Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. Endurance & Equanimity
     … That’s certainly not a Dhamma desire. So you develop restraint and then you learn how to maintain it. That’s the patience, the endurance. No matter how outrageous the other person gets, you’re not going to do or say anything unskillful. This doesn’t mean you don’t say anything at all. If you can think of something that can diffuse the … 
  3. Two Roads to the Grand Canyon
     … And staying with the teacher is not just a matter of learning about the words of the Dhamma or of the Vinaya, or learning about the techniques of meditation. It’s a total training because if you’re going to be observant in your meditation, you have to learn how to be observant outside. It may seem like little things are unimportant: where things … 
  4. Evaluating the Practice
     … It’s a sign that we know each other now.” The purpose of really knowing your teacher this way is that you’ve internalized the Dhamma, and that becomes your refuge. This ability to step back and evaluate is not just a factor of concentration; it’s *trained *in concentration. It gets more and more refined as we work on evaluating our thoughts so … 
  5. Skillful Thinking
     … If you’re really having trouble focusing on the present, think of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Those topics help foster conviction in the path and in your own ability to practice the path. After all, the members of the noble Sangha are human beings just like you. They started out with all the strengths and weakness you have and somehow they … 
  6. The Gatekeeper Doesn’t Just Note
     … Who cares about what the Dhamma says? Who cares about the fact that we’re trying to meditate?” it’ll dangle a little something in front of you and then disguise it. The message will have been received, but large parts of the mind are ignorant of what’s going on. It’s like spies inside and outside of the fortress sending messages back … 
  7. In the Land of Wrong View
     … The Dhamma is here to say, “You do have the choice of acting more skilfully.” This is why that factor for awakening called “analysis of qualities” comes down to seeing dark and bright qualities in the mind, recognizing what’s skillful and what’s not skillful—in other words, reminding you that you do have these choices. There are skillful choices always available. The … 
  8. A Full Heart
     … That ended up being one of the longest Dhamma talks I ever got out of Ajaan Fuang. He talked for a long time about the different meanings of tem chai in that passage. From his point of view it had lots of different meanings. First there was the idiomatic meaning of being fully willing to do something, fully giving yourself to the practice. When … 
  9. Riding an Elephant to Catch Grasshoppers
     … There’s a nice passage in one of Ajaan Maha Boowa’s Dhamma talks, where he wrote a little introduction to the talk, saying that it was delivered to one of the more important monks of our day and age. It turned out that he was referring to a monk who was not well known at all, but someone with a high attainment. That … 
  10. Seeing Danger in Birth
     … In Thailand, there’s a textbook they use for the Dhamma exams for lay people. It divides ceremonies into two sorts: those that are auspicious and those that are inauspicious. The inauspicious ones all have to do with death. But the idea that anything associated with death is inauspicious is not a Buddhist idea. It’s more Brahmanical. The Buddhist attitude is that if … 
  11. The Skills of Stillness
     … He says the Dhamma is nourished by commitment and reflection. You commit yourself to doing it, trying to do it as well as you can, and then you reflect on the results. If the results aren’t good, you go back and you make adjustments. Reflect again, commit again, reflect again. This way, you become your own teacher. After all, you’re not dealing … 
  12. The Brightness of Life
     … The Buddha said this is how the Dhamma is found—by committing to the path, and particularly committing to what he calls the heightened mind: getting the mind in concentration, getting in right concentration—which implies all of the factors of the path—and then watching what you’re doing. It’s in this ability to watch ourselves in action that we begin to … 
  13. Rottweilers in the House
     … Everyone here is a friend of the Dhamma, so take that as your assumption. Given that we’re all here meditating, one of the best things you can do to show that you’re friendly is to give other people the space to meditate and be quiet. We all have the same values here. So take that as establishing the fact that you are … 
  14. Circumspection
     … someone who’s newly introduced the Dhamma, really enthusiastic, and they’re giving so much that it’s harming the family. The monks are told not to go to their house so as not to put too much pressure on them, until they seem to have gained a sense of just right or what’s enough for them. There’s also the issue of … 
  15. Focused on Results
     … So you learn how to find some humor in the situation, keep yourself entertained in ways that are in line with the Dhamma. This is how the ajaans became the ajaans. Their senses of humor saw them through. So we do focus on results. We focus on acting in a skillful way and learning from the results of our actions. That’s how the … 
  16. Virtues & Values
     … That’s what the chant about the Dhamma says: “This is to be known by the observant for themselves.” This is why each of us has to develop the skill inside individually. But when we’re all practicing, we all offer support to one another. In that way, our practice acquires strength, and we can reach the goal at which we all aim.
  17. Death World
     … We have the Dhamma. We have communities of practitioners who enable us to feed our goodness, who encourage us to feed our goodness, give us recommendations, give us advice, give us encouragement. So take advantage of that network. That way, at the very least as you leave Death World, your goodness will still survive. And that’s a survival that really matters.
  18. Four Virtues
     … As one of the forest ajaans once said, Dhamma is one thing clear through, starting with generosity and going up all the way to the noble attainments. So as you’re working on your precepts, maintaining them throughout the day, it’s an important element in training and developing the mind. The second kind of virtue is restraint of the senses. The mind goes … 
  19. Correcting, Fostering, Cutting Away
     … Then remind yourself of whatever Dhamma theme is appropriate. You have the choice to think what you’re going to think. Just because a certain mood has taken over doesn’t mean that it’s your mood for right now and you can’t get out. Step back a bit. Breathe. Breathe through all the clouds of whatever that mood is. When things become … 
  20. The Use of the Present
     … The Dhamma is like medicine. He’s like a doctor. And here you are, learning to be a doctor yourself, taking the things that you used to use to poison yourself and figuring out how, if you mix them in a different way, they can actually become medicines. So the present is here to be used. And the teachings are here to teach us … 
  21. The World of Conviction
     … They will understand the Dhamma.” The Buddha surveyed the world with his own knowledge and realized that that was true. So he decided to teach. The commentators get tied into knots about this story. The idea that the Buddha could even entertain the notion of not teaching others bothers them. But it’s related to the fact that when you gain full awakening, you … 
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