Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book - Revised and Expanded Edition

by Daniel M. Ingram

While “enlightenment” generally sounds very appealing, it suddenly sounds strange in the context of seeing all sensations as being utterly transient, a source of pain if we make artificial dualities out of them, and not self. People often mix up the three kinds of renunciation, the most common error being that they imagine that they must “give up” aspects of the first two trainings (a happy life and fun concentration states) in order to renounce them in the insight way, in which they see the true nature of the sensations that make up these things. They imagine that they must give up their job or relationship in order to see its true nature, or imagine that they must not enter into high states to see their true nature. This basic conceptual error causes many of the problems that people find on the spiritual path. That brings me to the three forms of suffering. First, there is the form of suffering that the Buddha is most famous for talking about, ordinary suffering, the standard list including such things as birth, sickness, old age, death, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. These are ordinary forms of suffering that we can try to mitigate as best we can by ordinary methods, i.e. by working within the scope of the first training, i.e. the conventional world. I am a big fan of trying to find worldly happiness so long as we do not neglect the importance of the other two trainings. There is also the form of suffering relating to the scope of the second training that comes f...