Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. Karma for Freedom
     … This is why the Buddha said that the Dhamma is nourished by committing yourself to the path and then reflecting on the results. But then you don’t just stop with the reflection. You commit yourself more. You learn from your reflection, make changes in what you’re doing, and as a result, the results get better and better. This principle follows all the … 
  3. Making an Effort
    Practicing the Dhamma takes effort. There’s a phrase in the Pali, viriyena dukkhamacceti, which means suffering and stress are overcome through effort, through persistence. Sometimes the idea scares us off, but you have to remember that life itself requires effort. Think of the effort involved in simply keeping the body going, making a living, scrounging around trying to find some happiness. It all … 
  4. Discernment Is in the Details
     … In one of his Dhamma talks, he says that some people have to start out with just one little corner—like being a person with a huge piece of land where you want to start an orchard. You can’t plant all the trees throughout the whole orchard all at once. You take one little corner where you plant your trees, and you look … 
  5. The Advantages of Many Selves
     … Ferret out the good ones and apply them to the Dhamma. That’s how you take advantage of this multiple personality you’ve got. You may have the drawbacks in seeming to have too many different people in there, but the big advantage is that one of your inner selves can look at another inner self and see, “Okay, this is unskillful. I can … 
  6. Develop Your Inner Observer
     … As the Buddha said, the Dhamma is nourished by commitment and reflection. You do what’s required by the path and then you reflect on how well it’s going. And a large part of what you’re doing is learning how to train that ability to reflect well. That’s where the luminosity comes in. The Buddha started with his instructions to Rahula … 
  7. Suffering is an Addiction
     … The Dhamma gives you all kinds of alternative ways of acting, alternative ways of thinking, and the Buddha’s not talking in a sort of nice fairyland way about “Wouldn’t it be nice if someday the human race could be like this or like that?” He’s saying that these are things individual human beings can do, and when they do them, they … 
  8. The Noble Search Makes Us Human
     … Just this evening, I was reading an article by a psychologist who was talking about her Dhamma teacher who’d had some training in a monastery, and yet he didn’t have any training in being a human being – or so she said. In the monastery they taught detachment, whereas being human, of course, is all about being attached, entangled. Now that view places … 
  9. Crossing the River
     … We’ve got the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha as our refuge in the sense that we have their example that it is possible to get across the river safely and to find true safety on the other side. And following their example, you put this raft together. Sometimes it’s discouraging, though. You put it together little bit, but it’s not … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. 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 … 
  12. 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 … 
  13. 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 … 
  14. Admen Inside
     … They want us to get to the point where we don’t care—in other words, where we’re lacking ottappa, lacking compunction, not caring about the results of our actions, living in a world where the Dhamma doesn’t exist, where the Buddha doesn’t exist, where Ajaan Lee and Ajaan Mun, all the great ajaans, don’t exist. But again, she’s … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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.
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