Search results for: "Dhamma"
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- The Core of Experience… All dhammas, he said, have release as their core. For “core,” he used the word sara, the heartwood of a tree. But that’s what it basically means: essence, core. Release is the only core to be found in experience, but there is a core there. If there were no core at all, we’d just be floating around with nothing of any real …
- Exercising the Mind… These are lessons you learn sometimes from listening to the Dhamma, sometimes from your own observation of what you’ve done. And you want to be able to keep those lessons in mind so that when a strong emotion comes, you’re not suddenly pulled by the emotion into forgetting what you know is really good for you in the long term. We try …
- Pride… I’ve got to work on it.” As a result, he said, he turned the whole thing into Dhamma. So learn to let go or your mana when it’s getting in the way of the practice, but nurture it—your confidence—when you need to be confident that you can practice and to be able to just stick with things, even when other …
- Ven. Ananda’s Awakening… that when the Buddha gave a Dhamma talk anywhere, he would come back and repeat it to Ananda. This meant that Ananda knew more about the Buddha’s teachings than anyone else. So after the Buddha passed away, the monks got together and decided to create a standardized version of the Buddha’s teachings that could be remembered by all the monks. They realized …
- Your Duty Lies Right Here… In fact, in his first Dhamma talk, of the eight factors of the path, that was the only one he explained. But it was enough. The five brethren realized the implications as he listed the things that follow on right view. They were able to put the path together and gain the results. So see the issue of the suffering that you’re creating …
- Meaning & Happiness… It’s a principle of the Dhamma: If you see a lesser happiness that gets in the way of a greater happiness, you have to be willing to give up the lesser happiness for the sake of the greater. A British translator of that passage wrote a footnote saying that this couldn’t possibly be the meaning of this verse, it’s too simple …
- Older than the Cosmos… So we have the Dhamma, we have the example of the Buddha, an expert with regard to the cosmos: lokavidū, as we chant it every day, every day. He said to look at the cosmos: This is what it has to offer. All these wonderful things, but the only way you’re going to experience them is through this process of fabrication, and anything …
- Equanimity After Victory… And how can you counteract that allure by finding something else in the mind that has even greater allure that’s on the side of the Dhamma? You have to strategize. To think. Choose your battles. So we’re not just here to accept whatever comes up on the kammic screen. We’re here to see what’s wrong with what we’re doing …
- The Flow of Time… That’s what the Dhamma has to offer.
- Skilled in Aims… In fact, it’s when the mind gets past sensual thoughts, secluded from sensual thoughts and secluded from all types of unskillful dhammas—unskillful qualities from wrong view all the way up through wrong mindfulness—that you lift the level of your mind. You give it a good foundation inside—a sense of well-being inside—that doesn’t have to depend on any …
- Three Types of Equanimity… Ajaan Lee talks a lot about this in the context of what they call the worldly dhammas: gain, loss, status, loss of status, praise, criticism, pleasure, pain. As he points out, we’d always like the good side—the gain, the status, the praise, and the pleasure—but the good side is not always good for us. Status can go to our heads. Praise …
- Concentration as a Skill… We had a visitor here the other day saying that she’d been reading and listening to my talks on breath meditation, and she liked the basic Dhamma but she didn’t like this breath meditation. It sounded boring. The techniques of focusing on the body, working with the breath—they in and of themselves could be boring aside from the fact that they …
- Firm in Your Intent… Ajaan Suwat once gave a Dhamma talk in which he said all the factors in the noble path have to have concentration in them. And the same holds for the five strengths, starting with conviction. Concentration in conviction means you have to stay with that conviction. The same with persistence: You have to stick with the program, which is that if any unskillful qualities …
- Memory & Motivation… You read Ajaan Maha Boowa’s accounts of his practice in his Dhamma talks. That’s to counteract the voice that says, when you’re tempted to do something unskillful, “Well, everybody does it.” Well, no, not everybody does it. There have been people who have learned to say No, and they’ve benefited as a result. It also counteracts the little voice that …
- Perfect Breathing Isn’t the Goal… After all, the cause is in the mind.* * Mano-pubbangama dhamma, mano-settha mano-maya. All phenomena have the mind as their forerunner. They’re excelled by the mind. They’re made by the mind. So, we’re here to look into the mind. We’re working with the breath for the purpose of getting to the mind. Along the way, we can learn …
- True for What Purpose?… That’s when you’ve used that particular story, that particular narrative, for the sake of the Dhamma: when you develop that sense of samvega. So think about the Buddha’s grammar and how all the different things you’re focusing on either fit or don’t fit into that grammar. It’s like any language. It’s very good for expressing some things …
- At Home in Jhana… It’s simply a matter of taking the time and developing the sensitivity so that you can stop your wandering around and develop what’s called vihāra-dhamma, your home for the mind. When your home is comfortable enough, you can light it, you can decorate it in all kinds of ways. In other words, you can take this house of the present moment …
- Fear of the Truth… And, of course, the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha are a refuge. We find that refuge by developing their qualities, so that the mind becomes a refuge—directly for itself, and indirectly for others. Now, the nature of this refuge is not that it’s simply a place where you run away and hide. It’s like the fortress. You’re there on …
- Joy & Discontent… At the very least, choose a place where you can meet up with the true Dhamma and practice it. This means you’re in the present for the sake of the future. So you keep reminding yourself that this is where the real work is done. It’s not just for the sake of being here. It’s for the sake of dealing with …
- Building on Certainty… And that’s just talking about the Dhamma—there are all these other issues in the world outside that are even more uncertain. He said, “Well, there are a few things you can be certain about, start right there. One is, is your breath coming in? Is it going out? Start where you can be sure.” And once you gradually establish a beachhead there …
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