Notes from the Dharma Talk, Monday, June 27, 2011

Dong Hung Buddhist Temple English Language Service

Mark Palamara, July 13, 2011

The Venerable Monks Thich Chuc Do and Thich Chuc Thanh presided.

The topic was the 108 Feelings.

Chuc McCoy led the topic discussion through an interesting “hands on” presentation that involved all of the discussion participants. The discussion progressed in this order: The two feelings: Bodily and Mental:

The three feelings: Pleasant, Painful and Neither (neutral)

The five feelings: The faculties of Pleasure, Painful, Happiness, Distress and Equanimity

The Six Feelings born of eye contact, ear contact, nose contact, tongue contact, body contact and intellect contact. The group continued the discussion through the progression of feelings through multiple combinations of the feelings up to the total of 108.

As part of the discussion, defining “ego” was explored. One definition was that ego is the organization of the realistic part of your mind. The teachers brought the group to the concept of “I” or “self” of any person. The concept of self and not-self is the next topic to be discussed.

The discussion closed with Chuc Do describing the differences of the level of practice between monks and lay followers of Buddhism.