The Great Discourse on the Wheel of Dhamma

her beauty and tumed them mad. For them, pleasant sensations are dreadful upadanakklandhas all the same and constitute the real Truth of Suffering. At the same time, pleasant sensations are transitory and require constant conditioning effort to maintain the status quo. This of course is irksome and is therefore in this wise too real dukkha.

The remaining upekkhd vedand, the neutral feeling and the upddanakkhandhas of sannd, sankhdra, vinnadna and rupa are always in a state of flux, transitory and therefore to the Noble Ones they are also dreadful. As death awaits constantly, having to rely on the impermanent upaddnakkhandhds for physical substance (mass or support) is dreadful, like living in a building which shows signs of collapsing at any moment.

The transitory nature of the upadda@nakkhandhd requires constant effort at conditioning for the maintenence of the sfatus quo. This sankhara kukkha, the troublesome task of conditioning, is also dreadful. Therefore to the Noble Ones, not only the pleasant or unpleasant feelings but the remaining upaddnakkhandhas are also dreadful Truth of Suffering.

As all the five groups of grasping are regarded by the Noble Ones as really terrible suffering, the Blessed: One had said in conclusion of the definition of the Truth of Suffering, "In short, the five groups of grasping otherwise called nama and rupa which could cause attachments as I, mine, permanent, blissful, self, ego are just dreadful suffering.”

UPADANA AND UPADANAKKHANDHA

Now are will describe the difference between updddna and upadanakkhandh@. Upaddnd means tenaciously clinging or grasping of which there are four types:

(a) kamupddana .... Grasping of sense-desires. It is attach-

ment bom of craving for sensual desires.

(b) Ditthupddana ... Grasping of false views. It is the

attachment to the view that there is no kamma and the

result there of, there is no after-life, no Supreme

Buddha, no Arahat. All other wrong views, apart from

attaditthi and silabbata. paraémdsa ditthi are known as

ditthupaddana.

(c) Silabbatupdddna .... Grasping of mere rites and cer-

emonies, ritualism. It is the practice of certain rituals

or ceremonies, which have nothing to do with under-

standing of the four Noble Truths nor development of

the Eightfold Path, with the belief that they will lead

to release from suffering of samsdra, and to permanent

peace free from old age, disease and death It is a

brand of micchdditthi, holding what is wrong as right.

(d) _AttavGdupddana ... Grasping of the theory of soul. It

is attachment to the belief in soul, ego, a living entity.

It is the same as the wrong view of personality - belief,

sakkdyaditthi and self, attaditthi.

Of the four types of grasping, kdmupdddana is clinging to sensual desire, craving for them. The remaining are all various kinds of wrong views. Therefore we can summarise (1) Two kinds of grasping, upaddna: wrong view and craving for sense- desres.

There are thus two kinds of attachments, updddnas, one arising out of desire for pleasurable senses and the other because of wrong views. The objects of such attachments, upd@danas, consist of the aggregates of rupa and the aggregates of ndma and are known as upaddnakkhandha. Summarising, we have (2) Objects which can cause attachments as I, mine are upddanakkhandhd, groups of grasping.

The attachment as | is attaditthi, the wrong view of self, which opens the way to the remaining two wrong views. When attachment arises out of desire, the objects of desire which may. not even belong to one, are grasped at as if they are one's own. The Pali Texts describe how this desire leads to the possessive grasping in these words: "etam mama. This is mine." We have summarised in mnemonic (2)above this Pali Text description of possessive grasping.

The aggregates of ndma, rupa which can cause attachment through wrong belief as self, living entity or possessive clinging as mine are called aggregates of grasping, upddankkhandhds. The mental agoregates which cannot give rise to clinging through desire oi _wrong view are called just khandhas, aggregates and not upadGnakkhandhds. aggregates of grasping. Such mental aggregates are the supra-mundane vedand. sannd, sankhdra and vinndna of the four Paths and the four Fruitions. They constitute merely aggregates of feeling. agoregates of perception, aggregates of formations and aggregateS of consciousness and are not classed as aggregates of grasping. /iyédanakkhandha. ~~ The mundane types of material body, vedand, sannd, sankhara and vinndna we have repeatedly mentioned above are the aggregates which incite attachments and are therefore called aggregates of grasping, namely, (3) Rupa, vedand, sannd, sankhadra and vinndana.

The mundane aggregates of rupa,-ndma are the material bodies and rupavacara citta and cetasikas which become manifest at the six doors of senses to a person of no jhdnic attainments every time he sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches or thinks. To a person of jhdnic attainments, rupavacara and arupavacara jhdna cittas also become manifest at the mind's door in addition to the above aggregates. All these five groups of grasping are the truths of suffering which form suitable objects for vipassana meditation. The Blessed One later described them as dhammas which should be understood exactly and rightly through vipassand Insight, through knowledge of the Path. In the third part of our discourse, we had defined sammdditthi Path as the knowledge of the truth of suffering, that is, the knowledge which accrues from contemplation on these five groups of grasping.

Here it must be stressed that these rupa, ndma groups of grasping should be personally realized as the real truth of suffering by clearly perceiving their nature of arising, vanishing, impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, insubstantiality by observing mindfully rupaupadénakkhandha (eye and sight, ear and sound, etc) and ndma-

upadanakkhandhas (eye - consciousness. eat-consciousness etc) when they manifest themselves at the six doors of senses on every occasion of seeing, hearing, smelling. tasting, touching and thinking

It is a matter for gratification that some yogis of this Centre have seen reality as it is by the practice of mindfulness in accordance with Satipatthana method, that is, taking note of every manifestation*as it occurs at each of the six doors of senses. They should congratulate themselves that they have come to know the Dhamma as taught by the Blessed One: "In short, the five groups of grasping are suffering" and strive all the more strenuously to attain more complete knowledge To recapitulate. we shall go over again the mnemonics of the 12 types of the Truth of Suffering

(1) New Becoming 1s also suffering.

(2) Ageing is also suffering.

(3) Death is also suffering.

(4) Sorrow is also suffering.

(5) Lamentation is also suffering.

(6) Physical pain is also suffering.

(7) Gmef is also suffering.

(8) Despair is also suffering.

(9) Association with the hateful one 1s suffering.

(10) Separation from the loved ones 1s also. suffering.

(11) It is futile to wish for freedom from ageing, disease

and death and all kinds of suffering without developing

the Eightfold Path; that wish will never be fulfilled.

Thus wishing to get something which is unattainable is

also suffering. In the mundane world, too, to hanker

after what is not attainable is also suffering.

(12) To summarise, the eleven types of suffering described

above, the five aggregates which can incite attech-

ments as I, mine, is really the Truth of Suffering.

We have fairly fully dealt with the definition and enumeration of the Truth of Suffering and have taken sometime over it. We shall end the Discourse here for today.

May you all good people in this audience, by virtue of having given respectful attention to this great discourse on the Turning of the Wheel of Dhamma, be able to develop the Middle Path otherwise called the Noble Eightfold Path, by contemplating on the five groups of grasping, the Truth of Suffering, which should be clearly and completely understood, and by means of the Path and Fruition according to your wish, attain and realize soon the Nibbana, the end of all sufferings.

Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!

End of Part IV of the Discourse on Dhammacakka