Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. Cook Your Mind
    The passage we chanted just now, Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion, often leads to the question, “Where’s the wheel?” It’s in the part where the Buddha talks about how he came to a realization of each of the four noble truths that had never occurred to him before, and not just noting what the truth was in each case, but … 
  3. Dreams & Voices
     … What matters is, what are they telling you to do? Is it in line with the Dhamma? This is one of the reasons why it’s good to study the Dhamma, so that you can get a sense of what’s really in line with the Dhamma and what’s not. The dreams you might have about past lifetimes or different facts about nature … 
  4. Universal Truths
     … Ajaan Lee makes the comment many times that people tend to take high Dhamma and think that it’s low, and low Dhamma and think it’s high. The Dhamma of trying to pin down a self identity is very low. High Dhamma is the Dhamma that the Buddha started off with and ended up with: the noble eightfold path, starting with right view … 
  5. Limitless Compassion, Limited Resources
     … Practice the Dhamma.” So no matter how bad things get in the world, that’s got to be your first priority: practicing the Dhamma. Now, of course, generosity is part of the practice. But this is where the limitless nature of the brahmaviharas meets up with the limitations of being a human being. You have only so much time, so much energy, so much … 
  6. Directly & Indirectly to the Breath
     … So instead of working directly with the breath, you work with it indirectly, by choosing what the Buddha calls “an inspiring theme”—something you like to think about that’s related to the Dhamma, related to your practice of the Dhamma. As you think about it and the mind gets calmed down, gets put in a better mood, the breath will change. So you … 
  7. To Depend on Yourself
     … It shows how totally selfless his intention was in teaching the Dhamma. So here’s a good Dhamma, and it keeps focusing you on what you can do. It’s putting the power in your hands. A lot of us, when we find we have that kind of power in our hands, realizing that it really will make a difference what we do and … 
  8. The Mind’s Ostinato
     … Like even the word *dhamma *can also mean act. As the Buddha said, the way you learn the Dhamma is to commit yourself to a course of action, and then you reflect on it. Which is why he doesn’t put so much emphasis on defining things: What is your consciousness? What is your mind? Who are you? Those are questions the Buddha leaves … 
  9. Large-hearted Equanimity
     … The Buddha himself found that the reasons why some people would find awakening listening to his Dhamma talks, and a lot of people would not, had to do with factors that were beyond his control. So even the Buddha couldn’t reach everybody. He found the best policy was, in Ajaan Suwat’s words, “to get himself”—in other words, to straighten himself out … 
  10. Noble Priorities
     … They were adopted because there were some things in Thai culture that were in line with the Dhamma. But the Dhamma came first. And the issue of why you’re suffering and how you’re suffering and what you could do to put an end to it—that had to have top priority. Which meant that he had to step out of the society … 
  11. Wisdom as a Tool
     … Is the lesson they’re teaching a good Dhamma lesson? That’s always what you should be looking for: What kind of Dhamma lesson could you gain from this? It doesn’t matter who you see in the vision. What matters is the quality of what they tell you. And this applies to books as well. A particular Dhamma lesson may be good for … 
  12. Technique & Attitude
     … You wade through a lot of Dhamma that’s on the marketplace today and you wonder exactly how much of this is just advertising copy and how much of it really is Dhamma. But when you look at the Buddha himself: He wasn’t that kind of person. Everything he said was Dhamma. Everything he said was a pure gift. He didn’t need … 
  13. Chanting Before Meditation
     … You take the Dhamma as your refuge. If you wanted to order the three refuges—or the three topics to keep in mind—you could start with the Dhamma, because the Buddha said he himself would honor the Dhamma, and, of course, the Sangha honors the Buddha. So, you take the Dhamma as your refuge basically by doing what you’re doing right now … 
  14. Nothing Wrong with Right & Wrong
     … As the Buddha said, one of the factors that would enable someone to gain awakening while listening to a Dhamma talk is that they found joy in the Dhamma. Now, sometimes the Dhamma is very demanding. It teaches that you have to be responsible for your actions. You have to exercise your agency and you have to be responsible for the results of your … 
  15. The Treasure Hunt
     … So the important thing about listening to the Dhamma is that the Dhamma points you. In fact the word, desana — the word they use for a Dhamma explanation — literally means “pointing to.” It points you to the places where you should look, gives you instructions on how to look, and then it’s up to you to see. When the Buddha would give instructions … 
  16. In the Elephant’s Footprint
     … Sāriputta later said, it’s the four noble truths that form the framework for all skillful dhammas. In the same way that the footprint of an elephant can contain the footprints of all the other animals that walk on earth, the four noble truths contain all skillful dhammas. So if you want to understand skillful dhammas and their role in the path, always refer … 
  17. Freedom Through Painful Practice
     … Sometimes you’re holding on to a Dhamma teaching you think is absolutely good Dhamma, but it’s not the right teaching for that particular time, that particular place. You end up using even the Dhamma to create suffering. One of Ajaan Lee’s recommendations is to turn things inside out. If you’re holding on to something, ask yourself: “What if the opposite … 
  18. A Wealthy Memory
     … The curriculum was based essentially on the Majjhima Nikaya, one of the big Nikayas, and was sprinkled here and there with some readings from the Dhammapada and other verses, not so much for real Dhamma it seems, but simply as inspiration, nice ideas to carry around. Well, those good ideas are where the real Dhamma is, in the values they convey. That’s the … 
  19. The Best of a Bad Situation
     … You’ve got the right attitude.” Punna leaves and goes there, and he ends up converting a lot of people to the Dhamma—because he didn’t let the difficulties of the place get him down. There are many, many stories in the Buddhist tradition and other stories around the world of people who’ve found themselves in really bad situations but didn’t … 
  20. The Not-Self Discourse
     … In fact, this theme of dispassion is so important that when the Buddha’s stepmother asked him for some basic principles of the Dhamma to take and put into practice, he started out by saying, “You know something is genuine Dhamma if it leads to dispassion.” So, trust the Buddha on that point. Learn to see the limitations of the five aggregates. They’re … 
  21. A Slave to Craving
    Those four Dhamma summaries that we chanted just now: The first three are pretty general observations. Aging, illness, and death are basically what they come down to. These are things that everybody notices. The world is swept away: Things you did when you were younger, you can’t do anymore as you get older. It offers no shelter: When you experience pain, you have … 
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