THE IMPORTANCE OF HEARING TRUE DHAMMA

Welcome back to the Sutta Meditation Series Podcast.

Following on from the sessions looking at "117 Why associating with good people (sappurisa) is so important on the Noble Eightfold Path" and "118 Developing the Buddha's qualities of a good person", we now examine "THE IMPORTANCE OF HEARING TRUE DHAMMA".

What is particularly important, from an ariya perspective (supramundane right view), is hearing True Dhamma and knowing the distinction between "what is false, which has a deceptive nature; and what is true which has an undeceptive nature, is Nibbāna" - Dhātuvibhaṅga Sutta (MN 140)

This talk is part of our examination of the Avijjā Sutta (AN 10.61). Instead of ignorance, we want to cultivate and develop to fulfillment True Knowledge and Liberation (vijjāvimutti).

The intention is to look at a few different parts of this insight pathway (which has all the main teachings of the Buddha to develop the Noble Eightfold Path and realise Nibbana) before pulling it all together to explain how to meditate on the full insight pathway.

In this session we:

• — try to define True Dhamma (saddhamma)
• — contrast True Dhamma with Wrong Dhamma (asaddhamma)
• — review some suttas highlighting the Buddha's references to True Dhamma and it's significance
• — remind ourselves what leads to the decline and disappearance of True Dhamma
• — explore what prevents us from penetrating the truth despite listening to True Dhamma, and what we need to abandon to remove those blocks.

Most of the suttas that are directly or indirectly referred to in this session:

• — Dhātuvibhaṅga Sutta (MN 140)
• — Mahāvedalla Sutta (MN 43)
• — Aññatarapurisa Vatthu (Dhp 60)
• — Sabbhi Sutta (SN 1.31)
• — Vuṭṭhi Sutta (SN 1.74)
• — Sīlasampanna Sutta (Iti 104)
• — Tayodhamma Sutta (AN 10.76)
• — Punabbasu Sutta (SN 10.7)
• — Erakapattanagaraja Vatthu (Dhp 182)
• — Kimila Sutta (AN 7.59)
• — Saddhammappatirūpaka Sutta (SN 16.13)
• — Sammattaniyāma Suttas (AN 5.151-153)
• — Āvaraṇa Sutta (AN 6.86)
• — Voropita Sutta (AN 6.87)
• — Sussūsati Sutta (AN 6.88)

To read the Avijjā Sutta (AN 10.61) - https://suttacentral.net/an10.61/en/bodhi

A VIDEO of this segment has been published to the Sutta Meditation Series YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDFPrYLMRec AND on Spotify as a video podcast

Blessings of the Triple Gem. Theruwan saranai