Dharma practice is medicine for the mind -- something particularly needed in a culture like ours that actively creates mental illness in training us to be busy producers and avid consumers. As individuals, we become healthier through our Dharma practice, which in turn helps bring sanity to our society at large.
Giving dharma talks offers me the opportunity to express gratitude for my Thai teachers -- Ajahn Fuang Jotiko and Ajahn Suwat Suvaco -- in appreciation of the many years they spent training me, which came with the understanding that the teachings continue past me. Giving dharma talks also pushes me to articulate what I haven''t yet verbalized to myself in English. This in turn enriches my own practice. When you help a wide variety of people deal with their issues, it helps you practice with yours.
When giving a talk, I try to remain true to three things: my training, my study of the early Buddhist texts, and the needs of my listeners. The challenge is to find the point where all three meet -- not as a compromise, but in their genuine integrity.
For this, I play with analogy. Meditation is a skill, and our meeting point as people, whatever our culture, lies in our experience in mastering skills: how to sew clothes, cook a meal, or build a shelter. So I've found that one of the most effective ways of explaining subtle points in meditation is to find analogies with more mundane skills. Through the language of analogy we find common ground from which our practice can grow to meet our individual needs, and yet remain true to its universal roots.
There’s a common understanding that the purpose of meditation is to fully arrive in the present moment. However, the Buddha taught people to focus on the present moment not as a goal, but as a place where work is to be done to go beyond the present. This talk, based on the essay, “The Karma of Now” will explore the Buddha’s understanding of the present moment, and the implications of that understanding, not only for the practice of meditation, but also for Buddhist practice as a whole.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu reviews the Four Noble Truths as the categorical teaching of the Buddha - true and always beneficial. He describes the duties that enable us to fully understand and comprehend them and how the three characteristics - Dukkha, Annica, Anatta - are used in support of these duties and this understanding.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu speaks about the meaning of refuge in practice. As we strive for wisdom, purity and compassion; develop mindfulness in order to have a solid state of concentration; and strive to fit into the dharma rather than the other way around, we create a foundation that is conducive to attaining nibbana.
In this second talk in a lecture series on the Great Disciples, the speaker, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, talks about the contributions by Ananda to the Dharma. Because of his incredible memory, what we know in the Pali Canon today came mostly from Ananda's recollection of the Buddha's teachings. He described in detail who came to the Buddha, what were their question/problem, and how the Buddha addressed that particular question/problem. This is an important contribution to our understanding of how the Dharma was taught, because so much of it depended on who was asking what, and what kind of teaching was the best for them. Another debt that we owe Ananda is that he asked the Buddha questions that no one had asked. And Ananda's questions in turn sparked the Buddha to explain things or do things that he otherwise might not have explained or done.
The early Buddhist sangha included some accomplished and intriguing disciples--lay and monastic, male and female. By searching the literature of the Pali Canon, contemporary scholars have been able to compile biographical information, infer personality traits, and gain a vivid sense of the human relationships and life-stories that formed the earliest Buddhist community. This speaker series will explore the lives, practice, and teachings of several of the great disciples of the Buddha. The series will illuminate both the ordinary and extraordinary contributions of some of the most interesting personalities whose questions, challenges, and life situations shaped the teachings that we cherish today.
The Kalama Sutta is most famous for its encouragement not to place total trust in traditions and texts, but it also encourages you not to place total trust in your sense of reason and preferences. So where can you place your trust? This talk focuses on the dilemma posed by the sutta's recommendations, and the way in proposes out of the dilemma.
One in a series of 3 talks:
The Buddha viewed perceptions of self and not-self as a form of karma, or action. Thus the question is not, “Do I have a self?” or “What is my true self?” Instead, it is “When is it skillful to perceive a self, and when is it more skillful to perceive not-self?” This series of three talks will explore this last question.
Part III explores the function of the perception of not-self as a means to true happiness.
One in a series of 3 Talks:
The Buddha viewed perceptions of self and not-self as a form of karma, or action. Thus the question is not, “Do I have a self?” or “What is my true self?” Instead, it is “When is it skillful to perceive a self, and when is it more skillful to perceive not-self?” This series of three talks will explore this last question.
Part II explores ways in which a healthy, mature sense of self is essential to the practice.
One in a series of 3 talks:
The Buddha viewed perceptions of self and not-self as a form of karma, or action. Thus the question is not, “Do I have a self?” or “What is my true self?” Instead, it is “When is it skillful to perceive a self, and when is it more skillful to series of three talks will explore this last question. Part I explores the issue of why the Buddha refused to take a position on the question of whether or not there is a self.
According to the Buddha, appropriate attention is the most important mental factor for attaining Awakening. So what does he mean by attention, and what kind of attention is appropriate? How do the factors of appropriate attention apply to our meditation practice, how do they apply to our lives?
The problems and distractions in the present are not something you simply want to push your way through or get out of the way. You have to understand how they happen, for that understanding forms the essence of insight.
The act of 'doing' Right Concentration is what allows you to understand what it means to 'do' so well that you actually learn how to stop doing. That's the karma that puts an end to karma, the intention that allows you to understand intention until you finally get to the point where you can stop.
Mindfulness is where things start, but it can't do all the work. It's only one of the spices on your meditation shelf. This is why it's important to understand precisely what 'mindfulness' means, and how to supplement it with other skillful qualities in the mind.
Truths of the observer require you simply to observe things and try to figure them out. Truths of the will, which cover relationships are skills, are things you have to bring into being or they never become a reality. In this area faith, confidence, and conviction make all the difference.
Coming to terms with the inevitability of your own death and the death of those you love. If you wait until the time of death in order to think about these things, it's a huge shock. This is one of the reasons the Buddha has you contemplate if before death.
Using the analogy of the 'committee mind' to free yourself from the tendency to identify with every thought that comes into the mind; using the breath as a secure place to extract yourself from the committee discussions and gain a new perspective on them.
The path involves learning how to marshal various emotions--grief, joy, desire, disgust, gladness, dispassion--some of which are normally regarded as negative. But they have their uses, so learn how to cultivate them all along the way. Without these emotions, the practice doesn't go anywhere. With them it can take you to release.
Awareness filling the body is the foundation of your meditation. It provides a sense of solidity throughout the interactions of life, and ultimately is the means for encountering the Deathless.
The mind is always creating thought worlds that make us suffer. To get beyond this suffering, you have to confront the fears that force the mind to keep creating these worlds.
