Search results for: "Dhamma"

  1. Page 28
  2. Large-hearted
     … Ajaan Mun used to talk frequently about practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma as his main theme. Well, it means not only practicing the Dhamma as the Buddha taught it. It also means practicing for the sake of the highest Dhamma. In other words, you aim high, you’re ambitious, you practice for dispassion, the maturity that comes when you’ve done … 
  3. The Arrow in the Heart
     … We talk about taking the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha as our refuge. We do that in the sense of taking the life of the Buddha, the life of the members of the noble Sangha, as our example. We take the Dhamma as our guidance, so we can give rise to the qualities in the Buddha’s heart, in the hearts of the … 
  4. Admirable Friendship
     … I was there to learn the Dhamma, and he had an awful lot to teach in that area. If Ajaan Fuang had been a political leader, he probably would have been a dictator. He thought dictatorship was the best kind of government for Thailand. But that was beside the point as far as I was concerned. The point was: What were the good Dhamma … 
  5. Dhamma Books & the Actuality
     … It’s the same with the Dhamma you’ve studied and the Dhamma you’ve thought about. Like the contour lines on a map, they can give you some general ideas. But what you’ll actually see as you develop good qualities in the mind: That’s going to be something the map can’t depict at all. So the only way to gain … 
  6. The Desire to Do Well
     … This all comes down to the basic principle that the Buddha said nourishes the Dhamma, which is commitment followed by reflection. The commitment is in the desire, in the persistence, and in the intent, and then the reflection is in your intent and your powers of analysis, your circumspection, your ingenuity. This is how you make yourself worthy of the Dhamma, as you nurture … 
  7. Taking the Buddha at his Word
     … But it’s also dangerous, and in the midst of the dangers you realize you’ve got to depend on the Dhamma to get you through your particular fears, your particular anxieties, the dangers, the boredom, the restlessness. You have no alternative things to fall back on, so you find yourself committing yourself more and more to the Dhamma as your refuge. There’s … 
  8. To Understand the Path
     … Sariputta once said that the four noble truths cover all the Dhamma, encompass all the Dhamma in the same way that the footprint of an elephant can encompass the footprints of all the other animals on land. So when you’re practicing, it’s good to think in terms of the four noble truths, not only what they are but also the duties appropriate … 
  9. Conviction & Truth
     … To learn the truth about the Dhamma, to learn the truth about ourselves, we have to be as true as we can, as circumspect and all-around in our practice as we can. We have to prove ourselves, and only then can we be in a position where we can prove the Dhamma. So, take that as inspiration. The Dhamma asks a lot, but … 
  10. Don’t Sell the Buddha Short
     … And it was by following the Dhamma that you got there. You realize all the members of the noble Sangha who got there did so by following the same path. So that confirms your confidence in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. You’re confirmed by something that’s outside of dependent co-arising, outside of causality entirely. Now, the earth around you … 
  11. Anti-slacker Dhamma
     … You can understand this kind of teaching as a corruption of the Dhamma that happens when people try to sell the Dhamma. Salespeople like to sell things that are popular, and there are plenty of slackers out there that would like to hear that the Buddha was on their side. But the problem is that this line of thinking didn’t start just with … 
  12. Refuge
    In the Pali phrases for taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, the word sarana, which we translate as refuge, can also mean something you remember, something you hold in mind, something you keep in mind. This is part of the way in which it becomes your refuge. You try to keep the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha in mind … 
  13. A Well-Thatched Roof
     … The Pali term for those things outside is loka-dhamma, the dhammas of the world. Most people’s minds are not simply penetrated by these things; they’re totally flooded, totally overwhelmed. Gain, loss, status, loss of status, praise, criticism, pleasure, and pain: These things are constantly raining down on us, and most people are out in the open totally exposed, with no protection … 
  14. The Power of Intention
    A couple of months ago I was giving a Dhamma talk on kamma up in the Bay Area. After the talk, a woman came up and said, “You know, this made me think, ‘Maybe my life isn’t determined by my DNA after all.’” I was surprised. She’d been going to Dhamma talks for a fair while and yet was still able to … 
  15. Only Your Best
     … There’s a Dhamma talk by Ajaan Fuang—one of his few Dhamma talks that was recorded—where he makes just this point. We don’t know how much time we have, but we do know that we have this time. What was especially poignant about the talk was that soon after he gave that Dhamma talk, he got very sick, and only a … 
  16. Acceptance
     … And the first two are to know the Dhamma and to know the meaning of the Dhamma. Those are things you can study, that you can learn from asking and discussing. But the remaining aspects have to do with your own sensitivity and your willingness to develop your sensitivity over time. There’s having a sense of yourself: What are your strengths right now … 
  17. Thinking About Your Fears
     … That way, if scary things come up, you have something good to hold on to: “I don’t have to go to those scary places.” Finally, there’s the fear that comes from not having seen the true Dhamma. Most people don’t express it to themselves in these terms because many of them have never heard of the true Dhamma. What the Buddha … 
  18. Something New
     … That’s why we have the Dhamma. So even though the Buddha wouldn’t know whether or not we were going to follow the path, we can decide that. We can be the deciding factor. We can decide that we’re going to change. So look into your mind. Wherever there’s suffering in your life, it’s coming from inside. Now, many people … 
  19. One Thing at a Time
     … What do you do out here in the forest? Where do you go to listen to the Dhamma?” Ajaan Mun’s response was, “I hear the Dhamma seven days a week, 24 hours a day, except when I’m asleep. A leaf falls from a tree and it teaches inconstancy. The crows caw: It’s because of stress, because of suffering. The senior monk … 
  20. The Meaning of Insight
     … Those observations have meaning only in the larger context of the meaning of the Dhamma, the goal of the Dhamma, its attha. This is why, when the Buddha described his awakening, he never mentioned the three characteristics, or even the three perceptions. They’re there implicitly in terms of the duties of the four noble truths, under the insight into the drawbacks of the … 
  21. Guardian Meditations
     … Anybody who needed the Dhamma, he was happy to teach. All he asked was that people be truthful. He said, “Let someone come who’s observant and no deceiver, and I’ll teach that person the Dhamma.” Those were his only prerequisites. And he taught without holding anything back, anything that was really necessary for the sake of awakening. So that’s the kind … 
  22. Load next page...