Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. Give of Yourself
    Ajaan Maha Bua says that when he was staying with Ajaan Mun, Ajaan Mun would give long, long Dhamma talks every now and then. But according to Ajaan Maha Bua, what Ajaan Mun was giving was just the trunk of a tree. You had to work out the branches for yourself. There are times in the talks when he would reach a topic, skirt … 
  3. Determined to Practice
     … This is why we have Dhamma books and recorded Dhamma talks, to keep you in touch with their values. Because otherwise, the values of the world pull you in all sorts of other directions. So if you’re thinking about practicing at home and setting up the conditions, this is the first thing. Make sure you read plenty of Dhamma, listen to the Dhamma … 
  4. If These Walls Could Talk
     … The themes that he stressed over and over again were ones that he said that Ajaan Mun tended to stress in his Dhamma talks. One was practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma, and the other was the customs of the noble ones. We tend to think of the Forest Tradition as being quintessentially Thai, but Ajaan Mun was accused of not behaving … 
  5. Mission Possible
     … If you’re going to have something running through your head, have something connected with the Dhamma. In the same way, if a thinking is pulling you off in the wrong direction, getting you too nervous, getting you too tight, or getting you discouraged and lazy, replace it with a much better, more Dhamma thought. Of course, there are some Dhamma thoughts that would … 
  6. Urgency & Contentment
     … We often think of the Dhamma as something you read or listen to, but it’s actually a skill. On the one hand, dhammas are qualities of mind, and on the other, there’s the Dhamma of practice, which is a set of skills that you develop. You want to take the Dhamma with you if you ever find yourself in prison or in … 
  7. Dispassion & Delight
    In the sutta we chanted just now, the Buddha says that all fabrications are inconstant, all fabrications are stressful, all dhammas are not-self. This, he said, is always true. Whether there’s the arising of a Buddha or not, these things are true. The question is, are these ideas always beneficial? The Buddha does have that passage where he talks about how things … 
  8. Rooted in Desire
    Rooted in Desire August 28, 2017 The Dhammapada starts with two verses on the topic of the power of the mind: “The mind is the forerunner of all dhammas. The mind is their chief; they’re made of the mind.” And we may say, on one level, that this sounds reasonable. The way you look at things, the way you act, will have an … 
  9. Contentment
     … Just as Ajaan Mun faced a lot of pressure to make his practice more like standard Thai or Laotian practice, we get a lot of pressure to make the Dhamma more American. What it seems to come down to is simply that it’ll sell better, but we’re not here to sell the Dhamma. We’re here to practice the Dhamma. Ajaan Suwat … 
  10. The End of the World
    The End of the World November 30, 2016 As Ratthapala said in his Dhamma summaries, “The world is swept away.” We have to make sure that we don’t get swept away with it. The problem, of course, is in that last of the Dhamma summaries: “The world is a slave to craving.” In other words, we’re slaves to craving, which is why … 
  11. Guardian Meditations, Right & Wrong
     … And then he taught, and he taught the Dhamma for free. That, too, is amazing. Nowadays people get a little bit of Dhamma and they can’t wait to sell it, to figure out how to make money off of it. Just last night I saw in a catalog: mindfulness coloring books. There’s mindfulness mayonnaise. People with a little bit of Dhamma knowledge … 
  12. Sensitivity Through Generosity
     … When he asked the people at the center about it, they said, “Well, that’s impermanence,” which is not the Dhamma of the Buddha. There’s a danger in trying to boil the Dhamma down to just a few principles – like the idea that all the Dhamma teachings come down to the three characteristics, that you just have to accept that things are impermanent … 
  13. Asalha Puja
     … He gave his first talk—it’s called “Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion”—and as a result of the talk, it turned out that, yes, one of those brethren did have little dust in his eyes. Ven. Añña Kondañña—his name originally was just Kondañña—got what is called the Dhamma Eye, seeing that whatever is subject to origination— in other words … 
  14. Skills of the Dhamma Wheel
    Skills of the Dhamma Wheel November 10, 2009 Every time we chant the Sutta on Setting the Dhamma Wheel in Motion, I like to look at the Dhamma wheel up on the wall, the one my father made years back: It’s going on 13 years now. It’s got twelve spokes, which symbolize one of the passages in the sutta where the Buddha … 
  15. The Buddha’s Map
     … I once heard someone say that what the Buddha offers us is a map to the Dhamma. And as we all know, maps are not really accurate descriptions of reality. They point out certain things and hide others. So there’s no way you can say that any one map of Dhamma is any more correct than other map of Dhamma. That’s what … 
  16. Appropriate Attention
     … As he said, the best response to listening to the Dhamma is first to apply appropriate attention, which means asking yourself, “How does what I’ve learned in this Dhamma apply to how I’m creating suffering right now or to how I can put an end to it?” Then you practice the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma. In other words, you don … 
  17. How to Listen
    The Buddha gives lessons in how to listen to a Dhamma talk. There are five altogether. The first three have to do with respect. As he says, one, you don’t despise the person giving the talk. Two, you don’t despise what’s being said in the talk. And three, you don’t despise yourself. In other words, you open yourself to the … 
  18. A Refuge from Death
     … This is the way in which the Dhamma offers a refuge. We often think that the Dhamma as a refuge is something outside, the words written in the books that appear in bookcases, but that’s just an ancillary refuge. The real refuge, though, is when the Dhamma appears inside, when we practice the Dhamma. Having listened to it, we practice it, and then … 
  19. An Island above the Flood
    When the Buddha says to make the Dhamma your refuge, he’s very clear about the fact that that means making yourself your refuge. One of the terms he uses, ‘to make the Dhamma your island,’ means that you make yourself your island. The image, of course, is of an island in a flood, and the flood is fourfold: the flood of sensuality, the … 
  20. Know the Dhamma by Its Results
     … There’s one passage where his stepmother comes and asks for a brief Dhamma teaching that she can take and practice, and he answers with eight principles as to what kind of actions, what kind of teachings, what kind of practices count as Dhamma and what kinds don’t. They fall into three sets. The first set has to do with qualities that you … 
  21. Serial Clinging Is Still Clinging
     … And especially watch out for the voice that says, “I’m learning how to be unattached.” That’s very seductive, and it sounds as if it’s got the Dhamma on its side. This is one of the things you have to watch out for all along, because the defilements know how to sound like Dhamma sometimes. They can take a Dhamma teaching that … 
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