The threefold training (week 1)

The three trainings 

The teachings of the Buddha are remarkable in many ways. One perspective I like to contemplate is to simply see that the Buddha was a human being like you and I, who lived during an epoch-forming time, not unlike the one we live in now, and who was faced with many of the questions we face. Of course, he didn’t have to contend with many of the issues we have brought upon ourselves through the rampant development of personal technologies and the demands of the workplace, nevertheless our lives are not substantively that different from his. 

I allow myself to bask in the confidence that he attained a remarkable, multi-faceted and deeply comprehensive shift in the way he saw the world sometime in his thity-sixth year. A shift so deep and so profound that for him all suffering was completely eradicated from his being, along with the propensity for future suffering. I also bask in the confidence that he spent the remaining forty-five years of his life tirelessly teaching others in the hope that they also would find a way to what he called “the sure heart’s release.” 

He taught his heart out. His teachings, as remembered and later written down by his students, fill many volumes. What is amazing is the consistency and the brilliance of the basic models of his teachings: the four noble truths and the eightfold path. All the major points are contained in these two formulations (we could more accurately see it as one formulation, as the eightfold path is part of the fourth noble truth). 

He mentioned various ways to look at the teachings and gave a number of devices to recall them. I am grateful in a way that his teachings were given at a time before the use of the written word. I like to contemplate his teachings by bringing to mind some of these devices, and find that they stimulate thought and help me understand the teachings on a deeper level-without the aid of the internet or books. One such device to recall the teachings is his formulation of the three trainings. 

The three trainings are: sila, samadhi, panna. 

Sila refers to ethical conduct, or put another way, living a live of integrity. Samadhi refers to the settling and calming of the mind through the practice of meditation, which we have been learning these past nine weeks. Panna refers to insight, which permanently uproots the kileshas - the seeds of discontent. 

We will spend the next nine weeks contemplating the threefold training in light of our ongoing practice of anapanasati.

 

Homework for this week: 

1) Listen to the dharma talk entitled “Moral integrity” By Sara Doering (available at the weekly meeting). 

2)  Read and contemplate the teachings in the posting entitled ”readings on the five precepts” on this blog.

3) Keep up your practice of anapanasati.