Search results for: "Dhamma"

  1. Page 74
  2. Pain & Distraction
     … So do your best to develop the sense of a center, a place where you belong, vihāra-dhamma, your home for the mind, so that when pains come up in other parts the body, you don’t have to get sucked into those parts of the body. You have the choice as to exactly how much you’re going to lay claim to the … 
  3. Understanding Aggregates
     … The word attha in Pāli means both “goal” and “meaning.” The deathless is the attha of these dhammas. It’s their goal, and it’s what makes them meaningful. So, make sure that you use this way of looking at things for its intended purpose, and that way you really understand it, at the same time getting the most out of it.
  4. Encourage Yourself
     … Recollection of the Sangha, recollection of the Dhamma, recollection of the Buddha, recollection of the good you’ve done in the past: These are all useful techniques. They’re all a legitimate part of the meditation. We tend to forget that. Oftentimes we want just the technique. Some meditation teachers say, “Okay, all you need is a technique.” They turn it into super science … 
  5. Three Levels of Concentration
     … Ajaan Lee gives some recommendations, but notice that in his Dhamma talks he talks about the breath energy in all kinds of ways. There’s no one way of conceiving the breath that’s going to work for everybody. So explore and work things out on your own. After all, it is your body that you’re settling into. You listen to the instructions … 
  6. Second Wind
     … I’ve been going through the Canon, trying to find all the passages where people gain awakening while listening to the Buddha or one of his disciples give a Dhamma talk. It’s amazing how many of those talks are in the form of questions, trying to get the listener to look into his or her mind from a new perspective. You can play … 
  7. The Precepts
     … You reflect on the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha. You reflect on your own virtue, your own generosity, your own good qualities. These are reflections on the past that you bring into the present to put the mind in good shape. You take your ability to think, your ability to form thoughts, and you put it to good use. It’s not that you … 
  8. Things as They’ve Come to Be
     … So ask yourself, what would be inspiring right now? The Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha? Your own past generosity? Your own past virtues? Or do you need something besides the carrot? Do you need a stick? Think about death. It could come at any time, and you can ask yourself, “Am I ready to go?” Almost universally the answer is, “Not yet.” Okay, what … 
  9. Safety All Around
    A lot of the suttas end with the listeners saying that they take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. It seems to have been a custom in the time of the Buddha. You found a teacher you respected and you asked for protection. I was reading a book a while back in which the author, a scholar of Buddhism, was saying … 
  10. Discerning Actions
     … The Dhamma is all a guide to action. The basic image that the Buddha gives of his teaching is of a path: something you follow, something that you have to engage in, in an active way. All his various teachings, even the ones that seem very theoretical, are guides to action. Take the teaching on emptiness. It sounds awfully abstract. But basically the Buddha … 
  11. Concentration Food
     … They have their weapons, which is knowledge of the Dhamma. But both the gatekeeper and the soldiers need to be fed, and that’s what concentration is for. Concentration is compared to the food stores: grass for the horses; honey and ghee for the soldiers and the gatekeeper. So, nourish your mind well with stillness, so that the other aspects of the path can … 
  12. To Comprehend Pain
     … This is in line with the Buddha’s principle that you don’t weigh yourself down unnecessarily with pain, and you don’t deny pleasures that are in line with the Dhamma. So you’re trying to clear things out. See which pains in the body you have to live with and which ones you don’t. That makes it a lot easier to … 
  13. Think Like a Thief
     … When something was well done outside, could you take that lesson and apply it into your mind? And don’t think that any lesson or any task is too small to provide you with a useful Dhamma lesson. Take Ven. Rahula as your patron saint. Rahula was the student that the Buddha extolled for being outstanding in his willingness to learn, his desire to … 
  14. Meditation as a Skill
     … Make sure your attitude is right as you’re beginning to sit down to meditate.” Here’s where it’s good to think about the bases of success, that list of dhammas that the Buddha said was among his most important teachings. It’s given short shrift here in the West because there is that attitude: “There’s no such thing as a good … 
  15. The Heart to Keep Going
     … Ajaan Mun, toward the end of his life, gave a Dhamma talk about going into battle with the defilements. Your determination not to come back and be the laughingstock of the defilements ever again: That’s the soldier in his analogy. The soldier has the weapon of discernment, and is fed by concentration. But what keeps the soldier going is that firm determination—a … 
  16. Refuge
     … One of chants we had just now was about taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. You take refuge in them in the sense that you take them as examples. See how the Buddha found happiness. He challenges you and says that true happiness is possible, and that you can attain it through your own efforts. So you take up that … 
  17. Shoulds & Wants
     … So muster some shoulds and some wants of your own on the side of the Dhamma. That way, when unskillful shoulds and unskillful wants gang up on you, you’ve got the strength and strategies to fight back.
  18. Hold on to Right View
     … If you had bad actions but you embrace right view and go to a good place, maybe in that good place you start practicing the Dhamma. That would open an opportunity to get out, as in the case of Aṅgulimāla. So, the present moment has a lot of power, and you want to make sure you maintain right view all the way to make … 
  19. Putting out the Flame
     … This may be what Luang Pu Dune meant when he said that the things of the world come in pairs, but Dhamma practice is one thing clear through: giving back, all the way.
  20. The Basic Pattern
     … The Buddha doesn’t recommend that you reinvent the Dhamma wheel every time you act. If, however, you notice that there was no harm from your actions, the Buddha says, “Take joy in your practice and continue with the training.” There are a lot of important principles here: the principle of truthfulness and integrity, the principle of compassion. These things are essential to the … 
  21. Step by Step
    We’re sitting here meditating, we’re practicing the Dhamma, partly because of the example of those who’ve gone before us, or as the Buddha would say, entirely because of the example of those who’ve gone before us. There’s a famous exchange where Ven. Ananda comes and says, “This is half of the holy life: having admirable friends.” And the Buddha … 
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