Search results for: "Dhamma"

  1. Page 39
  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. Where You Set Your Heart
     … As a result, they came to the Dhamma for safety. ** So I was somewhat taken aback when I came back to the States and saw the Dhamma being discussed as a celebration of our interconnectedness: learning how to be vulnerable, learning how to be open to our connectedness with all things. And that would be our safety. But as we’ve seen, the world … 
  11. Take Care
     … We’ve been receiving some Dhamma magazines recently, and they show lots of evidence of carelessness. A chance remark that one teacher makes in a magazine can affect people’s lives for a long time to come. It may strike them in a certain way, and then they think, “Gee, this must be the Dhamma.” Then they take it to heart and live in … 
  12. You Are Not a Textbook
     … We think we’re getting to know the Dhamma, and the Dhamma says that insight means this, insight means that. But the practice basically means getting sensitive to what you’re doing, realizing where you’re causing yourself unnecessary suffering. That’s what the four noble truths are all about. I was reading a passage a while back, a footnote in a book of … 
  13. Ajaan Fuang’s Stories
     … Especially in the beginning, in the months when I was first there with him, he would give a Dhamma talk. Sometimes the talk would be quite long. I didn’t appreciate at the time how rare that was, because in later years he tended to be a man of few words. But those first couple of months, I guess, he decided he wanted to … 
  14. Oneness
    Oneness August 2, 2007 Once, when Ajaan Suwat was here, he asked me to give the Dhamma talk in Thai. I had been translating Ajaan Lee, so I used one of Ajaan Lee’s images: comparing the practice to digging a well. Generosity was like a very shallow well, virtue a deeper well, whereas concentration was a well down to the water table. Afterwards … 
  15. Respect for the Training
     … We want to go to the higher Dhamma, things that are more abstract that seem to be more in line with our level of intelligence. As a result, we tend to miss a lot of the really good lessons that can be learned from paying attention to the basics, giving them a lot of respect. Like the precepts: There are a lot of people … 
  16. Success by Approximation
     … We’re often taught that the Dhamma’s all about trusting. And it’s true that you have to learn how to trust the Buddha and trust your desire for true happiness. But there are things you have to be wary of, both inside and out. I mean, that’s what heedfulness means. So we’re not being unkind when we decide that certain … 
  17. Helping Others
     … The same principle applies as you practice the Dhamma in daily life. We like to think that we can get our minds in order—get everything straightened out inside—and *then *we help other people. But there are times when other people need help and we’re not really ready yet, and yet we cannot *not *help them. So that’s a case where … 
  18. Learn from the Ants
     … Look for it.” I was listening the other day to a Dhamma talk in which someone was saying that the expression of stream-entry, the expression of the Dhamma-eye, is that whatever arises passes away. The end of suffering comes when you just accept that. Look for the fact that whatever you love and hold on to is going to leave you someday … 
  19. No Slivers in the Heart
     … He said that he liked to listen to my Dhamma talks because of the crickets in the background. So tonight we have coyotes. The Canon tells of the time when the Buddha was wounded. Devadatta had hurled a big rock down a mountain, hoping to crush the Buddha. The rock was split into many pieces. It ran into another rock and one of the … 
  20. Sunrise, Sunset
     … He was able to read my mind, I was convinced, and if any random, unskillful thoughts went through it, their content would be the topic of a Dhamma discussion that evening. And I benefited from that. It’s what the Thais call high-level goodwill, where you want the best for somebody, which means that you demand good work from them. Ideally, a teacher … 
  21. Introduction
    Introduction The Noble Search for Happiness June 6, 2007 We practice the Dhamma to create a refuge. It starts as a refuge for ourselves, but it spreads around to protect other people as well. What do we need refuge from? Primarily, our own stupidity, our own carelessness, our own lack of skill. We want happiness—everything we do is based on the desire for … 
  22. Load next page...