Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 16, 2019 1:43 AM
Title: Re: How four Brahama Viihara connected with the Jhana?
Content:
Sure.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:30 PM
Title: Re: Monastics and suicide
Content:
Yes, the arahants' verses in the Theragāthā and Therīgāthā are included in the Sutta Piṭaka.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:29 PM
Title: Re: Monastics and suicide
Content:
She had received instruction adequate for her to attain arahatta and her accumulations were sufficient to render her ripe for this attainment. Yet despite this, she was still capable of falling into improper attention and a wish to commit suicide.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:39 PM
Title: Re: Monastics and suicide
Content:
Sīhā's arrival at arahatta indicates that at some point she must have been doing something right.

Her near-suicide shows that even someone ripe for the highest attainment might yet be susceptible not only to suicidal mentation but even to the act itself.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:07 PM
Title: Re: Things to consider when proceed to undertake celibacy?
Content:
Though not written from a Buddhist perspective, Martin Poulter's http://www.faqs.org/faqs/alt-sex/celibacy/ might be a good place to start.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 15, 2019 6:36 PM
Title: Re: How four Brahama Viihara connected with the Jhana?
Content:
Some (notably Richard Gombrich) have argued that it can, but I don't find them persuasive. 

Firstly, the insufficiency of the brahmavihāras alone seems to have been the position of all Indian Buddhist ācāryas who wrote on the subject.

Secondly, all of the texts that revisionists cite to support their view (e.g., the last verse of the Karaṇīyamettasutta) can just as plausibly, if not more plausibly, be interpreted to support the orthodox position.

Thirdly, the revisionists' position requires them to deny the canonicity of several sutta passages that blatantly contradict their view.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:28 PM
Title: Re: How four Brahama Viihara connected with the Jhana?
Content:
It's intended as a paraphrase of it, or rather of its unabridged Visuddhimagga form.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 14, 2019 7:12 PM
Title: Re: How four Brahama Viihara connected with the Jhana?
Content:
The development of mettā, karuṇā and muditā can lead to the third jhāna.
The development of upekkhā can lead to the fourth jhāna.

The development of mettā may later make it easier to attain jhāna using a colour kasiṇa.
The development of karuṇā may later make it easier to enter the base of the infinity of space.
The development of muditā may later make it easier to enter the base of the infinity of consciousness.
The development of upekkhā may later make it easier to enter the base of nothingness.

No brahmavihāra development leads directly to infinity of space, etc.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 14, 2019 2:33 PM
Title: Re: How four Brahama Viihara connected with the Jhana?
Content:
None of the arūpa attainments are accompanied by muditā. These attainments are all just modifications of the fourth jhāna: the same mental factors but a different kind of ārammaṇa. Muditā can only be present up to the third jhāna. It can't be present in the fourth because it always arises with somanassa vedanā. The vedanā in the fourth jhāna is upekkhā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 14, 2019 2:12 PM
Title: Re: Why does a streamenterer only have 6 lives left to enlightenment?
Content:
Both glosses are from the commentaries. The kola in kolaṅkola is a modified form of kula, which in Indian texts in general refers to any families except low-caste ones.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 14, 2019 11:01 AM
Title: Re: How four Brahama Viihara connected with the Jhana?
Content:
You can only experience it without joy. The possible mental factors are the same as those in the fourth rūpa jhāna.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:39 AM
Title: Re: An mistake needs to be corrected!
Content:
https://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/English-Texts/Buddhist-Legends/24-10.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:03 AM
Title: Re: How four Brahama Viihara connected with the 8 Jhana?
Content:
It's the the fourth jhāna consciousness but with a formless ārammaṇa.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:57 AM
Title: Re: Why does a streamenterer only have 6 lives left to enlightenment?
Content:
In the commentaries it is sometimes glossed as rebirths in two or three further states of existence and sometimes more narrowly as two or three rebirths in high-caste human families.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 13, 2019 9:40 PM
Title: Re: Looking for a modern spoken language that shares many similarities with Pali vocabulary
Content:
No. 

When linguists call a language "dead" they don't mean that it's no longer used for anything. They mean that it no longer has any native speakers. If it no longer has any speakers at all, then they call it "extinct". By these criteria Pali and Latin are dead languages; Trojan and Frankish are extinct languages.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 13, 2019 9:28 PM
Title: Re: Why does a streamenterer only have 6 lives left to enlightenment?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:05 PM
Title: Re: Poll: the most difficult precept for you?
Content:
Sakkāra means being shown reverence or held in esteem by others.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 12, 2019 3:34 PM
Title: Re: Looking for a modern spoken language that shares many similarities with Pali vocabulary
Content:
Bengali has all eleven Pali aspirates, along with the Sanskrit ṛh:

.


./download/file.php?id=5330&mode=view


But Sinhala has only one:

.


./download/file.php?id=5331&mode=view


As for Pali words in their respective lexicons, the difference isn't in the number of them but in the fact that in Sinhala they occur mostly as loanwords, but in Bengali mostly as ancient Prakritic cognates.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:49 PM
Title: Re: Looking for pali source
Content:
Avijjāvāravaṇṇanā

Avijjāvāre _dukkhe aññāṇan_ti dukkhasacce aññāṇaṃ, mohassetaṃ adhivacanaṃ. Esa nayo _samudaye aññāṇan_ti-ādīsu. Tattha catūhi kāraṇehi dukkhe aññāṇaṃ veditabbaṃ antogadhato vatthuto ārammaṇato paṭicchādanato ca. Tathā hi taṃ dukkhasaccapariyāpannattā dukkhe antogadhaṃ, dukkhasaccañcassa nissayapaccayabhāvena vatthu, ārammaṇapaccayabhāvena ārammaṇaṃ, dukkhasaccañca etaṃ paṭicchādeti, tassa yāthāvalakkhaṇappaṭivedhanivāraṇena, ñāṇappavattiyā cettha appadānena.

Samudaye aññāṇaṃ tīhi kāraṇehi veditabbaṃ vatthuto ārammaṇato paṭicchādanato ca. Nirodhe paṭipadāyañca aññāṇaṃ ekeneva kāraṇena veditabbaṃ paṭicchādanato. Nirodhapaṭipadāya hi paṭicchādakameva aññāṇaṃ tesaṃ yāthāvalakkhaṇappaṭivedhanivāraṇena, tesu ca ñāṇappavattiyā appadānena. Na pana tattha antogadhaṃ, tasmiṃ saccadvaye apariyāpannattā. Na tassa taṃ saccadvayaṃ vatthu, asahajātattā. Nārammaṇaṃ, tadārabbha appavattanato. Pacchimañhi saccadvayaṃ gambhīrattā duddasaṃ, na cettha andhabhūtaṃ aññāṇaṃ pavattati. Purimaṃ pana vañcaniyaṭṭhena sabhāvalakkhaṇassa duddasattā gambhīraṃ, tattha vipallāsaggāhavasena pavattati.

https://tipitaka.org/romn/cscd/s0201a.att1.xml


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:57 AM
Title: Re: How four Brahama Viihara connected with the Jhana?
Content:
Just one further remark: though it's in the commentaries that we first find the detailed method for developing jḥāna using kasiṇas, the earliest explicit connection between kasiṇa and jhāna is found in the Abhidhamma's Dhammasaṅgaṇī and Vibhaṅga.

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/ds2.1.2


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 11, 2019 10:06 AM
Title: Re: How four Brahama Viihara connected with the Jhana?
Content:
DN 33 &amp; 34
MN 77
AN 1, the Apara-accharāsaṅghātavagga
AN 10:25; 10:26; 10:29.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 10, 2019 8:17 PM
Title: Re: How four Brahama Viihara connected with the Jhana?
Content:
The Suttas mention kasiṇas, but in a manner so terse and opaque that it's hard to understand what they're all about. The commentaries, especially the Visuddhimagga, are the source of the detailed description of how to use kasiṇas to develop jhāna.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 10, 2019 7:59 PM
Title: Re: Looking for a modern spoken language that shares many similarities with Pali vocabulary
Content:
I think Bengali and Chakma would meet the greatest number of your criteria. Bengali would probably be the better of the two as Chakma learning resources are very limited and hard to find.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakma_language


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 9, 2019 5:47 PM
Title: Re: Looking for suttas
Content:
Evaṃ nissayasampanno, bhikkhu āraddhavīriyo,
Bhāvayaṃ kusalaṃ dhammaṃ, yogakkhemassa pattiyā,
Pāpuṇe anupubbena, sabbasaṃyojanakkhayanti.

“So any bhikkhu, strong in will, who to the Refuge flies,
Who cherishes all good, and goes the way Nirvana lies,
By slow degrees will bring about destruction of all ties.”

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/ja156

“Mendicants, when these four times are rightly developed and progressed, they gradually lead to the ending of defilements. What four? A time for listening to the teaching, a time for discussing the teaching, a time for serenity, and a time for discernment.

It’s like when it rains heavily on a mountain top, and the water flows downhill to fill the hollows, crevices, and creeks. As they become full, they fill up the pools. The pools fill up the lakes, the lakes fill up the streams, and the streams fill up the rivers. And as the rivers become full, they fill up the ocean.

In the same way, when these four times are rightly developed and progressed, they gradually lead to the ending of defilements.”

https://suttacentral.net/an4.147/en/sujato

Anupubbena medhāvī,
thokaṃ thokaṃ khaṇe khaṇe.
Kammāro rajatasseva,
niddhame malamattano.

The sage gradually, little by little, moment by moment,
should remove the stain from himself, as a smith removes the stain from silver.
Dhp. 239

Ye ca sante upāsanti, sappaññe dhīrasammate,
Saddhā ca nesaṃ sugate, mūlajātā patiṭṭhitā.

Devalokañca te yanti, kule vā idha jāyare,
Anupubbena nibbānaṃ, adhigacchanti paṇḍitā ti.

But those who do attend the peaceful ones
—wise, esteemed as sages—
and whose faith in the Holy One
has roots planted deep,
they go to the realm of the gods,
or are born here in a good family.
Gradually those astute ones
reach extinguishment.”

https://suttacentral.net/an3.57/en/sujato


So, Ānanda, the purpose and benefit of skillful ethics is not having regrets. Joy is the purpose and benefit of not having regrets. Rapture is the purpose and benefit of joy. Tranquility is the purpose and benefit of rapture. Bliss is the purpose and benefit of tranquility. Immersion is the purpose and benefit of bliss. Truly knowing and seeing is the purpose and benefit of immersion. Disillusionment and dispassion is the purpose and benefit of truly knowing and seeing. Knowledge and vision of freedom is the purpose and benefit of disillusionment and dispassion. So, Ānanda, skillful ethics progressively lead up to the highest.”

https://suttacentral.net/an10.1/en/sujato

When a bhikkhu has good friends,
And is reverential and respectful,
Doing what his friends advise,
Clearly comprehending and mindful,
He may progressively attain
The destruction of all fetters.

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/iti17

Sīlakkhandhe patiṭṭhāya,
satiṃ paññañca bhāvayaṃ.
Pāpuṇiṃ anupubbena,
sabbasaṃyojanakkhayan ti.

Established in all the practices of virtue,
Developing mindfulness and understanding,
Gradually I attained
The end of all fetters.

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/thag16.7


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 9, 2019 12:31 PM
Title: Re: Why Buddha did not say that the world is round?
Content:
If you read the sūtra in the BDK link (it's the very last one, starting on page 151) you'll see it's quite a composite work, combining some material that's typical of the Nikāyas as a whole with other material of a kind that in the Theravada texts would be more typical of the commentaries.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 9, 2019 12:16 PM
Title: Re: Why Buddha did not say that the world is round?
Content:
It's from the 30th sūtra in the Chinese Dīrgha Āgama. Some parts of it have parallels in the Pali Tipiṭaka:

Kokālika Sutta AN 10.89; SN 6.10; Snp 3.10
Turūbrahma Sutta SN 6.9
Devadūta Sutta AN 3.36; MN 130

But there's no Pali parallel to the sūtra's long section on the earth's geography.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 9, 2019 11:48 AM
Title: Re: In which sutta does the Buddha explain what no self means?
Content:
His MN reference is to the argument in the Cūḷasaccaka Sutta

http://www.suttas.com/mn-35-culasaccaka-sutta-the-shorter-discourse-to-saccaka.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 9, 2019 11:38 AM
Title: Re: In which sutta does the Buddha explain what no self means?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 9, 2019 11:32 AM
Title: Re: In which sutta does the Buddha explain what no self means?
Content:
As this is tangential to what the OP is enquiring about it would be better to raise your question in the Connections to Other Paths forum.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 9, 2019 6:43 AM
Title: Re: How four Brahama Viihara connected with the 8 Jhana?
Content:
(i) one who abides in lovingkindness can easily apply his mind to a beautiful colour kasiṇa and quickly attain the beautiful liberation (i.e., jhāna based on a colour kasiṇa);

(ii) one who abides in compassion recognizes the danger in form and thus develops the base of the infinity of space, which is the escape from form;

(iii) one who abides in altruistic joy apprehends the joyful consciousness of beings and thus easily enters the base of the infinity of consciousness;

(iv) one who abides in equanimity is skilled in diverting his mind from pleasure and pain, and thus can easily divert it to the absence of any concrete entity in the base of nothingness.

The above is Bhikkhu Bodhi's précis. For the full account see Path of Purification IX 120-123.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 8, 2019 8:49 PM
Title: Re: Dhamma VS Vinaya - ist MILK an allowable drink or not?
Content:
Sādhu.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 7, 2019 11:19 AM
Title: Re: Help requested for basic lessons in how to translate Pali
Content:
Paṭilābha is most often the act of obtaining; it may also be the thing obtained, but usually isn't.

Lābha is most often the thing obtained; it may also be the act of obtaining, but usually isn't.

In short, the two words can be synonymous, but in most contexts are not.

If one is talking about those things that are obtained with difficulty by humans then lābha would be the natural choice. If one is talking about it being difficult for humans to obtain things, then it would be paṭilābha.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 7, 2019 9:58 AM
Title: Re: Help requested for basic lessons in how to translate Pali
Content:
The problem with that translation has more to do with idiom, usage and semantics than grammar. To express that meaning one would use lābha, not paṭilābha.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 7, 2019 8:02 AM
Title: Re: Help requested for basic lessons in how to translate Pali
Content:
manussapaṭilābho = manussattapaṭilābho = manussattassa paṭilābho

"The gaining of the human state," with manussatta (the normal form in Pali prose) being shortened to manussa to fit the Dhammapada metre.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 7, 2019 7:41 AM
Title: Re: Why it is called ugly ?
Content:
You're probably thinking of the Udayin-Sāriputta exchange in AN 9:34.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 7, 2019 3:19 AM
Title: Re: Ignorance and Delusion -- Sutta?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 7, 2019 1:27 AM
Title: Re: Help requested for basic lessons in how to translate Pali
Content:
I would use "hard" or "difficult" for kiccho. 

Ven. Ānandajoti's "rare" is more usually used when the word is dullabho, though even here the more literal rendering would be "difficult to obtain".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 6, 2019 11:46 PM
Title: Re: Why it is called ugly ?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 6, 2019 10:57 PM
Title: Re: Dhamma VS Vinaya - ist MILK an allowable drink or not?
Content:
There are some extracts from the Mahāniddesa in Bhikkhu Bodhi's Suttanipāta translation, but not of this particular passage. He has generally only selected passages that are of some doctrinal interest. An illustration of the meaning of "drink" by giving sixteen examples of things you can drink is not the sort of passage that would be likely to interest him.

Here's my rather quick translation of the second list of eight:

1. kosambapānaṃ - soapberry juice
2. kolapānaṃ - jackal jujube juice
3. badarapānaṃ - jujube juice
4. ghatapānaṃ - perhaps liquid ghee, though the Thai translation has Cynometra cauliflora juice
5. telapānaṃ - water mixed with oil
6. payopānaṃ - milk
7. yāgupānaṃ - the water that rice has been cooked in
8. rasapānaṃ - flavoured water


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 6, 2019 9:38 PM
Title: Re: Dhamma VS Vinaya - ist MILK an allowable drink or not?
Content:
But the context is not one that's concerned with specifying at what time of day the various types of beverage are allowable. It says nothing at all about the Buddha allowing or not allowing anything. In short, it has nothing to do with Vinaya.

Your friend's mistake, I think, is that when the Pali pāna is being used as a loanword in monastic Thai it normally bears the narrow sense: "beverage that monks can drink after midday"; and so I guess he is wrongly assuming that this is what it means in Pali. In fact it simply means 'beverage'.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 6, 2019 12:04 PM
Title: Re: Is Brtish Library keeping the secrets of original Tipitaka?
Content:
Not if the copy was inscribed on ola leaves in a tropical climate in a pre-electrical age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm-leaf_manuscript


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 6, 2019 1:45 AM
Title: Re: DW memorial thread
Content:
Sally Gross, Founder and Director of Intersex South Africa

.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 5, 2019 9:58 PM
Title: Re: Satva
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 5, 2019 9:44 PM
Title: Re: What are the different Pali manuscripts?
Content:
Nirayaṃ upapannaṃ is correct. Uppannaṁ in this context is a typo.

Upapanna is the past participle of upapajjati.

Uppanna is the past participle of uppajjati.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 5, 2019 8:31 PM
Title: Re: Is Brtish Library keeping the secrets of original Tipitaka?
Content:
The truth has long been available to anyone who cares to consult Rev. Somadasa's 7-volume catalogue of the museum's Sri Lankan collection. Unsurprisingly there's no mention of "the original Tipiṭaka", for the said collection will have become worm or termite food about two millennia ago.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 5, 2019 11:04 AM
Title: Re: puñña papa
Content:
When the words are used as terms for judging the moral character of kammas, the difference is only in the phrasing. Whatever is puñña is kusala, and vice versa. Whatever is pāpa is akusala, and vice versa.

It's only in other contexts, outside of good and bad thoughts, words and deeds, that the words take on distinctive meanings. For example, one could use kusala to describe "a skilful acrobat", but not puñña. Or one could describe a snake's bite as pāpa, but not as akusala.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 4, 2019 2:23 PM
Title: Re: Boran kammatthana
Content:
This is covered in Choompolpaisal's earlier article:

The Ancient Theravāda Meditation System, Borān Kammaṭṭhāna: Ānāpānasati or ‘Mindfulness of The Breath’ in Kammatthan Majjima Baeb Lamdub

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HX7aNPK7_9jqYpU3JB_QNt84HegS43SX


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 4, 2019 12:30 PM
Title: Re: Ace Buddha
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 4, 2019 11:46 AM
Title: Re: Difference between the Tipitaka and the Pāli Canon
Content:
The Pali Canon and the Tipiṭaka are the same thing. They don't include the commentaries.

The Three Baskets (tipiṭaka, tīṇi piṭakāni)

= "Root Canon" (mūlapāḷi)
= "Ninefold Dispensation of the Master" (navaṅga satthusāsana)
= "Speech of the Buddha" (buddhavacana)

* * * * *

The Three Baskets with their commentaries (atthakathā), sub-commentaries (ṭīkā), clarifiers of knotty terms (gaṇṭhipadatthavaṇṇanā), clarifiers of grammar and syntax (yojanā), concordances (nissaya), disciplinary adjudications (vinaya-vinicchaya) etc., etc.

= "Books" (potthakāni)
= "Texts" (gambhīrā)
= "Scriptural Doctrine" (pariyattidhamma)

* * * * *

In papers by modern academic scholars you might occasionally see a commentarial work like the Visuddhimagga being referred to as "canonical". In calling it so they are referring to its de facto status in Theravadin countries rather than its de jure status in the ancient tradition.

You might also see a canonical work like the Niddesa or the Paṭisambhidāmagga being referred to as a "commentary". In calling it so they are not claiming that it's an atthakathā but are merely referring to the character of its literary genre.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 4, 2019 10:39 AM
Title: Re: Boran kammatthana
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 3, 2019 9:25 PM
Title: Re: Unorthodox enlightenment
Content:
I'm pretty sure that if a monk went about declaring, say, that it's okay for monks to have sex, then he'd get rebuked for it. But I've never heard of a monk doing this.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 30, 2019 7:54 PM
Title: Re: New kind of a temple!!
Content:
Because the Vinaya's specifications don't offer that option. 

I mean the robes are supposed to be a bhikkhu's uniform and though we're granted some degree of latitude regarding design, types of material and permitted colours, if a bhikkhu is to be recognized as a bhikkhu then the latitude has to have some limits. Otherwise we could just sew our robes according to any design that took our fancy and the resulting lack of uniformity would mean that the uniform would become a non-uniform.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 30, 2019 2:11 PM
Title: Re: Arahant or Rahat?
Content:
... of no interest at all.

See E.G. Kahr's Exploring the Saddanīti.

http://www.palitext.com/JPTS_scans/JPTS_1992_XVII.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 30, 2019 6:49 AM
Title: Re: Unorthodox enlightenment
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 30, 2019 6:02 AM
Title: Re: New kind of a temple!!
Content:
The khaṇḍas (vertical panels) on a monk's upper and outer robes may number 5, 7, 9 or 108. The monk seems to be wearing a 108-khaṇḍa robe. In bygone days this was the sort of robe that monks would sew for themselves if they only had small scraps of cloth to use. In modern times we're never short of large pieces of cloth and so robes of this sort are seldom seen, but there's nothing un-Theravadin about them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 30, 2019 3:17 AM
Title: Re: Meditation retreats - sundry issues
Content:
I call your conception of "teaching Dhamma" narrow because in effect it reduces the whole of the Dhamma to but one of its parts: bhāvanā. 

I call it newfangled because the reduction of Dhamma to bhāvanā (or the claimed sufficiency of bhāvanā alone) are notions that seem to be unattested before the 20th century rise of lay mass meditation movements. Certainly they're unattested in the suttas, where the Buddha's 'gradual training' is one in which considerable groundwork needs to be laid down before bhāvanā even becomes a possibility. See, for example, the Majjhima Nikāya's Cūḷahatthipadopama, Bahuvedanīya, Sekha, Mahā-assapura and Gaṇakamoggallāna Suttas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 30, 2019 2:17 AM
Title: Re: How Anathapindika got so rich
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:37 PM
Title: Re: Can monks go traveling ?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 29, 2019 8:26 PM
Title: Re: Arahant or Rahat?
Content:
I wrote of Kaccāyana's grammar, not Aggavaṃsa's Saddanīti.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 29, 2019 6:12 PM
Title: Re: Can monks go traveling ?
Content:
If the travelling is to inappropriate places, such as taverns, the homes of single women, etc., or if the sights the monk wants to see involve music, dancing and other such entertainments, then the Vinaya would prohibit this.

As for the kinds of sight-seeing and travelling that the Vinaya doesn't prohibit, some of them may still be inappropriate for reasons of Dhamma. If a monk were to regulate his life very strictly according to the Vanapatthasutta, then he wouldn't undertake travelling without good reason. And the Vanapatthasutta grants only one good reason for a non-arahant bhikkhu to move from one location to another, namely, his present location is one in which "unestablished mindfulness doesn't become established, an unconcentrated mind doesn't become concentrated, undestroyed āsavas don't come to destruction and he doesn't attain the unattained supreme security from bondage."

http://www.yellowrobe.com/home/120-majjhima-nikaya/349-mn-17-vanapattha-sutta-jungle-thickets.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:32 AM
Title: Re: Vissudhimagga - path of purification review
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:20 AM
Title: Re: Meditation retreats - sundry issues
Content:
Okay. So it seems that our difference is a merely semantic one. When I speak of "teaching the Dhamma" I'm referring to any act of communicating the Dhamma. 

For example, when two kalyānamittas discuss the Dhamma together I would say that they are teaching each other. 

Or if someone quotes a sutta passage to me and asks me to explain its meaning, then he's teaching me by way of "reminding of what one has heard before" and I'm teaching him by way of "clarifying the meaning" (assuming that I manage to explain it correctly).

For you, on the other hand, it seems that "teaching Dhamma" has the very narrow (and rather newfangled) sense of "instructing people in meditation".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:09 AM
Title: Re: Unorthodox enlightenment
Content:
But the "orthodox notion" here is that the arahant's actions are no longer productive of kammic merit or demerit. To characterize him as "essentially amoral" seems a very unfortunate choice of words. To be amoral is to lack any sense of moral and immoral, but this can't be said of an arahant, for two of an arahant's ten asekha powers are hiri-bala and ottappa-bala.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 29, 2019 7:38 AM
Title: Re: Meditation retreats - sundry issues
Content:
This is a bit ambiguous. Just to clarify, do you mean...

"The rule within the Goenka tradition is that members may not teach but may share and discuss the Dhamma as they wish."

Or:

"The rule is that members may not teach but may share and discuss the Dhamma with their kalyānamittas in the Goenka traditon [but not with others]"


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 28, 2019 12:21 PM
Title: Re: Monastics and suicide
Content:
In the Buddha's day if a new monk knew some Dhamma, then he was free to teach it. See, for example, the newly-ordained Assaji teaching Sāriputta and leading him to stream-entry; and then, immediately after, Sāriputta teaching Moggallāna and leading him to stream-entry.

https://suttacentral.net/pli-tv-kd1/en/horner-brahmali#Kd.1.23.1

But as for modern "guided meditation retreats", these didn't have any counterpart in the Buddha's day. Unsurprisingly then, there are no ancient stipulations as to who may or may not lead one. There are merely the conventions that came to be framed in much later times by different sub-traditions.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 28, 2019 10:55 AM
Title: Meditation retreats - sundry issues (split from "Monastics and suicide")
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 28, 2019 9:13 AM
Title: Re: Font
Content:
It's one of the obsolete pre-Unicode fonts, but I don't know which one. 

It isn't Normyn or Mytimes, my old favourites, so it will probably be either LeedsBit PaliTranslit, Indic Times, VriRomanPali, Skt Times, CSX, or Titus Indo-Aryan. Or some other that I haven't heard of. 

If you know the title of the book from which the chapter is taken you could see if it's available as a PDF. If you don't (or if it isn't) then you could either download all the Indic fonts from Andy's Pali page and see if any of them work: http://www.tipitaka.net/pali/andy/palfon.htm

or you could open the page in your word processor and make the following changes:

î - Ā
Œ - ā
´ - ī
è - ū
¯ - ō
¨ - ṛ
È - Ṅ
º - ṅ
– - ñ
Ê - ṭ
¶ - ḍ
ö - ṇ
ê - Ś
§ - ś
· - ṣ
ú - ḥ
µ - ṃ


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 28, 2019 1:14 AM
Title: Re: Arahant or Rahat?
Content:
Yes. Just like modern phoneticians, the commentators and grammarians describe the place and the instrument of articulation of each consonant and vowel, whether the consonant is voiced or unvoiced, aspirated or unaspirated; whether the vowel is long or short, monophthongal or diphthongal; whether the syllable is light or heavy, etc.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 27, 2019 8:13 AM
Title: Re: What do Deva and Brhame do?
Content:
I don't know if they can or not, but I've never come across a text whose narrative reports them doing so.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 26, 2019 11:11 PM
Title: Re: What do Deva and Brhame do?
Content:
Siva in Pali sources is definitely a sense-sphere deva. I'm not sure about Veṇhu. I believe he's only mentioned in the Mahāsamaya Sutta and there his name appears immediately after that of a number of Brahmā devas but immediately before some sense-sphere devas from the Yama heaven, so it's not very clear what he himself is supposed to be.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 26, 2019 6:56 PM
Title: Re: What do Deva and Brhame do?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 26, 2019 6:06 PM
Title: Re: Arahant or Rahat?
Content:
Assuming that the phonetic descriptions given in the ancient Pali grammars are correct, then the modern way of pronunciation that comes closest to this is that of Indian and Bangladeshi bhikkhus. Typically they'll get all the sounds correct except the palatals ca and ja.

After the Indians the next best are the Sinhalese. Their main mistake is either to fail to aspirate the aspirated consonants (e.g., dha as da, ṭha as ṭa) or to hypercorrect by pronouncing non-aspirates as aspirates, e.g., mettā as metthā.

As for modern SE Asian ways of pronunciation, these are all very poor, with at least half of the consonants mispronounced. The pronunciation of the Thais and Cambodians is about equally bad; that of the Laotians is a bit worse and that of the Burmese the worst of all.

The typical pronunciation of an English-speaking Western bhikkhu will contain about the same number of mistakes as that of the Thais. Our main ones are not bothering to distinguish retroflex and dental consonants, but realizing both types as alveolars, aspirating ka, ta and pa, incorrect syllabification when a vagga consonant is followed by an avagga, turning doubled consonants into single ones (e.g., dhammaŋ as /damaŋ/), and turning the vowel in unstressed syllables into a schwa (e.g., a British Buddhist will probably pronounce buddha as /'budə/, while an American will do so as /'būdə/).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 25, 2019 4:54 PM
Title: Re: Arahant or Rahat?
Content:
Linguist David Crystal on how we can know how Shakespeare's language was originally pronounced.

.


With dead languages matters are a little trickier and the results a great deal less certain, but it's still possible to arrive at a ballpark approximation.

An old Reddit thread on the subject:

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1i9m30/how_do_we_know_what_ancient_languages_sounded_like/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 25, 2019 5:37 AM
Title: Re: Looking for the best word by word translation of the patimokkha
Content:
If you just want to read the Pātimokkha, then Ajahn Thanissaro's translation is very good.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/vin/sv/bhikkhu-pati.html

If you want to study it, then get Bhante Ñāṇatusita's word-for-word translation and grammatical analysis.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=15pDKbu4mIiHV-v5ijaqEce253fvx_Yv7


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 25, 2019 3:14 AM
Title: Re: Approaching the meaning of Sati, within Sammāsati and Paṭiccasamuppāda
Content:
The phrase is an example of a locative absolute construction. For details see Warder's Introduction to Pali pp. 103-4.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 19, 2019 7:52 PM
Title: Re: Help requested for basic lessons in how to translate Pali
Content:
When you use the suffix -to, you add it to the pre-inflected form of the noun or adjective (i.e. the form in which they appear in most dictionaries). Dukkha + to, "from suffering".

Dukkhatā means "state of suffering" and is not relevant here. If one added -to to this (though in practice it's never done), then the word would be dukkhatāto.

Time for evening pūjā now. I'll return to your other questions later.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 19, 2019 6:40 PM
Title: Re: Jhanas and rebirth as a god
Content:
I take it that you're referring to the gods in the Brahmā world, since no jhāna at all is needed for rebirth as a deva in the six heavens of the sense-sphere.

For the possibility of rebirth in the Brahma world you need to attain jhāna.

For such a rebirth to become probable, you need to "develop and make much" of the jhāna you've attained. That is, entering and abiding in jhāna needs to be undertaken daily.

For developing supernormal powers you need mastery of jhāna.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 19, 2019 2:03 PM
Title: Re: In which level the grasping (upadana) is eliminated?
Content:
The higher fetters of attachment to rūpa and arūpa existence are still present in the non-returner and both are included in kāmupādāna. Therefore kāmupādāna is fully abandoned only at arahantship. 

(Btw, note that the kāma in kāmupādāna is kilesa-kāma, not vatthu-kāma. So it doesn't mean "sensual pleasures" and nor is it limited to desire for sense-sphere objects).

The other three upādānas (diṭṭhupādāna, sīlabbatupādāna and attavādupādāna), being attachment to three different kinds of wrong view, are all abandoned at stream-entry.

Diṭṭhupādāna = clinging to any kinds of wrong view except sīlabbatupādāna and attavādupādāna.

Sīlabbatupādāna = clinging to the view that purification is effected by rules or vows, or by both rules and vows.

Attavādupādāna = 20 kinds of sakkāyadiṭṭhi


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 19, 2019 2:09 AM
Title: Re: Help requested for basic lessons in how to translate Pali
Content:
The ending -to can indicate either (1) an ablative of separation, as in: dukkhato mutto, "freed from suffering," or, (2) an instrumental adverb in the sense of "by way of its being..." or "with regard to its being..."

Cakkhuṃ aniccato passati, "He sees the eye with regard to its being impermanent." But since this sounds a bit unwieldy, most translators will render it in more natural English: "He sees the eye as impermanent."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 19, 2019 12:58 AM
Title: Re: Help requested for basic lessons in how to translate Pali
Content:
With feminine nouns in i, the -iyā inflection could be either dative or genitive, but in the present case there's no doubt that it's the former. This can be seen from passages where it's a masculine or neuter noun that's being praised. For example: asubhāya vaṇṇaṃ bhāsati. Asubha is either masculine or neuter, and so here the -āya ending is unambiguously dative.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 19, 2019 12:12 AM
Title: Re: What is the difference between Sakkhayaditthi and Atthanuditthi?
Content:
It seems to be a typo on Bhikkhu Bodhi's part, for the BJT, Sixth Council and Royal Siamese editions all read the same and with no variant readings reported.

In the Pali, SN. 35.165 (Micchādiṭṭhipahānasutta) has aniccato; SN 35.166 (Sakkāyadiṭṭhipahānasutta) has dukkhato; and SN 35.167 (Attānudiṭṭhipahānasutta) has anattato. But Bhikkhu Bodhi translates as if all three read aniccato.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 18, 2019 5:50 PM
Title: Re: Brahmachariya
Content:
The story is common knowledge among monks in the Ajahn Chah tradition, but I should be surprised if it's found anywhere in print. It's just not the kind of biographical detail that Thais would normally put into books.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 17, 2019 9:09 PM
Title: Re: Paying taxes and second precept
Content:
No. Incomplete commissions of defeating offences are ruled to be either grave offences (thullaccaya) or misdemeanours (dukkaṭa), depending on how close the bhikkhu came to succeeding. With either of these classes of offence the remedy is simple confession.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 17, 2019 5:13 PM
Title: Re: Paying taxes and second precept
Content:
Yes. The episode is placed in the Vinaya's second pārājika section. All the acts judged to be defeating offences in this section are acts of stealing.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 17, 2019 3:57 PM
Title: Re: Help requested for basic lessons in how to translate Pali
Content:
No. "Ye manussā cutā" means "who have passed away as humans"; all nominative plural.

If you wanted to say "passed away from humanity (or from the human state)" then you would use manussattā, the ablative singular of manussatta, as in the Itivuttaka's Dānasutta:

annañca datvā bahuno, dakkhiṇeyyesu dakkhiṇaṃ,
ito cutā manussattā, saggaṃ gacchanti dāyakā.

Thanissaro:
Having given food
as an offering
to those worthy of offerings,
many donors,
when they pass away from here,
the human state,
go to heaven.

Ireland:
Having given much food as offerings
To those most worthy of offerings,
The donors go to heaven
On departing the human state.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 17, 2019 2:00 AM
Title: Re: Paying taxes and second precept
Content:
https://sasanarakkha.org/2007/01/07/dialogue-on-copyright-infringement-and-vinaya/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 17, 2019 12:35 AM
Title: Re: Find a Sutta
Content:
The Kālāma Sutta is the one that comes immediately to mind.

Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation...

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/an3.65


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:31 PM
Title: Re: Paying taxes and second precept
Content:
80% of the tax revenue is spent on mosques? Are you quite sure? This doesn't sound like a believable figure even for the six remaining Islamic theocracies, let alone semi-secularized nations like Malaysia and Indonesia.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 15, 2019 7:34 PM
Title: Re: Five Antaraya Dharma?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 13, 2019 3:53 PM
Title: Re: Help requested for basic lessons in how to translate Pali
Content:
Because it's the subject of the sentence.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 12, 2019 5:51 PM
Title: Re: Help requested for basic lessons in how to translate Pali
Content:
As uppāda is masculine, uppādāya is dative singular: "for the arising...". A more literal rendering than B. Sujāto's would be:

Yopi hetu / yopi paccayo 
And that which [is] the cause / and that which [is] the condition

cakkhussa uppādāya / sopi anicco.
for the arising of the eye / that also is impermanent

"The cause and condition for the arising of the eye are also impermanent."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 12, 2019 12:07 PM
Title: Re: Nekkhamma
Content:
though "desire for sense pleasures" would be more accurate.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 11, 2019 3:32 PM
Title: Re: Third precept
Content:
The early texts don't go further than specifying the kind of sexual partners who are off limits. The specifications taught by some Mahayana teachers regarding appropriate and inappropriate methods and orifices, right and wrong places and times, etc., all come from very late texts and aren't found in any Theravadin sources at all. The East Asians usually get them from the Upāsakaśīla Sūtra and the Tibetans from Vaśubandhu's auto-commentary to the Abhidharmakośa.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 11, 2019 12:42 PM
Title: Re: Mahayana /Vajrayana attitude with Pali Canon?
Content:
When they get to the fifth aspiration I sometime have trouble keeping a straight face. It rather reminds me of how St Augustine used to pray when he was still a decadent young playboy in Carthage: Domine da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo (“O Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not just yet.” Confessions VIII 7)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 10, 2019 11:33 PM
Title: Re: Third precept
Content:
Women keeping brahmacarī vows (i.e., bhikkhunīs, sāmaṇerīs, sikkhamānās and eight-precept upāsikās) and (in later texts) consanguineous female relatives.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 10, 2019 6:47 AM
Title: Re: Jhanas, Misconceptions that have arisen regarding the Four Rupa Jhanas.
Content:
https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/mn70

As for Dharmaśrī, his only jhāna-related innovation is that in contrast with most of his predecessors he has virtually nothing to say on the subject. His Abhidharmasāra mentions them only very briefly in connection with the attainment of non-returnership.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 9, 2019 8:45 PM
Title: Re: Visuddhimagga: piti included in the formations aggregate
Content:
Pīti isn't intrinsically wholesome but is reckoned as wholesome when it arises in a wholesome consciousness or as unwholesome when it arises in an unwholesome (i.e., a greed-rooted) consciousness. And so the Abhidhamma lists pīti not in the class of twenty-five beautiful mental factors (sobhaṇa cetasika) but rather in that of the six miscellaneous mental factors (pakiṇṇaka cetasika), i.e., vitakka, vicāra, adhimokkha, vīriya, pīti and chanda.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 9, 2019 6:12 PM
Title: Re: Just a few questions on pronunciation, spelling and grammar
Content:
अरहन्त


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 9, 2019 4:56 PM
Title: Re: Amazing Sutta audio
Content:
They are lots of ways to download videos from youtube. I use MacX YouTube Downloader from https://www.macxdvd.com

Some other ways...

https://www.wikihow.com/Download-YouTube-Videos


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 9, 2019 12:40 PM
Title: Re: Abhidhamma Resources
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 9, 2019 10:58 AM
Title: Re: What Dhamma Book are you reading right now?
Content:
./download/file.php?id=5269
(413.79 KiB) Downloaded 10 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 8, 2019 3:52 PM
Title: Re: what is meaning of this word "opening"
Content:
Āyatana here is glossed in the commentary as kāraṇa, 'cause', and in the sub-commentaries as upanissaya, 'decisive support condition". For a description of the latter see the Compendium of Conditionality, chapter VIII of the Abhidhammatthasangaha.

https://what-buddha-said.net/library/pdfs/Comprehensive_Manual_of_%20Abhidhamma.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 8, 2019 3:17 PM
Title: Re: Do it excist creaturs that never will become liberated?
Content:
In later times, however, some Mahayanists took to speculating and debating about the matter. A minority of them held that certain beings were so bad as to be eternally debarred from the possibility of awakening. The majority view denied this and asserted the indestructibility of Buddha nature.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 6, 2019 9:51 PM
Title: Re: Byapada & dosa
Content:
In the Abhidhamma the mental factor of aversion (dosa cetasika) has many different modes. Vyāpāda and vihiṃsā are two of them.

Vyāpāda may have either a saṅkhāra (e.g., a painful bodily feeling) or a living being as its ārammaṇa. It aims at bringing that ārammaṇa to non-existence by way of its destruction or death.

Vihiṃsā takes only living beings as its ārammaṇa and aims at their hurt or injury, bodily or mental.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 6, 2019 6:24 PM
Title: Re: Is there something wrong with the way monastic community organised these days?
Content:
Of course a monastery can say NO. It's just that they usually don't, either because the monks are too fond of their creature comforts or else fearful of offending some important lay supporter.

At Wat Pa Ban Tard we used candles for light, got water for bathing from a well and water for drinking from rainwater tanks. Ajahn Maha Bua would constantly get wealthy lay supporters from Bangkok begging to be allowed to make merit by sponsoring the installation of electricity and running water. He always said no.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 6, 2019 2:40 PM
Title: Re: Mystic beings
Content:
Which relieves me of the burden of responding to your uninformed comments about it. Ananda Coomaraswamy, to take one example, wasn't a swami but (inter alia) a Sri Lankan expert on yakṣas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 6, 2019 9:44 AM
Title: Re: Mystic beings
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 6, 2019 3:28 AM
Title: Re: Ethical conduct loved by the nobles ones
Content:
See this past thread:

https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=32807


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 5, 2019 5:47 PM
Title: Re: Help requested for basic lessons in how to translate Pali
Content:
Not an adverb or indeclinable, but the instrumental singular of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonstrative so.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 5, 2019 7:23 AM
Title: Re: Discouraged Feet Pointing Direction
Content:
It doesn't mean that. It means having the soles of your feet, or of either foot, directed towards the image. For example, if you sit down with your legs stretched out in front of you.

In Thailand lifting up a leg and showing someone the sole of your foot is a gesture of extreme contempt.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 2, 2019 10:51 PM
Title: Re: Anantarika kamma in the suttas
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 2, 2019 2:01 PM
Title: Re: A Buddhist school without monks
Content:
If you mean monks in the sense of bhikkhus/bhikṣus, then all the traditional Japanese Buddhist schools are monk-free. That is to say, the lineage of bhikkhu ordination doesn't exist in Japan except in a handful of recently established Chinese and Theravada monasteries. Likewise the Taego Buddhist Order of Korea, being non-celibate, has effectively ceased to be an order of bhikṣus.

But if we're taking "monks" to include any kind of full-time religious clerics, whether celibate or not, whether possessing a Vinaya lineage or not, then there are quite a number of Buddhist organizations and movements that lack any such persons.

Firstly there are organizations which are all-lay in their membership but nevertheless maintain cordial relations with the bhikkhusaṅgha and occasionally invite monks to teach. For example, the Samatha Trust in Britain and Spirit Rock and the Insight Meditation Society in the USA.

Secondly there are all-lay organizations that are simply uninterested in the bhikkhusangha (or any other kind of Buddhist clerics). This would probably apply to most North American vipassanā communities, Goenkaites, lay Nichirenist groups in Japan (with the exception of Soka Gakkai), and many of the numerous "tea and biscuits" Buddhist societies that meet in members' homes.

Thirdly there are lay organizations that maintained (or in the case of the Triratna Buddhist Order / FWBO used to maintain) a critical or even hostile stance towards Buddhist clericalism. Sometimes the hostility is selective (e.g. Soka Gakkai's towards the priests of the Nichiren Shoshu) and sometimes it's directed against all comers (e.g., the FWBO from the 70's to the mid-90's).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 1, 2019 8:26 PM
Title: Re: Translation questions about satipatthana & anapanasati
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 1, 2019 10:33 AM
Title: Re: Translation questions about satipatthana & anapanasati
Content:
I'm consistently keen on Pali grammar. If you yourself were keen on it, or were just willing to spend a few hours on it, you might have learned by now that...

In Pali, as in English, whatever word may serve as an adjective may serve also as a noun.

In Pali, in contrast with English, one cannot always know with certainty when a word is serving as an adjective or as a noun. Whereas in English this can be seen from the use of a definite article ("the good, the true and the beautiful,"how are the mighty fallen") or an indefinite article ("a philological incompetent like ToVincent"), in Pali there are no devices for indicating this. 

Consequently the distinction between nouns and adjectives in Pali is nowhere near as obvious or as cut and dried as it is in English. Much of the time one simply has no idea if a word is functioning as one or the other. Suppose, for example, we are tasked with translating the salutation:

namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammāsambuddhassa

The words bhagavā, arahanta and sammmāsambuddha may each be either an adjective or a noun:

bhagavā: blessed / blessed one
arahanta: worthy / worthy one
sammāsambuddha: perfectly awakened / perfectly awakened one

And the word tassa might be either a demonstrative pronoun ('to him') or a demonstrative adjective ('to that').

And so there are numerous plausible ways of translating the above salutation:

All adjectives:
Homage to him who is blessed, worthy and perfectly awakened!

All nouns:
Homage to him, the Blessed One, Worthy One, Perfectly Awakened One!
Homage to that Blessed One, Worthy One, Perfectly Awakened One!

A combination of the two:
Homage to that Blessed One who is worthy and perfectly awakened!
Homage to that blessed Worthy One who is perfectly awakened!
Homage to that blessed and worthy Perfectly Awakened One!
Homage to him, the blessed Worthy One who is perfectly awakened! 

Etc., etc.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 30, 2019 5:35 PM
Title: Re: Jhanas, Misconceptions that have arisen regarding the Four Rupa Jhanas.
Content:
I wouldn't rule out the possibility, but in the surviving pre-Buddhist Upanishads I don't think there's anything whose name or description bears any resemblance to saññāvedayita-nirodha-samāpatti.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 29, 2019 7:49 PM
Title: Re: Translation questions about satipatthana & anapanasati
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 29, 2019 7:13 PM
Title: Re: Translation questions about satipatthana & anapanasati
Content:
On second thoughts, I think it was a mistake to class ānāpāne above as locative. Since the gerund ārabbha comes from the verb ārabhati which governs the accusative case, ānāpāne will almost certainly be accusative plural. This won't, however, necessitate any change to the above translation.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 29, 2019 1:01 PM
Title: Re: Jhanas, Misconceptions that have arisen regarding the Four Rupa Jhanas.
Content:
Because the type of virtuoso described in the Sāmaññaphalasutta is one who has arrived at cessation in the sense of dukkhanirodha, not cessation in the sense of saññāvedayita-nirodha-samāpatti. It is only for one aspiring to the latter that the āruppas are a prerequisite.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 29, 2019 12:29 AM
Title: Re: Translation questions about satipatthana & anapanasati
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 28, 2019 11:53 PM
Title: Re: Insights cannot be discuss
Content:
Indeed. A peculiarity of this rule, along with the fourth pārājika, is that it doesn't prohibit the very behaviour that led to its promulgation.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 28, 2019 9:41 PM
Title: Re: Uposatha Observance Club
Content:
I agree that it's open to being read that way, but it doesn't supply any confirmation that this way of reading it is correct. It's also open to being read as the Theravāda tradition reads it, i.e., by taking the three specified days as being three possible days on which uposathas might fall subject to the vagaries of the calendar, rather than as three days in every month on which uposathas will invariably fall. According to the former reading, uposathas fall on the eighth day of every half-month, on the fourteenth day (but not the fifteenth) when it's a 14-day half-month, and on the fifteenth day (but not the fourteenth) when it's a 15-day half-month.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 28, 2019 3:11 AM
Title: Re: Insights cannot be discuss
Content:
In the origin story to the rule the concern seems to be that if such declarations were permitted, then monks would make them for the sake of their livelihood.

https://suttacentral.net/pli-tv-bu-vb-pc8/en/brahmali


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 27, 2019 8:15 PM
Title: Re: Insights cannot be discuss
Content:
It's a little too vague to be able to declare it true or false. To be more specific:

If the insight amounts to an ariyan attainment, e.g., stream-entry, and if the attainer is a bhikkhu, then it can't be made known to an unordained person.

Whether the insight is a low- or a high-level one, if the attainer is not ordained then the texts don't impose any limitation on declaring it or discussing it. However, some meditation teachers and traditions have their own rules or advisories, usually counseling the exercise of discretion in this matter.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 27, 2019 7:55 PM
Title: Re: Temple in remote areas needs some suggestions in acquiring electricity
Content:
Lack of a visible sun isn't an insuperable problem. It just means that the batteries won't charge as fast and so you'll need at least one spare battery. In my own case, during the hot season if I connected a battery to the solar panel at dawn it would be fully charged by the time I'd finished breakfast. In the cool season it would take until noon. In the wet season, when there were usually thick mountain clouds all day long, it would take from dawn to dusk.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 27, 2019 1:05 PM
Title: Re: Temple in remote areas needs some suggestions in acquiring electricity
Content:
I think it can be done for much less than that. From the pictures you posted it seems the monks are presently using a centralized battery system for the whole monastery. If I were designing the setup I'd decentralize it and supply each monk's kuṭi with:

One Voltaic Systems solar panel
$79


./download/file.php?id=5248&mode=view


One Bestek 300W Power Inverter DC 12V to 230V AC Converter
$37

Two Ultra Max LI7-12, 12v 7Ah lithium ion batteries
$116 x 2 = $232

Total: $348 x 30 monks = $10,440

Or less if the existing solar panels can be transferred to the kutis and if (some of) the existing batteries are still usable.

To this one would need to add the cost for electrifying the kitchen and sala, both of which would require more robust (and more expensive) systems than the kutis. But the total will still be a lot less than $30k and you won't be losing up to 30% of your energy via distribution as you will with a centralized system. Also, it will be more aesthetically pleasing for you won't have all those ugly wires hanging about overhead.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 26, 2019 5:36 PM
Title: Re: Temple in remote areas needs some suggestions in acquiring electricity
Content:
It depends how much electricity is needed. I once spent three years on a mountain and got by with two car batteries, a 12v-to-240v inverter and a small solar panel for recharging the batteries. But then my needs were quite minimal. I was only using electricity to light a fluorescent reading lamp and recharge a laptop. To boil water I would light a fire as the inverter didn't supply enough wattage and when we held nighttime public meetings I would use candles since large fluorescent lights would have exhausted the batteries too quickly.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 26, 2019 12:07 PM
Title: Re: Bhikkhu Akiñcano - "With the Right Understanding" (Phenomenological Explorations of the Pāli Suttas)
Content:
It's a different Akiñcano.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 26, 2019 12:00 PM
Title: Re: Almsround monk can request for vegetarian foods ?
Content:
It's not uncommon for this to happen with newly-ordained monks who haven't yet adapted to eating only in the mornings. But this isn't the usual reason why some senior monks grow fat. It's more often because they go too far in trying to please their lay donors. This is also why fat monks are a rarer sight in forest wats than in town and village wats. In a forest wat after the food's been offered and the blessing given, the lay people will usually leave the sālā and let the monks eat in peace, rather than hovering about the table, offering more food when monks' plates are empty and badgering them to eat it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 25, 2019 10:04 PM
Title: Re: New beings/minds formation
Content:
If a new living being (which is to say, a new saṃsāra - in the non-figurative sense), were to arise, then since that being had not existed before, its arising would contradict the sutta statement that saṃsāra is without any conceivable beginning. For that being there would be a beginning; there would be "a first point to avijjā", there would be a first point of which one could say, "Before this there was no ignorance, afterwards it came into being."

Therefore, the notion of a new being arising is at odds with how saṃsāra is conceived in the suttas, whether considered in either its literal or in its figurative sense.

Is this any clearer?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 25, 2019 9:35 AM
Title: Re: No local Theravada Sangha
Content:
I second that.

https://www.samatha.org/what-we-offer/classes/norwich-0


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 25, 2019 9:09 AM
Title: Re: Almsround monk can request for vegetarian foods ?
Content:
Except on occasions of sickness, ANY efforts made by bhikkhus to induce laypeople to offer them the kind of food they prefer will always involve a departure from the dhammic virtues of "contentment with any kind of almsfood" (itarītarapiṇḍapāta-santuṭṭhi) and "contentment with whatever gains happen to come one's way" (yathālābha-santuṭṭhi). 

Now if a bhikkhu is a clever legalist he may be able to devise all sorts of ways of getting what he wants that are not technically violations of any Vinaya rule. For example, merely saying "I don't eat meat" (or publishing a book in which you announce the same) wouldn't transgress pācittiya 39 in the way that "Give me vegetarian food!" would. But if your purpose in saying it is to induce laypeople to offer you vegetarian food, then you've abandoned the dhammic virtues of itarītarapiṇḍapāta-santuṭṭhi and yathālābha-santuṭṭhi, even though your Vinaya is technically pure.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:06 AM
Title: Re: New beings/minds formation
Content:
Don't the two issues boil down to the same thing?

If the statement, "There's no beginning to saṃsāra" is true, then the statement, "Some beings in saṃsāra are new" must be false. For these beings to be "new" their saṃsāra would have needed to have had a beginning.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 25, 2019 7:34 AM
Title: Re: Sharing merit
Content:
It should be:

ākāsaṭṭhā ca bhummaṭṭhā
devā nāgā mahiddhikā |
puññantaṃ anumoditvā
ciraṃ rakkhantu sāsanaṃ ||

May those devas and nāgas of great power,
stationed in the sky or on the earth,
having shared in this merit
guard the Dispensation for a long time!

The version with loka in it doesn't make sense and doesn't conform to the metre.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 25, 2019 7:21 AM
Title: Re: Ancient texts of meditation
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 24, 2019 2:21 PM
Title: Re: Phra Khantipalo
Content:
Thanks for posting this report.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 24, 2019 9:44 AM
Title: Re: Almsround monk can request for vegetarian foods ?
Content:
If you are asking if his dietary commitment will exempt him from observing pācittiya 39, then the answer is no. The training rule gives only occasions of sickness as grounds for exemption.

There won't, however, be any Vinaya fault if he practises vegetarianism by simply not eating any meat or fish that are offered to him. It's when he makes an effort to engineer what sort of foods get offered to him that he runs the risk of committing an offence.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 24, 2019 9:23 AM
Title: Re: Almsround monk can request for vegetarian foods ?
Content:
Well, yes, he could be. But seriously folks ... in the real world it seldom if ever happens that a layperson spontaneously appoints himself as a monk's ambulatory herald – walking in front of him on almsround and proclaiming to all and sundry what a gastronomically correct offering would be. 

Any time you witness such a scene it's almost certain that the monk in question is a militant vegetarian (someone like Phra Phothirak or Ajahn Yantra) and is using the almsround precisely for the purpose of promoting his favourite dietary choice. And the placard-carrying herald is just a lay disciple doing what he's told.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 24, 2019 5:06 AM
Title: Re: Almsround monk can request for vegetarian foods ?
Content:
In Vinaya one doesn't escape culpability by having a non-allowable request conveyed via a messenger.

For example, there's no difference between hiring a hitman to have someone snuffed and sending a messenger to hire a hitman to have someone snuffed.

And so if the layperson is carrying the placard because the monks have told him to do so, and if the monks are not sick, and if the message stipulates the vegetarian foods: ghee, fresh butter, oil, honey, sugar, milk or curds, then it would be a pācittiya.

If the same conditions obtain but the placard doesn't stipulate which particular vegetarian foods the dainty monks are craving for, then it would be a dukkaṭa.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 23, 2019 2:06 PM
Title: Re: Almsround monk can request for vegetarian foods ?
Content:
No. If a bhikkhu does so, then unless he is sick he will be breaking pācittiya 39 if he asks for any of the nine kinds of fine foods (i.e., ghee, fresh butter, oil, honey, sugar/molasses, fish, meat, milk, curds) or committing a dukkaṭa offence if he stipulates any other kind of food.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 23, 2019 1:28 PM
Title: Re: Ancient texts of meditation
Content:
I've heard it claimed that Luang Phor Reusee Lingdam, late abbot of Wat Jantharam Thasung in Uthai Thani, had mastered manomaya-iddhi and could teach it, but I don't know if it's true or how he taught it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 22, 2019 7:12 AM
Title: Re: Ancient texts of meditation
Content:
In the case of Ajahn Lee, the Vimuttimagga wouldn't have been an option as it was translated into Thai only twenty years ago. The ajahn died in 1961.

As for Ledi Sayadaw and the inventor of the Kanni method, for nearly all Burmese monks the Visuddhimagga has long been the traditional mainstay for bhāvanā. I don't know if there is a Burmese translation of the Vimuttimagga, but even if there was one, it would be regarded by the Burmese as a heterodox text on account of its non-Mahāvihāra provenance.

As for the Yogāvacara manual, almost nobody uses it because almost nobody can understand it (though Anāgarika Dhammapāla was reportedly a big fan). It was most probably intended as a text to be used in conjunction with oral instruction, but there's no longer any living tradition of bhāvanā associated with it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 22, 2019 2:33 AM
Title: Re: looking for citation, pīti and sukha of 4 jhānas compared to dying of thirst, seeing water in distance, and drinking
Content:
Are these the passages you are referring to? If so, where in the first passage does it say that kāya means the physical body? The commentary doesn't define it so. In fact it repeats the Saṃyutta Commentary's definition that I quoted in my last post.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 22, 2019 2:02 AM
Title: Re: looking for citation, pīti and sukha of 4 jhānas compared to dying of thirst, seeing water in distance, and drinking
Content:
The Atthasālini translation ("The Expositor") is among the texts that the PTS has made legally available in its entirety. You can get scanned copies of the two volumes from archive.org

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.92596

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.282115

The Sammohavinodanī (Vibhaṅga Atthakathā), translated by Ñāṇamoli as "Dispeller of Delusion" is unfortunately not yet legally available.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 22, 2019 12:12 AM
Title: Re: looking for citation, pīti and sukha of 4 jhānas compared to dying of thirst, seeing water in distance, and drinking
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 21, 2019 11:44 PM
Title: Re: looking for citation, pīti and sukha of 4 jhānas compared to dying of thirst, seeing water in distance, and drinking
Content:
I think most of what I would say has already been said by Volo. To sum up:

• Pīti is never referred to as a vedanā in any Pali text whatever.

• In the Suttanta Piṭaka pīti is never really defined, except by a list of ten synonyms (i.e., pāmojjaṃ, modanā, āmodanā, pamodanā, hāso, pahāso, vitti, tuṭṭhi, odagyaṃ and attamanatā cittassa), given in the Niddesa and Paṭisambhidāmagga.

• The classification of pīti as an item in saṅkhārakkhandha doesn't originate with the commentaries but goes back to the Abhidhamma Piṭaka's Dhammasaṅgaṇī and Vibhaṅga.

• That the second ānāpānassati tetrad corresponds to vedanānupassanā doesn't oblige us to conclude that the pītipaṭisaṃvedī in this tetrad is a vedanā, for the tetrad also includes cittasaṅkhārapaṭisaṃvedī. Cittasaṅkhārā includes saññā, which is certainly not a vedanā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 21, 2019 12:45 AM
Title: Re: looking for citation, pīti and sukha of 4 jhānas compared to dying of thirst, seeing water in distance, and drinking
Content:
The answer is in the next paragraph of the sutta:

* thirsty men from the four directions = men from the four varṇas.
* entering the lotus pond = their going forth in the Tathāgata's dhammavinaya, developing the brahmavihāras, attaining inner calm.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 20, 2019 1:36 PM
Title: Re: Story of a small giant
Content:
What is the source of this story? 140kg would be roughly the weight of an adult giant panda.

At a weightlifting contest in Pattaya yesterday, a Chinese Olympic weightlifter won a gold medal and broke the world record for a snatch lift in the 61kg class by lifting just 145kg.

https://www.iwf.net/2019/09/19/li-fabin-seized-gold-irawan/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 19, 2019 11:16 PM
Title: Re: Is there creator god actually there?just asking
Content:
Not there, not here, not anywhere.

http://www.buddhismtoday.com/english/philosophy/maha/027-Dharmakiirti.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:22 PM
Title: Re: Eyes Open?
Content:
No, in the Pali texts nothing is stated on the matter. Nowadays you will encounter a variety of views, such as:

1. The eyes should always be kept open.
2. The eyes should always be kept closed.
3. It doesn't matter whether they are open or closed.
4. It does matter: they should be closed when energy is stronger than concentration (to avoid restlessness), but open when concentration is stronger than energy (to avoid sloth and torpor).
5. It depends on the meditator: some fare better with eyes open, some with eyes closed.

But each view is just the opinion of one teacher or another, one meditation sub-tradition or another.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:32 PM
Title: Re: What's "Laughing Wisdom" ?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 18, 2019 2:12 AM
Title: Re: vivicca, a term put together with 2 words?
Content:
The noun viveka and participle vivicca are related, being formed from the same prefix and verbal root, but there's no connection at all with anicca.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 13, 2019 1:38 AM
Title: Re: What is Nibbana？
Content:
Nibbāna can be one, two, three or four.

For one, two and three see pages 391-4 of Sayādaw U Sīlānanda's Handbook of Abhidhamma Studies.

http://www.abhidhamma.com/Abhid-Lectures-2.pdf

As for the fourfold nibbāna, this is based on whether the attainer is a sotāpanna, sakadāgāmin, anāgāmin or arahant.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 12, 2019 4:32 PM
Title: Re: Complete Patimokkha Chant in Pali PDF, anyone?
Content:
Yes, for that you need either the Vinaya Piṭaka or some modern work like Ajahn Thanissaro's Buddhist Monastic Code.

This will give you the Vinaya Piṭaka's background stories (and subsequent evolution) of all of the rules in the monks' Pātimokkha:
https://suttacentral.net/pli-tv-bu-vb

This does the same for the nuns' Pātimokkha:
https://suttacentral.net/pli-tv-bi-vb

And this does it for all the Vinaya rules and procedures that fall outside the Pātimokkha:
https://suttacentral.net/pli-tv-kd


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 11, 2019 7:21 PM
Title: Re: Complete Patimokkha Chant in Pali PDF, anyone?
Content:
This is the Thai version in Devanagari.


 ./download/file.php?id=5194
(217.04 KiB) Downloaded 90 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 11, 2019 5:22 PM
Title: Re: Complete Patimokkha Chant in Pali PDF, anyone?
Content:
https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/learning-the-pa-imokkha/11774


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 11, 2019 1:38 PM
Title: Re: Uposatha Observance Club
Content:
That's just your opinion. The Theravāda understanding of cātuddase pannarase aṭṭhamiyā ca is that uposatha falls on the fourteenth day when it's a 14-day half-month, on the fifteenth day when it's a 15-day half-month, and on the eighth day of every half-month.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 11, 2019 11:33 AM
Title: Re: what is a dhammakkhandha?
Content:
And its meaning is explained in the Atthasālinī:

.


./download/file.php?id=5193&mode=view


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 11, 2019 3:04 AM
Title: Re: "Householder" etymology
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:01 PM
Title: Re: Complete Patimokkha Chant in Pali PDF, anyone?
Content:
If you are planning to study the Pātimokkha, I recommend you also download Ven. Ñāṇatusita's word-by-word analysis of it.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=15pDKbu4mIiHV-v5ijaqEce253fvx_Yv7


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 9, 2019 8:52 AM
Title: Re: MN 138 upekkha-sukha error in pali CST4 source, should correction be sukha-kāyena, or sukha-kayassa?
Content:
As far as I know, in the commentaries kāyena is never glossed as purisena, puggalena, attabhāvena or anything else to this effect.

The places where Ven. Sujāto translates kāyena as "personally" seem to be those where the commentary gives the gloss sahajāta-nāmakāyena ("with the conascent mental body") or simply nāmakāyena.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 8, 2019 6:39 PM
Title: Re: Is it worth it to resist your well-deserved bad karma?
Content:
No, it would be going to the extreme of self-mortification. It might perhaps meet with the approval of Nigaṇṭha ascetics, but in the Cūḷadukkhakkhandha Sutta the Buddha ridiculed the idea.

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/mn14


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 8, 2019 6:31 PM
Title: Re: How difficult it is to obtain human life ?
Content:
Yes, I got that. But the figure is so staggering (even more so for termites!) I couldn't resist posting it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 8, 2019 6:11 PM
Title: Re: How difficult it is to obtain human life ?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 6, 2019 7:33 PM
Title: Re: What exactly does the Pali term "parinibbāyino" mean ????
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 6, 2019 10:21 AM
Title: Re: Root of Piti
Content:
That's true of non-Thai monks living here. But with the Thais, nearly every village or town monk will be required to take at least Nak Tham Tree and in recent years even the abbots of some forest wats have had their monks do it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 6, 2019 9:52 AM
Title: Re: Root of Piti
Content:
Yes, I took the นักธรรม/Nak Tham course at Wat Benchamabophitr in the late 1980s and was the first Western Mahanikaya monk to complete it. Though not the first of all Western monks – two American Dhammayutts, Ajahn Thanissaro at Wat Asokaram, and Phra Kantasīlo at Wat Boworniwet, preceded me by a decade. If you're competent in Thai and have a fairly good memory it's not difficult. If I remember right, the Ministry of Education classes Nak Tham Ek as the equivalent of completing the third grade of high school.

Your mentioning Nak Tham has actually jogged my memory and contrary to what I wrote in my earlier post I have in fact encountered the fourfold list of sāsanapuggala, sāsanavatthu, etc. One of the minor subjects studied in Nak Tham is Buddhist ceremonies, using a 3-volume textbook called ศาสนพิธี. I think the scheme is found in the first or second volume.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 5, 2019 6:40 PM
Title: Re: Root of Piti
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 5, 2019 6:52 AM
Title: Re: Why three times ?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 4, 2019 3:09 PM
Title: Re: Spelling
Content:
I think Sutta Central's discussion forum in its earlier form may be responsible for this. With the original software if you wrote the citation without gaps, then a link to the translation would be automatically generated.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 2, 2019 4:11 PM
Title: Re: Uposatha Observance Club
Content:
I doubt anyone could do that with any degree of certainty. As far as I know, all that can be said with certainty is that: 

1. The Tipiṭaka tells us nothing about the meaning of pāṭihāriyapakkha.
2. The Saṃyutta and Aṅguttara commentaries give us two quite different accounts of it.
3. The sub-commentaries offer no resolution of the discrepancy in the commentaries' accounts.
4. In the Asian Theravadin cultural milieu knowledge of the significance of pāṭihāriyapakkha is not present even in folk memory, let alone in any living observance.

And more speculatively...

5. The fact that pāṭihāriyapakkha gets mentioned about forty times in the commentaries but only twice in the sub-commentaries might be taken as suggestive evidence that the decline of this observance took place some time between the composition of these two bodies of texts.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 2, 2019 2:49 PM
Title: Re: without insight, there is no true metta, karuna, equanimity, symp joy etc?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 2, 2019 11:37 AM
Title: Re: Arahant is giving Dana to another Arahant?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 2, 2019 6:59 AM
Title: Re: Arahant is giving Dana to another Arahant?
Content:
Oh? Then you'd better notify your fellow Goenkaites so that they can expunge the Sāriputtattheramātupetivatthu from their website and the next edition of their Tipiṭaka CD.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 30, 2019 12:54 AM
Title: Re: Mara
Content:
True, he did say that, but in saying it he wasn't offering a comprehensive description of Māra, but merely a context-specific one. Nyanaponika makes the comment in a footnote to his translation of the Rāgasutta (Iti 68) and he is defining it in line with the commentary to the sutta, which identifies māra in that context with kilesa māra and abhisaṅkhāra māra. Nyanaponika wasn't claiming (as the modernists often do) that Māra is nothing but a figure of speech, thereby denying the existence of Māra devaputta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 30, 2019 12:09 AM
Title: Re: Is it wholesome to eat unfertilised eggs?
Content:
The Amagandha Sutta is irrelevant, for it's merely about the consumption of meat not being a defilement; it's not about killing animals for meat or cooking eggs.

Sinhala
https://legacy.suttacentral.net/si/snp2.2

English
https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/snp2.2


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 28, 2019 11:42 AM
Title: Re: Japanese-speaking Theravada monasteries or monks?
Content:
Interesting. This year I'm spending the rains retreat in Li District and didn't realise that I had some Japanese neighbours. I do know the monastery (it's in the same sub-district as the monastery of my old teacher, Ajahn Sanit), but I haven't visited in over thirty years. Is Phra Nopadon still the abbot?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 26, 2019 2:24 PM
Title: Re: Translating "dhammaṃ" in dhammavicayasambojjhaṅgo ???
Content:
No, not in this context. The limiting adjective taṃ narrows down the possible referents to some item that has already been mentioned. The only candidate here is the bojjhaṅga referred to in the preceding sentence.

If one wanted to say "the Dhamma" in this context, one would use just dhammaṃ with no taṃ.

There are other contexts in which "the Dhamma" would be defensible as a dynamic equivalent rendering of "taṃ dhammaṃ" (though a form-equivalent rendering will always be "that Dhamma"), but they differ from your example in that "the Dhamma" has been mentioned or alluded to in an earlier sentence.

For example, in the Thai morning chanting: Tam'ahaṃ dhammaṃ sirasā namāmi.

Or the Punabbasusutta, SN10.7:

Jarāmaraṇamokkhāya, yaṃ dhammaṃ abhisambudhaṃ,
Taṃ dhammaṃ sotumicchāmi, tuṇhī hohi punabbasūti.
https://suttacentral.net/sn10.7/en/sujato


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 25, 2019 9:28 AM
Title: Re: Is it wholesome to eat unfertilised eggs?
Content:
Yes. 

If you buy a dozen eggs at Tesco's and put them in an incubator you won't get any chicks. Either the eggs will be from a battery farm, in which case they'll be unfertilized, or they'll be from a free range or organic farm, in which case they may once have been fertilized, but the embryos will have been killed by refrigeration.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 25, 2019 6:41 AM
Title: Re: Another "Moin"
Content:
Welcome back.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 24, 2019 6:24 PM
Title: Re: Is it wholesome to eat unfertilised eggs?
Content:
If a monk sees, hears or suspects that the omelette was made from a fertilized egg, and that the egg was cooked just for him, then I think the same considerations as those pertaining to meat and fish would apply. In practice, however, a monk nowadays will seldom have reason to see, hear or suspect such a thing. 

In my own case, the last time I refused the offering of an egg was in 1997. In that year I was spending the vassa in an abandoned WW II bunker on an eider duck farm on the northern coast of Iceland. My almsfood came mostly from the local duck farmers and their Thai wives. Since all the ducks in the neighbourhood were free range I had strong grounds for suspecting that any cooked duck eggs offered to me would be both fertilized and cooked specially for me.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 24, 2019 6:06 AM
Title: Re: Is it wholesome to eat unfertilised eggs?
Content:
https://suttacentral.net/pli-tv-bu-vb-pj2/en/brahmali


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 23, 2019 8:28 PM
Title: Re: The 3rd precept for lay person
Content:
Endnotes to Cabezón's article.


 ./download/file.php?id=5182
(313.62 KiB) Downloaded 52 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 23, 2019 8:27 PM
Title: Re: The 3rd precept for lay person
Content:
Those strictures aren't to be found in the Pali Canon, nor in the extant early texts of any other Indian Buddhist school. According to José Ignacio Cabezón's magisterial study, Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism, they first make their appearance in the Daśākuśalakarmapathanirdeśa, a treatise on the ten unwholesome kammic courses composed by Aśvaghoṣa in the first or second century CE.

I attach chapter 8 of Cabezón's book, which will probably tell you far more than you (or anyone else) ever wanted to know about this rather sticky subject. 
 



 ./download/file.php?id=5181
(347.82 KiB) Downloaded 65 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 23, 2019 12:40 PM
Title: Re: Is it wholesome to eat unfertilised eggs?
Content:
Like me, Chownah lives in the north of Thailand where boiled cow's afterbirth (tôm hók wua) is considered quite a delicacy.

'


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 23, 2019 6:14 AM
Title: Re: Appropriate way of writing verse 204?
Content:
Among the several variant readings, the one you give in your post has been favoured by most modern Dhammapada editors, on the grounds of its conformity to pathyā siloka, the Dhammapada's dominant metre.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 22, 2019 4:46 PM
Title: Re: Buddhas before Lord Tanhankara
Content:
That's beside the point, for I didn't say "a 14th century English society", but "a society that was stratified like 14th century England". 

I could (and probably should) have chosen some other society, say, ancient Sumeria. But the point would still stand: if someone in Magadha is attempting to describe the social position of some person in a non-Magadhan society of a different epoch, he will need to resort to terms with which Magadhans are familiar. That being so, the Buddha's resorting to the 4-varṇa scheme doesn't oblige us to assume that all past Buddhas arose in India.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 22, 2019 4:19 PM
Title: Re: Buddhas before Lord Tanhankara
Content:
There is a resemblance inasmuch as both groups are the key figures in the established religion of their respective times. Suppose that some Buddha, living in a society stratified like ancient Magadha, recalls a previous Buddha who'd lived in a society that was stratified like 14th century England. In order to convey to the Magadhan audience the social class into which that Buddha had been born he would have needed to resort to the stratifying terms with which they were familiar. Or, to borrow a term from Bible translators, he would need to resort to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_and_formal_equivalence since no form-equivalence is available.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 22, 2019 1:56 PM
Title: Re: Buddhas before Lord Tanhankara
Content:
Many known societies have had counterparts to the four varṇas.

For example, if 14th century England had been a Pali- or Sanskrit-speaking society, then we should expect the knight, the squire, the yeoman, the man-of-law and the summoner in Chaucer's General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales to be called kśatriyas. The prioress, nun, nun's priests, monk, friar, clerk, parson, pardoner and canon would be the brāhmanas and brāhmiṇīs; the host, merchant, franklin, shipman, physician, manciple, reeve, and Wife of Bath would be vaiśyas; while the haberdasher, carpenter, weaver, dyer, tapester, cook, ploughman and miller would be śūdras.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 22, 2019 12:34 PM
Title: Re: Seeking contact email of Ven. Pannobhasa
Content:
Hi Bhante,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.

The address Ven. Paññobhāsa gave on his old blog is nippapanca(at)gmail(dot)com

If this isn't current, then you could try leaving him a comment on his new blog:

https://politicallyincorrectdharma.blogspot.com/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 22, 2019 1:27 AM
Title: Re: Buddhas before Lord Tanhankara
Content:
He was pointing to Roseapple Island – a name for the quarter of the human realm that's visible to us and in which Buddhas appear, as opposed to the other three quarters that are invisible to us and in which they don't appear. It's true, of course, that in the Buddha's day, Roseapple Island happened to be the Middle Region of India. But as an indexical term with a shifting referent, Roseapple Island wasn't always India in the past and needn't always be India in the future.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 21, 2019 10:17 PM
Title: Re: Vajrapani in Pali Canon
Content:
The Theravāda and Mahāyāna Vajrapāṇi conceptions are both derived from the Vedic deity Indra.

The different spellings are simply owing to the fact that in Pali you can't have a j followed by an r, and so Skt. vajra takes the forms vajira or vajīra.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 21, 2019 6:29 PM
Title: Re: Buddhas before Lord Tanhankara
Content:
Surely what it means is that the fact that their names are preserved in Pali provides no clue at all as to where they flourished, just as "Alfredus Magnus" provides no clue that Alfred the Great was a Saxon from Wessex, or as "Carolus Magnus" provides no clue that Charlemagne was King of the Franks.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 21, 2019 5:41 PM
Title: Re: Vajrapani in Pali Canon
Content:
The only other occurrence is in the Cūḷasaccakasutta.

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/mn35


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 21, 2019 1:49 AM
Title: Re: Buddhas before Lord Tanhankara
Content:
No stranger than the fact that Ānanda becomes "Anon" in Thai and "Kun dga' bo" in Tibetan, or that Mahākassapa becomes "Da Jia She" in Chinese.

If a text is in Pali then we may anticipate that any proper name imported from another language will be Pali-ized, either by having its meaning translated into Pali or its pronunciation modified to fit the Pali phonemic system.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 20, 2019 11:21 PM
Title: Re: Buddhas before Lord Tanhankara
Content:
The Buddhavaṃsa is based on a much longer time frame than the ninety-one aeons of the Mahāpadānasutta and Āṭānāṭiya Suttas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 20, 2019 11:03 PM
Title: Re: 5 precepts
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2019 7:54 PM
Title: Re: How do I repent breaking the five precepts?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2019 5:52 PM
Title: Re: How do I repent breaking the five precepts?
Content:
Would they still be considered so if they went to study abroad or to work in a different city? Or would parents simply not permit such a move?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2019 3:18 PM
Title: Re: How do I repent breaking the five precepts?
Content:
Thanks for your reply bhante. I think we're in full agreement here, except for what I've quoted above. I don't see any evidence in Bhikkhu Subhuti's article (linked below), nor in his posts to the related thread, that his views support forced marriage. The venerable's error, in my opinion, is his belief that an unmarried woman is to be regarded as "protected by her father" and/or "protected by her mother" so long as either or both parents are still alive, irrespective of her age, irrespective of whether she is still living with them.

https://americanmonk.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Theravada-Buddhism-and-Sex-extended.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2019 12:58 PM
Title: Re: Buddhist Studies Review 35 (2018) (request)
Content:
This one is available from Peter Harvey's academia.edu page. 

https://www.academia.edu/32919392/Lance_Cousins_1942_2015_An_Obituary_Appreciation_and_Bibliography


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2019 7:01 AM
Title: Re: How do I repent breaking the five precepts?
Content:
As it happens, that's also my understanding. I would note, however, that Bhikkhu Subhūti has argued for a rather more constraining interpretation of what it means to be "protected by one's parents".

https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=32761


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 19, 2019 6:03 AM
Title: Re: How do I repent breaking the five precepts?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 18, 2019 8:18 PM
Title: Re: Practitioners in the SW England
Content:
http://www.buddhanet.info/wbd/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 17, 2019 7:49 PM
Title: Re: Sampajañña vs sampajāno ???
Content:
Since sampajañña in its technical sense is present only in wholesome consciousnesses, one can't simultaneously have sampajañña and be motivated to tell a lie.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 17, 2019 5:34 PM
Title: Re: Sampajañña vs sampajāno ???
Content:
In general when a Pali noun and adjective are both formed from the same roots and prefixes their underlying meaning will be the same in the majority of contexts. There may, however, be a few contexts where the adjective bears some distinct meaning that doesn't apply to the noun, or vice versa.

For example, the adjective sampajāna sometimes means 'deliberate', as in the Vinaya expression 'sampajāna-musāvāda', but as far as I know the noun sampajaññā never means 'deliberateness'.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 17, 2019 8:41 AM
Title: Re: Sallekha Sutta:Personal Goals
Content:
You're welcome.

By the way, if you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend a book of talks on the Sallekhasutta by Mahasi Sayadaw. It's available on Ven. Pesala's website:

http://www.aimwell.org/sallekha.html

Also, I think the best English translation of the sutta is probably that of Nyanaponika Thera. The link below also includes his introduction to the discourse:

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanaponika/wheel061.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 17, 2019 4:39 AM
Title: Re: if you witness a crime
Content:
Actually when translating lists of items, a lapse in mindfulness will more often to lead to the omission of one of the middle items than it will to the omission of the last. Typically what happens is that the translator finds himself in two minds about how to render a word (e.g. "Should I translate mātāpitu as 'mother and father' or as 'parents'? How did I do it in my translation of other suttas? I'd better check...") and so he decides to skip it for the time being and come back to it later. If he's translating at the phenomenally fast pace that Bhante Sujāto was, then it's no surprise if he occasionally forgets his resolve to return to the missing phrase.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 17, 2019 4:17 AM
Title: Re: Latest announcement from Amaravati monastery. (Good dhamma inc)
Content:
That's not correct. The -o ending in Jayasāro is nominative, not vocative. The -a in Jayasāra happens to be morphologically vocative, though when used as a monk's name it's usually regarded as being pre-inflected, i.e., as being in the form one would meet with in a Pali dictionary.

In any case the practice in Thailand is that the name a monk is given at his ordination is always in the nominative case. This is true of all monks and doesn't indicate anything at all about a monk's status. The only thing different about Ven. Jayasāro, Amaro, etc. is that they use their Pali names all the time, which is a peculiarity of the Ajahn Chah tradition. The general practice in Thailand is that monks use their lay name prefixed by Phra or Tan.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 16, 2019 1:38 PM
Title: Re: Sallekha Sutta:Personal Goals
Content:
Make the following changes:

Both sexes
mayam’ettha &gt; aham’ettha
bhavissāmā’ti &gt; bhavissāmī’ti.

Female
brahmacārī &gt; brahmacārinī
sammādiṭṭhī &gt; sammādiṭṭhinī
sammāsatī &gt; sammāsatinī
sammāsamādhī &gt; sammāsamādhinī
sammāñāṇī &gt; sammāñāṇinī
sammāvimuttī &gt; sammāvimuttinī
anupanāhī &gt; anupanāhinī
amakkhī &gt; amakkhinī
apaḷāsī &gt; apaḷāsinī
anissukī &gt; anissukinī
amaccharī &gt; amaccharinī
amāyāvī &gt; amāyāvinī
anatimānī &gt; anatimāninī
ottāpī &gt; ottāpinī
upaṭṭhitassatī &gt; upaṭṭhitassatinī
asandiṭṭhiparāmāsī anādhānaggāhī suppaṭinissaggī &gt; asandiṭṭhiparāmāsinī anādhānaggāhinī suppaṭinissagginī

Male
avihiṃsakā &gt; avihiṃsako
paṭiviratā &gt; paṭivirato
abyāpannacittā &gt; abyāpannacitto
sammāsaṅkappā &gt; sammāsaṅkappo
sammāvācā &gt; sammāvāco
sammākammantā &gt; sammākammanto
sammā-ājīvā &gt; sammā-ājīvo
sammāvāyāmā &gt; sammāvāyāmo
vigatathīnamiddhā &gt; vigatathīnamiddho
anuddhatā &gt; anuddhato
tiṇṇavicikicchā &gt; tiṇṇavicikiccho
akkodhanā &gt; akkodhano
asaṭhā &gt; asaṭho
atthaddhā &gt; atthaddho
suvacā &gt; suvaco
kalyāṇamittā &gt; kalyāṇamitto
appamattā &gt; appamatto
saddhā &gt; saddho
hirimanā &gt; hirimano
bahussutā &gt; bahussuto
āraddhavīriyā &gt; āraddhavīriyo
paññāsampannā &gt; paññāsampanno


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 16, 2019 8:06 AM
Title: Re: Buddhas before Lord Tanhankara
Content:
There's a scanned copy of the Jinakālamālī here (Pali in Thai script and Thai translation):

http://www.finearts.go.th/chiangmailibrary/2016-08-20-05-05-37/book/154.html?page=1

But the chapter entitled Atidūrenidāna, "Stories of the Long Distant Past", doesn't name any Buddha before the sāramaṇḍakappa in which Sumedha met Dīpaṅkara. 

Nor does the Dīgha Atthakathā, which can be read at the Goenka Tipiṭaka website: https://www.tipitaka.org/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 14, 2019 12:35 PM
Title: Re: Theravada school (Mahavihara tradition) comes from the Tamrashatiya school
Content:
I think it would be more accurate to say:

"The branch of the Vibhajyavāda school in Sri Lanka came to be referred to by Buddhist writers in India (well, two of them at least) as the 'Tāmraśāṭīya'. Tāmraśāṭīya is an ancient name for the Ceylonese that may be either an inept sanskritization of Tambapaṇṇīya (the Pali name for the Ceylonese) or else a back-translation into Sanskrit of the Tibetan name for the Ceylonese."

But to say as the OP does that "the Mahavihāra Theravāda comes from the Tāmraśāṭīya" is about as trivially true as "Anglicanism comes from English Christians" or "Russian Orthodoxy comes from the Russians."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 13, 2019 11:43 PM
Title: Re: What is nirvana/heaven?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 13, 2019 9:11 PM
Title: Re: What is nirvana/heaven?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 13, 2019 6:48 PM
Title: Re: Layman's Handbook of Dhamma
Content:
Perhaps the Upasakajanalankara. Or Ven. Dr. Saddhatissa's Buddhist Ethics, which is much informed by this text.

https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?t=3176#p327202


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 13, 2019 6:22 AM
Title: Clearing up Misconceptions about Kamma
Content:
A very fine exposition given by Canadian Abhidhamma student Rob Moult at the request of the Buddhist Gem Fellowship.


.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 12, 2019 10:04 PM
Title: Re: Birth is ended ?
Content:
Even before I encountered the Dīgha Commentary my understanding of the phrase had always been identical to that of the commentator. I can't think of any simpler or better way of explaining it than it already has been:

"It is the birth which would have arisen if the path had not been fully developed."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:36 PM
Title: Re: Birth is ended ?
Content:
I wouldn't say that because I don't understand what it means. I wonder if you could phrase it in some other way?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 12, 2019 3:36 PM
Title: Re: Birth is ended ?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 11, 2019 4:52 PM
Title: Re: Canadian monk to be disrobed after admitting to sexual relations
Content:
I'm not sure, but I suspect it's for the same reason that the monks of the Santi Asoke Sangha wear a non-standard colour. Since they regard themselves as bhikkhus they have to wear robes of some sort. But since they're officially considered to be not bhikkhus (for invalid ordination in the case of Santi Asoke, for pārājika in the case of Yantra) if they were to wear normal robes then they'd be liable to arrest in Thailand for impersonating bhikkhus.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 11, 2019 4:19 PM
Title: Re: Canadian monk to be disrobed after admitting to sexual relations
Content:
This is the last news I heard of him.

https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/720939-phra-yantra-amaro-quietly-returns-to-thailand/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 11, 2019 3:10 PM
Title: Re: Canadian monk to be disrobed after admitting to sexual relations
Content:
In Thailand even a monk who confesses to a pārājika offence will be required to recite the formula for returning to the household life. It's basically a safety precaution. Suppose that the monk is mistaken and hasn't in fact committed a pārājika. If he were to just take off his robes and walk away, conceiving himself to be a householder when he's in fact still technically a monk, then he might proceed to engage in some action that would make him really pārājika. But if he recites the disrobing formula, officially returns to the household life and then later comes to realize that he's innocent, then he'll be free to re-ordain.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 10, 2019 10:00 AM
Title: Re: Types of Kamma
Content:
See chapter 5 of the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha.

https://www.saraniya.com/books/meditation/Bhikkhu_Bodhi-Comprehensive_Manual_of_Abhidhamma.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 9, 2019 11:56 PM
Title: Re: Causes for gratitude
Content:
At the moment of receiving the appropriate mental attitude is one of rejoicing in the donor's merit, while the bodily and verbal behaviour is that required by the Vinaya — in particular the sekhiya rules. In the case of receiving almsfood one of the sekhiyas requires that it be received appreciatingly.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 9, 2019 5:56 PM
Title: Re: Causes for gratitude
Content:
The Dakkhiṇāvibhaṅgasutta (MN 142) and Gotamīsutta (AN 8:51). In each the Buddha grants favours to Mahāpajāpati (i.e., ordaining women and accepting a robe offering) after being reminded by Ānanda of what Mahāpajāpati has done for him. Had the Buddha lacked a sense of gratitude Ānanda's appeals would have fallen on deaf ears.

https://suttacentral.net/an8.51/en/sujato

https://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/Texts-and-Translations/Short-Pieces/Dakkhinavibhangasuttam.htm

There is also a passage, though I can't find it right now, where the recently awakened Buddha expresses gratitude to the Bodhi tree for the shelter it had provided him. A later (non-Theravadin) text, the Lalitavistara, takes the account even further, representing the Buddha as spending seven days standing and staring at the tree in his gratitude towards it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 7, 2019 9:44 PM
Title: Re: the great rebirth debate
Content:
Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.

With which post are you disagreeing?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 7, 2019 6:36 PM
Title: Re: How would you respond to this?
Content:
Just post a link to any of the online debunkings of the story, from both Buddhists:

http://www.buddha.sg/htm/faq/faq01.htm

and from the more sensible of the Burmese Christians:

https://etb-pseudoscience.blogspot.com/2012/04/christians-debunk-resurrection-of.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 7, 2019 12:17 PM
Title: Re: Worshipping to the gods in early Buddhism
Content:
In the Adhipateyyasutta one of the things taught as conducive to making an effort to abandon the unwholesome is the belief that devas might be watching you.

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/an3.40

And in the Apaṇṇakasutta belief in and reflection upon the arūpa realms is taught as conducive to disenchantment with rūpa.

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/mn60


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 6, 2019 9:16 PM
Title: Re: Name of the Buddha
Content:
In the Asian Theravāda cultural milieu I don't sense that Sakyamunī is a very widely known epithet, save among scholars, readers of Mahayana literature (e.g., Thai converts to Soka Gakkai use it all the time), and chanting enthusiasts (the Ratanasutta being a very popular paritta).

So, though the Mahayanists didn't invent 'Sakyamunī', they do appear to have originated the practice of using it as the Buddha Gotama's principal epithet.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 3, 2019 3:27 AM
Title: Re: Are you claiming that khandhas is not dukkha?
Content:
I'm saying that your definition of nirodha as "disintegration of the khandhas" is at odds with how it is defined in the Buddha's first sermon and, moreover, is unsupported anywhere else in the suttas. In this — as in so many other things — your error seems to arise from an inability to step outside the box of mediaeval Gelukpa scholasticism.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 2, 2019 12:09 PM
Title: Re: Old decrepit Arahant feels pain, and pain is dukkha
Content:
In the definition of cessation that I quoted from the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the phrase "that very craving" includes vibhava-taṇhā. With vibhava-taṇhā absent there is nothing in the arahant's makeup that could serve to instigate suicide. Hence the much-iterated Theragāthā phrase:

N'ābhinandāmi maraṇaṃ, n'ābhinandāmi jīvitaṃ,
Kālañca paṭikaṅkhāmi, nibbisaṃ bhatako yathā.

"I delight not in death; I delight not in life;
But await my time, as a hireling his wages."
— Thag. 606 et al.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 2, 2019 2:13 AM
Title: Re: Old decrepit Arahant feels pain, and pain is dukkha
Content:
But your quotation from the Salla Sutta doesn't say anything about the khandhas disintegrating. Nor does the definition of cessation in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta:

"And this, monks, is the noble truth of the cessation of dukkha: the remainderless fading and cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, and letting go of that very craving."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 2, 2019 1:34 AM
Title: Re: Parajika
Content:
I'm afraid I can't really tell you much about the errors in Horner's MN translation because I read it when I was 16 and hadn't yet learned any Pali and so was in no position to evaluate it. In the four decades since then I've never re-read it and it's only on rare occasions that I've even consulted it. 

Assuming, however, that the errors in her MLS are similar in character to those in her Vinaya, most often they'll arise from the fact that she's aiming to translate according to the commentarial glosses but at a period in her life when her grasp of commentarial Pali was rather shaky. So not infrequently she simply misunderstands what the commentary is saying. Probably the easiest way to avoid (or at least to minimize) falling into error when reading the MLS would be to compare it with the Ñāṇamoli/Bodhi translation. Where the two differ the rendering in the latter will most often be the better one.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 9, 2019 3:09 AM
Title: Re: Star Water Blessing...
Content:
Popular images of a fat monk bearing some resemblance to the Chinese Hotei images. The monk is the Buddha's arahant disciple Mahakaccana.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 1, 2019 1:30 PM
Title: Re: Could someone help with finding chanting text of anatta-lakkhana sutta?
Content:
The extra words tht you heard may have been the three traditional introductory verses, which in some monasteries are chanted just before eva.m me suta.m.


yanta.m sattehi dukkhena ñeyya.m anattalakkha.na.m |
attavaadaattasaññaana.m sammadeva vimocana.m ||

sambuddho ta.m pakaasesi di.t.thasaccaana yogina.m |
uttari.m pa.tivedhaaya bhaavetu.m ñaa.namuttama.m ||

yantesa.m di.t.thadhammaana.m ñaa.nenupaparikkhata.m |
sabbaasavehi cittaani vimucci.msu asesato |
tathaa ñaa.naanusaarena saasana.m kaatumicchata .m |
saadhuuna.m atthasiddhattha.m ta.m suttanta.m bha.naamase ||


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri May 31, 2019 4:38 AM
Title: Re: Let's play a game: Russian doll, ditch the books, cel phone, paper and pencil
Content:
Why do you think that it must contain the five ariya iddhi and the first five of the six abhiññáyo?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 23, 2019 12:18 PM
Title: Re: Are Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha a product of Mara?
Content:
Yes, in a certain sense. 

The Dhamma (in the sense of pariyatti dhamma) and the Sangha arise dependent on a Buddha; a Buddha arises dependent on bodhi; and bodhi arises dependent on at least three of the five Maras.

If there was no Mara as death, then there would be no incentive for a Bodhisatta to seek the deathless, hence no bodhi.

If there was no Mara as the khandhas, then there would be no bodhi, for bodhi depends on developing insight into the khandhas.

If there was no Mara as the instigator of kamma, then there would be no bodhi, for kamma -the suttas say- is "one's vehicle for going beyond."

Some Mahyanists (e.g. fans of the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra) would probably want to put in a good word for all five Maras, but as this isn't the Connections sub-forum I'll leave it at three.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 20, 2019 4:19 PM
Title: Re: Do stream-winners start from scratch when they get reborn?
Content:
My very speculative answer would be as follows:

If a human sotāpanna were reborn as a deva, then he wouldn't need to start from scratch for it's the norm that humans reborn by means of apparitional arising (opapātika) have perfect recall of their previous human life. And so the deva would recall the fetters he had eradicated, the insight knowledge that he had gained, and the path by which he did it.

If a human sotāpanna were reborn as a human, then I would expect him to be still in possession of the purity he had gained but not of the insight knowledge acquired nor of the path by which it was acquired. And so being free of the first three fetters there would be an in-built limit on the extent to which he might go astray in matters of diṭṭhi and sīla. Nevertheless I expect that he would still need to re-encounter the Dhamma if he is to continue to make progress, unless in his early childhood he's fortunate enough to experience a spontaneous recall of his former life.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 20, 2019 4:04 PM
Title: Re: Do stream-winners start from scratch when they get reborn?
Content:
Not necessarily, for there's an alternative possibility that lots of sotāpannas have been reborn as humans but that their stories were just not deemed interesting enough to make it into the literature.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 18, 2019 3:38 PM
Title: Re: Diaries of a monk
Content:
The English Soto Zen nun Roshi Jiyu-Kennett, published two volumes of diaries describing her training in Japan, under the title The Wild White Goose.

https://www.amazon.com/Wild-White-Goose-Roshi-Jiyu-Kennett/dp/0930066022

But most monks who keep diaries either don't publish them at all or else they use them as the basis for memoirs or autobiographies rather than publishing them as diaries, e.g., Getting Off by Sāmaṇera Bodhesako, Life as a Siamese Monk by Kapilavaḍḍho (Richard Randall, aka William Purfurst), and various books by Sangharakshita.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 18, 2019 3:04 PM
Title: Re: Western teachers - Burmese ordination/traditions
Content:
I think the Burmese connection is a little tenuous in Ven. Punnadhammo's case. As far as I know he didn't train in Burma but learned the Mahasi method before ordaining at Wat Pa Nanachat. His teacher was the householder yogi Kema Ananda (Eric James Bell).

Kema Ananda learned it in Canada from the Canadian monk Ven. Ānanda Bodhi (aka Leslie Dawson, aka Namgyal Rinpoche).

Ānanda Bodhi learned it in Thailand from Phra Jodok Ñāṇasiddhi (aka Chao Khun Dhammadhīrarājamahāmunī), the founder of Section 5 (the vipassanā section at Wat Mahathat in Bangkok). Ānanda Bodhi also spent some time in Burma, but his training there wasn't with Mahasi but with the healing and pagoda-building monk U Thilawuntha.

And Phra Jodok Ñāṇasiddhi learned it at the Mahasi Centre in Rangoon, being instructed by Sayādaws Āsabha and Indavaṃsa. Sayādaw Āsabha was later to move to Thailand and found Wat Vivekasom in Chonburi, which, along with Section 5, was one of the two pioneering places for the teaching of this method in Thailand.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 16, 2019 7:38 PM
Title: Re: How to translate SN 56.47 ???
Content:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clause
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_verb
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonfinite_verb


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 16, 2019 5:29 PM
Title: Re: How did Aṅgulimāla clear the vast amounts of dark karma he incurred by murdering hundreds of innocents, in a few yea
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 16, 2019 4:59 PM
Title: Re: How to translate SN 56.47 ???
Content:
As the context is a rhetorically rich one, it's not unreasonable to take paveseyya sylleptically, i.e., as bearing the meaning "to cause [his neck] to enter into [the yoke]" in the first clause, and "to procure/obtain [the human state]" in the second clause. Bhikkhu Bodhi's rendering is a little freer than this, but not misleadingly so.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 16, 2019 9:13 AM
Title: Re: Abortion sources
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 15, 2019 3:25 PM
Title: Re: What additional ethics you find in Buddhism which are not found in other religions?
Content:
Gaze not about the streets of the city and wander not through its squares.
(Sirach 9:7)

The Jews have most of the Sigalovāda Sutta ethics covered in the Book of Proverbs, the Book of Sirach (aka "Ecclesiasticus") and their other wisdom books.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 14, 2019 11:06 AM
Title: Re: Secular Buddhism
Content:
I forgot to post a link to the usenet thread. It's here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/talk.religion.buddhism/SmrLFJRh_Ok/518JSZa25OQJ;context-place=msg/talk.religion.buddhism/5-YQ_m4yBdY/hDzNXkXLKU8J


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 14, 2019 9:00 AM
Title: Re: Secular Buddhism
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 13, 2019 7:37 PM
Title: Re: Using blindfolds for meditation?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 13, 2019 7:24 PM
Title: Re: beneficial in the beginning...
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 12, 2019 4:59 PM
Title: Re: The shortest path to eradicate Mana (self-view) is to bow down to someone!
Content:
They are replete with doctrines. So much so that at least a third of ancient Indian dharma-related literature is in the polemical genre: adherents of the six orthodox Brahminical darśanas writing to defend their own school's doctrines and refute those of the other five, along with those of the Buddhists, Jains, Ajīvikas and Carvakas; adherents of the extra-Brahminical darśanas refuting the doctrines of the Brahminical ones, along with each others'; adherents of the Bhakti cults writing treatises on why their god is the best god, etc., etc.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 12, 2019 3:49 PM
Title: Re: The shortest path to eradicate Mana (self-view) is to bow down to someone!
Content:
The disciples in the Vinaya account were bowing down to a person, the ex-barber Upāli. 

No doubt followers of outside doctrines will want to "spiritualize" the event by saying that they were bowing to his Buddha nature, his atman or whatever, but there's really no need to invoke such ideas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 12, 2019 3:42 PM
Title: Re: The shortest path to eradicate Mana (self-view) is to bow down to someone!
Content:
No. If it followed without fail that the act of bowing to somebody caused māna to be uprooted, then sīlabbataparāmāsa wouldn't be a fetter. It would be the pinnacle of Dhamma practice.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 12, 2019 2:51 AM
Title: Re: The shortest path to eradicate Mana (self-view) is to bow down to someone!
Content:
And only one kind of māna — the rather gross kind consisting in pride in one's tribal affiliation.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 9, 2019 11:04 AM
Title: Re: Invisible (hidden or secondary) war?
Content:
The Cullakāliṅga Jātaka


https://legacy.suttacentral.net/si/ja301

https://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/j3/j3002.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 9, 2019 10:46 AM
Title: Re: Buddha and Mahavira
Content:
There is no ha in buddha. The syllabification is bud + dha, not budd + ha.

To put it another way, the three consonants in बुद्धा are ब, द and ढ. The last gets romanized as dh, but the h is merely to show that the consonant is aspirated. It doesn't represent a separate consonant.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 9, 2019 12:02 AM
Title: Re: upekkha relationship to kamma-saka (owner of ones actions)
Content:
I don't know in what text the AN. 5.57 passage first came to be used liturgically or contemplatively in connection with upekkha-bhāvanā. Ven. Ānandajoti might know.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 8, 2019 7:16 PM
Title: Re: Christmas?
Content:
I think you misremember. What I have said, when discussing the early history of Buddhism in Britain, is that the Theosophical Society played an important role in giving a platform to Buddhist teachers and Buddhist ideas. The effect of this was that for a time the Theosophical take on anattā (which is essentially a Vedantic take) was a very influential one. But with the decline of interest in Theosophy, coupled with the production of better translations of Buddhist texts and the guidance of traditionally-trained Buddhist teachers from Asia, the Vedantic take on anattā is nowadays much less influential among practising Western Buddhists, while among academic scholars of Buddhism it has been almost universally rejected as untenable.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 8, 2019 5:30 PM
Title: Re: Christmas?
Content:
The British?? What kind of an answer is that? My question was:

In which colonised Asian country did the colonisers try to foment division between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists?

If such a thing had happened, it could only have happened in a colonised country where both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists were present in significant numbers. There are two possible candidates: French Indochina (i.e., Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam; especially the last) and Burma, where the Mahayana is practised by a sizable Chinese minority.

Your article deals only with Sri Lanka where there was no significant Mahayana presence during the British colonial period. Unsurprisingly the writer doesn't so much as mention the Mahayana.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 8, 2019 4:23 PM
Title: Re: Christmas?
Content:
Where did this happen? In which colonised Asian country did the colonisers try to foment division between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 6, 2019 4:18 PM
Title: Meyerowitz-Katz on Moderate Drinking
Content:
The rest of the article:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/06/heres-why-moderate-drinking-is-probably-not-good-for-you


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 6, 2019 5:40 AM
Title: Re: No self theory do I get it right?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 6, 2019 12:58 AM
Title: Re: upekkha relationship to kamma-saka (owner of ones actions)
Content:
I don't think it is ever explicitly stated in the Tipiṭaka.

At AN 5.57 the benefit of recalling ownership of kamma is that of dissuading oneself from misconduct.

At AN. 5.161, developing upekkhā towards someone you resent and recollecting the fact that he's the owner of his kamma are two distinct practices:

mettā;
karuṇā;
upekkhā;
paying him no mind;
recalling ownership of kamma.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 5, 2019 6:22 PM
Title: Re: Would a sotapanna kill a mosquito?
Content:
"Sentient being" is how some translators (mostly those working with Mahāyāna texts) have chosen to translate the pāṇa- part of pāṇātipāta. It literally means a "breather". Most translators render it as "living being" or "creature".

I would guess that those who opt for "sentient being" do so with the aim of making it clear that the term refers to saṃsāric beings and doesn't include other kinds of living things such as plants, fungi, etc.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 5, 2019 1:04 AM
Title: Re: Let's discuss Mount Sineru!
Content:
I take the Buddha's mention of Sineru in one of four ways depending on the context...

1. As referring to some particular Himalayan mountain whose identity is now unknown. Though Kailāśa is the traditional and popular candidate this seems unlikely to me. It's reported, for example, that Raṭṭhapāla could see Sineru's peak from the rooftop of his home way down in Thullakoṭṭhita, so it would need to have been a more southerly mountain than Kailāśa.
2. As a fictionalism spoken in conformity with the geographic vohāra of his day.
3. As a mytho-poetic transformation of either #1 or #2 into the axial feature of a moral topography rather than a physical one.
4. As the instrument of a simile whose tenor is hugeness.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 1, 2019 1:44 PM
Title: Re: 'The Tightest Addiction' Poll
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 1, 2019 12:51 PM
Title: Re: Let's discuss Mount Sineru!
Content:
It's already been thoroughly studied by John Snelling, the late editor of the Middle Way.

https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Mountain-Travellers-Pilgrims-Universal/dp/0856921734


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 30, 2019 12:21 AM
Title: Re: Generosity as Poison
Content:
Few people will arrive at the deathless in this lifetime; for the rest to do so will require further encounters with the Dhamma in future lifetimes.

For any such encounter to be edifying it will need to occur while in a station not lower than the human.

To arrive at such a station and to encounter the Dhamma requires merit.

Merit is acquired by dāna, sīla and bhāvanā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2019 7:20 PM
Title: Re: Kamma defined as intention before Buddha?
Content:
Thank you. And you too!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2019 5:45 PM
Title: Re: Should a monk stay standing when questioning, in the courts in Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka ?
Content:
The Vinaya Piṭaka doesn't set any limitations on the rule's scope.

Buddhaghosa's commentary (Vin-a. v. 1068) takes it as applicable to any just law (dhammika kamma) established by the king, but not to unjust (adhammika) laws.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2019 5:14 PM
Title: Re: Kamma defined as intention before Buddha?
Content:
In the non-arahant, it is cetanā alone that makes a performance count as a kamma, but it is not cetanā alone that determines the weightiness of that kamma. The weightiness is determined by multiple factors, one of which is the degree of purity of the being whom the action affects. In the case of dāna, other factors affecting the weightiness of the kamma include:

• The nature of the gift: giving a gift of Dhamma, for example, is more meritorious than giving a material gift.

• Instigation: giving a gift on one's own initiative is more meritorious than giving a gift because someone else has coaxed one into doing so.

• View: a gift given by a believer in ownership of kamma is more meritorious than one given by a disbeliever in it.

• The "widow's mite" principle:

"Some provide from the little they have, 
Others who are affluent don’t like to give. 
An offering given from what little one has 
Is worth a thousand times its value."
— https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/sn1.33

• The pre-volition (pubbacetanā) or motive for giving: a motive free of attachment makes the giving more meritorious than a motive accompanied by attachment. For example, giving a gift aiming at the welfare of the recipient is more meritorious than giving it out of greed for merit, or to ingratiate oneself with the recipient, or hoping that the recipient will offer an even better gift in return, etc.

• The after-volition (aparācetanā): rejoicing in having given a gift is more meritorious than regretting having done so.

And a few others that I don't remember right now, but you'll find them in the Wheel publication Dāna: The Practice of Giving, especially in Lily de Silva's contribution.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/various/wheel367.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2019 10:26 AM
Title: Re: Should a monk stay standing when questioning, in the courts in Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka ?
Content:
He should do what the court requires. Not to do so would be contempt of court, which, depending on the country, would be either a civil or criminal offence. A monk committing such an offence would also be committing the Vinaya offence of non-conformity to the wishes of rulers.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Apr 28, 2019 5:43 PM
Title: Re: Kamma defined as intention before Buddha?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Apr 28, 2019 3:31 PM
Title: Re: Buddha and Mahavira
Content:
Not likely, I think. Even if the story of Jaina textual losses is true, the biography of the teacher would likely have proven quite resilient, being preserved in folk memory.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Apr 28, 2019 3:12 AM
Title: Re: These go to eleven: the significance of the number 11 in the EBT
Content:
As only one of the eleven items (i.e., #10) is exclusively applicable to those gone forth, if I were in your position and of your persuasion I should focus on the other ten.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Apr 27, 2019 9:23 AM
Title: Re: These go to eleven: the significance of the number 11 in the EBT
Content:
MN 33

"... possessed of eleven qualities, [a bhikkhu] cannot become one to reach growth, increase and maturity in this Dhamma and Discipline."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Apr 25, 2019 2:15 PM
Title: Re: Looking for sutta about Buddha "even-minded" ???
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 2, 2019 10:53 PM
Title: Re: Whats Anicca？
Content:
Most certainly. Or do you suppose that words like, say, anattā, indriya, asaṅkhata, rūpakkhandha, paṭiccasamuppāda, ubhatobhāgavimutta ... etc., etc., would have been part of the everyday diction of water-bearers at the parish pump, merchants in a Magadhan marketplace and Licchavī women having a chinwag while baking their chappatis?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 2, 2019 9:07 PM
Title: Re: Whats Anicca？
Content:
In his higher (and distinctive) teachings — those concerned with the development of paññā and attainment of liberation — the Buddha seems to have used the terms that were employed by the various samaṇa communities of his day, sometimes in the same sense that the other samaṇas used them and sometimes in a new sense of his own devising. Some of these also happened to be everyday terms; others were not.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 2, 2019 8:17 PM
Title: Re: Whats Anicca？
Content:
I said "skating close to it", by which I didn't mean that "temporary" would be in any way misleading, but merely that it would sound gauche and that (I suspect) is why translators don't use it (which was what your original query was about). What would make it gauche is simply that it's not an adjective that philosophers normally have recourse to when discussing change and ephemerality.

Note that one element of agreed usage is conformity to the appropriate register.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_%28sociolinguistics%29


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 2, 2019 7:24 PM
Title: Re: Whats Anicca？
Content:
I wouldn't regard it as a point in its favour, but rather as skating close to an "overriding of agreed usage" — something the Buddha advised against in the Araṇavibhaṅga Sutta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 2, 2019 6:44 PM
Title: Re: Want first jhana? NWBH: Not What but How
Content:
The two passages will seem incompatible only if one assumes that the viewing of dhammas as impermanent, etc., is done while in jhāna (as Ajahn Thanissaro teaches). But Ajahn Brahm's approach, like the Visuddhimagga's, assumes that it is done after emergence from jhāna.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 2, 2019 4:10 PM
Title: Re: Whats Anicca？
Content:
I suspect because of its linguistic register. It's a term that is most often used in everyday human affairs (e.g., temporary secretary, temporary arrangement, temporary accommodation, etc.) rather than in philosophical discussion about existents.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 1, 2019 10:19 PM
Title: Re: Theravada and mahayana
Content:
I don't know what you're trying to say here. I cited the rule because it clearly shows that it was the ancient practice to use a lay steward to handle money matters.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 1, 2019 3:48 PM
Title: Re: Theravada and mahayana
Content:
The use of a "middle man" or saṅgha steward (veyyāvaccakara) for this purpose is something the Vinaya explicitly allows under the tenth nissaggiya pācittiya rule and the Meṇḍaka allowance.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 1, 2019 8:27 AM
Title: Re: Need help identifying some items found at a store.
Content:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saraswati


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 1, 2019 12:43 AM
Title: Re: What (kamma) causes a person to be Pandaka?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 30, 2019 10:33 PM
Title: Re: A Pali equivalent for "reification" ???
Content:
The word is mostly used by translators of Sanskrit or Tibetan Mahayana texts as a rendering of three different words:

1. satkāyadṛṣṭi ("reifying view") = Pali sakkāyadiṭṭhi
2. prapañca = papañca
3. samāropana = ditto (but in Theravāda texts it’s not a bad thing; it’s the sixteenth of the Nettipakaraṇa’s “sixteen modes of conveying”, translated by Ñāṇamoli as “coordination”).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2019 6:49 AM
Title: Re: neutering a cat?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2019 3:44 AM
Title: Re: neutering a cat?
Content:
Don't forget the Babbu ("Cats") Jātaka, wherein four greedy felines come to a bad end.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/j1/j1140.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 29, 2019 2:57 AM
Title: Re: Going to the forest
Content:
Though most translators render āraññaka senāsana as "forest dwelling", Ajahn Thanissaro's translation of it as "wilderness lodging" is probably more faithful to the meaning. The Vinaya defines it as any lodging that's more than five hundred bow-lengths (i.e., roughly a kilometre) from the nearest human settlement. And so the presence of trees is not a requirement for an abode to qualify as an āraññaka senāsana. It could be on a beach, a treeless mountain, a desert, or even a raft in the middle of a large lake.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:34 PM
Title: Re: regarding tomb worlds
Content:
I think you may be referring to the saying, Natthi loke anāmataṃ, "There's nowhere in the world where someone hasn't died." It's from the verses to the Upasaḷha Jātaka:

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/ja166

It's also quoted in the Dhammapada Commentary's background story to Dhp. 75:

https://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/English-Texts/Buddhist-Legends/05-15.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 22, 2019 5:59 PM
Title: Re: Theravada and mahayana
Content:
What is relevant is that the account says nothing about the Theravadins adding new rules. Rather, it tells of the Vajjiputtaka monks wanting to not follow certain rules, to observe certain rules more laxly, and in general to adopt the principle that whatever is the customary practice of one's teacher should be taken as correct.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 22, 2019 5:40 PM
Title: Re: Theravada and mahayana
Content:
Not according to the Vinaya Piṭaka's account of the Council – an account that is corroborated in several non-Theravādin chronicles.

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-kd22


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 22, 2019 5:24 PM
Title: Re: Equanimity in SFoE ，fourth jhana and four Brahma vihara
Content:
What the Saḷāyatanavibhaṅga Sutta calls gehasitā upekkhā is an instance of upekkhā vedanā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 22, 2019 2:03 PM
Title: Re: Quibble on Buddhadasa's teachings
Content:
As the sayādaw was a Dīgha-bhāṇaka from a very early age he would certainly have known the familiar list of ten from DN 33. 

The list he actually gives is unfamiliar to me. It's almost like that of the Abhidhamma's Vibhaṅga except that the eighth fetter should be envy (issā) not vibhavarāga (a term that's not found anywhere in the Tipiṭaka or Atthakathās).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:45 PM
Title: Re: Equanimity in SFoE ，fourth jhana and four Brahma vihara
Content:
Anne Murphy, https://www.academia.edu/36533473/The_Ten_Kinds_of_Equanimity_Upekkh%C4%81_


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 19, 2019 7:04 PM
Title: Re: space, uncompounded?
Content:
It is according to the Theravāda. But you are quoting the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, a Mahāyāna text. It was characteristic of Indian Mahāyāna schools (and before them, of the Sarvāstivādins) to invent new lists of asaṃskṛta dharmas besides nirvāṇa. Space was a popular candidate for inclusion in these lists.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 19, 2019 8:28 AM
Title: Re: What Dhamma Book are you reading right now?
Content:
An Edition and Study of the Buddhānussati in the Pāli Caturārakkhā-aṭṭhakathā, Supranee Panitchayapong

https://www.academia.edu/38466468/An_Edition_and_Study_of_the_Buddh%C4%81nussati_in_the_P%C4%81li_Catur%C4%81rakkh%C4%81-a%E1%B9%AD%E1%B9%ADhakath%C4%81


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 18, 2019 2:46 PM
Title: Re: The Drawbacks & Dangers of Sensual Craving
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 18, 2019 1:42 PM
Title: Re: What is the one?
Content:
"All beings subsist on food."
(sabbe sattā āhāraṭṭhitikā)

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/kp4


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 16, 2019 11:27 PM
Title: Re: What are your ideas about Pa Auk method ?
Content:
Thanks for the elaboration.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 16, 2019 4:55 AM
Title: Re: What are your ideas about Pa Auk method ?
Content:
"Works" in what sense?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:45 PM
Title: Re: Everything happens for a reason
Content:
I wouldn't see them as an exception, for their telos (putting an end to existence) is a self-chosen one. It's not built into the fabric of things like the telos of Christians ("loving God and enjoying Him for ever") which they believe to have been prescribed for them by their Maker.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:30 AM
Title: Re: What is best next to Theravada?
Content:
But a not so cool way of making themselves bald: plucking their hair out rather than shaving it. Ouch!


.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:07 AM
Title: Re: The teachings of Ven. Waharaka Abhayaratanalankara Thero
Content:
Wishing you a speedy recovery.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 15, 2019 5:49 AM
Title: Re: Theravada against mathematics
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 14, 2019 11:25 PM
Title: Re: Everything happens for a reason
Content:
No and no. The Buddha's universe has no teleology to it and no event has any significance beyond that which an individual assigns to it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 13, 2019 11:20 PM
Title: Re: Symbolism and Blasphemy
Content:
I think you're referring to the Buddhist Society on Ecclestone Square. But the logo is for the London Buddhist Centre, which is the old Bethnal Green fire station, purchased and converted by the FWBO in the 1970's.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 13, 2019 10:24 PM
Title: Re: Symbolism and Blasphemy
Content:
It might be better to enquire at our sister forum, as it's mainly for adherents of Tantric Buddhism that the OM symbol is imbued with significance.

https://dharmawheel.net/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 13, 2019 10:04 PM
Title: Re: Where can I buy meditation tent or crot in Bangkok?
Content:
Go to Wat Suthat ("the Temple of the Giant Swing") in Phra Nakhorn District. Just by the wat there's an entire street (I can't remember its name) where the shops sell nothing but monks' stuff.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 13, 2019 1:14 PM
Title: Re: Why Nibbana comes before the Path ?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 13, 2019 9:17 AM
Title: Re: Let's Pray Daily - Virtual Vihara
Content:
Namāmi buddhaṃ guṇasāgarantaṃ 
I salute the Buddha, whose virtues are immeasurable as the ocean.

Namāmi dhammaṃ sugatena desitaṃ 
I salute the Dhamma taught by the Sugata.

Namāmi saṅghaṃ munirājasāvakaṃ
I salute the Sangha of disciples of the King of Sages.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 13, 2019 7:14 AM
Title: Re: What will happen if i stop using snuff?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 12, 2019 10:54 PM
Title: Re: Theravada against mathematics
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 12, 2019 7:51 PM
Title: Re: Theravada against mathematics
Content:
Your video does no more than repeat your previous post, for it's about Shannon's number. Shannon's number is concerned with "sensible" chess games —those in which both players are making an effort to win— of about 40 moves. Shannon's number has no bearing on "all possible chess games". The latter would include games in which both players simply moved the queen's knight back and forth, while Shannon's number would not.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 12, 2019 7:14 PM
Title: Re: Minimum size of the Organism we should care about.
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 12, 2019 6:02 PM
Title: Re: Theravada against mathematics
Content:
You have moved the goalposts. The Shannon number isn't concerned with "all possible chess games".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 12, 2019 7:26 AM
Title: Re: Theravada against mathematics
Content:
Actually it is infinite. For example:

Game 1

1. Nc3
1-0

Game 2

1. Nc3 Nc6
0-1

Game 3

1. Nc3 Nc6
2. Nb1
1-0

Game 4

1. Nc3 Nc6
2. Nb1 Nb8
0-1

Game 5

1. Nc3 Nc6
2. Nb1 Nb8
3. Nc3
1-0

The players might continue indefinitely in this fashion, merely moving their queen’s knight back and forth, adding one extra move in each new game, and with neither ever bringing any game to an early close by invoking the threefold repetition rule or the fifty-move rule. To proceed in this manner obviously wouldn’t make for much of a spectator sport, but there’s no denying that each game would be unique.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 11, 2019 10:04 PM
Title: Re: Theravada against mathematics
Content:
And I see that your posts to the two maths forums have failed to elicit even a single reply. This isn't at all surprising, for rather than trying to meet the mathematicians halfway, by presenting your query in terms comprehensible to those with no prior acquaintance with the niceties of Abhidhamma, you've simply copied and pasted your opening post in this thread. No wonder you got booted out of the physics forum!

I wonder what's the probability of an online English-speaking maths enthusiast knowing what a satta-paññatti or an avijjamāna-paññatti might be?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 8, 2019 5:48 PM
Title: Re: Possibility of ordination?
Content:
In his Buddhist Monastic Code Ajahn Thanissaro is careful to make it clear when he is expounding something from Buddhaghosa’s Vinaya commentary (or from an even later sub-commentary) rather than from the canonical Vinaya Piṭaka. Everything quoted by Polar Bear is an exposition of what is stated in the Vinaya Piṭaka, except for the sentences beginning, “The Commentary adds...” and “According to the Commentary...”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 5, 2019 8:34 PM
Title: Re: What is tiracchānakathaṃ?
Content:
and a few others, likes accountancy and mathematics. 

And yet a translator needs a single word that will cover all these different things, and so the question here is: What feature do they all have in common? "Bestiality" seems to me a highly unlikely answer. The commentators' answer is that their shared feature is that they are "horizontal" in the sense that none of them lead upwards "to heaven or liberation". Though I've never seen any translator use it, I personally think "pedestrian arts" would best convey the sense.

Likwise with tiracchāna-kathā. When pursuing their respective occupations, a parfumier who talks about perfumes, a chef who talks about food and drink, a general who talks about battles, a draper who talks about clothes, etc., are hardly engaged in speech that could be called "bestial" in either of the senses given above. But when a bhikkhu, or a householder who's serious about bhāvanā, takes to prattling about these matters it's another story.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 1, 2019 5:19 PM
Title: Re: how to deal with demons
Content:
I've never myself been troubled by any kind of amanussa — perhaps because I recite the Āṭānāṭiya Sutta once a week. However, in Thailand I have often been requested to take part in exorcism ceremonies for haunted houses, haunted rice fields and haunted people (most often women who've been having recurrent bad dreams and decided that ghosts are responsible for them). The commonest procedure with haunted people is to wrap them up in a white cloth, as one would with a corpse, and then perform a normal funeral service. This is supposed to fool the ghost into thinking that the woman's dead, so it will go away and bother someone else. It seems that this does usually have the desired effect of ending the bad dreams.

With the haunted houses and rice fields the ceremony is usually a lengthy paritta recital, with the Āṭānāṭiya Sutta (either in full or just the section starting vipasissa namatthu...) taking pride of place.

Perhaps the best thing would be to start by yelling out to Inda, Soma, Varuṇa and the rest of the gang whenever the ghost makes its presence felt. If that doesn't work then consult the monks at your local temple.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 26, 2019 9:38 AM
Title: Re: Do Thai Forest Monasteries pay for long-time-foreign-monks' Visas?
Content:
I'm afraid I've no idea. We're at opposite ends of the country and I haven't been to the South in about 15 years.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 25, 2019 10:11 PM
Title: Re: Do Thai Forest Monasteries pay for long-time-foreign-monks' Visas?
Content:
All visa extensions have to be paid for by somebody. In forest monasteries where the Vinaya money rules are strictly observed (e.g., all of the Ajahn Chah forest wats and some of the Dhammayut ones) the payment will be made by the monastery's lay committee. In less strict forest monasteries (e.g., Wat Suan Mokkh) the foreign monk will have to pay the fee himself, though if he doesn't have any money of his own the abbot or some other senior monk will almost certainly give it to him.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:27 AM
Title: Re: Suttas on the destruction of the world by fire, wind, water?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:06 PM
Title: Re: Are there such phrases in the canon?
Content:
Or perhaps Ajahn Thanissaro has lengthened.  

As far as I know, he alone renders paṭipadā as "way of practice". With other translators it's just "way", "practice" or "method".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 23, 2019 9:12 PM
Title: Re: Stock Phrase: nāhaṃ kvacani kassaci kiñcanatasmiṃ...
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:39 PM
Title: Re: Are there such phrases in the canon?
Content:
In the Suttas ariya aṭṭhaṅgika magga in the accusative case is the object of four verbs:

understands as it really is: yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti
teaches: deseti
develops: bhāveti
makes much of: bahulīkaroti

The last two, I suppose, are what people have in mind when they speak of practising the path.

Alternatively, it might be that the usage is derived from the fact that the ariyan eightfold path is also called the "practice that leads to the end of suffering" (dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadā).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 23, 2019 2:40 PM
Title: Re: Has anyone cultivated breathing meditation and attained liberation ?
Content:
I would say that things are a lot trickier nowadays for the would-be ānāpānassati meditator, on account of the plethora of conflicting opinions about the proper way to practise it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 23, 2019 1:16 PM
Title: Re: name that fallacy
Content:
Yes. At the time of my earlier posting that was one of the passages I had in mind. I didn't mention it because I was misremembering it as being a commentarial definition rather than a Paṭisambhidāmagga one.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:42 AM
Title: Re: name that fallacy
Content:
2. Attempt to establish what the compound might mean from something else in the Suttas (though I'm not sure if there is anything else).

3. Translate according to one's personal hunch about what the compound might mean (or perhaps to conform to the understanding of whatever modern meditation system one happens to be committed to).

Now to answer your question about "other possibilities", if a translator opts for #3 there is virtually no limit to the number of ways the compound might be parsed, given that: Its first two items might be singular or plural; they might be in almost any grammatical case; and it might be any of several types of Pali compound.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 22, 2019 11:49 AM
Title: Re: What are some goods books/resources to learn metta meditation from?
Content:
A few hints from the Abhidhamma...

Since the proximate cause of mettā is the perception of what is loveable or endearing in a being, rather than just picturing the people in your mind, you might try narrowing things down a bit by bringing to mind some admirable quality they possess.

Since the specific characteristic of mettā is desiring the welfare and happiness of beings, you might try bringing to mind the sameness of your own desire for happiness and that of other beings.

Since the manifestation of mettā is the removal of annoyance, I recommend that you don't neglect the preliminary practice of recollecting the dangers in anger and the advantages in patience, as this serves both to energise and to properly orientate mettabhāvanā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 22, 2019 11:02 AM
Title: Re: Pali Grammar - Eight Cases
Content:
I suppose so, though it would be best to make up one's own, for what would carry memorable associations for one person might not for someone else. For example, I would associate the ablative case with ablation, as in...

Global warming is ablating the ice from Iceland's Vatnajökull glacier,

but a bodybuilder might prefer to connect the ablative with abs in some way.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 22, 2019 10:22 AM
Title: Re: Hello from the land of Buddha!
Content:
The first Pali thesaurus, Moggallāna's Abhidhānappadīpikā, was modelled on a Sanskrit thesaurus, the Amarakośa, composed by a Kerala Buddhist called Amarasimha.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 22, 2019 2:19 AM
Title: Re: name that fallacy
Content:
I don't think you've shown this to be so.

When a Pali noun or adjective is joined into a compound it will revert to its pre-inflected form — a form that conveys no information at all about its grammatical number or grammatical case.

When compounded, the genitive singular sabbassa and the genitive plural sabbesaṃ will both become sabba-; singular kāyassa and plural kāyānaṃ will both become kāya-. And so the sabbakāya- part of sabbakāyappaṭisaṃvedī could be either sabbassa kāyassa (“of the whole body”) or sabbesaṃ kāyānaṃ (“of all the bodies”). Which of the two (if either) is right needs to be determined in some other way than merely looking at the form of the compound.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 22, 2019 12:41 AM
Title: Re: Pali Grammar - Eight Cases
Content:
Below is a summary, but it's a very simplified one, for with the exception of the vocative each of the eight cases has several other uses beside the one stated here.

Nominative (shows subject)
bhagavā sāvatthiyaṃ viharati
The Blessed One lives at Sāvatthī.

Accusative (shows object)
devatā bhagavantaṃ abhivādeti
A devatā salutes the Blessed One.

Instrumental (shows agency)
bhagavatā sikkhāpadaṃ paññattaṃ hoti
A training rule is laid down by the Blessed One.

Dative (shows recipient)
namo tassa bhagavato
Homage to the Blessed One!

Ablative (shows source)
imaṃ dhammaṃ bhagavatā āgacchati
This teaching comes from the Blessed One.

Genitive (shows possession)
ujupaṭipanno bhagavato sāvakasaṅgho
Of upright conduct is the order of disciples of the Blessed One.

Locative (expresses location)
dukkhavedanā bhagavati uppajji
A painful feeling arose in the Blessed One.

Vocative (used for addressing someone)
namo te bhagavā
Homage to thee, O Blessed One!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 21, 2019 11:01 PM
Title: Re: samatha retreats/teachers
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 21, 2019 10:31 PM
Title: Re: Abhidhamma Resources
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:01 AM
Title: Re: ..inclines to nibbana
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2019 11:27 PM
Title: Re: The teachings of Ven. Waharaka Abhayaratanalankara Thero
Content:
Yes, I saw it the first time around. But what was pseudo-philological silliness when posted in January doesn't become something different when it's re-posted in February.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2019 3:19 PM
Title: Re: The teachings of Ven. Waharaka Abhayaratanalankara Thero
Content:
I don't know. My hope —and it's only the very faintest of hopes— is that the questions might spur him and his partners in crime to read up on the subject of word-formation in different types of language and then come to realise the absurdity and untenability of what Waharakaists do with Pali words.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2019 10:50 AM
Title: Re: The teachings of Ven. Waharaka Abhayaratanalankara Thero
Content:
No, no, no, no, no! as the blessed Margaret Thatcher would say. 

I answered your question, now it's your turn to answer mine. 

What kind of language do you imagine Pali to be with regard to word-formation?

If your first principles are all wrong, then anything derived from the said principles will most likely be wrong too. As a retired physics teacher you hardly need me to tell you that. Now my repeated contention has been that the Waharakaist approach to construing the meaning of Pali words is based on a number of erroneous assumptions, some explicitly stated and others merely tacit. One of the tacit ones is that it's legitimate to analyse Pali words as one might analyse words in an agglutinative language. Hence the importance of my question:

What kind of language do you imagine Pali to be with regard to word-formation?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2019 9:15 AM
Title: Re: The teachings of Ven. Waharaka Abhayaratanalankara Thero
Content:
Yes. 

And is Pali an agglutinative, a fusional or an isolating language? This too is a simple question. 

If you think it's fusional, then you should quit playing about with the particle saṃ in the ridiculous way that you do. Fusional languages just don't work like this. The saṃ in tesaṃ, for example, is an inflectional ending and has absolutely nothing to do with the prefix saṃ in saṃsāra.

But if you think that it's an agglutinative language, like Tamil, or an isolating language, like Chinese, then you need to go back to school.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2019 9:06 AM
Title: Re: The teachings of Ven. Waharaka Abhayaratanalankara Thero
Content:
Happily Lal does not get to lay down the rules for what would constitute a proper discrediting of the Waharakaist hermeneutic. 

In the eyes of any scholar informed about the character of the Pali language, an approach to translating it in which its word-formation is treated as agglutinative (as in the Tamil language) will be seen as wrong-footed from the get-go.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2019 6:49 AM
Title: Re: The teachings of Ven. Waharaka Abhayaratanalankara Thero
Content:
And when "proper arguments" are offered —as they they have repeatedly been, both here and at Sutta Central— you make a fool of yourself by responding with ill-tempered ad hominem retorts (like https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=26749&p=485212#p485212) rather than anything remotely resembling a reasoned rebuttal. Your changed posting style since you converted to this outfit doesn't say much for Waharakaism as a path to dispassion!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 19, 2019 10:48 PM
Title: Dealing with Dangerous and Annoying Animals
Content:
https://www.academia.edu/38369868/How_to_Deal_with_Dangerous_and_Annoying_Animals_A_Vinaya_Perspective


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2019 9:00 AM
Title: Re: Is Theravada anti creativity?
Content:
With respect to creativity the Theravada amounts to a happy middle way that successfully avoids the two extremes of Gothic Zen and Baroque Vajrayana.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2019 8:46 AM
Title: Re: Is Dependent Origination deterministic?
Content:
It's a popular (though inaccurate) paraphrase of the third kind of pāṭihāriya in the https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/dn11, DN 11.

See also: David Fiordalis, https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1000&context=relsfac_pubs


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:46 AM
Title: Re: Lineage
Content:
Now there may be some term that means “the designated number of Buddhas for the type of aeon in question” or “the Buddhas belonging to the aeon in question”, but if there is I don’t know what it is.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2019 11:32 PM
Title: Re: micchā ditthi
Content:
Icchantika.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icchantika


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2019 11:15 PM
Title: Re: Sperm Donation
Content:
https://www.dhammatalks.org/vinaya/bmc/Section0011.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2019 10:45 PM
Title: Re: "Ariyasāvaka" in DN 31 for householders ???
Content:
And most puthujjanas can manage to refrain from murdering their mothers. Nonetheless it's only after arrival at stream-entry that one is guaranteed not to murder her, for it is only then that matricide (and the rest of the anantariyaka kammas) cease to be possibilities.

The four agatis are things by which the puthujjana and the sotāpanna might both be led astray. The difference is that the sotāpanna will be certain to recognise his error and correct it, while the puthujjana may or may not do so.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2019 9:33 PM
Title: Re: Modern Saddaniti translations?
Content:
Not in English, but there's a very fine Thai one by Sayādaw Gandhasārābhivaṃsa.

Edit:

And another Thai one (Dhātumālā only) by the Bhūmibalo Bhikkhu Foundation. A scanned copy of this is available online:

http://bhumibalo.org/?page_id=769


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2019 9:25 PM
Title: Re: Lineage
Content:
My impression is that the vaṃsa in Buddhavaṃsa doesn't actually mean "lineage". Rather, it seems to mean about the same as "apadāna" as I described it in my earlier post. In the Buddhavaṃsa Pāli, each of the Buddhas has his own buddhavaṃsa, which isn't a lineage but rather is an apadāna-like summation of the decisive events in his spiritual career.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2019 7:04 PM
Title: Re: "Ariyasāvaka" in DN 31 for householders ???
Content:
In the commentaries ariyasāvaka is sometimes defined in a manner that supports the remark from Bhikkhu Bodhi quoted earlier in this thread — that is, it's defined in a way that seems not exclude the virtuous worlding. For example, "An ariyasāvaka is a disciple of the noble one, the Buddha" (ariyasāvako ti ariyassa buddhassa sāvako. 

Indeed sometimes it is defined in a way that would explicitly include the worldling, e.g., "One desirous of arriving at the state of a disciple" (sāvakabhāvaṃ upagantukāmo).

DN 31, however, is not an example of this, for here the disciple spoken of is equated with a sotāpanna. This seems reasonable to me, for the sutta speaks of the disciple in question not being led astray by the four agati. If a worldling were intended here, then we should expect not a description but an exhortation: "The disciple should not let himself be led astray...!"


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 14, 2019 7:31 PM
Title: Re: Lineage
Content:
I wouldn't myself translate the apadāna in Mahāpadāna as "lineage". An explanatory rendering would be something like "trans-saṃsāric spiritual career". That is, the interval from the moment a being has a life-changing encounter with a Buddha until the moment s/he arrives at either arahantship, solitary buddhahood or perfect buddhahood, is that being's apadāna.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 14, 2019 7:17 PM
Title: Re: Lineage
Content:
Gocara. Its opposite is agocara. They are sometimes translated as "one's own pastures" (= the four satipaṭṭhānas) and "foreign pastures" (= five kāmaguṇas).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 14, 2019 6:31 PM
Title: Re: Relationships in the Pure Land
Content:
It can't be moved there. You will need to join https://dharmawheel.net, if you're not already a member, and then start a thread there.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 14, 2019 1:07 PM
Title: Re: Are there Dhammayut groups without 'eternal citta' belief
Content:
The Thai phrases to google for are those that mean "citta that never dies", e.g., "จิตที่ไม่เคยตาย", "จิตที่ไม่ตาย", "จิตไม่ตาย", "จิตไม่เคยตาย", etc. Nearly all the hits are from sites devoted to Bua and the Buddho Boys.

From the man himself:

.



.
And his prankster disciple, Ajahn Sing Thong:
http://www.dhammathai.org/monktalk/dbview.php?No=741


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 14, 2019 1:41 AM
Title: Re: Relationships in the Pure Land
Content:
https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/an5.43


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 14, 2019 1:33 AM
Title: Re: Lineage
Content:
Vaṃsa is used for this. A less common term is paveṇi.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 13, 2019 11:12 PM
Title: Re: Lineage
Content:
If we're talking about the ordination lineages of bhikkhus and bhikkhunīs, the relevant term is paramparā, which in its approved Vinaya sense (as opposed to its disapproved Sutta sense) first appears in the Parivāra.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 13, 2019 8:44 PM
Title: Re: Siddhartha was exiled?
Content:
The Rohiṇī River incident is narrated in the Dhammapada Commentary.

https://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/English-Texts/Buddhist-Legends/15-01.htm

The Wikipedia entry seems to added some fanciful details from modern Ambedkarite biographers of the Buddha.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 13, 2019 8:07 PM
Title: Re: Patisambhidamagga, anyone?
Content:
Not to worry. I didn't mean to suggest that reading it would handicap you, but merely that: (1) Compared with Gethin I don't think Warder is particularly helpful in orienting the reader, and (2) some readers find him so boring that having read his intro they abandon their plan to read the text.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 13, 2019 7:44 PM
Title: Re: Patisambhidamagga, anyone?
Content:
I find a high degree of accuracy in the translator's construal of the Pali grammar and syntax. What makes it off-putting to many readers is his flirtation with dubious experimental renderings of technical terms. But it's not a big problem, for at least Ñāṇamoli has gone for consistency in this; so one just needs to get used to the fact that by, say, "ideas", he means dhammā, or by "the True Idea" he means dhammo, etc.

Ideally it's best to read the translation alongside the Pali text or else familiarise oneself in advance with the translator's glossary at the end of the book.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 13, 2019 7:33 PM
Title: Re: Patisambhidamagga, anyone?
Content:
On Sutta Central only the Dhamma­cakka­pavattana­vāra (i.e., the Buddha's first sermon followed by the Paṭisambhidāmagga's canonical commentary to it) is listed as having parallels. But even here I don't know if the parallels are merely to the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (which would of course be no surprise) or to the canonical commentary too.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 13, 2019 6:34 PM
Title: Re: Patisambhidamagga, anyone?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 12, 2019 3:45 PM
Title: Re: what does "nibbindati dukke" mean in the famous verses of the Dhammapada?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 12, 2019 12:42 PM
Title: Re: Many failed relationships divorced lost custody of child and 35 years old living alone
Content:
As the OP hasn't logged in since the day after she joined six months ago, it seems likely that the posts from cappuccino's onwards are all unwitting soliloquies.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 12, 2019 10:55 AM
Title: Re: Happiness does NOT exist
Content:
The statement,"I teach only dukkha and its cessation", though well-known and oft-quoted, is actually found in only two suttas (and how the sentence should be understood and translated https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/did-the-buddha-only-teach-dukkha-and-its-cessation/9357).

Statements to the effect that Dhamma is taught "for the welfare and happiness of the manyfolk" occur countless times.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 12, 2019 10:43 AM
Title: Re: Happiness does NOT exist
Content:
https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/kv2.8


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 12, 2019 8:06 AM
Title: Re: Underworld
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 12, 2019 3:31 AM
Title: Re: “Empty of self” includes “empty of intrinsic nature” (Sabhāva).
Content:
That Bāhiya in the time of Kassapa Buddha “died as a worldling” (puthujjanakālakiriyaṃ katvā) is explicitly stated in the commentary to the Bāhiya Sutta in the Udāna Atthakathā, Ud-a 82. In this passage Bāhiya’s former brother, now a non-returner deva in the Suddhāvasa, is reported as informing Bāhiya of this fact while in the process of disabusing him of his belief that he’s an arahant.

But even if it there were no explicit statement, the same could be inferred from many different things, starting with the phrase mentioned already: visesaṃ nibbattetuṃ asakkontā. Then there is his admission to the Buddha in the Apadāna that he was on a wrong path; the Paramatthajotika's description of one of his fellow five bhikkhus, Sabhiya (who also died without distinction in the time of Kassapa Buddha), as being an 'outsider' in the time of Gotama Buddha; and the mere fact that he had fallen into wrong view (impossible even for a stream-entrant) by wrongly supposing himself to be an arahant.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 12, 2019 1:24 AM
Title: Re: Are collective apologies valid?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 11, 2019 10:52 PM
Title: Re: "Empty of self" includes "empty of intrinsic nature" (Sabhāva).
Content:
I'm very sorry about that. I seem to have pressed the wrong button - edit instead of reply. If you have a copy of the original please send it to me and I will paste it in. If not, I'll ask a mod to delete the post.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 11, 2019 10:37 PM
Title: Re: “Empty of self” includes “empty of intrinsic nature” (Sabhāva).
Content:
As the commentaries tell it, certain bystanders acclaimed him as an arahant on account of his ruggedly ascetic appearance after he was shipwrecked. Then he came to deludedly imagine that they might be right.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 11, 2019 10:19 PM
Title: Re: Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta,'no self' believers,& my idea of "destroying the successive links of Dependent Originati
Content:
I shall continue to take my definition from the Brahmajāla Sutta, not from you.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 11, 2019 9:06 PM
Title: Re: "Empty of self" includes "empty of intrinsic nature" (Sabhāva).
Content:
https://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/English-Texts/Buddhist-Legends/08-02.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 11, 2019 6:55 PM
Title: Re: Differences in translations - DN 31 Sigalovada . Traditional commentary?
Content:
The first is correct; the second seems to be informed by some modernistic imperative.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 11, 2019 6:27 PM
Title: Re: Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta,'no self' believers,& my idea of "destroying the successive links of Dependent Originati
Content:
Ajahn Brahmali is a Norwegian monk and a close associate of Ajahn Brahmavamso.

I agree with him that "void of self" would be a good translation of anattā and certainly more in line with the Pali commentaries' privative understanding of the an- prefix. However, although translating it in this way would undermine the Vedantic interpretation of anattā that one sometimes encounters, I'm not sure that it would have much effect on Ajahn Thanissaro's.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 11, 2019 5:00 PM
Title: Re: Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta,'no self' believers,& my idea of "destroying the successive links of Dependent Originati
Content:
What all forms of annihilationism share is the positing of a self that is perishable. But annihilationism needn’t entail the identifying of this self with one’s physical body — this just happens to be the commonest form of it in modern times. In the Brahmajāla Sutta, however, the perishable self posited by an annihilationist might be any of seven things:

1. Material form composed of the four primary elements (rūpī cātumahābhūtiko).
2. Divine, having material form, pertaining to the sense sphere, feeding on edible nutriment (dibbo rūpī kāmāvacaro kabaḷīkārāhārabhakkho)
3. Divine, having material form, mind-made, complete in all its limbs and organs, not destitute of any faculties (dibbo rūpī manomayo sabbaṅgapaccaṅgī ahīnindriyo).
4. Belonging to the base of infinite space (ākāsānañcāyatanūpago).
5. Belonging to the base of infinite consciousness (viññāṇañcāyatanūpago).
6. Blonging to the base of nothingness (ākiñcaññāyatanūpago).
7. Belonging to the base of neither perception nor non-perception (nevasaññānāsaññāyatanūpago).

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/dn1


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:49 PM
Title: Re: New book from Venerable Analayo
Content:
Is this a typo? Shouldn't it read: "...overcoming drowsiness is an advanced practice." ?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:36 AM
Title: Re: Looking for a citation on Dana
Content:
In English:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/j5/j5028.htm

In German:
https://legacy.suttacentral.net/de/ja535

I suspect you may have encountered it either at DSG or in Nina van Gorkom's contribution to a BPS collection of essays on dāna, edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/various/wheel367.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 10, 2019 8:07 PM
Title: Re: AN: book of 7: sutta 73
Content:
Some are mentioned in the Jātakas as being the Buddha in former lives. Others were outsider ascetics, but possessed of mundane right view and mastery of mettabhāvanā. You can look them up in the Dictionary of Pali Proper Names to see which is which.

http://aimwell.org/DPPN/index.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 9, 2019 7:58 AM
Title: Re: Reference on the Buddha tasting food?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 8, 2019 9:15 AM
Title: Re: Pali Resources
Content:
Richard Gombrich discussing his latest book, Buddhism and Pali, with his former student Alexander Wynne.


.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2019 9:10 PM
Title: Re: Tied to Mara (The evil one) Negative emotions.
Content:
I recommend you take a look at what the development of the jhānas will entail in the Buddha's gradual training.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.125.horn.html

https://legacy.suttacentral.net/en/mn39

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.107.horn.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2019 3:27 PM
Title: Re: Tied to Mara (The evil one) Negative emotions.
Content:
I wonder if you're aware that the merit of developing the arūpajjhānas is of a kind that ripens in the arūpa heavens and cannot ripen anywhere else? That being so, it's not the kind of merit that will bring you those things in which you've expressed an interest: "sex, wealth, health, luxury apartment rentals on the beach."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 6, 2019 8:47 PM
Title: Re: What was the reason behind the development of new buddhist vehicles?
Content:
By “other possible interpretations” do you mean others that are deemed credible by modern textual scholars or others that merely reiterate the Mahayanists’ traditional view of their sūtras’ provenance?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 6, 2019 8:39 PM
Title: Re: What is clinging to rules and vows (sīlabbatupādānaṃ) ?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 6, 2019 4:04 PM
Title: Re: Sanghas near Chicago?
Content:
Buddhanet's World Buddhist Directory returns 19 results for Theravadin centres in Illinois.

https://tinyurl.com/ybnn34hg


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 6, 2019 3:32 PM
Title: Re: POLL: From one dhamma to the next
Content:
In chronological order:

1. Yamaka: rising and falling, with no stipulation about the presence or absence of an overlap.

2. Buddhaghosa’s writings: model 3.

3. Ānanda in his Mūlaṭīkā to the Dhammasaṅgaṇī appeals to the Yamaka to dissent from Buddhaghosa’s view and argue for Model 1.

4. Various writers defend Buddhaghosa’s view and propose a different way of reading the Yamaka than that of Ānanda. By the time of Anuruddha (12-13th century) Model 3 has become the unchallenged orthodoxy in the Theravādin mainstream and seems to have remained so ever since.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 6, 2019 10:45 AM
Title: Re: What was the reason behind the development of new buddhist vehicles?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 6, 2019 8:06 AM
Title: Re: The great Abhidhamma Pitaka authenticity debate
Content:
The "devas called 'beings without perception'" (asaññasattā nāma devā) can also be found in DN. 1, 15, 24, 33, 34, and AN. 9:24


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 6, 2019 7:27 AM
Title: Re: The great Abhidhamma Pitaka authenticity debate
Content:
The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta also mentions only craving as dukkhasamudaya. This doesn't mean that the suttas hold craving to be the only cause. Likewise with the Abhidhamma. In both cases we are presented with "a teaching in brief", the complete understanding of which requires the larger doctrinal context to be taken into account.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 5, 2019 4:28 PM
Title: Re: Does the Buddha is the ori Buddha ?
Content:
Mahāvīra is represented as having arahant among his epithets in both early Buddhist and early Jain texts, and bhagavan in early Jain texts. As far as I know he only gets called buddha in Śvetāmbara devotional texts from a much later period, where it features as the very last of his 26 honorifics.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 5, 2019 3:40 PM
Title: Re: The great Abhidhamma Pitaka authenticity debate
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 5, 2019 2:11 PM
Title: Re: The great Abhidhamma Pitaka authenticity debate
Content:
Both of your quoted passages are to be found in the Vibhaṅga, the first in the analysis according to the Abhidhamma method (abhidhammabhājanīya), the second (taken from the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta) in the analysis according to the sutta method (suttabhājanīya). The latter stipulates the three kinds of craving, while the former doesn't, for in the Abhidhamma method all three are just different modes of a single cetasika. Neither amounts to a claim that craving alone is the cause of suffering, but merely that craving is the thing that needs to be made to cease if suffering is to cease.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 4, 2019 9:23 AM
Title: Re: (Again) Dealing with sexual desire
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 3, 2019 2:06 PM
Title: Re: Translation error in MN 10
Content:
If one is really anxious to eliminate the word 'I', the easiest solution would be to translate the phrase into indirect speech. But you'll still need a pronoun, only now it will be 'he'.

Pali

Bhikkhu gacchanto vā ‘gacchāmī’ti pajānāti;
ṭhito vā ‘ṭhitomhī’ti pajānāti;
nisinno vā ‘nisinnomhī’ti pajānāti;
sayāno vā ‘sayānomhī’ti pajānāti.

Form-equivalent (i.e., 'literal') translation

A bhikkhu going is aware: 'go';
or stood is aware: 'am stood';
or seated is aware: 'am seated';
or lain is aware: 'am lain'.

Dynamic-equivalent translation in direct speech

When going a bhikkhu is aware: 'I am going';
or when standing he is aware: 'I am standing';
or when sitting he is aware: 'I am sitting';
or when lying down he is aware: 'I am lying down'.

Dynamic-equivalent translation in indirect speech

When going a bhikkhu is aware that he is going;
or when standing he is aware that he is standing;
or when sitting he is aware that he is sitting;
or when lying down he is aware that he is lying down.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 3, 2019 10:50 AM
Title: Re: My view of anatta. By samsarictravelling/Ai (Dinh) Le.
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 3, 2019 9:47 AM
Title: Re: My view of anatta. By samsarictravelling/Ai (Dinh) Le.
Content:
It needn't be Thanissaro's in particular. In the modern academic study of Buddhism the notion that anattā might have been intended merely as a strategic way of regarding things has been proposed and debated since the 19th century.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 3, 2019 7:44 AM
Title: Re: Translation error in MN 10
Content:
You could omit the pronoun if your aim was to translate it into pidgin English. But if it's standard English you're aiming at, then to omit the pronoun would be to overstep normal usage – something the Buddha advised against in the Araṇavibhaṅgasutta.

It isn't essential, however, to use the present continuous — the simple present, "I go", will do just as well.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 3, 2019 7:17 AM
Title: Re: Translation error in MN 10
Content:
It's not an error.

Just as the '-s' in 'jumps' tells you that it must be 'he' or 'she' or 'it' who is doing the jumping, so the -mi in gacchāmi tells you that it's 'I' who is going. 

In a predominantly fusional language like Pali it's often not necessary to use a pronoun, but it is necessary when translating into a predominantly analytic language like English.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 2, 2019 7:48 AM
Title: Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?
Content:
I don't know how it happened.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:56 PM
Title: Re: Who are your favourite non-Buddhist philosophers?
Content:
I expect that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysippus, the great systematizer of Stoicism, would be my favourite if any of his 700 books had survived. Unfortunately they’re all lost, so I have to make do with Epictetus and his teacher, Musonius Rufus.

Cora Lutz, https://archive.org/details/MUSONIUSRUFUSSTOICFRAGMENTS


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 30, 2019 9:56 PM
Title: Re: Bhikkhu, Bhikkhuni and food
Content:
Yes, for them it's pācittiya 122.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 30, 2019 9:36 PM
Title: Re: Bhikkhu, Bhikkhuni and food
Content:
The modern practice (mostly in Thai forest wats) of requiring that offered food that has been touched by a layperson or sāmaṇera should be re-offered before it can be eaten is derived from clause #5. 

In my opinion the clause does not apply to food that has been touched by a bhikkhunī because throughout the Vinaya bhikkhunīs are classed as upasampanna.

But Ajahn Thanissaro disagrees. His argument is based on clause #1. In Vinaya a bhikkhu who undergoes a spontaneous sex change is thereafter classified as a bhikkhunī. And so Thanissaro reasons that if food touched by a bhikkhu who’s spontaneously changed into a bhikkhunī is to be reckoned as no longer offered, then so should food offered by the rather more common congenitally female bhikkhunīs.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:20 PM
Title: Re: The "three rules" of eating meat
Content:
As I've already said, the "meat pure in three respects" teaching is not part of the sīla of householders.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:03 PM
Title: Re: The "three rules" of eating meat
Content:
Not necessarily. Buddhist vegetarians who advocate vegetarianism using the same kind of consequentialist arguments that are used by non-Buddhist vegetarians wouldn't be misrepresenting the Buddha's teaching, for they wouldn't be representing (or claiming to represent) the Buddha's teaching at all. In my opinion it would be best if they stuck to doing just this.

The problem is when they try to argue their case by invoking teachings like, say, the description of the first precept or the Buddha's teachings on kamma. When they do this they always end up talking nonsense and misrepresenting the teachings in question. In the case of kamma, for example, either they'll go astray by invoking a Jain-like conception of kamma in which the intention prompting one's action is treated as irrelevant, or else they'll play fast and loose with the word "intention", mistakenly supposing the semantic range of this word in English to be co-extensive with that of cetanā in the Pali suttas.

In your case, however, I don't know whether or not you are erring in this way because it's not clear whether the argument in your earlier post was meant to be grounded in dhammic kamma theory or extra-dhammic consequentialism.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 30, 2019 12:21 AM
Title: Re: Do you have faith in celibacy?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 29, 2019 11:34 AM
Title: Re: Are my future parents already here?
Content:
In Pali usage when A and B are conversing, any time A says "mātā" (or some other familial term) it always means "your (i.e. B's) mother" unless: (1) A uses some possessive pronoun to indicate that it's his own mother or some third party's mother, (2) A uses some indefinite pronoun (e.g. aññatara) to indicate that it's some unspecified mother, or (3) A and B are siblings, in which case it means "our mother".

Taṃ kho pana te etaṃ pāpakammaṃ. Neva mātarā kataṃ na pitarā kataṃ...

"That evil action was done by you. It was not done by [your] mother, it was not done by [your] father..."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 28, 2019 6:52 PM
Title: Re: The "three rules" of eating meat
Content:
The normal intentions that arise when humans select among a range of available foods are directed towards relieving their hunger and/or giving pleasure to their palates. I doubt anyone in the history of human gastronomy has ever gone into a restaurant and ordered a pistache de mouton or a lamb chop because he wanted to cause more sheep to be killed, or ordered huîtres grillées because he wanted to cause more oysters to be caught. The mere anticipation that one's choosing meat or fish might contribute to such an outcome doesn't suffice to make this one's intention.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 28, 2019 2:51 PM
Title: Re: Dealing with tragedy
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 28, 2019 12:07 AM
Title: Re: Ascetics and brahmins (Samaṇa Brāhmaṇā) Enlightened ones or Priests
Content:
Any that teach kammassakatā, the doctrine that one is the owner of one's kamma.

Bear in mind, however, that what counts as kammassakatā seems to have been conceived fairly liberally by the Buddha. For example, as I mentioned in my reply to Doodoot, the Buddha was willing to recognise the Jains as kammassakatavādins even though there were some important differences between his conception of kamma and that of Mahāvira.

With that in mind, it seems to me that most religions have teachings whose implications are similar to those of kammassakatāvāda. The exceptions would be those religions committed to a fatalistic and/or grace-based soteriology.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 27, 2019 11:57 PM
Title: Re: Ascetics and brahmins (Samaṇa Brāhmaṇā) Enlightened ones or Priests
Content:
Not generally but only when it is being used in the second sense.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 27, 2019 4:02 PM
Title: Re: Ascetics and brahmins (Samaṇa Brāhmaṇā) Enlightened ones or Priests
Content:
I don't have any texts at my fingertips, but going from memory the two main criteria for judging the worthiness of outsiders is (1) whether they teach the doctrine of ownership of kamma; (2) whether they correctly teach the distinction between kusala dhammas and akusala ones.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 27, 2019 12:58 AM
Title: Re: Ascetics and brahmins (Samaṇa Brāhmaṇā) Enlightened ones or Priests
Content:
To those who are samaṇabrāhmaṇā either in the sense of virtuous ascetics of any persuasion or in the sense of noble disciples, but with a special emphasis on the meritoriousness of gifts to the latter.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 27, 2019 12:16 AM
Title: Re: Does eating meat violate the second precept?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 25, 2019 6:52 PM
Title: Re: What are the ways in which a monk can disrobe or be disrobed?
Content:
It's a matter that seems to be differently dealt with from one nikāya to another. So, depending on the nikāya the consequences might be:

1. None at all — the man continues to be treated as a Theravādin bhikkhu in good standing.
2. Expulsion from membership of the nikāya but not from bhikkhuhood.
3. Treatment as a titthiyapakkantaka.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 25, 2019 6:26 PM
Title: Re: What are the ways in which a monk can disrobe or be disrobed?
Content:
The absolute prohibition against ordaining a titthiyapakkantaka is from the Vinaya's Mahāvagga, but with no definition, nor even the slightest clue, as to what such a person might be. The definition (including the identifying of such persons as de facto pārājika) is from the Vinaya Atthakathā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 25, 2019 9:05 AM
Title: Re: What are the ways in which a monk can disrobe or be disrobed?
Content:
Suppose two bhikkhus, Tissa and Nāga, decide that Buddhism is nonsense and Jainism is the true faith. Both now wish to become Jain monks but they go about it in different ways. 

Tissa formally renounces his bhikkhuhood and then goes to the Jains and gets ordained by them. Nāga, who’s in a great hurry, doesn’t bother renouncing his bhikkhuhood but just goes straight to a Jain ashram and while still ordained as a Buddhist bhikkhu gets himself ordained as a Jain monk. 

Both are now ex-bhikkhus, but whereas Tissa has become an ex-bhikkhu in an approved manner, Nāga has made himself a titthiyapakkantaka (“one who departed to the outsiders”), which is the equivalent of committing a pārājika offence.

If in the future the two of them regain their faith in the Dhamma, Tissa will be allowed to re-ordain as a bhikkhu after undergoing a four-month probation, but Nāga is banned for life from ordaining.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 24, 2019 5:32 PM
Title: Re: What are the ways in which a monk can disrobe or be disrobed?
Content:
Being one who has committed one of the four defeating offences.

Being one of eleven kinds of person who shouldn't have been ordained in the first place:

a paṇḍaka;
a non-human being;
a hermaphrodite;
a person who had previously posed as a bhikkhu without having been ordained;
an ex-bhikkhu who had previously gone over to an outside teaching without first giving up his status as a bhikkhu;
a patricide;
a matricide;
an arahanticide;
a man who has sexually molested a bhikkhunī;
a man who has maliciously injured a Buddha to the point of causing him to bleed;
a man who had previously caused a schism in the Saṅgha.

I wish you success in resolving this problem.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 24, 2019 4:43 PM
Title: Re: The "three rules" of eating meat
Content:
What kind of bad kamma would it be?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 24, 2019 4:04 PM
Title: Re: The "three rules" of eating meat
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 24, 2019 3:39 PM
Title: Re: The "three rules" of eating meat
Content:
Your post is dependent on a translation that is dependent on a commentary. The quoted translation differs from the earlier translation of Horner only in that the translator has followed the commentary partly rather than entirely.

If we were to entirely reject what the commentary has to say on this matter then we should be wholly in the dark as to what “seen, heard or suspected” might mean. You wouldn't be able to claim any more authority for your view than: “My personal hunch is that the phrase ‘seen, heard or suspected’ probably means ‘blah, blah, blah...’”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 24, 2019 3:35 PM
Title: Re: The "three rules" of eating meat
Content:
It's not considered to be a violation of the first precept. In the Vinaya the consumption of unallowable meat was only made a misdemeanour (dukkaṭa). If it amounted to intentionally killing living beings then it would have been included in the class of offences entailing expiation (pācittiya) along with the prohibitions against killing animals, throwing away water containing living beings, etc.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 24, 2019 12:38 PM
Title: Re: The "three rules" of eating meat
Content:
The translator that you quote above (Bhikkhu Bodhi) half follows the commentary but has either intentionally or inadvertently left out the stipulation that limits the case to bhikkhus.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 15, 2019 6:02 PM
Title: Re: Nikkhepavāra/Paccaya niddessa/translation...
Content:
This is U Nārada's translation from the first volume of the Book of Conditional Relations, published by the Pali Text Society.


 ./download/file.php?id=4753
(70.84 KiB) Downloaded 125 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 15, 2019 3:47 PM
Title: Re: Are there any Nanoviraist monasteries?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 18, 2018 7:46 PM
Title: Re: Is buddhism difficult? Why?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 18, 2018 3:19 AM
Title: Re: Mindfulness vs full consciousness
Content:
Ven. Aggacitta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 17, 2018 1:33 AM
Title: Re: Translation of sutta Sumanabuddhavaṃso
Content:
The text was translated by I.B. Horner as Chronicle of the Buddhas (published in the PTS's Minor Anthologies series), and its commentary as Clarifier of the Sweet Meaning. I don't think either of these translations are among those which the PTS has placed in the public domain.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 17, 2018 1:28 AM
Title: Re: Ven. Nanavira: "Sotapanna is completely free of dukkha."
Content:
Unless my memory's at fault, I'm quite sure that Ñāṇavīra did not hold the view your informant attributes to him and I don't think he ever discussed the Salla Sutta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 15, 2018 1:46 PM
Title: Re: Star Water Blessing...
Content:
On a Thai multi-tiered home shrine one might find almost anything placed on the lower tiers below the Buddha statue. For example:

* Pictures of one's parents and favourite ajahns.
* Brass mini-stupas containing the ashes of deceased relatives.
* An offering tray loaded with the owner's collection of Buddha amulets.
* Hindu gods.
* Jīvaka Komārabhacca, Saṇkaccaya, Hotei, Kwan Yin, etc.
* Photos of the King and Queen, silver and gold parasols and other monarchy-related emblems.
* Scraps of cloth with mantras and maṇḍalas drawn on them.
* A photo of the manager or captain of whatever football team the owner supports.

And of course Mae Thoranee. Actually it needn't be her — any old mermaid will do. Many Thais in Iceland and Denmark have scaled-down replicas of Copenhagen's Den lille Havfrue on their shrines.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 14, 2018 1:21 PM
Title: Re: What's the meaning of "pañcā nodhi sattodhisā, siyuṃ dvādasapuggalā"?
Content:
One possibility is that odhisā = odhi + esā.

But as there are many errors in the CSCD edition of the Caturārakkhadīpanī another possibility is that the word is a misspelling of odhiso, one of the word's two forms in the instrumental singular (the other being odhinā) but nearly always functioning adverbially. When transcribing from Ledi Sayadaw's Burmese Pali it wouldn’t be too difficult to mistake ဩဓိသော for ဩဓိသာ.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 14, 2018 10:16 AM
Title: Re: What's the meaning of "pañcā nodhi sattodhisā, siyuṃ dvādasapuggalā"?
Content:
pañcā nodhi sattodhisā, siyuṃ dvādasapuggalā" should be written:

pañc'ānodhisatt'odhisā, siyuṃ dvādasa puggalā."

Form-equivalent translation:

"Five with unspecified intentness, seven with specified intentness, would be twelve individuals."

Explanatory translation:

"The [objects of] the five [ways of developing loving-kindness] with unspecified intentness and the [objects of] the seven [ways of developing lovingkindness] with specified intentness are [altogether] twelve kinds of individuals."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 12, 2018 1:17 AM
Title: Re: Script Converter
Content:
It will convert any of the scripts to any of the others. Just click on the dropdown menu at the top right and select one of the romanised schemes (there are several to choose from). This is Lanna converted to IAST:


.


./download/file.php?id=4712&mode=view


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 4, 2018 5:36 PM
Title: Re: Can a sotāpanna committ suicide?
Content:
Sure, puthujjanas can mistakenly think that they're arahants, but arahants can't mistakenly think that they're puthujjanas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 4, 2018 4:20 PM
Title: Re: A Trojan horse: Thanissaro bhikkhus response to Bhikkhu Analayo
Content:
It's here...

https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/a-trojan-horse-thanissaro-bhikkhus-response-to-analayo/11354

It's just reached the 150th post.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 4, 2018 3:44 PM
Title: Re: Can a sotāpanna committ suicide?
Content:
In the Pali texts it seems to be the other way around. The Vinaya has a story of a bhikkhu who attained jhāna but didn't realise that he had done so, but there are no accounts of ariyan disciples who weren't aware of their ariyan attainments.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 16, 2018 6:29 PM
Title: Re: The Gandhabba
Content:
Yes. Assuming ‘gandhabba’ to be a term whose referent would have been understood by the Buddha’s listeners (an audience of unconverted brahmins in the Assalāyanasutta and the goofball Sāti in the Mahātaṇhāsankhayasutta) to be a living being rather than a dhamma, then the said referent would be a paññatti, not a dhamma, and as such would belong within the sammuti field of discourse.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 15, 2018 10:19 PM
Title: Re: The Gandhabba
Content:
Some years ago I looked up all the commentarial and sub-commentarial discussions of the gandhabba to see what ābhidhammikas identified it with when giving a paramattha exposition of the concept. Given the Classical Theravāda’s rejection of the antarābhava I was anticipating that it would be equated with either the cutting-off consciousness or rebirth-linking consciousness.

What I found, however, is that none of the accounts of the gandhabba in the Atthakathās and Ṭīkās ever take the step of identifying it with anything abhidhammic. The three glosses of the term (tatrūpagasatto, gantabbo and uppajjanakasatto) all belong just as much in the sphere of conventional truth as the term gandhabba itself.

By the way, note the correct spelling of the Pali for “intermediate state”: antarābhava. Your spelling, antarabhāva, would mean either ‘insideness’ or else would be the second person singular imperative of antarabhāveti, the causative form of antarabhavati, “to disappear”.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:59 PM
Title: Re: Memorizing Suttas - Methods?
Content:
One more point: in the first session some people find it easier if they copy the text and mnemonicons first, leaving the oral recital (stage 2) until last. Try both and see what works for you.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:49 PM
Title: Re: Memorizing Suttas - Methods?
Content:
6. Pause and read the whole text again as in stage 5. Then copy out Mnemonicon C, this time attempting to recite the whole line after writing each syllable. As in stage 4 try to rely initially on your memory alone and cheat only when necessary.

.


./download/file.php?id=4694&mode=view


7. Transfer the merit of your dhamma-dhāraṇa to all beings.


Session Two, ca 30 minutes.

1. Read the full text.

2. Recite the text using Mnemonicon A, cheating only when necessary.

3. Do the same using Mnemonicons B and then C.

4. Recite the full text using your memory alone.

If you should fail, then don’t increase the time beyond 30 minutes, but rather try reducing the workload on subsequent days (e.g. by one verse per day) until you find how much you can comfortably manage. As you become more skilled at memorising you will find that this amount will gradually increase. For most people it will eventually plateau at about 2000 syllables a day, at which rate it is possible to memorise the whole of the Dīgha Nikāya in about eight months.

Session Three, ca 15 minutes.

1. Recite the material that you memorised the day before. Try at first to do this from memory alone. If you fail, then try doing it using Mnemonicon C. If that fails (though it shouldn’t!) then use Mnemonicon B, and if that fails, then Mnemonicon A, before reverting to memory alone.

2. Recite the material that you memorised three days before.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:48 PM
Title: Re: Memorizing Suttas - Methods?
Content:
5. Pause, take a deep breath and close your eyes for a minute or two to clear your head. Read the whole text again and then copy out Mnemonicon B using the same procedure as for Mnemonicon A.

.


./download/file.php?id=4693&mode=view


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:46 PM
Title: Re: Memorizing Suttas - Methods?
Content:
2. Read the text through as many times as is necessary for your recital to be fluent. There are a few words that you may stumble over at first. In particular when pronouncing kāsāvamarahati, vantakasāvassa and kāsāvamarahati make sure that you’re pronouncing the long and short vowels correctly. If you need help with the pronunciation, listen to Bhikshu Bodhijñāna’s reading:

.


The pace of your recital should be somewhat slower than normal conversational speed – roughly that of T. S. Eliot reciting the Four Quartets:

.


Note that your aim at this stage should be solely that of attaining correctness and fluency rather than that of memorising anything.

3. Once your recital is fluent take a sheet of paper and copy out the text in full from the pdf file that I posted earlier. Do this very slowly, repeating each word aloud four or five times as you write it.

4. Then take another sheet of paper and copy out Mnemonicon A, reciting the full word as you copy each syllable:

.


./download/file.php?id=4692&mode=view


As you copy, try to remember what the full word is without looking at the text. If you can’t, then cheat by looking at the text, but always try to exert your memory first.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 14, 2018 9:29 AM
Title: Re: The teachings of Ven. Waharaka Abhayaratanalankara Thero
Content:
Quite right! It is from how they are pronounced by modern Englishmen —not Romanians— that we learn both the correct pronunciation of Classical Latin words, and, more importantly, their deeper and hidden meanings.  

And so for a little diversion, let’s take a look at what happens when we do with English and Latin what Waharakaist philology does with Sinhala and Pali...

1. The possessive plural of ‘octopus’ is octopuses’.
2. Octopuses’ ends in es’.
3. ‘Essene’ begins with es.
4. If in a single language two syllables of two different words happen to be spelled the same, then they must mean the same.
5. Therefore there is a connection between Essenes and octopuses.
6. The deeper meaning of Latin words can be discerned by listening to how they are pronounced by modern Englishmen.
7. Though the Romans pronounced the -seni in Esseni as ‘saynee’, Englishmen have preserved the word’s deeper/hidden meaning by spelling the word Essene and pronouncing the -sene part as ‘seen’.
8. Therefore its deeper meaning is ‘seen’.
9. Therefore the Essenes were Jewish ascetics who had visions of octopuses.

With the exception of items #4 and #6, each premise and conclusion in this jaw-droppingly absurd syllogism merely replicates one or another of the kinds of philological “reasoning” found on the Pure Dhamma website. Premises #4 and #6 serve merely to make the argument a little more transparent than the Waharakaist ones, by stating explicitly what the Pure Dhamma site-owner just quietly and naïvely assumes to be the case with Sinhala and Pali.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 10, 2018 11:19 PM
Title: Re: Bhikkhu Sujato's Four Nikaya translations as Ebooks—October 2018
Content:
He states his reasons here...

https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/translating-the-four-nikayas/341


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 9, 2018 1:00 PM
Title: Re: Memorizing Suttas - Methods?
Content:
Apologies for the delay. The instruction file is on my laptop, whose battery is unfortunately flat and whose power cable is not working. I'll post the guide next week when the new cable comes.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 7, 2018 1:01 AM
Title: Re: Memorizing Suttas - Methods?
Content:
Attached is the file for 31-day memorising of the Dhammapada. Tomorrow I'll post instructions on the method.


 ./download/file.php?id=4683
(698.61 KiB) Downloaded 136 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:18 AM
Title: Re: Memorizing Suttas - Methods?
Content:
I know a mnemonic technique that will help you, but may I first enquire how much time per day you are able and willing to devote to it? 

There are about fifteen-and-a-half thousand syllables in the Pali text of the Dhammapada, so if you memorise five hundred syllables per day (i.e., the equivalent of twenty-nine haikus or three and a half sonnets), then you will have the whole Dhammapada committed to memory in just thirty-one days. Start on All Saints’ Day and you’ll be finished by St. Grwst’s Day.

 

But you’ll need to spend an hour and a half a day on it, and in three sessions with at least a 3-hour interval between them: a 45-minute session for writing out the day’s text and preparing the mnemonicons, a 30-minute one for oral recital (first with the text, then with the mnemonicons and finally by memory alone), and a 15-minute one for revision of the verses memorised the day before. 

Let me know if you’re interested and have enough time. If you’re interested but don’t have an hour and a half per day to spare, then let me know how much time you do have so that I can make the necessary adjustments.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 29, 2018 4:01 PM
Title: Re: The Self and Control
Content:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gostak


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 25, 2018 7:11 PM
Title: Re: Birth control and Buddhism
Content:
As there wasn't any such means of birth control in the Buddha's day unsurprisingly there are no canonical teachings on the subject. So all we have are personal opinions (attanomati). Mine, as already stated, is that a birth control method that might act as an abortifacient is best avoided, for in using it one might end up killing a human being, even though one didn't intend this and was hoping merely to prevent conception. The killing of a human is a most unfortunate thing to happen to the human that gets killed, even in scenarios where it doesn't result in any unwholesome kamma for the person responsible.

Still, as I said, it's just one monk's attanomati, so you needn't feel obliged to agree.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 25, 2018 6:35 PM
Title: Re: Why don't we follow Noble Tenfold Path?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 24, 2018 7:38 PM
Title: Re: Birth control and Buddhism
Content:
As I've already said, as far as abstention from killing is concerned there's nothing morally problematic about contraceptives, i.e., methods employed to prevent conception from taking place. I'm afraid I don't see what relevance vegetarianism might have here.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 23, 2018 11:44 PM
Title: Re: Jambudipa
Content:
As for the individuals involved, there are dozens of them: past Buddhas, yakkhas, kumbhaṇḍas, gandhabbas; some named and some not. Who in particular would you like to know about?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 23, 2018 1:56 PM
Title: Re: Jambudipa
Content:
Tissārāma is another name for the Mahāmeghavana in Anuradhapura.

Etc., etc., etc.

In conclusion, if you want to resort to conspiracy theory to bolster your nationalist conceit, you’ll need to go much further back than the twilight days of the British Raj. To judge from your nation’s chronicles, it must have been the ancient Sinhalese themselves who fomented a plot to deny their island the honour of being the Buddha’s birthplace!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 19, 2018 8:10 AM
Title: Re: Did the Buddha ever state flatly...
Content:
What we call ‘desire’ in English corresponds to so many different things in Pali that any statement to the effect that “the arahant has ended desire” cannot be accepted without considerable qualification. The things corresponding to ‘desire’ in the Buddha’s teaching can be broadly divided into three classes: firstly, those which are eradicated in an arahant; secondly those which are left wholly intact (and in certain arahants may even be increased); and thirdly, those which have become attenuated and modified. Examples:

Eradicated desires
Three kinds of craving (taṇhā): for sense-pleasure, being and non-being.
Four kinds of grasping: for sense-pleasure, view, habitual and vowed observances, and self-doctrines.
The unwholesome root of lust/attachment (lobha/rāga akusalamūla).
The sensuality and being inflows (kāmāsava, bhavāsava).

Intact desires
Desiring the welfare and happiness of all beings (mettā).
Desiring that suffering being be free from suffering (karuṇā).
Desiring that successful and happy beings continue in their success and happiness (muditā).

Attenuated and modified desires
Desire-to-act (chanda).
Deciding/resolving upon (adhimokkha).
Volition/intention (cetanā).

These are attenuated in the sense that they no longer aim at anything unskilful. They are modified in the sense that actions proceeding from them are non-kamma-generating for an arahant.

As for aversion and fear, these are entirely eradicated in an arahant. But their absence does not prevent the arahant from acting in certain prudent ways that in a non-arahant would typically be prompted by aversion or fear. For example, when the needle-haired yakkha leaned his body towards the Buddha, the Buddha leaned away to avoid getting pricked.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 17, 2018 2:41 PM
Title: Re: The Satipatthana Sutta a forgery?
Content:
Despite its slightly misleading title, this thread is actually about the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta. It's concerned with the thesis in Ven. Sujāto's book, History of Mindfulness, (linked to in the opening post) that in early Buddhism the objects of the fourth satipaṭṭhāna were just the hindrances and seven enlightenment factors. All of the other dhammānupassanā items given in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, along with the expanded account of the four noble truths in the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta, are claimed to be later additions by ābhidhammikas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 16, 2018 12:48 AM
Title: Re: Did the Buddha ever state flatly...
Content:
We don't. We cannot understand it if we've resolved in advance that we're not going to follow the Buddha's own example by being vibhajjavādins, that is, "makers of distinctions". The distinction between the afflictive kind of desire that is eliminated by arahantship and the non-afflictive kind that is not, is essential to understanding how one can be a Buddha or an Arahant and still be capable of purposive action.

If someone were to say: “Without allowing ourselves to be diverted by any talk about racquets, balls and nets; baselines, sidelines and service lines; the rules of play and the scoring system, let’s instead focus on the central question: What exactly is tennis?” then he would be making his question unanswerable by his dismissal of the very things that we need to talk about if we are to explain what sort of a thing tennis is. 

This is exactly what you are doing with your dismissal of what you call: "textual gymnastics and picking on which Pali words mean what, defining desire, chanda, wishing, lobha, and on and on, and using nuanced understanding of ancient and modern language..."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 13, 2018 5:03 PM
Title: Re: Birth control and Buddhism
Content:
My response was concerned only with those means of birth control that may either work by preventing conception or by inducing abortion, with no certainty as to which outcome will occur. 

Methods that can only do one thing or the other are pretty black and white as far as kamma is concerned. With one you're killing a human being, with the other you're not.

But with methods that are of variable outcome I think it is better to appeal to other considerations than kamma in counselling against their use. Ahimsa and compassion, for example. Appealing to kamma may simply lead someone to recklessly rationalize that she'll use the pill with the intention of preventing conception and if it happens to result in an abortion... too bad, it wasn't what she intended, so no akusala kamma.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 11, 2018 4:44 AM
Title: Re: Birth control and Buddhism
Content:
Perhaps because the Buddha taught that one should "see danger in the slightest fault". If a birth control pill might act as an abortifacient, then in taking it one might end up killing a human being.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 10, 2018 11:21 PM
Title: Re: [MN 111] Fallacy of Anupadadhammavipassana while in a jhana
Content:
This talk of the rarity of the word adhimokkha in the suttas seems a bit of a  to me.

Though the word may be rare, what it denotes most certainly is not. The idea is conveyed most often by adhimuccati, the verb from which adhimokkha derives.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 8, 2018 9:12 PM
Title: Re: Threefold request for help: Christian-Buddhist debates of 1862-1873
Content:
157-158. He would have died at the appointed day...
Commentary to the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta, DN. 16

158-159. and the last stage, that of the complete destruction of relics...
Mohavicchedanī &amp; Manorathapūraṇī.

160. but his omniscience was not of such an unpleasant nature...
The Buddha’s sabbaññuta-ñāṇa is discussed in many places in the Milindapañha. I think the monk probably alludes to the Sabbaññūbhāvapañha, Mil. 74.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 8, 2018 12:12 PM
Title: Re: How to Pronounce Theravada
Content:
Your proposed transliteration makes 'r' the final consonant of the first syllable when in fact it's the initial consonant of the second syllable.

Also, the insertion of a hyphen between the 't' and the 'h' gives the misleading impression that there is a hiatus, making the monosyllable 'The' into a bisyllable. I suggest:

tay-ra-vah-duh


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 6, 2018 10:05 AM
Title: Re: Chiang Mai visit?
Content:
It's about 100 km from the Changpeuak bus station to the market town of Phrao. Wat Doi Mae Pang is about 16 km before Phrao.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 5, 2018 8:41 PM
Title: Re: Why sakadagami and anagami disciples not found ?
Content:
Sometimes it is, but I think you'll find that "one with āsavas extinguished" is a much commoner term when referring to named individuals.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 5, 2018 8:16 PM
Title: Re: Chiang Mai visit?
Content:
Since the end of last year's rainy season I've been living in a kuti in a rubber forest in the Phrao District of Chiang Mai. I'm about 4 km from Wat Doi Mae Pang, the monastery of the late Luang Poo Waen.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 5, 2018 7:38 PM
Title: Re: Cut down the forest (lust), but not the tree?
Content:
The Pali commentators understand "not a tree" more prosaically as merely serving the purpose of disambiguation, i.e., of making it clear that it's vana in the sense of 'lust' that has to be cut down, not vana in the sense of 'forest'.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 5, 2018 7:23 PM
Title: Re: Why sakadagami and anagami disciples not found ?
Content:
Now this has been done. The posters who've done it have not sought to convince you that the anāgāmin-related suttas are reliable for this wasn't asked about. They have merely answered the question quoted above: Whether the cited suttas are reliable or unreliable, this is what they say...

If you now want to advance the claim that the cited suttas are not reliable, then the burden of proof is on you.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 5, 2018 9:32 AM
Title: Re: Why sakadagami and anagami disciples not found ?
Content:
An arahant doesn't return to any world.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 4, 2018 9:17 PM
Title: Re: Why sakadagami and anagami disciples not found ?
Content:
You haven't yet supplied any reason for why we might reasonably suppose this to have happened. If you don't have any reason then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor can be applied to all your "What ifs?"


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 4, 2018 7:42 PM
Title: Re: Why sakadagami and anagami disciples not found ?
Content:
No, but it describes a person who is one. The feature attributed to Ugga wouldn't apply if he wasn't one.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 4, 2018 6:39 PM
Title: Re: Why sakadagami and anagami disciples not found ?
Content:
I think you've misunderstood the translator's English idiom:

"There is no fetter bound by which the householder Ugga of Hatthigāma might return to this world," in simpler English means "Ugga doesn't have any fetter that would cause him to return to this world," which means that it's not possible for him to return to it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 3, 2018 10:04 PM
Title: Re: Threefold request for help: Christian-Buddhist debates of 1862-1873
Content:
Hi Miguel,

This is what I’ve come up with so far. I have about another 40 pages to go.

I don’t know whether there is more than one edition of Peebles’ book, but the page numbers for the notes below are based on https://archive.org/details/THEGREATDEBATEBUDDHISMAndChristianityFACEToFACEPeeblesJ.M.MohattiwatteGunandaDeSilva/page/n1.



* * * * * * *


10. Buddha speaking of a Rahan named Thamula, said..
Thamula is the Burmese pronunciation of Sāḷha Thera, mentioned in the Mahāsudassana and Mahāparinibbāna Suttas.

10. Nāgasena, a Buddhist missionary before the Christian era, said...
The quotation seems at best a very crude paraphrase of what the Milindapañha and Nāgasena Bhikṣu Sūtra say about Nibbāna.

12. Sin will come back upon the sinful...
Dhammapada verses 125, 71, 160 &amp; 165, 1, 16, 23.

16-17. The following constitutes the ethical code...
Five sīlas and ten kusala kammapathas, though very amusingly translated, e.g., sammādiṭṭhi = Thou shalt not follow the doctrines of false gods. 

21. To me said this High Priest...
Rev. Sumaṅgala’s conception of Nibbāna seems to be that of Sir Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia (1879) rather than any Buddhist text.

21. The Buddhist Catechism...
Of Col. W.S. Olcott.

26. Thoubat wished to see him...
Thoubat is the Burmese pronunciation of Subhadda.

40-41. In proof of this, he quoted the following...
Samanupassanā and Khandha Suttas, SN. iii. 46-47

42. The following extracts will bear out this statement...
Vibhaṅga Sutta, SN. ii. 2-4

42-43. Priests, I will preach to you sabbaṃ...
Sabba Sutta, SN. iv. 15

43. Again, according to the following authorities...
Vibhaṅga Sutta, SN. ii. 2-4

43. What is nama? Sensation, perception...
Abhidhamma Piṭaka, Vibhaṅga 136

43-44. Again, in the Milindaprasne it is stated...
Nāmarūpapaṭisandahanapañha, Mil. 49.

44. But from the following quotation it would appear...
Upaya Sutta, SN. iii. 53-54

44-45. Again, from the following quotations...
Sammohavinodanī, Pakiṇṇakakathā, Vibh-a. 21.

46. Now from the following extracts it will be seen that Buddha...
Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, SN. iii. 66-68.

46-47. It is also stated, as will be seen from the following extracts... 
Sahetu-anatta Sutta, SN. iii. 24.

47. The same is stated respecting the Ayatanas...
Ajjhattānattahetu Sutta, SN. iv. 130-131

48. In defining death, it is stated...
Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta, MN. 9.

48. In the advice given by Buddha to the priests to cast away all desire...
Chandarāga Sutta, SN. iii. 27

48-49. In the Mahapadhana Suttam it is stated...
Mahāpadāna Sutta, DN. 14.

50-51. And now with reference to the second point...
Aññatarabrāhmaṇa Sutta, SN. ii. 75-76.

51. Again King Milinda asked Nāgasena the following question...
Aññakāyasaṅkamanapañha, Mil. 72.

51-52. Again, the following passages occured in one of the comments...
Visuddhimagga, Kaṅkhāvitaraṇavisuddhiniddesa, Paccayapariggahakathā. = Path of Purification ch. XIX § 22.

52. In consequence of the power of actions performed by beings...
Untraced.

52. Again, defining what birth was, in various parts of Buddhist literature...
Vibhaṅga Sutta, SN. ii. 2-4

52-53. Speaking of Khandhas and Ayatanas, it is said...
Untraced.

56. ... not a different being...
Dhammasantatipañha, Mil. 41-42

59-60. The following Pali extract from the Kathawastu...
Kvu. 30; Points of Controversy 28-29

62. If it were some substance that they meant by Atma, surely it would not be difficult to confine it by locking up a dying man in an airtight chest...
Cf. Payasi Sutta, DN. 23

74.In illustration of the fact that words have different meanings...
Vin. i. 86.

75. and quoted the following passage from the Samyutta Nikaya...
Paṭiccasamuppāda Sutta, SN. ii. 1

79. defined to be...
Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, SN. v. 421

85. and he would now quote a passage from the Buddhist Scriptures..
Sammohavinodanī - Viññāṇapadaniddesa, Vibh-a. 163

89. The Buddhist doctrine concerning man was...
Tiṇakaṭṭha Sutta, SN. ii. 178

92. It was said of the wife of the Emperor Bimbisara...
Thusa Jātaka, Jāt. 338

93. He would refer to a few of the thirty-two good and cheerful omens and wonders...
Nidānakathā p. 151. (Th. Rhys Davids’ translation is available from archive.org)

104. In the first place, Buddha’s own mother died...
Acchariya-abbhūta Sutta, MN. 123.

104. Even beasts died by the roaring...
Sīha Sutta, SN. iii. 84-85.

104. Aggohamasmi lokassa...
Acchariya-abbhūta Sutta, MN. 123.

108. Give me your two children as an alms offering...
Vessantara Jātaka, Jāt. 547.

109. yodun...
Sinhala pronunciation of yojana.

109. it is said in Buddhist works that if the ropes and strings...
Cariyā-a. 41.

110. For instance, in Mahawagge it is said that Buddha...
Vin. i. 4-6.

110-111. he decided on preaching his Dhamma to Alarakalama...
Vin. i. 7.

114-115. Even the sage Buddhaghosa was so conscious of the difficulty of rightly explaining...
Visuddhimagga - Paṭiccasamuppādakathā. Path of Purification ch. XVII. § 25.

116. The doctrine of causation is enunciated...
Paṭiccasamuppāda Sutta, SN. ii. 1

116-117. Though, when it is said curd is made...
Visuddhimagga - Abhiññāniddesa. Path of Purification ch. XIII. § 107.
- Paññābhūminiddesa, Path of Purification ch. XVII 167.
- Diṭṭhivisuddhiniddesa, Path of Purification ch. XVIII 29

117. The Patthanaprakarana of Abhidharma also has the following...
Paṭṭh. i. 24-25
Full paragraph:
Ahetukaṃ dhammaṃ paṭicca sahetuko dhammo uppajjati hetupaccayā: vicikicchāsahagataṃ uddhaccasahagataṃ mohaṃ paṭicca sampayuttakā khandhā; paṭisandhikkhaṇe vatthuṃ paṭicca sahetukā khandhā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 3, 2018 8:38 AM
Title: Re: Threefold request for help: Christian-Buddhist debates of 1862-1873
Content:
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Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 3, 2018 8:36 AM
Title: Re: Threefold request for help: Christian-Buddhist debates of 1862-1873
Content:
I'll take a look at the Peebles book and get back to you.

.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 2, 2018 4:49 PM
Title: Re: Bhante Sujatos and karmic snobbery.
Content:
I would be inclined to put it the other way round and say that Samyaksambodhi has nothing to do with Enlightenment.  

What I mean by this is, firstly, that Enlightenment was being used as a term for a certain period in European intellectual history long before anyone used it to translate Bodhi, and secondly, that it's not really a very good translation. Awakening would be more accurate.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 2, 2018 4:33 PM
Title: Re: Bhante Sujatos and karmic snobbery.
Content:
Certainly. Starting, it seems, with the third sermon: a talk on fire to fire worshipers.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 2, 2018 9:48 AM
Title: Re: Threefold request for help: Christian-Buddhist debates of 1862-1873
Content:
I wonder, are you familiar with Gunapala Dharmasiri's Buddhist Critique of the Christian Concept of God? If not, I commend it to your attention as a book that will probably prepare you for about 90 percent of the brickbats that philosophy undergrads are likely to hurl in your direction.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 2, 2018 8:55 AM
Title: Re: Bhante Sujatos and karmic snobbery.
Content:
Well, not really. The methods employed in modern academic scholarship of the early Buddhist texts are adapted from those used in biblical "Higher Criticism". This is something that didn't get started until the European Enlightenment(s) and has nothing remotely like it in traditional/monastic Buddhist scholarship.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_criticism


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 1, 2018 9:52 PM
Title: Re: Threefold request for help: Christian-Buddhist debates of 1862-1873
Content:
There are three scanned copies at archive.org

https://archive.org/search.php?query=peebles%20christianity


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 1, 2018 9:47 PM
Title: Re: discourses nowhere define "virtues dear to the noble ones" or do they?
Content:
No, I was alluding to his inability to transfer his allegiance to an outside teacher.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 1, 2018 8:49 PM
Title: Re: Who attained enlightenment on the 7th day as a king
Content:
It's the background story to Dhammapada 171.

https://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/English-Texts/Buddhist-Legends/13-04.htm

Edit:

On second thoughts, the story of Santati is a better fit. Both stories have a dying nautch-girl, but only in the second does anyone get enlightened.

https://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/English-Texts/Buddhist-Legends/10-09.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 1, 2018 8:42 AM
Title: Re: Eyes Open Or Closed During Practice?
Content:
Cakkhupala did.  

https://www.tipitaka.net/tipitaka/dhp/verseload.php?verse=001


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 30, 2018 12:28 AM
Title: Re: Why don't people remember their past lives according to the suttas?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 29, 2018 7:14 PM
Title: Re: For Monks Only: travelling by vehicles
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 29, 2018 7:01 PM
Title: Re: Question and answers website by Ven. Dhammanando
Content:
These days it's almost entirely communication by private message. I have found myself being involuntarily added to no end of Facebook Buddhist groups but I don't usually read or post to any of them. Every few months I manually remove my name from each group and click the button that stops the moderators from re-adding me.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 29, 2018 6:50 PM
Title: Re: Chiang Mai visit?
Content:
In the cool season.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 28, 2018 8:29 PM
Title: Re: Question and answers website by Ven. Dhammanando
Content:
Hi Sarath,

Though I appreciate the gracious proposal, I'm afraid I have to decline it. My posting here and at Sutta Central and Facebook already takes up all the time (i.e., an hour and a half a day) that I'm prepared to devote to online stuff.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 28, 2018 1:13 AM
Title: Re: discourses nowhere define "virtues dear to the noble ones" or do they?
Content:
The Sarakāni episode shows that such a notion was around at the Buddha’s time. That is, there were definite public expectations as to how a sotāpanna (or someone thought to be one) would behave.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 26, 2018 10:30 AM
Title: Re: Suttas where bhikkhuni teach rebirth ?
Content:
And is there any particular conclusion that you think can be drawn from these observations?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 25, 2018 8:29 PM
Title: Re: Seeking scriptural source for "all defilements temporarily suppressed when in jhana"
Content:
If it's the case that the arising of uddhacca is conascent with the arising of any kind of akusala state, then it follows that no akusala state can be present on any occasion when uddhacca is absent.

So it certainly makes logical sense. One can only reject the conclusion by denying the factualness of the premise.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 25, 2018 7:41 PM
Title: Re: discourses nowhere define "virtues dear to the noble ones" or do they?
Content:
No, I composed my reply before I had seen yours.


(I'll reply to the other posters later this week).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 24, 2018 10:17 PM
Title: Re: discourses nowhere define "virtues dear to the noble ones" or do they?
Content:
But nor do they leave us entirely in the dark, for they ascribe to them eight characteristics. The first four, starting with unbroken, all mean more or less the same thing. They tell us what it is in the manner of their observance that makes these virtues pleasing to Ariyans. It is that the manner of observance is immaculate.

As for the last four attributes, these provide the clue as to what the said virtues are. Just look through the suttas to see what things are described with one or more of these terms.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 23, 2018 6:46 PM
Title: Re: Suttas where bhikkhuni teach rebirth ?
Content:
I suppose one can't rule it out, but I think that if it were so, it would be quite remarkable for there to be no Vinaya rule to that effect.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 23, 2018 6:31 PM
Title: Re: Why it is called self becomed ?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 23, 2018 5:54 PM
Title: Re: Why it is called self becomed ?
Content:
Rather than the over-literal “self-become”, sayambhū would be better translated either more expansively as “one who has become [what he is] by himself”, or else more freely as “self-made man”. The monicker means more or less the same as anācariyaka, “one without a teacher” (with which it is often juxtaposed). Both appellations are applied to sammāsambuddhas and paccekabuddhas to distinguish them from sāvaka arahants (whose enlightenment is owing to a teacher’s guidance).


Sayambhun ti sayameva aññāpadesaṃ vinā pāramiyo pūretvā adhigatabuddhabhāvanti attho.

“Sayambhū”: by himself alone, independent of another’s instruction, having fulfilled the perfections, he has arrived at a Buddha’s state” is the meaning.
(Buddhavaṃsa Atthakathā)


Paratoghosena vinā sayam’eva bhūtā paṭividdhākuppāti.

“Independent of the voice of another, by himself alone he has become one who has broken through to the Immovable state.”
(Visuddhimagga Mahāṭīkā)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 23, 2018 3:49 PM
Title: Re: Are posthumous gifts considered acts of generosity, and do they make merit?
Content:
No. Although nowadays this sort of thing is very widely believed in Buddhist countries, the ancient Pudgalavādin belief that "merit increases with utility" (pari­bhoga­maya­puñña-diṭṭhi) was rejected by the Theravādins at the Third Council.

.


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