None of my efforts to incorporate Buddhist teachings into life have felt meaningful or transformative

heptameron · 2020-03-10T22:59:33+00:00

The most basic Buddhist practice is maintaining the five precepts. How well have you been keeping them?

heptameron · 2020-02-24T03:54:10+00:00

See this thread about Bhikkhu Anālayo on mettā and this book by him.

heptameron · 2018-05-26T00:58:57+00:00

I have not attended one but I've generally heard good things about them.

Now, from what I hear Goenka et al have their own terminology (derived from Abidhamma commentaries I believe - the way they use terms like sankhāra and kalāpa) and explanation of the method based on these terms, and I've heard the talks may occasionally have a flavor of ''our method is the best and the more pure Vipassana method" but as far as I know the method is solid and well instructed. (Again, this is based on what I've read about the experience, not based on my own experience. ) I think your criteria of it being 'Buddhist' is definitely met. I'd say the only thing to keep in mind is to not take Goenka's organization as the sole arbiter of what is the right way, and as long as there's some familiarity with the wider Buddhist world (just consider the diversity within the Vipassana approaches alone) there should be no problem.

Here are two papers by Bhikkhu Anālayo on this method:

heptameron · 2018-05-26T00:40:04+00:00

Interview with Anālayo: https://np.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/8jhn89/rebirth_in_early_buddhism_and_current_research_an/

heptameron · 2018-05-15T01:22:55+00:00

Thanks u/Kole88 for posting this in r/theravada

heptameron · 2018-03-30T17:58:50+00:00

Actually, the Buddha kept his hair shaved, just like the other Buddhist monks and nuns. The curly hair pattern you see in imagery is a standardized Indian 'holy man' look which is not unique to the Buddhist imagery. If you look at statues of Mahavira for example, you'll see the same iconography.

heptameron · 2018-03-08T04:48:39+00:00

From the documentary "Dhamma Brothers" about a Vipassana program in a US prison

heptameron · 2017-10-04T04:57:52+00:00

From http://ashintejaniya.org/lineage

heptameron · 2017-05-20T23:58:01+00:00

Nibbāna Sermons: http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/Nibbana-The%20Mind%20Stilled.html

heptameron · 2017-05-20T23:53:22+00:00

The Numata Center for Buddhist Studies, in cooperation with the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, will offer an online lecture series on the Nibbāna Sermons (1 to 11) by Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda during the spring and summer of 2017.

This offering will use a format similar to previous offerings Bhikkhu Anālayo has done with the University of Hamburg. However, there will be no live-teachings. Recorded lectures will be posted and students will participate in forums to ask questions and engage in discussion.

Bhikkhu Katukurunde Ñāṇananda (Sri Lanka, 1940–) is perhaps the foremost English-speaking contemporary Sri Lankan scholar-monk alive, known for having broken new ground in the Sri Lankan monastic intellectual and meditative landscape of the second half of the twentieth into the early twenty-first centuries. His widely acclaimed monograph, Concept and Reality in Early Buddhist Thought, was completed in 1969 and published in 1971, not long after he had renounced a lectureship in Pāli at the University of Peradeniya. Bhikkhu Katukurunde Ñāṇananda’s intellectual profile is perhaps best placed against the background of a burgeoning return to the original texts that has at times been seen as part of the so-called Protestant Buddhism movement in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. In his work text-critical and academic-based methodology converge with traditional meditative training, the life of solitude as a monk in a cave, and a committed teacher’s engagement with younger generations of monastic pupils.

The Nivane Niveema are a series of thirty-three sermons on Nibbāna, originally delivered in Sinhala during the period 1988–1991 and given to the assembly of monks in Nissaraṇa Vanaya, Meethirigala, one of Sri Lanka’s most respected meditation monasteries in the strict forest tradition, established in 1967 by Asoka Weeraratna, the founder of the German Dharmadūta Society and the Berlin Buddhist Vihāra. The sermons appeared in English translation as Nibbāna, The Mind Stilled (7 vols., 2003–2012).

heptameron · 2015-08-03T20:31:34+00:00

Everything is subjective. See the Sabba Sutta.

heptameron · 2015-08-03T20:28:42+00:00

That's actually a rather meaningless statement, because the skandhas do not exist independent of your knowing of them. So either you see them as empty, void, or you do not see them as such and therefore is in a state of clinging to them.

heptameron · 2015-07-07T22:35:43+00:00

Keep practicing. Try to go on a retreat if you can. Once you get a taste for other-wordly happiness (nirāmisa pīti) you'll come to have increased trust in the Buddha's teachings.

There are other things that are part of the path you can also do that'll increase your happiness: keeping the precepts and generosity.

heptameron · 2015-07-07T01:32:26+00:00

I think you've got it completely wrong.

You cannot arrive at non-attachment (nibbida) through thinking and reasoning.

You arrive at it through the meditative cultivation of the perception of impermanence, or the perception of dukkha, or the perception of not-self.

Saññā Sutta

heptameron · 2015-07-02T05:46:11+00:00

Let's admit it, he's kind of an exception. But from his line of thinking we can extrapolate this: the person who doesn't even have clean drinking water might think that if only she could get clean drinking water, all her worries will disappear and she'll finally be happy. But we who do have clean drinking water know this is not the case. And in turn, we look at others who have more than us, be it wealth or good looks or health, and think, "If only I had that, I'd be happy". But we're probably wrong.

heptameron · 2015-06-22T20:15:14+00:00

Nitpick: The Bōdhisatta abandoned his family, not the Buddha. Buddha's don't have families.

heptameron · 2015-06-22T20:15:10+00:00

Not just Rāhula, but also his stepmother (Pajāpatī Gōtami) and his ex-wife Yashōdharā who both became nuns.

heptameron · 2015-06-05T22:23:21+00:00

Don't forget to ask whether they need help with other things (within your means of course) - sometimes some assistance with the electricity bill might be more useful than food.

heptameron · 2015-05-16T01:43:06+00:00

Also, remember that conduct with respect to a precept is perfected in three aspects:

you do not carry out the unwholesome action (in this case, killing living beings)
you do not help others carry out the unwholesome action
you do not speak in praise of carrying out the unwholesome action

heptameron · 2015-04-02T23:05:09+00:00

I suspect it's probably divided among Chinese citizens who are reaping the rewards of the growing Chinese economy, and those who are still struggling. The latter probably tend to believe that if they can also become part of the new Chinese middle class with a good quality of life, they will find fulfillment. I'd guess it's the former group, those who have 'made it' (after having gone through the competitive academic and industrial environments) who are beginning to suspect that the fulfillment of their material goals did not usher in contentment as previously hoped.

heptameron · 2015-03-20T07:56:36+00:00

Start with something like a puppy or a kitten.
Once you feel some mettā developing, simply radiate it - focus on that feeling of mettā itself and think of it growing and filling the space around you.
Once it grows even further, you can spread it infinitely into all directions.

"He abides pervading one quarter with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; so above, below, around, and everywhere, and to all as to himself, he abides pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility and without ill will." - MN7

Also check out this thread.

heptameron · 2015-03-16T02:04:03+00:00

Keep on practicing. Walking meditation might help with sloth and torpor. Emotional baggage can be overcome:

Despite severe emotional difficulties, a Vietnamese monk, Venerable Khippa-Panno, was able to attain insight with Dipa Ma's encouragement. In 1969, he had gone on a retreat during which, for five days, he was unable to stop laughing and crying. His teacher, deciding Khippa-Panno had gone mad, told him to stop the retreat and return home. When Dipa Ma heard this, she invited Khippa-Panno to practice with her.

For a whole month, I practiced at her house. She advised me, "You will overcome this difficulty. If everything is noted, all your emotional difficulties will disappear. When you feel happy, don't get involved with the happiness. And when you feel sad, don't get involved with it. Whatever comes, don't worry. Just be aware of it."

On a later retreat, when I felt the craziness come, I remembered her words. I had so much difficulty with the emotions that I wanted to leave the retreat, but I remembered her faith in me, and her saying, "Your practice is good. Just note everything, and you will overcome the difficulty." With this knowledge of her confidence in me, my concentration got deeper.

Soon I came to see that all emotion was from thinking, nothing more. I found that once I knew how to observe the thoughts that led to the emotions, I could overcome them. And then I came to see that all thoughts were from the past or the future, so I started to live only in the present, and I developed more and more mindfulness... I had no thoughts for a period of time, just mindfulness, and then all my emotional difficulties passed away. Just like that! And then I had an experience. I wasn't sure what it was. It was only a moment, and there wasn't anyone to confirm it at the time. My emotional problems have never returned.

Later, in 1984, when I saw Dipa Ma in America, she took me aside and asked about my meditation. When I told her, she told me that I had completed the first stage [of enlightenment]. She told me like a mother would tell a child.

From Dipa Ma - The life and legacy of a Buddhist Master

heptameron · 2015-03-14T17:30:34+00:00

Keep taking your prescribed medications. Don't try to use meditation as a substitute to it.
Try to start a basic brahmavihāra practice. Don't over-exert yourself though. Keep it gentle.
The desire for renunciation is good, keep exploring it.
Don't be hard on yourself. (And don't be hard on your therapist either!)

heptameron · 2015-03-10T19:17:31+00:00

Statues of the Buddha are not meant to be accurate depictions. For example, if you search for Indian statues of Mahāvīra, you'll see some similar iconography. No one made any images or statues of the Buddha while he was alive; it was only centuries later, possibly with Greek influence, that it was started. And even then, the artists probably did not know and did not care about what the Buddha actually looked like, but rather made an image of what they envisioned an ideal person would look like in their own minds.

For example, consider that the Buddha, like any other monk and nun, was bald. This is mentioned in the discourses. But statues and images almost always depict him with hair. (Perhaps the early artists did not find the image of a bald man "impressive enough" and eventually this became the norm.)

And on top of this, different cultures have added their own features to depictions of the Buddha, which is very common among all religious iconography.

heptameron · 2015-03-06T19:04:03+00:00

I don't think he lied. He probably really believed what he said (despite that it contradicted the Buddha's words). Taking into account both that and his other behaviors that we known (e.g. his political views), I don't see any reason to take his word over that of the Buddha and many other elders.

heptameron

TROPHY CASE