Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. A Refuge Inside
     … We take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, but that doesn’t mean we’re finding our ultimate refuge in Prince Siddhartha of 2600 years ago, or in the words of the Dhamma, or in the monks who form the monastic Sangha, or even in the noble ones who form the noble Sangha. Those are external refuges, and they play a … 
  3. The Need for Agency
     … It’s also why he said that the Dhamma is nourished by commitment and reflection: You commit to doing it, and then you reflect on the results of what you’ve done. Then you take your reflections and use them to inform your next action, and your next. Pursue this as a skill because it’s through pursuing these skills—the skills of mindfulness … 
  4. Mindfulness as Refuge
    There’s a passage where the Buddha tells his followers to take the Dhamma as their refuge, and he equates that with taking yourself as your refuge. This means that you have to remake yourself so that you’re reliable. He recommends that you do that by following the instructions on establishing mindfulness. And by this, he doesn’t mean simply being aware of … 
  5. Right View
    Right View November 20, 2007 The discourse we chanted just now—“Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion”—starts with the whole noble eightfold path and then goes into right view. And that’s all it discusses in detail: right view, going through the four noble truths. Simply listening to this talk on right view, one of the Five Brethren had his first taste … 
  6. Non-Reactive Judgment
     … She had talked to some of her Dhamma friends afterwards and they had said, “Oh, don’t think so much about it. You probably didn’t mean to.” She told me, “Well, I did mean to.” The friends who were trying to make her feel good were actually trying to anesthetize her inner critic. But when that happens, your precepts start getting sloppy. When … 
  7. Limitations
     … You read his Dhamma talks after he wrote Method Two. He keeps coming up with new ways of thinking about the breath, to deal with the problems that were coming up in his body. And of course, discernment requires imagination. You’ve got a problem, say, with pain. You’ve got a problem with distraction. You’ve got a problem with lust. How can … 
  8. Stepping Out of Yourself
     … Then you can look at the broken bits, as the emotion tries to reassemble itself, and you can ask, “Why are you compelled to go with it?” This is where having some knowledge of the Dhamma can help, because emotions are not just raw feelings. They have their thoughts behind them as well. The way you talk to yourself, the things you focus on … 
  9. Purifying Gold
     … In the first step of the concentration, you still have thoughts of the Dhamma. As you try to get the mind to settle down, you can engage in recollection of the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, recollection of your virtue—in other words, ways of thinking that will induce you to want to settle the mind down. Or thoughts that give rise to a … 
  10. The Ten Priorities
     … When you look at how Dhamma practice fits in your life, or what can be accomplished by Dhamma practice, it’s good to look in terms of these qualities of mind. That way, even as you work at your job, live with your family, and deal with all the issues of lay life, there’s a way of connecting them to the practice. It … 
  11. The Prison Break
     … You keep at this process, minding your own business, without any thought about the Dhamma-eye or the different levels of awakening or the different levels of jhana. You simply peel away any place where you find that you’re creating any stress or disturbance for yourself. You’ll find that you’ll break through. The Buddha gives the image of a carpenter who … 
  12. Equanimity Isn’t Everything
     … Otherwise, you’re defenseless in the face of not only difficult situations, you’re also defenseless in the face of your defilements, because they can take on the voice of Dhamma themselves. They say, “Well, don’t be desiring, don’t have craving.” Defilements can say that, too. “Don’t desire to be rid of us, just learn to accept us.” It sounds like … 
  13. Taking Responsibility
     … This is how the Buddha said you learn about what’s Dhamma and what’s not Dhamma: through where it leads when you act on it. Because it’s only through the practice that we really do give direction to our lives. Otherwise, we’re like that stick thrown up in the air, sometimes falling on this end, sometimes falling on that end, sometimes … 
  14. The Skill of Letting Go
     … It’s just that in all these years that I’ve been coming to support the Buddha, coming to the monastery, I’ve never heard a Dhamma talk like this.” Sāriputta says, “Talks like this are usually not given to lay people.” So Anathapindika says, as a request, “Please tell the Buddha to give talks like this to lay people.” Then he dies and … 
  15. Hope
     … This is the way I am.” But if people couldn’t change, there’d be no point in the Buddha’s having taught the Dhamma. There’d be no point in our trying to practice the Dhamma. The point is that we can change, that the suffering we create for ourselves is unnecessary. A lot of people don’t like to hear this. They … 
  16. Don’t Stop with Acceptance
     … But when it works, okay, it’s Dhamma. Ajaan Mun seems to have encouraged that quality in his students. You read the different ajaans, and they all have their own take on things. It’s not as if there’s a single school of thought or a single vocabulary that applies to all of them. I found when I was translating the different ajaans … 
  17. Getting Back on Your Feet
     … Ajaan Lee would often make the point that people are in much too great a hurry to go to what they think are the high level dhammas, while they tend to look down on the really basic things, like staying with the breath. Or just repeating a meditation word: People look down on that, too. But your ability to do that really well, is … 
  18. Suffering Is a Feeding Addiction
     … Years back, I was going through some books of Ajaan Maha Boowa’s Dhamma talks, choosing talks to translate into English. I kept noticing how many of the talks were basically talks of encouragement, pep talks. He challenged the monks, either criticizing them in such a way to make them develop some fighting spirit or encouraging them that they had the ability to work … 
  19. Accepting the Way Out
     … So where does the Dhamma come in all of this? There’s nothing in the Dhamma to force you to think positively. It doesn’t say you shouldn’t suffer, or that if you are suffering it’s all your own fault. But it does say that you have the choice as to whether you’re going to suffer from outside circumstances. The Buddha … 
  20. Quality
     … This is why the Dhamma is so amazing. It requires really good qualities of mind in order to know it. It can’t be known by people who don’t have those qualities of mind. So work on quality, not on quantity. If you’ve got one good moment of meditation, it’s a good thing. Then string it up to the next one … 
  21. Right View Comes First
     … In the teachings that the Buddha gives to people who are on the verge of arahantship, one of them is that “All dhammas are unworthy of adherence.” That means everything—good, bad, fabricated, unfabricated, whatever—has to be let go. In fact, even that teaching, because it’s a dhamma too: That’s going to have to be let go as well. This is … 
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