Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. Choosing a Teacher
     … Don’t go by the impression you get simply by listening to a few Dhamma talks on YouTube. Although one thing you can learn is if you go into a chat room, and there’s a teacher involved in the chat room, notice how the teacher handles arguments. That can give you a sense of how he or she deals with people. Otherwise, you … 
  3. Giving & Taking Time
     … This is why the ajaans in Thailand give so many pep talks when they’re giving Dhamma talks. As you feel up to it, you feel energized by the talk and ready to give more. But sometimes you have to draw on your own resources. So you’ve got to develop that right attitude that we’re not here to “get” something without first … 
  4. Your Intentions Come First
     … The very first verses in the Dhammapada say, “The mind is the forerunner of all dhammas; it’s in charge.” So don’t abdicate the fact that you’re in charge. Take advantage of it. Make up your mind that you’re going to stay here and keep that in mind. That’s what mindfulness is for. It’s to remind you that how … 
  5. Fear of Others
     … I think I’ve told you about the time when I gave my first Dhamma talk. Ajaan Fuang said, “Imagine that you have a sword in your hand. Anybody out there in the audience who doesn’t like what you have to say, you can just cut off their head.” It’s a shocking image, but it was effective. It made me reflect back … 
  6. Integrity — In Memory of Luang Loong
     … Officially in the textbooks that teach Dhamma in Thailand, they talk about a funeral as an inauspicious occasion. But actually the Buddha never taught that. Any occasion that gives rise to heedfulness, he said, is an auspicious occasion. When you see a dead person, he said, you reflect on the fact that that’s the fate of your body as well. Then the next … 
  7. Turn Off the Automatic Pilot
     … This is one of the reasons why we read Dhamma books: They help us question areas that we previously didn’t question before. We just felt: This is the way it has to be, this is the way it is naturally, or whatever. So we just accept that and put up with it. We thought we were doing the right thing, we thought we … 
  8. How to Be Self-Centered
     … As I’ve said before, the Buddha said that our practice is one of looking for the Dhamma through committing ourselves to the practice and reflecting on what we’re doing as we practice. The voice of that reflection has to be trained just as the committed side has to be trained. One of the first lessons is to learn how to approach this … 
  9. Common Ground
     … So this is what the Dhamma stresses: We all have something in common. We’re all suffering and we’re all suffering in basically the same ways. We could help one another along wherever our particular problems in getting the mind into this common ground are similar—or even when they’re different. That gives you a new perspective on what your problems are … 
  10. The Bridge to Concentration
     … Every five days they would stay late up into the night, discussing Dhamma. That’s the ideal community. In other word, you’re not dumb. You don’t maintain total silence, but you talk only when it’s necessary. You talk about things that are really helpful, things you know about. You’re here not only to look after your own concentration and to … 
  11. Contemplation of the Body
     … A lot of the best Dhamma books in Thailand are the ones printed at funerals, so as you read these Dhamma books you can’t help but look at some of the biographies. They all follow the same pattern. The person was doing well, had a happy life, wife, husband, children, whatever. Then after a while he or she started to develop a particular … 
  12. You’ve Got Friends
     … You’ve got the Dhamma and you’ve got the example of the Buddha and the Sangha, and they’re all rooting for you. So accept their help. It’s offered freely.
  13. The Breath All the Way
     … Try thinking about the Dhamma, the Sangha. See if that gives a sense of gladness. Think about the times you’ve been virtuous or generous in the past, and see if that’s encouraging. In other words, any Dhamma topic that helps to gladden the mind: You can bring that in and use it. Then, when it’s done its work, go back to … 
  14. Bojjhanga: Discernment Fosters Concentration
     … So you use what discernment you’ve learned in the past or learned from Dhamma talks and apply it to stilling the mind. Then, once the mind is still, you can start seeing things for your own. This point is made again and again in the teachings of the ajaans. Ajaan Maha Boowa devoted a whole book to the theme of discernment fostering concentration … 
  15. Will Meditation Make You Grim & Dull?
     … I was listening recently to a Dhamma teacher someplace talking about how the practice has to be animated by a sense of trust. He went on to say that this doesn’t have to be trust in anything in particular, just general trust in the world, or I don’t know what, in whatever. That’s totally opposed to what the Buddha taught. He … 
  16. When You Care
     … So read up on the Dhamma to learn what kind of actions lead to bad results and then you try to avoid those actions. The Buddha says that killing leads to a shortened life. Being cruel and beating up other beings, causing them pain, leads to a lot of illness. Showing disrespect for others leads to your being subject to disrespect. And not taking … 
  17. Concentration
     … Even modern books on Dhamma say that you don’t want to get stuck on concentration, that you’d much rather go straight onto insight because that’s where the real action is. In fact, it’s pretty perverse. In so many books on concentration, on page one they define it, on page two they tell you that it’s dangerous, before they even … 
  18. Recollection of the Buddha
     … He also gives specific guidance in how best to act, so you don’t have to reinvent the Dhamma wheel every time you start practicing. So this recollection of the Buddha is a good protection. It protects us from that attitude that says, “Well, if I don’t know something, I’m not going to believe it.” The fact is, there are a lot … 
  19. The Quest for Inner Happiness
     … But before that chant, we also have the chant reflecting on the qualities of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, to remind ourselves of how the Buddha found happiness, how he taught others to find happiness, and the qualities of the people who followed his teachings so that they could find happiness, too. And particularly the qualities of the Buddha. They come down … 
  20. Dwelling in Emptiness
     … We have to remember that the Buddha’s main explanation of how you get to know the Dhamma is through committing to the practice and then reflecting on it. Emptiness as a dwelling requires that you be able to reflect. And that’s the kind of concentration that all the ajaans teach: You get the mind really, really still, and then you pull out … 
  21. Patience Is a Skill
     … There’s so much modern Dhamma where they say to just learn how to accept things. Be radical in your acceptance, and it’ll be okay. But the Buddha said you don’t accept the fact that you’ve created aversion and delusion in the mind and that they’re going to stay there. You accept the fact that they’re there, but you … 
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