Context and Structure of The Teaching
The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta is said to be the first teaching given by the Buddha after he attained enlightenment. It is taught that the Buddha attained enlightenment while sitting under the Bodhi tree by the river Neranjara, in Bodhgaya, India, and afterwards, he remained silent for forty-nine days. The Buddha then journeyed from Bodhgaya to Sarnath, a small town near the sacred city of Varanasi in central India. There he met his five former companions, the ascetics with whom he had shared six years of hardship. His former companions were at first suspicious of the Buddha, thinking he had given up his search for the truth when he renounced their ascetic ways. But upon seeing the radiance of the Buddha, they requested him to teach what he had learned. Thereupon the Buddha gave the teaching that was later recorded as the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, which introduces the fundamental concepts of Buddhist thought, such as the middle way and the four noble truths.
Read more about this topic: Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta
Famous quotes containing the words context and, context, structure and/or teaching:
“Parents are led to believe that they must be consistent, that is, always respond to the same issue the same way. Consistency is good up to a point but your child also needs to understand context and subtlety . . . much of adult life is governed by context: what is appropriate in one setting is not appropriate in another; the way something is said may be more important than what is said. . . .”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)
“The hippie is the scion of surplus value. The dropout can only claim sanctity in a society which offers something to be dropped out of—career, ambition, conspicuous consumption. The effects of hippie sanctimony can only be felt in the context of others who plunder his lifestyle for what they find good or profitable, a process known as rip-off by the hippie, who will not see how savagely he has pillaged intricate and demanding civilizations for his own parodic lifestyle.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“... teaching to me was anathema, chiefly because it would condemn me to a world of petticoats.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)