Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. Healthy Conceit
     … As Ajaan Lee said, one of the big problems with meditators, especially who’ve read a lot of Dhamma, is that they mistake high-level Dhamma for low-level and low-level for high- level. There are lessons to be learned from the simple process of untangling yourself from distraction and learning how to anticipate and head off distractions. Those are key for overcoming … 
  3. Choices
     … You can focus on the breath, or you can focus on some other Dhamma theme: contemplation of the body, goodwill, recollection of the Buddha. Or you can focus on something else entirely. Nobody knows what you’re thinking about right now. You’re free to think about anything, but which choice would be the wisest? That’s a question you always want to ask … 
  4. Freedom & Security
     … This is what the Dhamma provides. This way, the melodies going through your head are not commercial jingles. They’re words of the Dhamma, to remind you of what’s true and has been true for more than 2,500 years. These are true principles that hold across time: that you have a higher capability in life, which frees you from the traditions and … 
  5. Balanced Breathing
     … This is where the message of the world and the message of the Dhamma part ways. The message of the Dhamma is that what you’re doing right now is very important. It’s the most important thing you can pay attention to right now. It’s what you’re responsible for. It’s what’s going to have an effect on your life … 
  6. Reflections
     … the Dhamma they were teaching. He had to reflect on it: Was it in line with what he already knew of the Dhamma? If not, he should let it go. If it was, that still wasn’t a guarantee that it was right. He’d have to test it. Of course, to test it meant that he had to be a reliable examiner. That … 
  7. Culture Shock
    Culture Shock June 16, 2004 When you come to practice the Dhamma, there are a lot of times when you experience culture shock. It’s not a question of going from a Western culture to an Asian culture. It’s going from a culture of ordinary people with defilements — Asian or Western — to the culture of the Noble Ones. Their culture involves a radically … 
  8. The Luminous Mind
     … We don’t listen to the Dhamma. Or even when we do, we don’t take it seriously. So these are the things that keep the darkness going: inappropriate attention and lack of noble friends. Even though the mind has the potential where it can know and be aware, these other factors influence it, which is why we need to train the mind in … 
  9. A Cure for the Sluggish Mind
     … You can think of the Dhamma: that we have this opportunity to practice an excellent Dhamma—it doesn’t come along all the time. You can think about how much you love yourself: It was because you loved yourself that you got on this path to begin with. Why would you want to stray off? You can think about all the ajaans and other … 
  10. A Becoming Critic
     … As he said, you know that something is genuine Dhamma when it leads to dispassion. And dispassion is actually the highest of all dhammas. How did the Buddha know this? He stepped back. He stepped out of his becomings and looked at how they were constructed, the same way that a film critic tries to decide, “How did they put this movie together?” So … 
  11. Honesty
     … All three of these things are absolute, rock-solid, basic qualities that are needed in the practice of the Dhamma. Being a true person is very closely connected with being truthful about what you say and how you think about yourself. So truth is not just a quality of words; it’s a quality of the person. The big problem in our lives is … 
  12. Warrior Knowledge
     … This is when it gets really tricky, for often the voices of defilement can disguise themselves as the voice of the Dhamma. You’ve got to watch out for that. When you’re not quite sure whether what the mind is saying is true or false, skillful or unskillful, just go back to being an observer. Look at the thinking in the mind simply … 
  13. Wild Horses
     … Finally, there’s the fear that comes from what the Buddha describes as not knowing the true Dhamma. In other words, you don’t really know what’s going to happen after you die: Where are you going to go? Will you be annihilated? Will you be forced to go someplace you don’t want to go? You really don’t know. There’s … 
  14. Training Your Minds
     … They may sound like they’re speaking with the voice of the Dhamma, but you know that old saying about how the devil can quote scripture to his purpose. Well, the defilements can quote Dhamma for their purpose, too, so don’t be fooled by them. And remember that this is a long-term process. We talk a lot about heedfulness, about being ready … 
  15. Trust in the Power of the Mind
     … But it requires that we have a sense of how limited we are in our ability to know the Dhamma until we’ve done the Dhamma—and how little we know about our minds until we’ve tried to train them. There are people who give up right at the beginning. They say, “I can’t do this; I’ll try to depend on … 
  16. Alone & with Others
     … He wasn’t making up a make-believe Dhamma just for them. He was presenting the true Dhamma in language they could understand, but the principles were all the same. And the basic principle he taught Rahula was that you’ve got to observe your actions: You observe your intentions before the action, you observe what you’re doing, and you observe the results … 
  17. One Person
     … We hold by that principle that the Dhamma is the Dhamma, and we’re not going to abandon our practice to go running after them, because in that case nobody gets gotten, you might say. But if you’re working on yourself, there is the opportunity for you to get yourself, and that’s what matters. We go through life after life after life … 
  18. Heedful of Death
     … Anathapindika, even though he had been supporting the Buddha for many years, had never had the opportunity to listen to a Dhamma talk like this. He started to cry. Ananda thought he was losing his grip, but Anathapindika said, “No, I’m not losing my grip. It’s just that after all these years, only now am I getting to hear a Dhamma talk … 
  19. The Challenge of Right View
     … The sutta we chanted just now, Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion, points out those imperatives. In fact, imperatives are part of the wheel. Back in ancient India, in the philosophical texts or the legal texts—although it’s hard to call them texts, because they were things that people memorized—when they had sets of variables, they would go through all the … 
  20. Potentials for Refuge
     … And as they often say, when you patipat the Dhamma, you also patipat yourself: When you practice the Dhamma, you’re looking after yourself. So you want to be able to settle down right here, because after all, this is going to be your refuge. You look outside, and the world’s pretty dismaying. You look inside, and it’s also dismaying at times … 
  21. Treasures Beyond Death
     … One is learning the Dhamma; the next is generosity; and the last is discernment. Learning the Dhamma’s a treasure in that it puts signposts in your mind. You have guidance in your mind that will hold you in good stead when things get rough. When you face a difficult situation, you can remember, say, what the Buddha said or what one of the … 
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