Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. Believing & Knowing
     … There seem to be two stages in that last knowledge, first in terms of the four noble truths that led to what’s called the arising of the Dhamma eye, and then—once the duties that are appropriate to the four noble truths have been completed—the four noble truths about the effluent of sensuality, the effluent of views, the effluent of ignorance. You … 
  3. In Training
     … The Buddha teaches dispassion as the ultimate Dhamma; Ven. Sariputta said the teaching was all about the subduing of desire and passion. That doesn’t mean that the Buddha tells you not to desire anything at all from the get-go. It means thinking very carefully about desire—desires, plural—and getting both your heart and your mind acting together in deciding which desires … 
  4. How to Feed Mindfulness
     … You have to be grateful for the times when they’ve chosen to be skillful, and grateful to yourself for the times you’ve chosen to be skillful, because thinking in this way helps to break down the barriers in the mind that say, “I don’t want to think about the Dhamma right now. I want to think about sex, or I want … 
  5. Skillful Desire
     … But there’s another place where he says, “All things are rooted in desire, all phenomena are rooted in desire.” The word for thing or phenomenon here—dhamma—can be mean good or bad things. It can even include the path. The only thing that’s beyond the category of dhamma is nibbana. So the path is based on desire, and whatever else our … 
  6. Initiative
     … That’s the meaning that they derived from the phrase, “practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma.” The Canon says it’s referring to the fact that you practice for the sake of dispassion. But for the forest ajaans, it also meant that whatever was required to develop the mind, you’d do it. If they had ever heard that saying from the … 
  7. Good Humor
    Good Humor May 11, 2005 Ajaan Suwat would often begin his evening Dhamma talks by saying to put yourself in a good mood, to approach the meditation with a sense of confidence, reminding yourself that you’re doing something that’s very good. It may be difficult, but it’s good. And it requires that you keep yourself in a good mood, no matter … 
  8. The Will to Awaken
     … When you look at the qualities that lead to awakening—things like the ten perfections—they come under the headings of what the Buddha talks of as the adhitthana dhamma , things that are willed. There are actually four: discernment, truth, relinquishment, and peace or calming. All of these are things that we have to will in order to find them. Now the problem with … 
  9. Not-self for the Sake of Happiness
     … He got them to an experience of the Dhamma Eye, where they actually saw the deathless from accepting his teaching on right view. That way, they could see for themselves that, yes, by letting go of the clinging, letting go of the craving, you do find a happiness that’s a lot better than anything else you’ve had before. It was only then … 
  10. Fear of Death
     …  We don’t want to lose the body;  we don’t want to lose our human sensual pleasures;  we realize that we’ve done unskillful and cruel things in life, and we’re afraid of some sort punishment after death; and  we haven’t seen the true Dhamma—in other words, we haven’t realized that there is a deathless … 
  11. How Right Mindfulness Leads to Right Concentration
     … All of them are moving in on you, crushing all living beings in their path.’ Considering that human life is so hard to come by, what would you do?” The king replied, “What else could I do? Calm my mind and practice the Dhamma.” And the Buddha said, “I tell you: Aging, illness, and death are moving in on you, crushing all living beings … 
  12. Owning Your Actions
     … This is why, of the ajaans’ Dhamma talks, I’d say eighty percent are basically pep talks. The people they were teaching in Thailand, especially back in the time of Ajaan Mun, were all children of peasants. They were at the bottom rung of the society. The hierarchy in Bangkok didn’t even notice them. Yet all the great ajaans, both the monks and … 
  13. Fabricated Path, Unfabricated Goal
     … The Buddha uses the same term in the concentration that he does when he recommends how you should listen to a Dhamma talk. The word is ekagga. It’s sometimes translated as “one-pointed.” But although the word eka means “one,” agga doesn’t necessarily mean “point.” It means “summit,” and it also means “gathering place,” which is probably the meaning most relevant here … 
  14. Strength of Mindfulness
     … In the same way, you have to learn how to grasp the Dhamma in the correct way. We’re not here to engage in arguments and debates. We’re not here to say that we’re better than other people because of our views, or that we have to impose our views on other people. That would be like grasping the snake by the … 
  15. The Pleasure of Concentration
     … This is in line with the Buddha’s general principle for how the Dhamma is nourished. He says you commit yourself to it and then you reflect. The committing means that you do what the Dhamma says. You devote yourself to a particular practice. And then you look at the results over time to see if there’s anything that needs to be adjusted … 
  16. The River Gauge
     … I was listening to a Dhamma talk by an ajaan the other day, saying that if you have an attitude that you’re here trying to improve yourself, trying to improve your actions, trying to improve your mind, that’s a lot of fabrication. Yet you’re trying to get beyond fabrication. He said that in a way that implied that you couldn’t … 
  17. Cleanliness is Next to Mindfulness
     … Ajaan Lee devotes almost a whole Dhamma talk to the topic of cleanliness. The title of the talk is “Reflection on Virtue,” or “Recollection of Virtue,” but a good two-thirds of the talk is about being clean. That’s an important part of virtue. In other words, while you’re living here, don’t think that the day-to-day facts of eating … 
  18. Strengthening Concentration
     … You begin to see that the discovery of the Dhamma, the discovery of something that really is deathless inside, is something of genuine worth. It’s your only hope for any kind of genuine happiness. Learn how to motivate yourself in this way, or in whatever way that works. After all, this is something that’s really very individual. Sometimes you read the different … 
  19. True Honesty
    As I mentioned this afternoon, one of the amazing things about coming to teach the Dhamma in America is how difficult people find it to really sincerely have goodwill for themselves—how hard they find it to really wish for their own true happiness. This may be because the way our culture teaches us to hate ourselves. We may be the wrong race, the … 
  20. When the Mind Is Still
     … Where is that extent? Where is the boundary? We’re not here just to give our allegiance to the Buddha and say, “Yes, he’s right.” These three things are built into the world, as the passage we chanted just now said, “Whether a Tathagata arises in the world or not, there’s this quality of the Dhamma: All fabrications are inconstant. All fabrications … 
  21. Brahmaviharas & Noble Truths
     … As the Buddha said, of all the dhammas of the world that are fabricated, the path is the highest. But of all the dhammas of the world, whether fabricated or unfabricated, dispassion is higher. Dispassion comes when you see that the best you can do with fabrication is to develop long-term happiness—but the long-term is eventually going to end, and you … 
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