Touching the Essence
- Six Lectures on Buddhism
by Bhikkhu Dhammapala
Wheel No. 132 / 133 / 134
Copyright © Kandy, Buddhist Publication Society, (1944,1969,1986)
BPS Online Edition © (2007)
Digital Transcription Source: Buddhist Publication Society
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted, reprinted and redistributed in any medium. However, any such republication and redistribution is to be made available to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and translations and other derivative works are to be clearly marked as such.
First Edition: 1944 (YMBA, Colombo)
Second Edition: 1969
Third Edition: 1986
First two editions published under the title: Broadcasts on Buddhism.
From the Foreword to the First Edition
The nature of the radio lectures delivered by me was such that a more careful study of them was thought to be useful not only for the many who listened in at the time, but especially for all who were not in the same position.
The lectures, which form a series, touch upon the most essential parts of the Buddha”s teaching, the Four Noble Truths, the three characteristics of anicca, dukkha and anattaa, the doctrine of kamma, the pa.ticca samuppaada and the deliverance of Nibbaana. The second part of the lecture on Soullessness, being of a more polemic nature, could not be broadcast for obvious reasons, but was delivered at the Y.M.B.A., Colombo, the original publishers of this series, under the caption: “Can the soul-idea be vindicated
”
The many questions that followed this and similar lectures are a proof of the great interest taken in Buddhism by the intellectual classes, if only the Norm is presented to them in a normal way which will satisfy their hunger for truth.
May this publication bring about, if not satisfaction, at least a whetting of their appetite!
Bhikkhu Dhammapaala
Udawatte Temple,
Kandy.
March 15th, 2487–1944.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents
The Evolution of Truth.
Soullessness.
Joy and Sorrow.
The Process of Life.
Dependent Origination.
Nibbaana.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Evolution of Truth
Aparutaa tesa.m amatassa dvaaraa
Ye sotavanto pamu.tcantu saddhaa.m.
Open are the doors to the Deathless state;
You that have ears, send forth true faith!
Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta
With those solemn words the Buddha declared his intention to preach his noble teaching, “deep as a lake, hard to perceive, difficult to grasp, tranquil, sublime, beyond sophistry, abstruse, comprehensible (only) by the wise” (MN 26).
After having attained that “unsurpassable supreme Enlightenment,” while the Master was seated at the foot of the goatherd”s banyan-tree at Uruvelaa, he hesitated wondering whether it would be of any use to make his newly found truth known to the world. For “to mankind devoted to, intent on, and delighting in its attachments it is hard to understand this condition of things, their causal connection, their dependent origination, the cessation of all conditioned things, the rejection of every basis of rebirth, the waste of craving, dispassionateness, cessation, deliverance” (Mv 5).
But then also the thought came to him that there would be beings only slightly covered with the dust of worldliness, who not hearing the Norm would go to ruin, but hearing it might become knowers of the truth.
It was for the sake of those few that the Lord Buddha established at Benares in the Deer park at Isipatana his Teaching supreme, “which cannot be overthrown either by monk or priest, by god or devil, or by anyone in the world” (MN 141).
It is in this first discourse that the Lord Buddha points out that Middle Path which alone can lead t…
《Touching the Essence - Six Lectures on Buddhism》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…