BuddhaNet - Worldwide Buddhist Information and Education Network. Metta Bhavana: Cultivation of Loviing-kindness. Tibetan Buddhism Sydney - Buddhist classes North Shore Syd- Meditation. The Four Noble Truths: A Study Guide. The four noble truths are the most basic expression of the Buddha's teaching. As Ven. Sariputta once said, they encompass the entire teaching, just as the footprint of an elephant can encompass the footprints of all other footed beings on earth. These four truths are best understood, not as beliefs, but as categories of experience. They offer an alternative to the ordinary way we categorize what we can know and describe, in terms of me/not me, and being/not being. These ordinary categories create trouble, for the attempt to maintain full being for one's sense of "me" is a stressful effort doomed to failure, in that all of the components of that "me" are inconstant, stressful, and thus not worthy of identifying as "me" or "mine.
" To counter this problem, the four noble truths drop ideas of me/not me, and being/not being, and replace them with two sets of variables: cause and effect, skillful and unskillful. The Buddha: "What do you think, Rahula: What is a mirror for? " "Now what is birth? Metta Sutta. Metta Sutta This is what should be done by one who is skilled in goodness And who knows the path of peace: Let them be able and upright, straightforward and gentle in speech, Humble and not conceited, contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways. Peaceful and calm, and wise and skilful, not proud and demanding in nature. Let them not do the slightest thing that the wise would later reprove. They should wish: In gladness and in safety May all beings be at ease. Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state, Let none through anger or ill-will wish harm upon another. Even as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child, So with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, Radiating kindness over the entire world, Spreading upwards to the skies, and downwards to the depths, Outwards and unbounded, freed from hatred and ill-will. Audio Dharma - Welcome to Audio Dharma.