Search results for: "Dhamma"

  1. Page 64
  2. Taking the Long View
     … One of the strange tendencies in modern Dhamma is to tell people, “Don’t try too hard, don’t place too many demands on yourself. Don’t make yourself miserable over the fact that the mind isn’t centered, the mind’s not settling down. Don’t even try. Just let it happen naturally.” But death doesn’t say that. Death says, “You’re … 
  3. Respect for Tranquility & Insight
     … They hadn’t read much Dhamma at all. When they came to him, he’d say, “Do this.” So they would do this. When they had done that, then he’d say, “Well, now do this.” They’d come and report on what happened, “Well, now do this.” Step by step by step—treating it as an exploration. Try to have that same attitude … 
  4. Admirable Friendship
    Admirable Friendship November 13, 2002 Practicing the Dhamma is primarily an issue of looking at yourself, looking at your own thoughts, your own words, your own deeds, seeing what’s skillful, seeing what’s not. It’s not so much an issue of self-improvement as one of action-improvement, word-improvement, and thought-improvement. This is an important distinction, because people in the … 
  5. On Your Own Two Feet
     … This is why we take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha to begin with. They give us examples of how to train ourselves, so that we can eventually stand on our own two feet. And particularly so that we can gain a sense of what’s right and wrong, what should be believed and what shouldn’t be believed. And here … 
  6. Remembering Luang Lung
     … When Luang Lung moved to Wat Makut, he suggested that the abbot go listen to Ajaan Lee, who was giving Dhamma talks at the time at another monastery in Bangkok. The abbot was very impressed. The abbot eventually became Supreme Patriarch, and it was at Luang Lung’s instigation that he invited Ajaan Fuang to teach at Wat Makut. Luang Lung looked after Ajaan … 
  7. Don’t Limit Yourself
     … Even the word Dhamma has, as one of its meanings, action. So we’re focusing on actions. We’re trying to expand our ability and see what good use we can put them to. One very good use is to notice ways in which we’re creating unnecessary stress and suffering for ourselves and for other people, and to learn how to stop. In … 
  8. Anger
     … If meditation were simply a matter of learning how to get very still in the present moment, how do you think all of those different Dhamma teachings would have developed? All of what they call the 84,000 different division of the Dhamma in the Canon came from someone who was really focused on the issue of skill and lack of skill, trying to … 
  9. Determined to Be Undefeated by Death
     … You notice it, you’re aware of it, you watch it, take it as a good Dhamma lesson: These things, too, pass away. But there’s something in the mind that doesn’t die. The more you’ve been meditating, the clearer that will become. So the skills you develop—the determination to get the mind to settle down and all the qualities that … 
  10. What’s Getting in the Way
    What’s Getting in the Way August 19, 2013 One of the main purposes of listening to the Dhamma is to get a sense of possibilities. We read the life of the Buddha to get a sense of what a human being can do, but all too often his story seems to be off there in never-never land, something someone far away in … 
  11. Victory in Battle
     … All too often, Dhamma practice is viewed as simple acceptance. You basically give up on any kind of battle and say, “Well, things are just going to pass away. They’re inconstant, impermanent. There’s nothing out there that’s really worth getting anyhow”— which is very defeatist. The Buddha definitely said there are things that are worth getting. It’s simply a matter … 
  12. Finding Your Own Balance
     … We come to the Dhamma and, on the one hand, yes, we are asked to have faith in the Buddha’s awakening, but we also have to realize that our understanding of what that means is pretty primitive. It comes out of ignorance. So we have to keep testing that understanding to see where the ignorance lies, where our faith may be misguided—misguided … 
  13. The Wall of Discernment
     … You need mindfulness as the gatekeeper, and right effort as the soldiers, knowledge of the Dhamma as their weapons, concentration as their food. Conviction is the foundation post. All of these things working together enable discernment to do its work to make sure that your fortress, and the protection it provides, can be complete.
  14. Chanting on Your Own
     … As you know, it’s a chant on the qualities of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, relating them to the six properties, the six dhātu. I found that it really did help with the meditation. Thinking in terms of those properties was not part of my upbringing here in the West. It was one of the aspects of meditation instruction that was … 
  15. Make a Difference
     … Even if the TV is saying good things, helpful things—you’ve got talks of Dhamma going on— still, it’s making a lot of noise. This is when you put aside all the things that you’ve studied and learned. You just get the mind really, really still. This is a principle you see throughout the Forest Tradition. In Thailand, the monks who … 
  16. Work with It
     … Remember how the Buddha talked about the standards for what constitutes true Dhamma is that it leads to freedom—to being unfettered—and to dispassion. Now, that dispassion is something unfabricated. But to get there, you have to have an anticipation that it’s something really positive. This is part of the work of fabrication: the work of the way you talk to yourself … 
  17. The Sublime Attitudes
     … Ajaan Suwat once gave a Dhamma talk on this reflection, focusing on the difference between the anatta teaching and this one statement. Form, feeling, perceptions, thought-constructs, consciousness: These are not self. But we are the owners of our actions. “Think about that,” he said. In other words, don’t latch on to the results of your actions; latch on to the fact that … 
  18. Helping Yourself by Helping Others
     … If they think you’re weak, then they know nothing of the Dhamma”—because you have to remember that qualities like goodwill, patience, equanimity, and kindness are forms of strength. There’s that story where Lady Vedehika is famous for being kind, generous, and mild-mannered. And she has a slave woman, Kali. And Kali starts wondering, “Why does she have this good reputation … 
  19. Training the Whole Mind
     … In the practice of the Dhamma you’re looking after your own mind, attending to your own mind’s needs. It’s not so much that you’re learning about Buddhism. You’re learning about your own mind, looking after your own mind. That’s when the meditation really starts showing its value. It rearranges all the power balances in the mind so that … 
  20. Humility & Confidence
     … He didn’t simply make up the Dhamma and teach it to people because it sounded nice. It was through trial and effort that he had to shape his understanding of what actually worked. Then when he got results, he came out and taught what he had learned. As for the confidence, he believed that life wasn’t worth living unless you at least … 
  21. When You Hit a Plateau
     … For me, one of the most revelatory Dhamma books I ever read was the one where Ajaan MahaBoowa was giving talks to a woman who was dying of cancer. He talks about his own practice, dealing with pain. He starts talking about the different questions he asked about the pain and the things he observed in his mind. They were questions that I had … 
  22. Load next page...