Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. Dhamma Medicine for Free
     … This is called Dhamma medicine. It’s free. But to work, it requires that you pay a lot of attention to it. So if thoughts come up in the mind, you don’t have to chase them away. Just stay right here with the breath. After all, those thoughts don’t destroy your experience of the breath. And the breath is your anchor to … 
  3. Control
     … It’d be hard for you to appreciate the Dhamma, because the Dhamma is based on the principle of the good that comes from giving up things you’ve been holding on to. It may be hard, but when you do it right, you realize that you gain something better in return—maybe a little bit less tangible, but a lot more lasting. Then … 
  4. Think
     … When you read Dhamma books, you get the basic principles. You listen to Dhamma talks, you get the basic principles. But you’ve got to look at the details of your own ways of creating suffering if you want to understand things. Then you have to come up with precise alternatives, different ways of thinking about suffering, different ways of thinking about the pain … 
  5. The Power is in Your Hands
     … I’ve been reading recently about how some modern Dhamma teachers don’t like the idea of kamma. They say it’s laying blame on people for the sufferings they meet with in life. But the Buddha was never interested in laying blame. He was more interested in analyzing a problem and seeing what you were doing to cause the problem so that you … 
  6. Fix Your Views
     … Their confidence and conviction in the Buddha, Dhamma, and the Sangha have been confirmed. That’s the point where their view really is right. Of course, you don’t stop there. You learn how to use right view properly to take you even further, from right view to right knowledge. What this means in practice is that, as we’re starting out, our views … 
  7. Evaluation
     … But the knowledge of the Dhamma is specifically designed to be helpful here inside. When you use it, you benefit and the people around you benefit. It doesn’t cause any harm, and it can’t be used to cause harm—as long as it’s genuine Dhamma. So, as you’re meditating, remember that your ability to evaluate how things are going, even … 
  8. Specifically
     … It’s accomplished by taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. We say these things over and over again, so it’s good to stop and think about what they mean. Of the three, the most important is the Dhamma. Then the Buddha is important because he discovered the Dhamma and taught it. The Sangha is important because it helps keep … 
  9. Inner Refuge Through Inner Strength
     … We talk about how we take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha—both on the internal and external levels. On the external level, you’re inspired by the story of the Buddha; inspired by his teachings; inspired by the Dhamma; and inspired by the example of the noble Sangha. We take these people as examples for how we should live. As … 
  10. Countercultural Conditioning
     … After all, when he taught the Dhamma, he used language. And he didn’t insist that his language was the only one that Dhamma could be taught in. A group of monks once decided to turn his teaching into a Veda, which would have made it exclusive property of the brahmans. He found out about this and said No, everyone should memorize the Dhamma … 
  11. Comprehending Pain
    The wheel of Dhamma has twelve spokes. Back in the time of the Buddha, when they explained things in sets of variables, instead of making a table, they would just go down the list of all the combinations of how the variables played off against one another. Because the list went around all the possible permutations, they called it a wheel. You see a … 
  12. Meditate to Win
     … Remember, we’re here to live up to some standards, not just to invent the Dhamma or redo the Dhamma as we’d like it to be. The basic principle is that we practice the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma for the sake of dispassion. An important element in dispassion is learning to outgrow your old attitudes, i.e., the attitudes you have … 
  13. The Buddha’s Currency
     … Once when he came to see Ajaan Suwat in Thailand, he gave a Dhamma talk, and the message of the Dhamma talk was: Everything else in the world comes in pairs, but with the Dhamma it’s one thing clear through—the wisdom and the happiness that come from letting go. Here you’re letting go of material goods, but you’re letting go … 
  14. Meaningful Choices
     … You wonder why so many modern Dhamma teachers hate the Dhamma. The Buddha says there is nibbāna to attain. It takes work, but he provides you with nourishment along the way. To have a clear sense of what the Buddha actually did teach, remember that he taught a path. The path has a goal. That’s what it means to have a path. If … 
  15. Asalha Puja – Completeness
     … The Buddha had gained awakening two months before, and then on this night he gave his first Dhamma talk, his first sermon: Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion. As a result, he gained his first awakened student. Kondañña, the leader of the five brethren, gained his first glimpse of the deathless after hearing the Buddha’s talk. So tonight is a symbol of … 
  16. The Third and a Half Noble Truth
     … It’s like the Dhamma teacher I once heard who said that after many years of teaching she didn’t know if there really was a cessation of suffering, she didn’t really know if the third noble truth was true, but she had her own truth. She called it her third and a half noble truth, which is that suffering is manageable. I … 
  17. Death Without Drama
     … But if it happens to let somebody in, then you’ve got the soldiers inside, which stand for right effort, armed with knowledge of the Dhamma. In other words, if something unskillful does come into the mind, you remember what the Dhamma has taught about things like that, and you do your best to get rid of it. Then you’ve got concentration, which … 
  18. Doing Favors & Making Merit
    I knew an elderly Thai couple who came to the Dhamma late in life and became so dedicated to the practice that Ajaan Suwat had the husband become the lay chairman of the monastery up in suburban LA. They were new to the whole idea of monastery life, monastery etiquette. One Sunday, as people were leaving after having come to make merit, the wife … 
  19. Free Like a Wild Deer
     … But then as monks they were going totally unarmed, and their protection was taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha: in other words, trying to develop the qualities of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, in their hearts, in their activities. And they learned over time that that really was a much more solid protection: the protection of being inoffensive … 
  20. Pride, Good & Bad
     … Ajaan Fuang would sometimes speak with scorn of the people who want to make the Dhamma more modern, more up to date. As he said, the Dhamma and the Vinaya are timeless, and we have to have pride in our timeless tradition in order to maintain it. Now, you do have to be careful about that pride. You notice in the sutta on the … 
  21. A Complete Training
     … He says, all dhammas are not-self. Even the dhamma of seeing this, the dhamma that would be the discernment of seeing the drawbacks of these things: That, too, is something you have to let go. Ajaan Maha Boowa’s image is of climbing a stairway up to a house. You climb the stairway that’s composed of developing skillful senses of a self … 
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