Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. A Promise to Yourself
     … Then there’s the Dhamma as a governing principle. Think about how fortunate you are that you live in a place where the Dhamma is available. The people in the Buddha’s time, on first hearing the Dhamma, would exclaim at how magnificent it was. The things that used to be murky are now clear. Things that were in the dark are now brought … 
  3. Shame & Acceptance
     … So he looked to the Dhamma. “This,” he said, “is the only way my life is going to have any meaning, is going to go anywhere at all.” As he said, “I must not have much merit, so I’ve got to make as much as I can.” That was his original impulse to practice the Dhamma, realizing that he didn’t have much … 
  4. Ironclad Technique vs. No Technique
     … This is how you become independent in the Dhamma. This is how your commitment and your reflection lead you to attaining the Dhamma, a Dhamma you can really depend on.
  5. Happiness – Yours & Others’
     … This, of course, puts you to the test as well, because if you’re going to give a fair evaluation of the Dhamma, you have to give the Dhamma a fair test. And you have to develop the dhamma of mindfulness, alertness, all your powers of observation to make sure that your actions actually do fall in line with what the Buddha taught. This … 
  6. The Joy of Renunciation
     … Convert those skills to fabricating motivation to practice the Dhamma, to finding joy in the Dhamma, joy in investing in the long-term. As the Buddha said, delight in the Dhamma, delight in abandoning, delight in developing: These are among the forms of delight that lead to the total end of the defilements, total freedom from the mind. But it’s a delight that … 
  7. Test Everything
     … So it’s not a matter of changing the Dhamma to suit our preferences. We have to change ourselves to fit in with the Dhamma. This is one of the principles that Ajaan Suwat would talk about an awful lot. He said that it was one of Ajamn Mun’s favorite topics: practicing the Dhamma in line with the Dhamma. In other words, the … 
  8. Dispassion Is Freedom
     … In each case, the Buddha says, you see when you take on a particular dhamma—and here “dhamma” can mean a teaching, a mental quality, or an action—and if it leads to a certain type of quality that’s not in line with the Dhamma, then you know it’s not really Dhamma. In other words, you test things through your actions. Now … 
  9. Heightened Skillfulness
     … Māgha Pūjā,* *we’re told, is the day of the Sangha, but it’s also the day of the Dhamma, because without the Dhamma there wouldn’t be the Sangha. Without the Sangha to carry out the Dhamma, we wouldn’t have it today. So they always go together. So what was that Dhamma? It starts with avoiding all evil. Anything that’s unskillful … 
  10. Delight
     … The first in the list is delight in the Dhamma—the fact that there’s a Dhamma teaching us that there is an end of suffering, and that it can be attained through human effort. This Dhamma explains how we suffer, why we suffer. It explains the big issues of life: aging, illness, death, separation. It gives reliable guidance in how to act, how … 
  11. Recollecting the Devas
     … This means listening to the Dhamma, reading the Dhamma, and memorizing what you can. This is especially important in our modern culture because there is so much in modern media that goes against the Dhamma and they have so many ways of sneaking their messages into your head. All those commercial jingles that seem to be jingling and jangling around your head when you … 
  12. What Made the Buddha Exclaim
     … One, is a sense of awe at the Dhamma, how amazingly good the Dhamma is, and how when people are trained in the Dhamma how amazing they become as well. This gives rise to a sense of confidence that this really is a good path with a really good goal. The other thing that makes him exclaim is a sense of samvega. He sees … 
  13. A Full Life
     … This is what the Dhamma is all about. As the Buddha said, the taste of all the Dhamma is release— just as the taste of all the water in the oceans is salty, the taste of all the Dhamma is release. They all come together at the goal. We’re starting out from different places, but we’re all heading in the right direction … 
  14. Looking Inward
    Ajaan Lee once said, “The path of the Dhamma is looking inside.” When you look outside, it’s the world. The mind that’s concerned with things outside, that’s part of the world as well. It’s when you look inside—that’s when there’s Dhamma. So this is where our practice focuses. Notice where the path lies: It lies in our … 
  15. The Not-Self Discourse
    Five days ago, we celebrated the Buddha’s first sermon—Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion—where he taught the four noble truths in the context of the noble eightfold path. He taught the duties with regard to those truths, and how completing those duties constituted his awakening. The result of that talk was that the leader of the five brethren, Kondañña—who … 
  16. How to Really Depend on Yourself
     … The fact that you’ve thought a solution up on your own doesn’t mean it’s not Dhamma. Not all Dhamma has to be in the texts. If something works, gives good results, gives rise to more insight, gives rise to an ability to let go of things that are burdening the mind, then it counts as Dhamma. Or if you’re not … 
  17. The Door of the Cage (2)
     … Now, those two reflections depend ultimately, though, on the Dhamma as a governing principle. You reflect on the fact that this is really an excellent Dhamma. It gets you to do good things: to be virtuous, to be generous, to develop powers of mindfulness, concentration, discernment—things that are good for you and for the people around you, noble qualities of mind, qualities that … 
  18. Light Your Way
     … He says, “Well, no food, but I’ll get to hear the Dhamma.” So, he sits down and listens to the Dhamma. The Buddha sees that this leper, even though he’s a leper and very, very poor, having to live on handouts, still has some potential. So he teaches the Dhamma specifically for him. The leper follows the Dhamma in his mind as … 
  19. Magha Puja
     … Their Dhamma is always the same. No matter how many Buddhas gain awakening, this is the Dhamma they all teach. Sometimes you hear the idea that the Buddha said that everything changes, therefore the Dhamma has to change, too. But he never said that. Fabricated things change. That’s true. But the way of the Dhamma never changes, which is why it’s a … 
  20. Instruct, Urge, Rouse, & Encourage Yourself
    The Buddha says that when you listen to a Dhamma talk, you shouldn’t have contempt for the speaker, you shouldn’t have contempt for the Dhamma that’s being taught. That much you might expect. After all, if you look down on the speaker, it may happen that the speaker has something good to say, at least one or two sentences out of … 
  21. Dhamma in Vinaya
     … He called them Dhamma-Vinaya. The Dhamma is what he discovered in the course of finding the deathless—the truths that were conducive to finding the deathless. The Vinaya is what he formulated as rules for the monastic Sangha that he founded. The two go together because the rules are based on principles of Dhamma. Often it’s useful to look at how the … 
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