Search results for: "Dhamma"
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- The Culture of the Practice… As the Buddha said, if you’re not generous, if you’re stingy with your belongings, stingy with your Dhamma, you can’t even get into right concentration, much less gain awakening. The fourth quality is discernment. It’s defined as penetrative knowledge of arising and passing away. Now, you’re not just watching things coming and going and accepting them. The knowledge has …
- Head, Heart, & Gut… And there’s that case of Venerable Sariputta when he gained the Dhamma eye. It was simply from hearing about cause and effect as taught by the Buddha—a short verse. So that’s the head side to discernment, when you have to realize certain things lead to certain results and they don’t play favorites. The heart side is the desire for true …
- Respect… And it’s that attitude that opens you up to the potentials that Dhamma practice can offer. It allows you to open up to things that you couldn’t even imagine. As long as our practice is hampered by the limits of our imagination, it won’t be able to overcome suffering. So bring an attitude of respect. Give the practice your full attention …
- Broaden Your Range of Choices… As Luang Puu Dune used to say, the practice of the Dhamma is one thing clear through. It’s all a practice of giving: the skills of giving, the choices of giving. There are lots and lots of lessons you can learn that way, all the way through the meditation, where you’re giving up certain old ways of thinking and hanging on, because …
- The Mind Like Water… In some cases, as the Buddha said, if there’s a pleasure that’s in accordance with the Dhamma, you don’t deny yourself that pleasure. We’re not here to deny ourselves pleasure on principle. But if you find that engaging in a particular pleasure leads to unskillful mental states, you’ve got to learn how to practice with pain. That’s just …
- Beneficial Thinking… This is why we have Dhamma talks. Not just to give you pointers on the nuts and bolts of the concentration practice, but also to make you stop and think about the values of your life. What really is important? To what extent do you have to give up certain things in order to gain a greater sense of happiness? The Buddha said that …
- Meaningful Freedom… There’s something really wrong—not just from the point of view of the Dhamma, it’s just wrong in general. Maybe they were shamed horribly in the past, or accused of doing something or being responsible for something they tried to deny. But it’s a very unhealthy attitude. And it certainly doesn’t allow for putting an end to suffering. This is …
- The Swinging Balance… In Pali this is called vihara-dhamma, a place where the mind can stay, where it feels at home, at ease. To compare it with a friendship, it’s a friendship where, finally, both people are happy together, and the friendship feels easy. This is where you can settle down. The mind doesn’t have to wander around so much. That reduces a lot …
- Sensual Passion… This is why we practice the Dhamma, why we listen to the wise people who say that when you want to find long-term welfare and happiness, you look for it in your practice of generosity, your practice of virtue, your practice of meditation; and especially the meditation because, as the Buddha pointed out, if you don’t have the pleasure of concentration, then …
- The Power of Present Kamma… Part of this comes from hearing Dhamma talks and from reading books, and part of it comes from your own experience. You need to keep the voices in your mind trained and alert because you have to keep on top of the breath. You can’t just say, “Okay, this is a comfortable breath and I’m just going to let it go on …
- Up for the Challenge… One of Ajaan Lee’s most famous Dhamma talks is one he gave to one of his students as she was dying. He talked about the distinction between strength of body and strength of mind, that even though we have to try to maintain the body as best we can, take good care of it so we can get the best use out of …
- The Science of Meditation… Finally, there are dhammas, mental qualities. This frame of reference gives guidance for when you see that something keeps pulling you away: How can you deal with it effectively so that you don’t keep on being distracted by it? What qualities do you need to let go? What qualities do you need to develop? All of these four different frames of reference deal …
- The Fetter of Perceptions… For me, one of the real revelations came in the series of Dhamma talks Ajaan MahaBoowa gave to a woman who was dying of cancer. He told her of the questions he asked about pain in his body while he was meditating: He was sitting one night and, a minute in, all of a sudden the pain in the body got really, really severe …
- Pro-self, Pro-help… Second, the Dhamma he taught was well taught—is still well taught. In other words, the way he expressed it wasn’t right only for people in ancient India, but it’s been right enough to last for more than 2,000 years now. The third thing is that there are members of the noble Sangha who’ve practiced well and gotten results, and …
- Succeeding at Happiness… Think of the Buddha’s statement about how wisdom begins with finding a brahman or contemplative—in other words, somebody who has practiced the Dhamma—and asking that person, “What’s skillful? What’s blameless? What when I do will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” The basic answer comes in the three forms of merit: generosity, virtue, and meditation. It’s …
- Scribe Knowledge, Warrior Knowledge… Unfortunately, a lot of what we learn about the Dhamma has been filtered through scribes—not only the people who copied down the texts but also the people who commented on them and tried to develop a philosophy around them that was very much a scribe-like philosophy. I’ve been reading a couple books recently on the noble eightfold path written by people …
- Everything You Need… He said that there are some useful Dhamma lessons to apply to each present moment in a way that can help put an end to suffering. The first is the distinction between what’s skillful and what’s not. This falls in line with what he says is a teacher’s main responsibility to you as a student: to give you an idea of …
- Practice in Dying Skillfully… The final reason for fear of death is that you haven’t seen the true Dhamma. You don’t know for yourself directly that there is a deathless dimension to the mind. This is the most important of the four because people can tell you about, “This is how you approach death. This is how you deal with your fears about losing the body …
- To Strengthen the Path… And then there are dhammas, which are various ways of seeing, if the mind and body and the feelings are out of balance, what you can do to bring them back into balance. What qualities need to be abandoned, like the hindrances? What qualities need to be developed, like the factors for awakening? What needs to be comprehended? The fact that you’re clinging …
- Sort Things Out… The Buddha didn’t teach a Dhamma like that. Some things you accept; some things you don’t. Some things you have to get rid of; some things you have to develop. You really have to sort through things in the mind with an eye to what’s causing unnecessary stress. That’s the big issue. As for other issues that can come up …
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