Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. Tenacity
     … Ajaan Mun once said in his very last Dhamma talk that this is one thing you never let go of until you reach full awakening: the determination not to come back and suffer. Simply going around being mindful and apathetic and emotionally blank doesn’t really accomplish anything. You’re just feeding off old karma and creating blank new karma, which doesn’t lead … 
  3. Empathetic Joy
     … You’re not lessened by the fact that other people have higher Dhamma attainments than yours or become noble ones. In fact, if you can appreciate the fact that they’re there, that makes it a lot easier for you to practice. So search through your mind. If you see any areas of resentment, use this contemplation to help root them out. This is … 
  4. Equanimity on the Path
     … She told me one time she could never understand why Dhamma teachers like to extol equanimity as the goal of the practice. As she said, she’s pretty equanimous all the time, and it’s not much of a goal. And the Buddha himself never said that it was the goal. It’s the last of the factors for awakening, and that’s led … 
  5. A Memorial to Your Life
     … When he talked about the Dhamma as a mirror, again, it’s looking back at your mind. **So try to develop this ability to be still, but also observe what’s going on in your mind. You’ll see a lot of things you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. This is how you develop success and **power in the meditation—the kind of meditation … 
  6. What’s Worth Doing?
     … right view about the precepts, about the Dhamma, the Vinaya, about the practice. These are things you have to hold onto. And as for your sense of self, there are times when it’s very, very useful to have a sense of self. Because when you’re developing the path, you need to be confident that you’re capable of doing it, and that … 
  7. A Home of Your Own
     … The Pali term, vihāra-dhamma, literally means a quality which is your dwelling, a quality which is your home: this quality of concentration. We’re inhabiting the body from within, getting to know our own mind from within, and we keep making this the primary focus of our awareness so that it stands out. As for the world outside, you can keep it at … 
  8. Part III : Daily Life
     … There are even devas out there who are a little scared by people who practice meditation, who practice the Dhamma for freedom. It calls into question what they’re doing. A lot of people don’t like to have that called into question. So we maintain our own inner stability. In a way, being a meditator is like being a turtle. The turtle has … 
  9. Be Prepared
     … Those of us with a background in the Dhamma recognize this quality as heedfulness, the realization that there are dangers, but also that something can be done about them. So you learn the skills that can handle them, and at the same time you have to be very alert. You have to be prepared. In this way, meditation is partly a preparation for the … 
  10. Intelligent Design
     … If you look at Buddhist history, you see that wherever the Dhamma goes, people find all kinds of ways of trying to divert the teaching to other purposes, forgetting that its original purpose was the most compassionate: showing the way out of suffering. Our imagination is so tied up with the normal way of using connectedness or interdependence that it really has trouble negotiating … 
  11. Intelligent Restraint
     … This is one of the reasons why, when the Buddha defines the Dhamma eye, it’s defined as seeing whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation. Now, notice, he says “origination.” It’s not just arising and passing away. It’s not a generalisation about impermanence. He’s more specific. The big problems arise from within. But they can all cease … 
  12. Issues of Control
    There are times when the Buddha finishes his Dhamma talks by sending the monks out to meditate at the roots of trees, in empty dwellings. But he doesn’t say, “Go do samatha,” tranquility, and he doesn’t say, “Go do vipassanā,” or insight. He says, “Go do jhāna.” The noun jhāna is related to a verb,* jhāyati*, which has a second meaning—it … 
  13. Anybody Home?
     … He went to a Dhamma teacher for some advice on how to handle his grief. And the advice she gave was that you have to remember that George and Martha are only conventional truths. On the level of ultimate truth, there is no George, there is no Martha. Never was. He realized it was bad advice. To say that there’s nobody there means … 
  14. The Mind's Immune System
     … In the Culavedalla Sutta, Visakha, a layman, asks his ex-wife, Dhammadinna — who’s now a nun — some questions on the Dhamma. After she explains these three obsessions — resistance, passion, ignorance — he asks, “Is there passion obsession with every feeling of pleasure? Resistance obsession with every feeling of pain or disease? Ignorance obsession with every feeling of neither pleasure nor pain?” She answers, “No … 
  15. We’re All Learning the Ropes
     … a Dhamma and a Vinaya that have lasted now for 2,600 years and have provided a lot of help to a lot of people. Maybe we can’t leave behind something quite so majestic, but we can leave behind whatever goodness we can muster. That way, when we leave the world, we leave on good terms, not out of aversion but with a … 
  16. Relating to Results
     … But in the area of the Dhamma, it doesn’t work that way. If you admit your mistakes, that’s the beginning of a learning process. As when you’re focusing on the breath right here, right now: If you’re focusing in a way that makes the breath constricted, you want to know. And don’t just blame it on the breath, saying … 
  17. The Range of Our Responsibility
     … Before he said his last words, he gave the opportunity to the people present to ask him any questions they might have about the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, the path, or the practice. He made that offer up to four times. First three times: “Anyone who wants to speak up can speak up.” The fourth time he said, “Maybe you feel embarrassed … 
  18. Right View about Right View
     … Now, as another sutta says, dispassion is the highest dhamma. It’s what all the other teachings are meant to induce. Even when the Buddha gives the questionnaire on the three perceptions: Is this constant or inconstant? Inconstant. If it’s something inconstant, is it stressful or pleasant? Stressful. If it’s inconstant and stressful, does it deserve to be self? No. Now, that … 
  19. An Inside Job
     … What’s unconnected there? What’s lacking? I was talking to someone a while back who said before he came to the Dhamma, he had a tendency to criticize and criticize and criticize himself so that he could actually go ahead and do something really unskillful. In other words, he’d tell himself he was a bad person to begin with, so he might … 
  20. Good Fences
     … the practical intelligence of someone who knows how to take the knowledge they’ve been getting from the Dhamma and actually put it to use, keeping it in mind and using it at all times—not only when they’re meditating. In this way, your fence is in place all the time. Your protection is there all the time. There’s nothing inside the … 
  21. Goodwill for the Whole Committee
     … This is why we listen to the Dhamma. This is why we read things that inspire us to believe in the principle of action, the principle of skillful action, and give us some ideas of what skillful approaches might be. This is where it’s useful to study, to read, to listen, to enlarge the range of your imagination and the range of your … 
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