Ven. Akshay Kamble

 Four Virtues of the Buddha   The Buddha embodies the four virtues, namely True Self, Eternity, Purity and Happiness, as expounded in Mahaparinirvana Sutra. These noble qualities are the true nature of Buddha’s life. Ordinary people like us can also embrace these qualities if we choose to embrace the Lotus Sutra of the One Buddha-Vehicle and live our lives to the fullest. The four virtues of True Self, Eternity, Purity, and Happiness are in direct opposite to No Self (anattaa), Impermanence (anicca), Emptiness (Sunyata), and Suffering (dukkha) as taught by the Buddha in the early Buddhism. As you can see, these four provisional teachings are relevant in the context of a human world. They are the “truths” in the conditioned world. However, they are completely refuted by the Buddha himself in Mahaparinirvana Sutra. In the human world, strife and suffering are abound. Nothing is permanent. To survive and thrive in the long term, we constantly strive to change and

COSMOLOGY OF THE THERAVADA BUDDHISM INTRODUCTION There is no single system of Buddhist cosmology. Virtually every theological tendency within the Buddhist tradition addressed the cosmological sciences from its special perspective—seeing the universe as the stage for a drama of salvation cast in terms of its own particular philosophical and theological predilections. Buddhist systems are related not only to other Indian systems, for example, Hindu, Jain, Ājīvika, and so forth, but to Hellenistic speculations as well. The Buddhist cosmologies are concerned with individual and cosmic nibbana or nirvāṇa. According to the Buddha, there are two worlds, the internal world and external world. Most of the time He has talked about the internal world. In the discourse of the Exposition of Elements (M.N. 140) and the Discourse of the Three Tenets (A.N. 3), the Buddha clearly said, that this man is nothing but six kinds of elements. The six kinds of elements are: 1. Earth, 2. Water, 3

WHAT IS VINAYA Pitika ? Vinaya Pi¥aka Disciplinary and Procedural Rules for the Saµgha The Vinaya Pi¥aka is made up of rules of discipline laid down for regulating the conduct of the Buddha's disciples who have been admitted as bhikkhus and bhikkhunnøs into the Order. These rules embody authoritative injunctions of the Buddha on modes of conduct and restraints on both physical and verbal actions. They deal with transgressions of discipline, and with various categories of restraints and admonitions in accordance with the nature of the offence. (a) Seven Kinds of Transgression or Offence, Æpatti The rules of discipline first laid down by the Buddha are called Mþlapaññatti (the root regulation); those supplemented later are known as Anupaññatti. Together they are known as Sikkhæpadas, rules of discipline. The act of transgressing these rules of discipline, thereby incurring a penalty by the guilty bhikkhu, is called Æpatti, which means 'reaching, committing