Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. The Good Heart’s Attachments
     … We were also talking about how the Dhamma doesn’t measure people that way. The way the Dhamma measures people comes down to good-heartedness. Good-heartedness is a matter of what price you’re willing to pay for your happiness, what harm you’re willing to do. Really good-hearted people don’t want to do any harm—to themselves or to other … 
  3. Wise About Mistakes
     … Of course, with the possibility of going to that good destination, you can continue to practice the Dhamma. One of the results of practicing the Dhamma to a high level is that the results of your past bad actions get weakened and weakened, and have less of an impact on the heart and mind. Think of the case of Angulimala. He had killed a … 
  4. Learning How to Talk to Yourself
     … There are the suttas, which are dialogues in which the Buddha’s answering questions, giving Dhamma talks, engaging with other people. He gives basic Dhamma concepts, defines them and illustrates them with analogies, images. He also gives instructions on how you should talk to yourself and what images you should hold in mind. In other words, he’s showing you how you can engage … 
  5. Strong Through Admirable Friendship
     … They get so that they don’t want to hear the Dhamma at all, because the various things they have to do to get and maintain power go against the Dhamma. So, the more they pursue power, the further and further they get away, and the more they make themselves blind and deaf to the Dhamma. There are lots of people like that out … 
  6. The Mirror Inside
    There’s a passage where the Buddha says, “Let an observant person come who is honest and no deceiver, and I’ll teach that person the Dhamma.” It’s interesting that those are the qualities he looked for in a student. They have to do with your ability to observe yourself. You observe your actions, and you report them truly as to whether they … 
  7. A Message for the Universe
     … One day that Buddha turned to his student and said, “Let’s go to the Brahma world before lunch.” Kind of like, “Let’s zip down to Escondido before lunch.” So they zipped up to the Brahma world, and then Abhibhu started teaching the Dhamma. The Brahmas were upset and said, “Why is the student teaching us? Why don’t we have the teacher … 
  8. Time & Place
     … Can you imagine what it be like if we only had lists of Dhamma topics and definitions? You wouldn’t have any examples of how the Buddha used the teachings. It would be like taking a course of medicine where all you had was the lists of the different medicines that could be used, but you wouldn’t know when or where or how … 
  9. No Happiness Other than Peace
     … The song is directed to his ladylove, telling her how he loves her as much as the arahants love the Dhamma, cataloging her body parts, the parts he loves as much as the arahants love the Dhamma. You can imagine the Buddha smiling to himself with the thought, “This is a totally deluded little deva here.” But at the end of the song, he … 
  10. Explore & Experiment
     … It’s through exploring these things that the Dhamma becomes yours. We’re not here just to hear the Dhamma that the Buddha taught and then try to confirm that “Yes, that’s true.” Think about how the Buddha himself learned the Dhamma: It was through exploration: trying this, trying that. That’s how things become clear. So, think of the meditation as an … 
  11. Something Good to Cling to
     … When you’ve internalized the message of the Dhamma, the lessons of the Dhamma, that gives you something with which you can argue with the crazy voices in your mind. In fact, all three qualities that go into mindfulness—mindfulness, alertness, ardency—are ones you really need to make yourself dependable. In other words, you have to see what you’re doing, you have … 
  12. The Triple Training
     … As for the Dhamma you want to discuss down there in the kitchen, ask yourself: How much of that do you really know? One time early on when I was a young monk, I was sitting with another young monk and we were discussing Dhamma. At one point I said, "Well, I think it’s like this.” Ajaan Fuang happened to be walking past … 
  13. Raise Your Standards
     … When the Buddha listed the qualities that help you know whether a teaching is Dhamma or not, one of the qualities is unburdensomeness. If a particular practice makes you more burdensome, it’s not really Dhamma. So we’re looking for a happiness where we can sit here and create the happiness ourselves without having to depend too much on other people, and without … 
  14. The Values of Stillness
     … The ones that sneak in and seem perfectly innocent and usually come with a voice of authority, the voice of responsibility, “You’ve got to care about this, you’ve got to take care of that.” Or if it’s a Dhamma issue, “You’ve got to figure out this Dhamma issue,” or they tell you you’ve got to figure out inconstancy, stress … 
  15. The Walls of Ignorance
     … And this is the Dhamma. This is how we take refuge in the Dhamma: remembering these principles and actually putting them into practice, so that the qualities of the Buddha appear within us, become embodied within us. By following the examples of the Noble Disciples, the third member of the Triple Refuge, we become Noble Disciples as well. That’s when the Buddha, Dhamma … 
  16. Training Heart & Mind
     … This is why the Dhamma is special. Not just anybody can master the Dhamma. You have to be a good person to master the Dhamma. Being a good person gives you the energy to keep on practicing. For example, with generosity: Someone once asked the Buddha where a gift should be given, and he was expecting the Buddha to say, “Give to the Buddhists … 
  17. Using Perceptions
     … This is one of the reasons why we shouldn’t be in any hurry to change the Dhamma to fit in with our perceptions of the world. After all, our perceptions of the world are the ones that accompany our lack of skill in approaching the issue of suffering. So we have to learn how to step back from them a bit. This is … 
  18. Taking Initiative
     … This means, on the outside level, that you listen to the Dhamma, read the Dhamma. Minimize the amount of time you’re spending with the Internet, with other parts of the world, because people will pull you down. What you get out of the Internet is other people’s ideas of what they want you to want, what they want you to believe. You … 
  19. The Noble Truth about Craving
     … As he said, “All dhammas are rooted in desire,” and that term, “all dhammas,” includes the path, includes both skillful and unskillful dhammas. But the desires that lead to states of becoming: Those are the troublemakers, because they require that we change, and that the world around us will have to change as well. If you have a desire on the level of sensuality … 
  20. The Three Perceptions & Their Opposites
     … As he says, when the Buddha is saying, Sabbe dhamma anatta, all dhammas are not-self, it’s his way of saying that you have to let go even of the Dhamma of your insight. It’s only when you let go of everything, even true and false, that the mind is free. So it’s important to see these perceptions as tools. They … 
  21. Commit & Reflect All Around
    We nourish the Dhamma within us through commitment and reflection. We commit to doing it, we stick with that commitment for a while, so that it can have time to show results, and then we reflect on the results: Are they doing well or are they not doing well? Then we make adjustments and commit again. That’s how the Dhamma is found—not … 
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