Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. In Line with the Dhamma
     … As the Buddha said, dispassion is the highest Dhamma. There’s a passage where he divides dhammas into two types, fabricated and unfabricated. The highest fabricated dhamma, he says, is the noble eightfold path. It’s highest because it leads to the highest unfabricated dhamma, which is dispassion. This is important. We have to have some passion for the path. We can’t just … 
  3. Practice at Home
    The practice of Dhamma has its values. You’ll encounter some forms of meditation that have tried to strip all the values away, but they’re pretty minimalist and don’t really go that deep. For the practice to go deep, you have to know the values underlying the practice: a sense of priorities about what’s really important in life and what has … 
  4. Discernment: Commit & Reflect
     … As for the Dhamma: Here it’s “Dhamma” in the sense that the Thai ajaans talk about “finding the Dhamma” or “reaching the Dhamma.” It’s not so much the teachings, it’s more the quality of Dhamma within your own heart. And the two obstacles there, the Buddha said, are a lack of commitment and no reflection. In other words, if you don … 
  5. Refuge in the Dhamma
    When we say that we take refuge in the Dhamma, what does that mean? What kind of refuge or protection does the Dhamma offer? It offers protection on three main levels. It’s basically a protection from ourselves. They talk about equating taking the Dhamma as your refuge with taking yourself as your refuge, but it doesn’t mean taking yourself as you are … 
  6. Disenchantment & Dispassion
     … True homage is practicing Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma. At that point he didn’t explain what he meant, but there are other passages in the Canon where he defines it. Practicing in accordance with the Dhamma is when you’re practicing for the sake of disenchantment, dispassion, for the sake of release. That’s practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma … 
  7. Disenchantment
     … As Ajaan Suwat said, one of Ajaan Mun’s favorite Dhamma topics was practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma. It means several things. Especially nowadays, it means practicing the Dhamma as the Dhamma is. You don’t try to change the Dhamma to suit yourself. We’re surrounded with the new ideas of what the Buddha would have taught if he’d … 
  8. The Path of Giving
     … When you practice the Dhamma, you try to break down the barriers between you and the Dhamma. On the one hand, you want to make the Dhamma your own. You read about the results of the practice—states of peace, states of calm, states of total freedom from suffering—and you want them. That’s a good desire. Don’t ever let anybody tell … 
  9. Respect for the Path
     … All too many people in the world want to change the Dhamma. Every generation comes along and says, “The previous generation did it wrong. We’re going to make a Dhamma that we want.” But if you shape it in accordance with what you want, it’s not going to be Dhamma anymore. Dhamma is found by learning what the Buddha taught us about … 
  10. Instructions for a New Monk
     … How we find a true happiness that’s harmless is taught in the Dhamma. Now, again, the Dhamma has an external and an internal dimension. The external Dhamma is the Dhamma you read, the Dhamma you hear, the Dhamma that’s been written down, that people have memorized for generations and generations. That’s called the Dhamma of study, pariyatti-dhamma. Then you take … 
  11. Conditions for Concentration
     … You get to discuss the Dhamma. You get to listen to the Dhamma. And again, listening to the Dhamma is like that exchange between Ajaan Fuang and the woman: You get to work directly on your mind. The Buddha talks about qualities you can develop. You can be mindful and when you look in your mind, you can see, “Oh yeah, there’s mindfulness … 
  12. High-Level Dhamma
    Ajaan Fuang used to say that the easiest people to teach are the ones who don’t know too much about the Dhamma. Merchants from the town would come out to the monastery, no background in the Dhamma at all, and they were the easiest ones to teach. He’d say to do this, and they’d do this, and when they were ready … 
  13. A Refuge Bigger than the World
     … He would always say that he didn’t see anything here that lay beyond the Dhamma. No matter how amazing our feats of engineering, the progress of the country, still there was nothing nearly as amazing as the Dhamma—nothing that lay outside the Dhamma—because the Dhamma is bigger than the world. He made a similar comment to me one time. He and … 
  14. Dhamma Warrior
     … The list starts with knowing the Dhamma. That’s the number one knowledge. Number two is knowing the meaning of the Dhamma. Some of this comes from asking questions, from thinking things through. As he said, you listen and then you think it through, but then in order to really understand the Dhamma you have to develop the Dhamma. In other words, the skillful … 
  15. Steal the Dhamma
    When I went back to Thailand to ordain with Ajaan Fuang, he told me very early on that I would have to think like a thief if I wanted to learn the Dhamma. If a thief wants to steal something from a house, he can’t go up to the front door, knock on the door, and say, “Excuse me, could you tell me … 
  16. The Essence of the Dhamma
    The Essence of the Dhamma July 28, 2012 We look at the forest tradition and to us it seems very Thai. We forget that when Ajaan Mun was alive he was often accused of not following Thai customs, or Lao customs. He followed the Vinaya very closely, and that required that he not follow a lot of the customs that had developed around village … 
  17. Love for the Dhamma
    Love for the Dhamma October 7, 2003 Back when Ajaan Mun was alive, scholarly monks would say of meditating monks, “What can they know? They sit with their eyes closed. What can they see?” They’re still asking that question today: “What can meditators see with their eyes closed?” Of course the answer is that they see their own minds. Scholarly monks would say … 
  18. Sophisticated Dhamma
     … Mahakassapa, on the whole issue of true Dhamma vs. counterfeit Dhamma or sophisticated Dhamma. He says there are five qualities that help maintain the true Dhamma, five kinds of respect: respect for the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha; respect for the training; and respect for concentration. Now, respect for the training covers all the main parts of the training: virtue, concentration, and discernment … 
  19. Intelligent Respect
     … And we find that by living off gifts, we can give the Dhamma as a gift, which creates a special environment for learning the Dhamma, teaching the Dhamma. You may not notice that immediately when you hear about how things are arranged. I know some lay Dhamma teachers who complain about the fact that monks don’t handle money. They claim that this makes … 
  20. In a World of Crooked Wheels
     … Remember the Buddha’s saying, that the Dhamma protects those who practice the Dhamma. It may sound like we’re looking out only for ourselves and our own survival, but that’s not the case. When you follow the Dhamma, you set a good example. And it’s through examples that we best teach other people. Otherwise, we’re like a person who smokes … 
  21. Dispassion
     … This is why the Buddha said, on the night of his parinibbana, that the best way to show homage to him is to practice the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma. And then he said, in another sutta, “What does it mean to do that? It means to practice for the sake of dispassion.” You could also interpret it as meaning not changing the … 
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