Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. Timeless Practice
    We just chanted the Buddha’s first sermon, called Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion. People sometimes ask, where’s the wheel? It’s in the section where the Buddha goes through each of the four noble truths, stating the truth, stating the duty with regard to the truth, and stating the realization that he had completed the duty. That’s four truths … 
  3. Breath Meditation – The Four Tetrads
     … And the good and bad qualities that are going through the mind relate to dhammas. Now, because the 16 steps of breath meditation are divided into four tetrads and each tetrad is associated with one of those frames of reference, the same point applies with those 16 steps. In other words, you can look at what you’re doing right now in terms of … 
  4. How to Be an Admirable Friend
     … This is one of the good aspects of the Dhamma, that in helping yourself through the Dhamma you’re helping others as well. When you’re a true friend to yourself, you can be a true friend to other people. The Buddha listed four qualities of an admirable friend. They start inside and then they spread outside from the inner qualities. The first one … 
  5. Impossible Things
     … We may remember the times when we’ve done the right thing — when we’ve meditated, followed the precepts, lived in line with the Dhamma — but all we can think about is how much effort it took. So we say, “That must not truly be me. That must be somebody else. I must be the person who does things that are easy, I must … 
  6. Virtuous Beginnings
     … The more honesty there is in your life, the easier it is to practice the Dhamma. The Buddha once said that this is the prime requisite for practicing the Dhamma: that a person be honest. And this goes not only into what you say to other people, but also into how you live your life, so that it doesn’t require a lot of … 
  7. The Allure of Self
     … For most of us, though, we identify with things that are pretty foolish, like that passage we had just now from the Ratthapala Sutta, the four Dhamma summaries. You know the story. Ven. Ratthapala is being interviewed by a king as to why he ordained. He says that there were four reasons, four Dhamma summaries, that gave him the faith that he needed to … 
  8. The Five Precepts for the Mind
     … They thought that he was looking down on them, thinking that they, as lay people, were not ready for high level Dhamma, and that he was teaching them only low level Dhamma. But they misunderstood. One, they misunderstood the fact that the precepts are not low level practices: It’s not easy to maintain the five precepts. It requires a lot of alertness, a … 
  9. Everything Gathers Around the Breath
     … Ajaan Lee has a lot of Dhamma talks where he talks about how the different Wings to Awakening relate to the breath in one way or another. You look in the 16 steps of breath meditation, and you get training in focusing on the body by focusing on the breath. You get training in learning how to comprehend feelings by focusing on the breath … 
  10. Not the Predictable Thing
    Not the Predictable Thing September 25, 2022 Once, I was giving a Dhamma talk in New York City. The person introducing me mentioned that I was a New Yorker myself, having been born out on the eastern end of Long Island and grown up on a potato farm. Even though it was a farm, it wasn’t that far from the city. After the … 
  11. Good for What Purpose?
     … That’s when you’re practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma. As the Buddha said, that’s how he wanted people to pay homage to him. It’s basically a matter of paying homage to your desire someplace inside your heart and mind for happiness that doesn’t let you down.
  12. The Best News in the World
     … practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma. So that’s what we’re trying to do now. When the Buddha finally found the path to awakening, he started with right concentration. So let’s start with right concentration. Focus on your breath. Keep your thoughts connected to the breath. Then evaluate the breath. How does it feel? You might try some long breathing … 
  13. Something to Stand On
     … Then dig down deeper, because we’re not here just to mold ourselves to the Dhamma. We’re here to use the Dhamma in order to explore what’s going on inside to understand it. When the realizations come, they’re going to be very personal. They’re your defilements, and you’re going past them. They’re your voices in your mind, and … 
  14. Happy About Kamma
     … The Buddha says, “It’s a good thing you see it’s a mistake, because that’s how there’s progress in the Dhamma and the Vinayaof the noble ones.” Ajātasattu leaves, and the Buddha says to the monks, “If he hadn’t killed his father, he would have become a stream-enterer listening to that Dhamma talk. But the fact that he’d … 
  15. What Should & Shouldn’t Be Done
     … So this is one of the reasons why we study the Dhamma, because we’re faced with choices and the Dhamma gives us some good advice. And then in areas that are not covered by the teaching, the Buddha gives us some basic principles on how to decide what should and shouldn’t be done so that we become more and more independent in … 
  16. Study & Practice
     … It really expands the Dhamma; it expands your discernment and understanding of the Dhamma. An important part of this ingenuity is getting a sense of time and place—what teaching needs to be applied at what time—because there are many different teachings, many different ways of looking at your experience. What’s appropriate for the particular issue that you’re dealing with? After … 
  17. Criticism
     … This is a very basic principle in the Dhamma. It’s a quality of heart that the Buddha calls ottappa, translated as “compunction.” It’s when you think of doing something and you know that it’s going to be unskillful and you realize, “I don’t want to have to deal with the results of something unskillful.” It’s basically a belief in … 
  18. Guarding the Truth
     … And when you know them, you’ve got the most direct source possible for knowledge about the Dhamma. In my first years as a meditator at Wat Dhammasathit, I had very few books: a collection of Ajaan Lee’s Dhamma talks, Keeping the Breath in Mind, and a few others; Ajaan MahaBoowa’s book of Dhamma talks to the woman who had cancer. That … 
  19. Make Yourself Small
    Ajaan Lee has a Dhamma talk where he talks about how big the Buddha was—how big the Buddha is. He said his body is so big that they’ve been making images of it for 2,500 years and they still haven’t made enough. His mouth was so big that his Dhamma is still with us. His mind was so big that … 
  20. Moral Intelligence
    I’ve been reading a Dhamma talk by a Ajaan Uthai where he takes the terms “emotional intelligence” and “moral intelligence” and interprets them in line with the Buddha’s teachings. And it’s interesting how he divides things up. Emotional intelligence he aligns with discernment—in other words, seeing what motives you have for your thinking, and seeing where different emotions lead, and … 
  21. Working Hypotheses
     … Which is why stream-entry—the arising of the Dhamma eye—is the point where your conviction in these working hypotheses is confirmed. The Buddha doesn’t ask us to believe in a lot. As he said, the things that he taught were like the handful of leaves as compared to the leaves in the forest. The leaves in the forest were all the … 
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