Class 8 - Kayas, Distinguishing Three Jewels

Download PDF's of Class Handouts, Notes, and MP3 Tracks from the 8th class of Spring 2012 term held on Wednesday, April 25:

DOWNLOAD Handouts - text for Class 8:

2012 Handout 9 – Asanga’s Four Aspects of Taking Refuge by, #1 - Knowing Good Qualities of:  I. Buddha’s, cont., (4) Enlightened Activities. II. Dharma.  III. Sangha.  #2 - Knowing the distinctions (of the three Jewels) based on:  (a) Their Defining Characteristics; (b) Their Activities; (c) Our Devotion; (d) Our Practice.

Handout 10 (rev. 05/03/12) -  Asanga’s Four Aspects of Taking Refuge by, #2 - Knowing the distinctions (of the three Jewels) based on, cont.:  (e) Recollection; (f) How to Increase Merit.  #3 - Through Commitment.  #4 - Refusing to acknowledge other refuges. Introduction to IBD’s texts by Panchen Sonam Drakpa: General Meaning (སྤྱི་དོན།) and debate manual, Decisive Analysis (མཐའ་དཔྱོད།). General Meaning: 5 Topics explain Three Refuge Objects.  #1 -  Three-fold explanation of Necessity for Scriptures' presentation of Three Refuge Objects: (i) Buddha Jewel; (ii) Dharma Jewel.

ALL SPRING 2012 PDF Handouts are HERE.

DOWNLOAD MP3 TRACKS:

Track 1 - Dharmakaya – categorizing Four or Three Bodies/Kayas of Buddha:

Four Bodies / Kayas of Buddha are (all) Dharmakaya (Truth Body - chos-ku - ཆོས་སྐུ་):

• Buddha’s own benefit kayas appear only to Buddhas: 
• Jnanakaya (ye shes chos sku - ཡེ་ཤེས་ཆོས་སྐུ་) - Wisdom Truth Body (Mental Consciousness of Buddha);
• Svabhavikaya (ngo bo nyid sku - ངོ་བོ་ཉིད་སྐུ་) - Nature Truth Body (Cessations & Emptiness of Mental Consciousness of Buddha).

• Buddha’s others’ benefit kayas appear to Sentient Beings:  
• Sambhogakaya (longs spyod rdzogs pa'i sku - ལོངས་སྤྱོད་རྫོགས་པའི་སྐུ་) Complete Enjoyment Body (Emanated Buddha Person seen by Arya sentient beings).
• Nirmanakaya (sprul pa'i sku - སྤྲུལ་པའི་སྐུ་) – Emanation Body (Emanated Buddha Persons emanated for benefit of all sentient beings).

Three Bodies / Kayas of Buddha - Jnanakaya, Sambhogakaya & Nirmanakaya:

   Why “Jnanakaya” rather than “Dharmakaya”?
   Three Bodies of the Buddha are all Dharmakaya.

Several Charts of Buddhas Kayas were prepared by Geshe Wangmo for the Spring 2010 Class:  2010 Chart 4 - Buddha Bodies.

Track 2 - Why is the Dharmakaya, as the over-all category of the Four Kayas, said to be permanent?

• Svabhavikaya, Nature Truth Body is permanent. The other Kayas are impermanent, i.e., “Not all instances of the Dharmakaya are permanent.” 
• Permanent phenomena are static, unchanging, but not necessarily eternal. 
• From Collected Topics course:  an overall conceptual category that has both permanent and impermanent instances is permanent.

• Can something impermanent arise from or depend upon something that is permanent? 
• The Emptiness (lack of inherent existence) of mental consciousness (permanent phenomena) is responsible for Enlightenment of Buddhas.

Track 3 - [HANDOUT 9 & HANDOUT 10] - Way to Take Refuge by Knowing the Distinctions of the Three Jewels based on:

• Their defining characteristics (e.g., the Buddha Jewel has actualized the fullest potential of the mental consciousness by removing everything that obscures it: Buddhism is about removing obstacles); . . .
• Danger of violating Refuge precepts by abandoning the Dharma when we abandon or makecertain kinds of criticisms  of other Sangha traditions....

Track 4 - Importance of Increasing Merit:

• Motivation, positive actions (e.g., Rejoicing in others accomplishments and well-being), objects of activities.
• Two aspects to accumulating merit:  merit one receives due to (1) one’s motivation and action, and (2) benefiting the recipient. . . .

• Way to Take Refuge by Refusing to Acknowledge other Refuges means not taking refuge in a teacher or a teaching that contradicts the Three Jewels respecting the Ten Non-Virtues (e.g., practicing animal sacrifice); or for the purpose of attaining Self-Liberation or Enlightenment (if other traditions do not teach those goals, their teachings will not lead to those results).

Texts used for remainder of Spring 2012:

• Handouts are translations of the (Refuge sections) from the two texts by Panchen Sonam Drakpa used (for this course) at IBD and Drepung Loseling Monastery:  
• The General Meaning (Tibetan:  སྤྱི་དོན། - chi toen); and 
• Decisive Analysis (Tibetan:  མཐའ་དཔྱོད། - tha-choe) which presents objects of negation for debate).

NOTES of Class 8 (April 25) rough draft transcript of class offered for what it's worth.

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This is the 8th class of the Spring 2012 term Perfection of Wisdom course
which addresses Refuge, the 3rd sub-topic of the 2nd Topic
(Mahayana Practice Instructions) of Chapter 1 of Maitreya's
Ornament for Clear Realizations - Abhisamayalamkara.