Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly translation (Dhammachakapavattana Sutra, SN 56.11)
PREFACE: Seven weeks after the great enlightenment, the former ascetic Prince Siddhartha, now the fully awakened Buddha, set out to teach his five former companions. He realized that they were still stuck in the futility of struggling by severe asceticism near India' holy city on the Ganges, Varanasi. He had previously practiced with them undertaking the most extreme penances and painful observances. He abandoned this well worn path to "spirituality" when he realized it would never lead to awakening to the Truth and liberation from all suffering. He discovered that cultivating absorptions and insight (jhana and vipassana) through proper concentration and mindfulness (samma samadhi and samma sati). In this sutra the Buddha sets in motion the Wheel of the Truth (the essential limbs, or spokes, of which lead to the hub of nirvana). This is the True Wheel, the path to the liberation he had experienced seven weeks earlier.
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| The Buddha addresses the Group of Five |
SARNATH, India - Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was in Varanasi at the Resort of Seers (
Isipatana) in the Deer Park. There he addressed the group of five ascetics.
"Recluses, these two extremes should be abandoned by anyone who has gone forth from household life. What two?
"There is devotion to indulgence, coarse pleasures associated with sensual desire, which is inferior, base, vulgar, ignoble, and leads to disappointment on the one hand, and on the other hand there is devotion to asceticism, which is just the same.
"The middle way discovered by [
me] avoids both extremes. This path leads to vision, knowledge, peace, direct experience, discovery, to nirvana (final liberation). What middle way?
"It is this ennobling Eightfold Path, namely:
- right view
- right intention
- right speech
- right action
- right livelihood
- right effort
- right mindfulness
- right concentration.
The Four Noble Truths
I. "
Disappointment as an Ennobling Truth is this: Birth is disappointing as are aging, sickness, death, association with the unpleasant, dissociation from the pleasant, not getting what one wants is disappointing -- in brief, the
Five Aggregates of Clinging are disappointing.
II. "The origin of disappointment as an Ennobling Truth is this: Craving produces renewal of being [rebirth] accompanied by enjoyment and lust and delighting in this and that. What craving? Craving for sensual desires, craving for [eternal] existence, and craving for nonexistence.
III. "Cessation of disappointment as an ennobling truth is this: It is remainderless fading and ceasing, letting go, relinquishing, rejecting and abandoning of such craving.
IV. "The path leading to the cessation of disappointment as an ennobling truth is this: It is this ennobling Eightfold Path...
"'Disappointment as an ennobling truth is this.' Such was the knowing-and-seeing (knowledge and vision of the Dharma), understanding, discovery, the light that arose in regard to things never heard by me before. 'Disappointment as an ennobling truth can be diagnosed.' Such was the knowing-and-seeing, understanding, discovery, the light that arose in regard to things never heard by me before. 'Disappointment as an ennobling truth has been diagnosed.' Such was the knowing-and-seeing, understanding, discovery, the light that arose in regard to things never heard by me before.
"'The origin of disappointment as an ennobling truth is this.' Such was the knowing-and seeing... 'This origin of disappointment as an ennobling truth can be abandoned.' Such was the knowing-and-seeing... 'This origin of disappointment as an ennobling truth has been abandoned.' Such was the knowing-and-seeing... in regard to things never heard by me before.
"'The cessation of disappointment as an ennobling truth is this.' Such was the knowing-and-seeing... 'This cessation of disappointment as an ennobling truth can be verified.' Such was the knowing-and-seeing... 'The cessation of disappointment as an ennobling truth has been verified.' Such was the knowing-and-seeing... in regard to things never heard by me before.
"'The way leading to the cessation of disappointment as an ennobling truth is this.' Such was the knowing-and-seeing... 'The way leading to the cessation of disappointment as an ennobling truth can be developed.' Such was the knowing-and-seeing... 'The way leading to the cessation of disappointment as an ennobling truth has been developed.' Such was the vision... in regard to things never heard by me before.
"As long as my knowing-and-seeing of things just as they are was not purified with regard to these 12 aspects, in three phases for each of these Four Noble Truths, I did not claim in this world with its light beings (devas), its killers (maras), its creatives (brahmas), in this generation with its wandering ascetics (recluses) and Brahmin priests, with its princes and people to have discovered the supreme enlightenment.
"But as soon as my knowing-and-seeing of things just as they are was purified with regard to these 12 aspects, in the three phases for each of these Four Noble Truths, then did I claim in this world... to have discovered the supreme enlightenment. Knowledge and vision arose in me: 'My heart's deliverance is assured. This is my last birth. Now there is to be no renewal of being.'"
That is what the Blessed One said. The group of five were glad, and they approved of his words.
Now during this teaching there arose in the ascetic Kondañña the purified and stainless vision of the Truth: "Whatever is subject to arising is also subject to falling away."
Word Spreads Fast
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| Our 10,000-fold world-system |
When the Wheel of Truth had been set rolling by the Buddha, the earthbound devas raised this cry: "At Varanasi, at the Deer Park in the Resort of Seers, the matchless Wheel of Truth has been set rolling by the Blessed One, not to be stopped by any recluse or deity, death-angel or divinity, or anyone in the world!"
On hearing the earthbound devas' cry, the devas inhabiting the six celestial paradises in space within the Sensual Sphere took up the cry until it reached beyond Great Brahma's Retinue in the Fine-Material Sphere. So indeed at that hour, at that very moment, the cry soared up to the World of Great Brahma. And this 10,000-fold world-system shook and quaked, and an unbounded radiance surpassing the very nature of the light beings was displayed throughout this entire world-system.
Then the Buddha exclaimed: "Kondañña knows! Kondañña knows!" And that is how that venerable one acquired the name Añña-Kondañña -- "Kondañña Who Knows."
This is a stone
carving of the Buddha seated on a lion throne with a magnificent halo aura. he is holding the lotus mudra (yogic hand gesture) while seated in full lotus meditation asana
(posture). He is surrounded by students, devas (angelic light beings) and dakinis. Coins are offered at the base of the statuary, located at the Deer Park in
Sarnath (Isipatana, Uttar Pradesh), just outside India's holiest ancient city of Varanasi (Benares), which is where the Enlightened One taught his first sermon, expounded to the Group of Five Ascetics who became the first to directly know-and-see the Dharma in this dispensation.
