Dharma Sunday: Sigalovada Sutta
Carlita
Bastian please! Save us!United States Veteran
Unexcelled virtue, concentration, discernment, & release:have been understood by Gotama of glorious stature. Having known them directly,he taught the Dhamma to the monks —the Awakened One the Teacher who has put an end to suffering & stress,the One with vision totally unbound. ~AN 4.1
Eight-Fold: Right Understanding
Right understanding of The Dharma is pretty expansive and cannot be summed in one or two posts. However, even though most of the teachings are given to Monastics there are other teachings of instruction also given to layperson's two. Of course, the five precepts are a given. The sutta below gives more detail on benefit and consequences of the precepts and other information for the layman's practice.
Thus have I heard...
Whoever through desire, hate or fear,
Or ignorance should transgress the Dhamma,
All his glory fades away
Like the moon during the waning half.
Whoever through desire, hate or fear,
Or ignorance never transgresses the Dhamma,
All his glory ever increases
Like the moon during the waxing half.
~Sigalovada Sutta: The Discourse to Sigala
Right Livelihood: Investigating the Ethics of Murder Ajahn Brahm | 27-04-2007 (Video)
How does one interpret the first precept in everyday life? Is being a Buddhist and a soldier mutually exclusive? Are there instances when one can perform a 'mercy ... Cinema Modeoff
... reading marks on the limbs [e.g., palmistry]; reading omens and signs; interpreting celestial events [falling stars, comets]; interpreting dreams; reading marks on the body [e.g., phrenology]; reading marks on cloth gnawed by mice; offering fire oblations, oblations from a ladle, oblations of husks, rice powder, rice grains, ghee, and oil; offering oblations from the mouth; offering blood-sacrifices; making predictions based on the fingertips; geomancy; laying demons in a cemetery; placing spells on spirits; reciting house-protection charms; snake charming, poison-lore, scorpion-lore, rat-lore, bird-lore, crow-lore; fortune-telling based on visions; giving protective charms; interpreting the calls of birds and animals ... [The list goes on and on]
~Samaññaphala Sutta: The Fruits of the Contemplative Life
Weekly Application
"Thus kamma is the field, consciousness the seed, and craving the moisture. The consciousness of living beings hindered by ignorance & fettered by craving is established in/tuned to a refined property. Thus there is the production of renewed becoming in the future. This is how there is becoming."_ ~Bhava Sutta
There was a video on the Evolution of Consciousness last week in the Nidana thread. If you guys took a look at it, have a good time it's an hour long Dharma talk, let us know how this relates to your practice and how did you apply the knowledge as a practice. Be specific. Reflect. Have fun; be serious. Meditate.
Comments
What exactly encompasses right understanding is an interesting subject to me.
There seem to be two different views on the matter. One is having the correct beliefs and understandings of the various teachings. The other interpretation of right view is to have no-view.
No time for further thoughts atm so I'll just throw that out there for now.
I think one follows the other: FIRST: gain correct 'beliefs' an understanding of the various teachings (tested, scrutinised, put to the test in the usual manner); THEN: Once you have achieved Right View, release, let go, do not cling to opinions (lest you become stuck in arrogance and an egotistic self-assuredness) and reside in potential.
Maybe......?
other translation use right thinking.thinking is connected to right view.first the perspective,then the thinking which hopefully leads to right understanding.it can be cycacole.right understanding lead back to right view.good question to ask does this lead to dukk-ha or not?this thinking may lead to yes or no understanding.
I think it's having the right understanding of practice; and, once we have that, we develop right view as a result. If we have right-view, but do not understand what that means, does our practice correlate to The Dharma, or?
carlita,right view and right understanding is co-mutual.the first is right view.to observe the dharma or the phenomenon of how things are.the chararistic is dukkha,imperminence,and non self.once understood about dukkha,leads to the development of right thinking. the thinking may lead to a deeper understanding of the threefold dharma--dukkha,imperminence,nonself.hope this helps.
Right thinking is the same as right view? I havent heard that translation before.
I agree. They are interrelated.
hi carlita.1.right view.2.right understanding or thinking .3......8.right concentration,the noble 8-fold path.in beginning,it's systematic.see it as components onto each other.so right view is distinct,imo,to right understanding or i prefer right thinking.one component leads to the next component development.but the years under your belt,it may become more varsitile in various sequence of development. see the 8fold in three component.which is mind development in right view and right understanding.the second is virtue development in right speech,right action,and right livelyhood.the 3rd is the development of wisdom through meditation in right effort,right mindfulness,and right concentration.many laypeople take up the task,of 8fold path along the five precept.also the word right,to means whats appropiate.
Right Understanding is the same as Right View.
Some authors prefer either translation.
Right Understanding is a correct understanding of the nature of reality, undistorted by ignorance.
It tackles an understanding of:
-the marks of existence, as interbeing, dukkha and impermanence,
-karma, by which we are aware that volitional actions have consequences,
-a pledge to the precepts, as a way to avoid unskillful actions which engender more dukkha,
-ignorance as the kickstart of the cycle of dependent origination, a perpetuation of dukkha,
-release of the five fetters: self-illusion, doubt, faith in rites and ceremonies, lust and anger.
Right View is the ideational framework through which we interpret reality, and which lies at the root of our choices and volitional actions.
thanks dhammadragon.i stand corrected.i think my brain cloudy...hehe.
Right View/Understanding and Right Intention/Resolve, are the wisdom group of the N8P.
Bhikkhu Bodhi has an interesting way to explain the relevance Right View and Right Intention have as forerunners to our actions:
In a nutshell, our right or wrong view give shape to our experience of reality and our choices in life.
Edit note: no correction intended, @paulyso.
Different texts give different names to each heading.
i need to brush up the the 8fold path.every january i do a review.book time in january.
you are great dhammadragon.i enjoy your take on things.
My understanding of the twofold scheme of right view in the Pali Canon is itself twofold. There’s a sutta-based scheme and a more systematized scheme of the Abhidhamma. I’ve not studied the latter, so “Thus I have heard,” (primarily from Bhikkhu Bodhi). In either case there’s an ethical right view that guides becoming and a spiritual right view that ceases it.
As @federica said, “one follows the other.” But I would either differ or go further by defining “beliefs” specifically as a conviction in kamma, that “there are fruits and results of good and bad actions.” I don’t mean that dogmatically. Even the Buddha basically said, “Hey, if rebirth isn’t real, at least you lived the good life.” This is the ethical right view that catalyzes the Eightfold Path as a wholesome becoming. It’s connected to merit, generosity, the 10 courses of wholesome actions, the Brahmaviharas, the lay life, etc.
The higher level, spiritual right view is defined as the Four Noble Truths, among other things as @DhammaDragon listed. In the sutta-based scheme, again as @federica said, one gains a conceptual understanding, develops the necessary faculties, e.g., mindfulness, discernment, etc, and verifies the teachings through application, eventually no longer needing the teachings. The Abhidhamma, on the other hand, makes a metaphysical distinction, introducing the technical terms “mundane” and “supramundane” or “transcendent”, terms, among other Abhidhamma concepts, that found their way into the suttas, and not just the Pali.
In the Abhidhamma scheme conviction in kamma and conceptual understanding of the Four Noble Truths constitutes mundane right view, a becoming. Transcendent right view, on the other hand, is not a becoming, and its understanding of the Four Noble Truths is not conceptual. It is the realization of Nibbana, a single thought moment that happens four times, making one a stream-enterer, a once-returner, a non-returner and, finally, an arahat. The first four only glimps it, successively removing fetters. The last completely uproots the fetters and may dwell in Nibbana whenever there’s opportunity.
So, that’s my understanding of the broader twofold scheme of right view in the Pali Canon and the more systematized scheme of the Abhidhamma.