Patrick Kearney's Vipassana Retreat Talk at Bodhi Tree Monastery (2009)
Continuing with Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Turning the dharma wheel), we examine the four truths, and in particular how they show the Buddha's understanding of pleasure and pain. The truths provide the fundamental structure of the teaching. We see dukkha presented as the pain arising from our delusion and drivenness. Then we look at how Siddhartha, before he became Buddha, turned his practice around through a spontaneous memory from his childhood which stimulated the arising of a fundamental question: “Why am I afraid of pleasure?†The practice requires pleasure — but what kind of pleasure?