Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. Learning from the Precepts
     … The Buddha doesn’t matter; the teachings of the ajaans and all the effort they went to re-establish the Dhamma, they don’t matter. When you have that kind of wall in your mind, you’re not going to learn anything. It’s when you act on impulses that are skillful that the mind is a lot more open to itself, more open … 
  3. Feeding on Ardency
     … You’re supposed to take delight in the Dhamma, delight in developing, delight in abandoning. Realize that this is really good food for you. Not only good for you, but you learn to see that it tastes good, too. So we’re not here just to be passive, not here just to watch things come and watch things go, and say “Gee, things come … 
  4. Calm
     … Right now, listen to the voices that are in line with the Dhamma. As for the other voices, you can ignore them. If you stay in line with the Dhamma, then you’re on the path going in the right direction, the path to the end of suffering. It’s a good path to be on.
  5. The Wisdom of Incongruity
     … Are you that kind of meditator? If you are, do want to keep on being that kind of meditator? Or can you see the wisdom of being more willing to listen to the Dhamma before things really dig into your bones? Learn how to think about things in terms of these analogies instead of your normal ones, and they give you a new perspective … 
  6. Not-self in Context
     … In that passage we chanted just now, the Buddha said the teaching that all dhammas are not-self is true whether there are Buddhas or no Buddhas. That might lead to the conclusion that it’s a categorical truth—true across the board—and it is true across the board. But it’s not always beneficial. There are places in the Canon where the … 
  7. Inner Authorities
     … I was having a conversation one time with someone whose background was in Christianity and Zen, and he said, “Really, you Theravadins, what do you have faith in?” He added, “It has to be something specific, not something general like the Dhamma.” I said, “I have faith in the Buddha’s awakening—that he really was awakened through his own efforts, and that he … 
  8. 1. The Entertaining Breath
     … You look at Ajaan Lee’s Dhamma talks. He talks about the breath energy in the body in lots of different ways. As for Method Two in Keeping the Breath in Mind, he developed that when he was stuck up in the forest in northern Thailand. He had walked in three days, and he was going to spend the rains retreat in a very … 
  9. Bring the Right Attitude
     … Ajaan Fuang, when you would first come to meditate with him, would have you pay homage to the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha as examples of the values you want to have in your life. Then he’d have you focus on the breath. But in some cases, he’d have people spread thoughts of goodwill, to realize that the search for happiness … 
  10. Unburdensome, Part 2
     … That’s the deciding factor as to whether they’re in line with the Dhamma or not. There’s a story in the Canon, one of the origin stories for the rule against the storing of food. There’s an arahant whose name was Ven. Velaṭṭhasīsa. He was Ānanda’s preceptor. The commentary says he had been the leader of the Kassapa brothers, the … 
  11. A Conglomeration of Germs
     … We need the body to practice, but for a lot of us the body has very little to do with practicing the Dhamma, and everything to do with practicing things that are not Dhamma. This is why we have to contemplate it to ask ourselves, “What in here is of any essence?” It’s all going to die someday. If you’re attached to … 
  12. Admirable Friendship
     … not only teaching us the Dhamma but also giving us the patterns and the protocols to show how a group of people living together practicing the Dhamma can live together so that they continue the principle of admirable friendship. He was giving each person space so we have the solitude and the quiet that can be conducive to the mind. At the same time … 
  13. Goodwill in Action
     … Think about the Buddha’s teachings to Gotami, about how to test what’s true Dhamma and what’s not. That’s a good way of checking if you really do have metta when you’re influencing other people. One, are you unburdensome? Are you placing burdens on other people that you really don’t have to? Two, are you modest? Are you trying … 
  14. Persistence
     … As the Buddha said, if you attain the Dhamma eye, the amount of suffering left ahead of you is like dirt under a fingernail, whereas if you haven’t, the amount of suffering ahead of you is like all the dirt in the Earth. So which is more painful? Which is longer? Think about these things until you have a sense that you really … 
  15. The Acrobat
     … Several years back, I gave a Dhamma talk to a small group, and after the Dhamma talk, people came up and presented little things, like a leaf: The leaf was what sticks in my mind. There were other things, some of them were useful and some of them were just sentimental little things that I was going to have to throw away as soon … 
  16. Living Honorably
     … There’s a mountain moving in from the west, crushing all living beings; and another mountain coming from the north—altogether four mountains moving in.” He then asks, “Considering that human life is so precious and hard to obtain, what would you do?” The king replies, “What else could I do but calm my mind and practice the Dhamma?” And then the Buddha says … 
  17. Furnishing Your Home for the Mind
     … In fact one of the Pali terms of for meditation is *vihara-dhamma: *the place where the mind makes its home. How do you make a home out of the breath? Well, the same way you make a house into a home. You bring in some furniture that you like, you decorate the walls, you paint it the color you like. You put some … 
  18. Noble Standards
     … I visited a Dhamma center recently where some of the students were complaining that their teachers were constantly pulling the Buddha down to their level. For instance, the teachers were talking about how the reports of the knowledges the Buddha gained on the night of his awakening don’t really sound possible. Maybe it was just a case of lucid dreaming, and we know … 
  19. Time Well Spent
     … You sit here talking to yourself, and it’s hard enough trying to just talk to yourself about the breath, talk to yourself about getting the mind to be with the breath, but if a lot of other topics have been brought up during the course of the day that are not related to the Dhamma, they’re going to ricochet around inside your … 
  20. Survival Dhamma
    “Heedfulness is the path to the deathless. Heedlessness, the path to death. The heedful do not die. The heedless as if already dead.” That’s one of the more famous verses in the Dhammapada and it’s the Buddha’s advice on survival. On one level, it sounds pretty ordinary. Any kind of survival— wilderness survival, survival in a city—requires that you be … 
  21. May I Look After Myself with Ease
     … This is one of the reasons why we practice the Dhamma. As we practice the Dhamma, it’s like providing food, clothing, shelter, and medicine for the mind. The practice of the precepts is like clothes for the mind. The function of clothing is to protect us from the vagaries of the climate but also to cover up, as the Buddha said, the parts … 
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