WHAT IS THE BENEFIT OF LIVING THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE?

This is the question put to the historical Buddha by King Ajatasattu. The dialogue that continues is one of the most comprehensive and eloquent presentation of the Buddha regarding his teachings; a comparison of his teaching to the other major spiritual and philosophical theories of the time; the original Sangha’s code of ethics; the Buddha’s own lifestyle, and more.

The Samannaphala Sutta is consider one of the most useful and helpful discourses of the Buddha. The question “What is the benefit of living the contemplative life?” is as relevant to all of us today as it was in the time of King Ajatasattu. Ajatasattu was a layman who become a devoted follower of the Buddha after this encounter and sponsored the First Buddhist Council.

The evening will explore the specifics of this sutta and how they have direct application to our practice and daily life today in an urban setting. This will be the first in a series of two or three talks Dennis will give based on this sutta.

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This first of two evening discussions about what we all find difficult – strong experiences in daily life that threaten, or do, throw us spinning out of balance. We look at what the historical Buddha had to say about the roots of such strong experiences. We explore a number of important and practical questions including:

• How do we lay a sound foundation for working with such challenging experiences?
• How do we directly apply the Buddha’s teachings to our experience in a skillful way?
• What is reasonable to expect regarding our ability to make real strides in dealing with strong experiences that have proven problematic for us in the past?

Dennis’ two discussions use three teachings of the Buddha as the initial basis for discussion: The Discourse Concerning Malunkyaputta; The Kumma Sutta: The Tortoise; and the Sutta on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness.

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Dennis also suggested to read the two Suttas he spoke of in his talk. Here are the two links: Malunkyaputta Sutta and Kumma Sutta

To listen to Part 2 in the series, click here.

If you would like to download this talk, please right click and select “save as” here

If you would like to download this talk, please right click and select “save as” here