Search results for: "Dhamma"
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- Resourceful… It may seem paradoxical that, on one hand, here is a tradition that holds very strictly to the Vinaya and has a very clear idea about what is Dhamma and what’s not Dhamma, and yet they say, “Be ingenious. Be resourceful.” But actually, there’s no paradox at all within the parameters of what’s skillful and what’s not. You have to …
- Endurance… That kind of focus is what keeps you in line with the Dhamma. You’re practicing the Dhamma in line with the Dhamma: for the sake of your own dispassion. And that principle, as the Buddha said, is what guarantees that there will continue to be enlightened people in the world.
- When You’ve Played Enough With the Breath… The first tetrad deals with the breath directly; the second, with feelings; the third, with the mind; and the fourth, with dhammas. These correspond to the four frames of reference for establishing mindfulness. The theme all the way through these steps is the interaction among breath, feelings, and mind. In some of the steps, the emphasis is on how the mind can have an …
- In Your Right Mind at Death… fear of losing your body, fear of losing human sensual pleasures, fear that the bad things you’ve done in life will lead to punishment in the next life, and the fear that comes from not knowing the true Dhamma. The people who have this last fear wouldn’t necessarily express it in those terms. What it means is they have no idea for …
- Switzerland Inside… The learning here is learning the Dhamma: reading up, listening, thinking about the Dhamma, so that when things get difficult you’ll have something reliable to fall back on. We have so much garbage in our heads. Think of how many hours of advertisements we’ve seen or heard in the course of a lifetime and how this stuff reverberates around inside. You want …
- Attention with an Agenda… Why was it that there were pupils in the Buddha’s time who listened to Dhamma talks and were immediately able to gain stream entry? The Buddha himself explained that they had five qualities to their listening. One, they didn’t despise the Dhamma. Two, they didn’t despise the speaker. Three, they didn’t despise themselves. In other words, they were confident that …
- A Sucker for Random Memories… There’s a passage that talks about people who go to realms of the Brahmas that are based on the jhanas, but if they haven’t really learned their Dhamma lessons well, they’re going to fall. It’s only the ones who’ve learned their Dhamma lessons who are more secure, who know they won’t have to come back here. They won …
- Right Exertion at Play… That was one of the few times he talked about controversies in the Dhamma, and it’s directly related to one of the sets of dhammas included in the Wings to Awakening: the four right exertions. These are the same as the four right efforts, and the important thing to notice is that there are four things to do. We don’t just let …
- A Meritorious Heart… As part of the commemoration, they invite monks—sometimes forest monks, sometimes city monks—to give a closing Dhamma talk. The very last year I was there before I returned to the States, they had invited a monk from a major city temple in Bangkok. He sent word about five minutes before he was due to get up on the Dhamma seat, saying that …
- Mindfulness as a Goad… It’s not the case that if something doesn’t appear in the Pali Canon, it’s not Dhamma. As all the ajaans in the Thai forest tradition say: If it works, it’s Dhamma. Try to see what works for you. And then try to remember what lessons you’ve learned. If you don’t remember the lessons you’ve learned from your …
- Directing Yourself Rightly… By the time we come to the Dhamma, we’re already in the middle of all this. What makes the Dhamma special is that it shows us a way out, because a lot of those muddling mistakes we make create a lot of suffering for ourselves or the people around us. An important part about choosing a life of the Dhamma is that you …
- Potentials for Awakening… This, again, is one of the reasons why Ajaan Suwat was so insistent on that principle of practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma, instead of saying, “Well, then, the Dhamma has to fit into my preconceived notions and my ideas of what it should be.” That doesn’t teach you anything at all. You don’t learn anything new. You’re just …
- Testing Insights… He came to the realization that everything already is Dhamma, already as it is, and you shouldn’t touch it, you shouldn’t change it, you shouldn’t make any adjustments at all to the way the world is. That was his great Dhammic realization. He came back to society and he was going to teach it to the world. But he ran into …
- Homage Through the Practice… It was on the full moon of this month, right after his awakening, that the Buddha gave his first sermon, “Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion.” So we’re commemorating that event tonight. It was at the end of this sermon that one of the listeners, Añña Kondañña, gained the Dhamma Eye, the first taste of awakening. So he was the first member …
- A Separate Self… And it’s because we can have an influence on one another that we’ve been exposed to the Dhamma. We learn the Dhamma from what the Buddha taught, as all the many generations between us and the Buddha have done. But it’s up to us to take that influence and make the most of it. That’s when your sense of separate …
- The Heart of the Teachings… We’re practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma. That means practicing for the sake of dispassion, practicing for the sake of disenchantment that leads to release. In other words, we aim high. But we have to start where we are. As part of that summary, probably the most famous lines are what are sometimes called the heart of the Buddha’s teachings …
- Respect… respect for the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha. Why do we respect them? We see that the Buddha was a really excellent teacher. If you want to learn from him, you have to respect what he has to say. Respect his example, not just his words. His actions also spoke. Kt’s a basic principle in learning that if you want to learn from …
- Questioning Everything… That’s the real gift of the Dhamma: not so much teaching the Dhamma but getting people to look inside themselves so that they can see that the actual Dhamma arising and passing away. And particularly seeing the connections, the Dhamma-ness of the causality that goes on in the mind. And then using that knowledge to put an end to suffering. We suffer …
- Skillful Fears… Where are you going to find happiness if you’re dependent on those kinds of things for your happiness? All of this is incentive to find the true Dhamma inside, the Dhamma of the deathless, which is a place of no danger, a place of no fear. You use your fears about aging, illness, and death not to get morbid or hopeless, but to …
- The Thoroughbred Horse… And even though the Buddha did talk a lot about change, he didn’t say that the Dhamma would change. The Dhamma is a principle that underlies everything else. It’s the laws about how things change. Those laws don’t change. As he said, this rightness of the Dhamma is something that’s always the same. Once you look at the Dhamma to …
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