Search results for: "Dhamma"

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  2. In the Land of Wrong View
     … Read Dhamma books, listen to Dhamma talks. Be selective in your reading of the Dhamma because there are all kinds of dhamma out there, true and false. The Buddha gives some examples to help you sort out which is which. True Dhamma teaches you to be unburdensome. It teaches you to develop dispassion rather than passion, thinking and acting in ways that will loosen … 
  3. The Buddha’s Eight Principles
     … And in line with the teaching on karma, the basic test for what’s Dhamma and what’s not Dhamma is: When you put something into practice, what are the results? If the results are good, then you know you’ve got some Dhamma. If the results are not good, then you know that it’s not. But just “good” is not precise enough … 
  4. The Graduated Discourse
    **We read stories about how people listening to the Buddha would gain the Dhamma eye, sometimes gain full awakening, while listening to a Dhamma talk. That inspires several questions: One is, why aren’t **we gaining awakening listening to Dhamma talks? Another is, how did they do that? After all, gaining the Dhamma eye, gaining awakening, requires that you have all eight factors of … 
  5. A Mind Larger than the World
     … So, as you think of bringing the practice of Dhamma into your daily life—or, better yet, bringing your daily life into the practice of the Dhamma—think of the perfections as the overarching set of Dhammas that provides your framework. They can all be explained under one perfection, which is the perfection of determination. I was mentioning yesterday how someone was surprised at … 
  6. A Culture of Self Reliance
    A Culture of Self Reliance August 14, 2009 When you practice the Dhamma, you’re you taking on a new culture. And it’s not Asian culture, it’s what the Buddha called the customs of the noble ones. Because even in Asia, when people are practicing, if they are really serious about the practice, they have to go against a lot of the … 
  7. A Friend When You’re on Your Own
     … We miss a lot of this nowadays in Dhamma circles because the pattern has changed from apprenticeship to mass production. We have a mass-produced Dhamma for mass retreats. There are techniques that were developed in the nineteenth century. The Asians were very impressed by European abilities to produce things through mass production by stripping things down to simple steps. The idea came that … 
  8. Bowing & Chanting
     … The Dhamma teaches virtue, concentration, discernment, release. The Sangha represents your willingness to practice the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma—in other words, not just in accordance with your preferences, but in accordance with what the Dhamma really demands. It’s aimed at disenchantment, dispassion, and the freedom that comes from dispassion. These are all qualities that are good to develop within yourself … 
  9. A Sense of Time & Place
     … He calls it vihāra-dhamma, your home for the mind. The mind also has its places to go foraging. He calls them gocara-dhamma, the different topics you need to bring up, say, when lust arises, anger arises, laziness, discouragement, and it’s good to have those tools ready at hand. That’s why we have the contemplation of the body for lust, developing … 
  10. Asalha Puja
     … We’re paying homage (puja) in the full moon in the month of Asalha to remember the day when the Buddha first set forth the Dhamma as a teaching. The Dhamma as the truth of the world, of course, exists all the time. But to have it put into words so people can practice it: That’s a rare opportunity. That’s what the … 
  11. To Get Ourselves
     … That’s when we know that we’re practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma: when our cherished ideas can get called into question. That way, we can raise ourselves up to the level where we’re worthy of the Dhamma. People in the West tend to regard the Dhamma as a commodity. And as with any commodity, it’s the customer who … 
  12. Limitless is the Buddha
    Limitless is the Buddha August 10, 2013 One of the themes that Ajaan Mun would often focus on in his Dhamma talks would be practicing the Dhamma in line with the Dhamma. This phrase means many things. One is that you don’t try to change the Dhamma to suit your preferences. Instead, you try to bring your preferences in line with the Dhamma … 
  13. The World Offers No Shelter
    Those four Dhamma summaries that we chant so often: The first three are basically about how the world is not going to provide what we want. We want something solid to hold on to, some protection, something we can lay claim to as our own, and it keeps denying us these things. “The world is swept it away. It does not endure.” What does … 
  14. Hunker Down
    When there’s a Dhamma talk during the meditation, you don’t have to listen to the Dhamma talk. In fact, it’s best to focus 99.44% of your attention on the breath. Leave just a little bit for the talk. If something is relevant to your situation, relevant to your meditation, it’ll come right in, without your having to send your … 
  15. A Slave to the Dhamma
     … One is to be a slave to your defilements and the other is to be a slave to the Dhamma. Actually, there are three ways, because when you’re a slave to the Dhamma, ultimately you get so that you don’t have to be a slave to anything. But as long as there’s still work to be done in the mind, it … 
  16. As Days & Nights Fly Past, Fly Past
     … This is where you make the Dhamma your own. You become not just a Dhamma consumer, but also a Dhamma producer. Of course, the first person to consume your Dhamma should be you, to put that Dhamma to the test. You should be the one who’s benefiting. Maybe someday other people can benefit from your Dhamma production, but right now this is what … 
  17. The Reflective Self
     … How much do you know about the Dhamma? It’s not that you have to read the whole Pali Canon, but you need to get the basic principles down. One of the reasons why we memorize the Dhamma is so that we can have it in the back of our mind. In the old days, when the Buddha gave a Dhamma talk, it was … 
  18. Treating the Diseases of the Mind
    The Buddha is like a doctor; the Dhamma is like medicine. We all have diseases in our minds—not necessarily the really heavy kinds of diseases that they put you in an institution for, but we do suffer from greed, aversion, and delusion. We suffer from the hindrances, the fetters. There are long, long lists of the problems of the mind. So we want … 
  19. Be Heedful & Think
     … What is this Dhamma for? Ultimately, all the Dhamma is for the sake of release. As the Buddha said, the Dhamma has one taste all the way through, just as the ocean has one taste, the taste of salt. The taste of the Dhamma is the taste of release. Now, the word “taste” there relates to an Indian aesthetic concept: the idea that when … 
  20. The Desire for Truth
     … As for the truth of the person, the Buddha made that one of his prerequisites for accepting a student. “Bring me someone who’s honest and no deceiver,” he said, “someone who’s observant, and I’ll teach that person the Dhamma.” Then he would ask that person to take the Dhamma as it was taught and put it to the test. As Ajaan … 
  21. Paying Off Your Debts
     … This is a gift of the Dhamma. Sometimes we think of the gift of the Dhamma simply as being teaching the Dhamma or giving away Dhamma books. But when you get other people to take the Dhamma into their hearts and actually try to work against their own greed, aversion, and delusion, that’s when you’ve given a really valuable Dhamma gift—a … 
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