCB21 held from November 2022 to April 2023. Note: not all of the forwards, notes, and introductions are complete.
CLICK for article on last class held on DCB26 and links to videos of all 8 ZOOM class discussions held on DCB26 held from April 2024 to June 2024.
CLICK for Background information on Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Heart Sutra and why it is such an important text.
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