Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. A Skillful Heart
     … There are a lot of people who want to have Dhamma without kamma. And so they say, “We have goodwill for all beings because all beings have Buddha-nature or all beings are intrinsically good.” In a case like that, your goodwill is not really independent. When you run across people who are definitely evil in their intentions, what are you going to do … 
  3. More than Just Letting Go
     … That’s why we have the Dhamma; that’s why we’re here practicing. He wanted to solve not only his problem, but also help other people solve theirs. So it’s good to think of his example and how it might apply to our lives. When he talks about ways of doing good in the world, there are basically three: generosity, virtue, meditation … 
  4. Getting Out of Karmic Debt
     … This was one of Ajaan Mun’s favorite Dhamma topics. The Buddha describes them as four. The first three have to do with contentment: You’re content with whatever food, clothing, or shelter you have. At the same time, you don’t exalt yourself and disparage others over the fact that you’re contented and they’re not. But you’re happy with the … 
  5. Complacency
     … There’s one especially fine passage where the Buddha warns about a danger in the future that the monks will use the tips of their tongues to find the tip-most flavors, and the Dhamma will die away. The question is: Do you have the attainment that’s going to make you safe, when those changes come? And if you realize that you don … 
  6. Going Out of Your Way
     … As the Buddha said, if you’re stingy with material things, stingy with the Dhamma, there’s no way you’re going to get into the jhanas—and no way, of course, you’re going to get into nibbana. So it’s good to reflect: How often do you go out of your way for other people? Of the forms of goodness, it’s … 
  7. Dimensions of Right Effort
     … So our duty as meditators when we listen to the Dhamma is to figure out, “Where am I? Which part of the Dhamma talk do I need to listen to right now? And which part can I save for later?” It’s all aimed at the path, and your job will be to figure out when you’re falling off to the right, when … 
  8. Endurance & Contentment
     … It’s because we can change our ways that the Buddha taught the Dhamma. So look into that verbal fabrication. Technically, it’s defined as directed thought and evaluation, but it basically comes down to the chatter going on in the mind. When you invest that chatter with your identity, it makes it hard to step back from it. So instead, you can look … 
  9. Persuasion
     … You need to learn some tricks on the side of the Dhamma. So stop and think. When you’ve talked yourself into doing something bad in the past, how did the dialogue go? Sometimes it was just force of will. Your unskillful desire came bargingvin and just threatened, “I’m just going to break things until you do what I want.” Then you have … 
  10. The Easy Way Out
     … I was reading a Dhamma talk by Ajaan Maha Boowa the other day and he was talking about how the problem with the defilements is we think they’re us, and the idea of removing any of those defilements is like cutting off an arm, taking out your liver, taking out things that you think are vital to you. An important part of the … 
  11. A Sense of Humor
     … That night, after the group sit and the Dhamma talk, he sought out Ajaan Fuang and asked him, “What about the other monks here? Who are the really good meditators around here?” Ajaan Fuang cut him short with one sentence. He said, “I came here to meditate.” Again, that’s a story that doesn’t put Ajaan Maha Boowa in a good light, but … 
  12. Booster Stages
     … The Dhamma allows you to be honest and open inside about everything. So it’s a good path to follow. And this ability to have this kind of dialogue inside is what enables you to get into good states of concentration. In fact it actually forms part of the first level of jhana: directed thought and evaluation. There’s a passage where the Buddha … 
  13. The World Is Aflame
     … A person in the audience who said she’d been meditating for thirty-some years, listening to Dhamma talks for thirty-some years, commented that she had never heard the idea in those talks that the search for happiness was okay. Yet, when you think about it, that’s what the Buddha’s teachings are all about. He’s not affirming the world out … 
  14. A Room of Your Own
     … In Pali, they call it “vihara dhamma,” a home for the mind: a place where, as they keep saying in the suttas, you can enter and remain. In the beginning stages of the meditation, you generally leave it as you leave meditation. But as you get more and more skilled, you realize that you can be here all the time because the present moment … 
  15. The Beginnings of Wisdom
     … That search for a way out becomes wise when we look for someone who’s practiced—as the Buddha says, a contemplative or a brahman, by which he means a noble disciple or at the very least somebody who knows the Dhamma—and we ask that person, “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” This is the … 
  16. No Happiness Other than Peace
     … If we really practice the Dhamma, we have to keep it line with the Buddha’s purpose, which is peace and happiness, wisdom, purity, compassion, all gathered up together. So learn how to stay here. Work with the breath so that there’s a sense of wanting to be here, not because you’re forced to be here but because it’s a really … 
  17. The Forerunner of All Things
     … That way, this force that’s shaping our lives—mano-pubbangama dhamma, the mind is the forerunner of all phenomena—becomes less and less of a scary thought. You’re right here at the source and you’re learning the skills to direct it in the right direction. As for whether other people are doing this, the best way to get them to do … 
  18. Faith in Awakening
     … Based on that, we learn the Dhamma. It furnishes the mind with good maxims and good principles so when questions come up, something the Buddha said will run right in and give us some guidance. So again, we’re borrowing the Buddha’s wisdom. As for discernment, that’s when we develop our own. We see into exactly how the mind creates unnecessary suffering … 
  19. Being Somebody, Going Somewhere
     … The path does have a fruit, and the Dhamma does have an attha, a goal. In fact, attha means both meaning and goal. So you have to look carefully: Where are your actions taking you? Where are your thoughts taking you? After all, your thoughts don’t just sit there. They take you in a certain direction, they “bend the mind” in a certain … 
  20. Harmony Inside & Outside
     … It’s a situation like that, a society like that, where it’s easiest to practice the Dhamma. This is why a split in the Sangha, the Buddha said, is one of the five most heinous things you can do. Once there’s a split, then it’s difficult for people to get along; it’s difficult to practice. Everyone spends his time talking … 
  21. Keep Things Simple
    When you meditate while listening to a Dhamma talk, don’t listen to the talk. Focus on the meditation as much as you can. Give it ninety-nine percent of your attention. Leave only a sliver of attention for the talk. The whole purpose of the talk here is not to distract you from the meditation but to act as a fence so that … 
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