Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. Fear
     … A third is that they don’t really understand the Dhamma, they haven’t resolved their doubts about the Dhamma. These are three things that can be cured only through meditation. The other reason for fearing death is when you know that you’ve harmed other people. There’s always a fear that comes with the thought that maybe there is a punishment for … 
  3. Overcoming Obstacles
     … Seven years after he gave that Dhamma talk, he was dead, and he was sick in the meantime, many, many times. And many of the people he gave that Dhamma talk to are now dead, too. We’re alive. But again, we don’t know how much longer it will be before we go. So take advantage of the opportunity you’ve got. Be … 
  4. Goodwill as Right View
     … Goodwill is what the Buddha depended on to teach, to go out of his way to establish the Dhamma and Vinaya. Ordinarily, a teaching Buddha has only one duty, which is to teach his contemporaries how to gain awakening. And then there’s the optional duty of establishing a Dhamma and Vinaya that’ll last a long time, for future generations. It takes a … 
  5. May All Beings Be Heedful
    Back in the 70s, when people in my generation had gone to Asia, learned the Dhamma, and came back to teach, one of the teachings they brought back was the practice of the brahmavihārās: the practice of extending goodwill to all, compassion to all, empathetic joy to all, and equanimity to all. Of course, the word “all” includes extending these attitudes to yourself. The … 
  6. The Path to the Top
     … I just know chariots so well that when a question comes, I usually know the answer right away.” The Buddha said that in the same way he knew the Dhamma so thoroughly that he didn’t have to sit around and plan out answers to questions. It was through his thorough knowledge of the Dhamma that he knew which path was right and which … 
  7. Your Mind is Lying to You
     … People even use the Dhamma as a way of lying to themselves, using the wrong Dhamma at the wrong time. There’s a classic case of that in the four-volume novel, Joseph and His Brothers. Joseph has been working as a slave in charge of Potiphar’s house, and Potiphar’s wife has been trying to seduce him for an entire volume of … 
  8. Fighting Attitude
    The fourth frame of reference for meditation, or the fourth foundation of mindfulness is dhammas, which can mean objects of the mind or mental qualities. And it’s interesting that of the various foundations of mindfulness, as described in the Satipatthana Sutta, this is the one that recommends the most active interaction with what’s going on in the mind. For example, if hindrances … 
  9. The Buddha’s Good News
     … As he said, when you listen to a Dhamma talk, be careful that you don’t despise the speaker, you don’t despise the Dhamma, and you don’t despise yourself. If you despise yourself, you just let the talk go past. You say, “Well, this is not for me. It’s for somebody else.” But it must apply to you in some way … 
  10. Addictive Thinking
     … This is why the Buddha said that learning is an important part of the practice, i.e., learning the Dhamma, listening to the Dhamma. If you don’t listen to the Dhamma, what are you listening to? You’re listening to all those voices of the media out there and who knows what other voices you’ve picked up. You have to ask yourself … 
  11. Respect as a Sign of Intelligence
     … We had the chant just now on respect for the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. What that means in practice is that you resist the urge to change them. Instead, you try to change yourself to see if by fitting into the Dhamma you benefit. And we show respect for the Buddha because he basically has us show respect to ourselves. Look inside … 
  12. Willing & Observing
     … When the Buddha said he discovered the Dhamma, this is the kind of Dhamma he discovered: the Dhamma of how things work. But he didn’t discover the Dhamma just by observing things. He also dealt with what are called truths of the will: things that happen only if you will them to happen. He had to will himself to develop skillful qualities in … 
  13. The Joy of the Battle
     … I fell for this other one because of y.” This is why the Buddha says that the Dhamma is nourished by commitment and reflection—not only in the sense that you commit yourself to doing something and you see that you made a mistake, and on reflection you learn how to correct for it, but also simply the fact that you learn how to … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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