Class 2 - Truth of Suffering - Three Kinds of Suffering

Download PDF's of Class materials and MP3 Tracks from the 2nd class of Fall 2011 term held on Wednesday, September 14:

DOWNLOAD Handouts used in Class 2 & Class NOTES  (i.e., very rough transcript):

2011 Handout 2 - Six categories of Feelings.  Three-fold Division of Suffering:  Suffering of Suffering; Suffering of Change; Pervasive Compositional Suffering (cont. Handout 3).

2011 Handout 3 - cont. Pervasive Compositional Suffering: Contaminated Five Aggregates.  Four-fold & Eight-fold Categorization of Sufferings of Suffering:  Five types of Sufferings of Birth (cont. on Handout 4).

Class 2 NOTES - rough draft transcript - offered for what they are worth. (If you are interested in assisting in proofing/editing, contact Ven. Tenzin Nordron.)

ALL FALL 2011 HANDOUTS & CHARTS are HERE.

DOWNLOAD MP3 TRACKS:

Track 1 -"Has"/"Is" confusion - "Is a white horse white?"

Review:  Feeling, an omni-present Mental Factor accompanying every main mind:

• Feeling itself is suffering & feeling experiences suffering.  
• Feeling is what experiences the three – pleasure, displeasure or neutrality. 
• Objects are not suffering; objects cause suffering and are in the nature of suffering.

Handout 2: Feelings & Six Consciousnesses.

• Distinguishing the Truth of Suffering from Suffering (i.e., feeling).  
• Suffering is Feeling.  
• Truth of Suffering is Feeling and phenomena that induce Suffering, i.e., are in the nature of suffering.  
• Root Cause of the Truth of Suffering.

Track 2 - The (Noble) Truth of Suffering (སྡུག་བསྔལ་བདེན་པ།) - Three Kinds of Suffering:
  Suffering of Suffering - སྡུག་བསྔལ་གྱི་སྡུག་བསྔལ།:

• Suffering here means any unpleasant feeling.
• Physical Suffering - Mental Factor of feeling (of displeasure) that comes along with any of the Sense Consciousness.

  Suffering of Change - འགྱུར་བའི་སྡུག་བསྔལ་།:

• Contaminated feelings are produced by the fundamental mis-perception of reality.
• Contaminated (ཟག་ཅས་) Objects are Not in the Nature of Happiness.
• Main Minds & Five Omnipresent Mental Factors (སེམས་བྱུང་ལྔ་) & ‘objects of pleasant feelings’
• Happiness of sentient beings is just the temporary relief from feelings of intense suffering.

Track 3 - Suffering of Change, cont.:

• Focusing on the nature of the objects that are related to suffering.
• Objects of temporary happiness, i.e., ordinary suffering, are in the nature of suffering because eventually, as they continue being the object of experience, they turn into the nature of suffering.

Track 4 - Pervasive Compositional Suffering - ཁྱབ་པ་འདུ་བྱེད་ཀྱི་སྡུག་བསྔལ་།:

• The most important of the three categories of Suffering; 
• Foundation of the other two (the Sufferings of Suffering and of Change); 
• Subtlest and most difficult to recognize.
• Desire Realm, Form Realm and Formless Realms.
• Five (Contaminated) Aggregates: What they are.

Track 5 - Handout 3 cont. Five Contaminated Aggregates - ཟག་ཅས་ཀྱི་ཕུང་པོ་ལྔ་:

• Contaminated because produced by Ignorance mis-perceiving reality, other Delusions (e.g.,anger, attachment), and Karma. 
• Pervasive Compositional Suffering of the Five Aggregates includes the entire psycho-physical (mind/body) complex that accompany Feelings.
• Why is it Pervasive.
• Questions & Answers (e.g., Buddha Nature and contamination).

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This is the 2nd class of the Fall 2011 Perfection of Wisdom course
addressing the Four Noble Truths, the 2nd sub-topic of the 2nd Topic
(Mahayana Practice Instructions) of Chapter 1 of Maitreya's
Ornament for Clear Realizations - Abhisamayalamkara.