The Buddha needed an assistant and they appointed Ananda — his first cousin to be. Ananda accepted under the condition to only give teachings in his presence There’s said to be 84.000 teachings from the Buddha — for the 84.000 mental defilements. Some sources mention 80.000. This is because before Ananda became the assistant the Buddha already taught 4.000 (therefore some sources might start counting from the point where Ananda was witnessing them?)
All the teachings (for each affliction) can be grouped into 3 families — 3 turnings of the wheel of Dharma — attachment, anger and ignorance.
Wee need to consider:
- Place where the teaching was done
- Subject matter
- Target audience*
* we need to know the schools at that time
The four schools (their philosophy progressively getting subtler):
- Vaibhashika བྱེ་བྲག་སྨྲ་བ་
- Sautrantika མདོ་སྡེ་པ་
- Chittamatra སེམས་ཙམ་ “Mind-only”
- Madhyamaka “Middle Way” དབུ་མ་པ་
Three Turnings of the Wheel
| Teaching | Place | Subject Matter | Target Audience |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Turning of the Wheel | Sarnath, Varanasi | 4 Noble Truths, and that they exist truly | Vaibhashika and Sautrantika |
| Second Turning of the Wheel | Gridhrakūta (Volture’s Peak) | Emptiness of true existence or emptiness of self-characteristics | Madhyamaka |
| Third Turning of the Wheel | Vaishali | Buddha interpreted own teachings: Clarify apparent contradiction about the truly existence [of suffering] in 1st turning and emptiness of the 2nd, so not to fall in nihilism. | Chittamatra |
INFO
Another categorization of the teachings of the Buddha: Tipitaka.
Chittamatra, intellectually, were average, not as deep thinkers as the other schools, so they were confused about the bold statements from the first turning and second which feel contradictory.