Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 7, 2017 5:53 PM
Title: Re: Why is the Visuddhimagga so influential, when it introduces teachings not sourced in the Pali Canon?
Content:
Thanks for the reference. I'm afraid that neither the passage as a whole nor any of the phrases that you've highlighted in it will lend any support to your pet theory about a soul in Buddhism.

The chapter from which the passage is taken is describing the commentarial understanding of what happens at the momentary abhidhammic level when a person attains stream-entry. In the commentarial understanding, stream-entry consists in the arising of a consciousness called "supramundane" (lokuttara) because it has Nibbāna as its object. But the consciousness that cognizes Nibbāna does not have any features that would make it a self or a soul. It isn't something everlasting, nor even long-lasting, but is just as ephemeral as every other kind of consciousness. And being something that arises in dependence upon conditions, the supramundane consciousness is neither a controller of anything nor under anyone's or anything's control.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 6, 2017 8:48 PM
Title: Re: Who are the (modern) protestant Buddhists?
Content:
My usage of the term is like that of the social scientists who first coined it. A protestant Buddhist is the opposite of a traditional Buddhist. However, since people who reject or disregard traditional Buddhism, do so in different ways and to differing degrees, a classical kind of definition, framed in terms of essential features, necessary and sufficient conditions, etc., isn't going to be very serviceable here. Better would be a fuzzy definition grounded upon the notion of http://www.philosophy-index.com/wittgenstein/family-resemblance/.

One might, for example, draw up a list of ten or so features of traditional Buddhism that it is common for modernists, anti-clericals, secular Buddhists, etc., to reject. Those who score from 8 to 10 would definitely merit the monicker "protestant Buddhists"; those scoring 0 to 3 would definitely be traditional Buddhists; everyone in between would be a hybrid, showing tendencies in both directions, though in most cases one direction or the other is likely to be more pronounced.

Sorry, I can't write any more now as I'm occupied with the Devorohana festival and a fellow monk's funeral.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 6, 2017 6:32 AM
Title: Re: Why is the Visuddhimagga so influential, when it introduces teachings not sourced in the Pali Canon?
Content:
Actually your statement is from one particular construal of the Buddha's silence in that sutta — a construal that happens to be favoured by certain modern protestant Buddhists.

Mine is from another way of construing the Buddha's silence — a way favoured by the Theravāda commentators.

.



Bodhi.jpg (349.08 KiB) Viewed 2778 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 6, 2017 5:50 AM
Title: Re: Why is the Visuddhimagga so influential, when it introduces teachings not sourced in the Pali Canon?
Content:
"There is no self" is the middle view between the extreme views of "I am/have a self that is eternal" and "I am/have a self that is perishable."


Your statement is the claim of certain modern protestant Buddhists, neo-Pudgalavādins, Hindus, Theosophists, &amp;c. Mine was the dominant orthodoxy in Buddhist India.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 6, 2017 5:27 AM
Title: Re: Pali name "Natthiko"
Content:
But if so, then they used the wrong word, for the 'annihilationism' here translates ucchedavāda not natthikavāda.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 6, 2017 4:39 AM
Title: Re: Why is the Visuddhimagga so influential, when it introduces teachings not sourced in the Pali Canon?
Content:
It would be interesting to see what it was you read.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 4, 2017 6:31 PM
Title: Re: What realm do nagas belong to? And are there animals that live in the worlds of the devas?
Content:
Yes, you can take advantage of all four of the ways that a dog learns, but especially observational learning for encouraging Dhamma-compatible allelomimetic behaviour in the dog, and Skinnerian operant conditioning to ensure that if the dog encounters the Dhamma in a future life as a human he'll be positively disposed towards it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_training#How_dogs_learn


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 4, 2017 12:10 PM
Title: Re: What realm do nagas belong to? And are there animals that live in the worlds of the devas?
Content:
The commentaries classify supaṇṇas/garuḷas/garuḍas as birds, which would place them in the animal realm. But since, like nāgas, they have the power to assume human form, I would be inclined to call them super-animals too.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 4, 2017 7:51 AM
Title: Re: Pali Translation: 'This will also change'
Content:
It's a modern retelling of a story common to both Jewish and Sufi traditions. The original version tells of a king who wants some means of remaining equanimous in all of life's vicissitudes. Some sage gives him a ring inscribed, "This too shall pass," and instructs him to look at it whenever he's confronted with any triumph or disaster.

The modern version is a little more elaborate and tells of two brothers whose father dies and leaves them with two rings, one gold and the other silver. When they're dividing their inheritance the greedy elder brother insists on taking the gold ring and leaving the silver one to his younger sibling. The silver ring, however, proves to be the more valuable because it's inscribed with the maxim, "This too shall pass."

I don't know who composed the modern version, but if you google you'll find it on lots of New Age and self-help websites.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 3, 2017 6:38 PM
Title: Re: Patticcasamupada: wrongly explained by Buddhaghosa
Content:
Some relevant links for the commentarial exposition of dependent arising.

1. Visuddhimagga, tr. Ñāṇamoli; dependent arising is in chapter XVII.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanamoli/PathofPurification2011.pdf

2. Paṭiccasamuppāda chapter of the Vibhaṅga (the second book of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka), tr. Ānandajoti.
https://suttacentral.net/en/vb6

3. Paṭiccasamuppāda chapter of the Vibhaṅga, tr. U Thittila.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw2ZpMqGylXcSjNmc3FkOGFOZVE

4. Buddhaghosa’s commentary to the Paṭiccasamuppāda chapter of the Vibhaṅga, tr. Ñāṇamoli.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw2ZpMqGylXcV0xNdFhFbkNJaVk

Regarding #2 and #3, although Ven. Ānandajoti's rendering is better than the earlier one by U Thittila, if you're going to read Buddhaghosa's commentary, then it's best to do so in conjunction with U Thittila's work on account of the greater agreement between the two in the translation of technical terms.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 3, 2017 1:31 PM
Title: Re: Why is the Visuddhimagga so influential, when it introduces teachings not sourced in the Pali Canon?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 3, 2017 1:05 PM
Title: Re: Mayahana and Mainstream Indian Buddhist Accounts of Each Other
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 3, 2017 12:51 PM
Title: Re: Why is the Visuddhimagga so influential, when it introduces teachings not sourced in the Pali Canon?
Content:
Fair enough. It does mean, however, that any supposed "confirmation" you may have arrived at is merely subjective and as such should not be presented as if it were a publicly established fact.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 3, 2017 12:45 PM
Title: Re: Why is the Visuddhimagga so influential, when it introduces teachings not sourced in the Pali Canon?
Content:
A report of a monk reporting what he knows about the practices of other monks hardly supports your claim that the Visuddhimagga's instructions for earth kasiṇa are "confirmed wrong information". Nor does the existence of a possible family resemblance between kasiṇa practice and certain practices taught in non-Buddhist traditions. For example, the four brahmavihāras are taught in Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras and their commentaries, but that doesn't make the Buddhist practice of them in any way a wrong practice.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 3, 2017 12:27 PM
Title: Re: What realm do nagas belong to? And are there animals that live in the worlds of the devas?
Content:
Most Indian Buddhist schools, including the Theravada, held that animal-like beings in the sensual heavens are devas in animal form, not animals. The Andhakan school dissented, holding for example that the elephant-shaped deva Erāvaṇa in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three was an actual elephant.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 3, 2017 12:14 PM
Title: Re: Original Sutta quotations of Dhammapada verses
Content:
Fronsdal's book, mentioned already, will tell you where (if anywhere) each Dhammapada verse is to be found elsewhere in the Sutta Piṭaka. Buddhaghosa's Dhammapada Commentary, available online, gives origin accounts for all of the verses, but these don't always coincide with those given in the Suttas.

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 3, 2017 11:59 AM
Title: Re: Looking for sutta
Content:
I’m afraid the only other one that I can think of is a Jātaka story about a miser’s pancake that grew larger and larger because it was destined to be given to Mahāmoggallāna.


http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/j1/j1081.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 3, 2017 10:31 AM
Title: Re: Mayahana and Mainstream Indian Buddhist Accounts of Each Other
Content:
So, the key differences, it seems, are that in Bhāvaviveka’s version of the sūtra the phrase “these things are not profitable” is changed to “these things are not profitable for you”, while the clauses beginning with “...irrelevant to the fundamentals of the holy life...” are omitted entirely.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 3, 2017 8:38 AM
Title: Re: Mayahana and Mainstream Indian Buddhist Accounts of Each Other
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 3, 2017 1:31 AM
Title: Re: Mayahana and Mainstream Indian Buddhist Accounts of Each Other
Content:
What is "endless" (or at least vast) in the Siṃsapasutta is not the Buddha's teaching, but rather the things he knows but does not teach. He doesn't teach them because they are "... unbeneficial, irrelevant to the fundamentals of the holy life, and do not lead to revulsion, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbāna."

That being so, to equate Mahayana teachings with the siṃsapa leaves on the trees is to equate them with soteriologically worthless knowledge.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 3, 2017 12:53 AM
Title: Re: Mayahana and Mainstream Indian Buddhist Accounts of Each Other
Content:
It's SN. 56:31.

https://suttacentral.net/en/sn56.31

In Sri Lanka it's usually called the Siṃsapāsutta; in Myanmar and Thailand it's the Sīsapāvanasutta.

In the Chinese Āgamas it's SA 404

https://suttacentral.net/lzh/sa404


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 2, 2017 7:21 PM
Title: Re: Why is the Visuddhimagga so influential, when it introduces teachings not sourced in the Pali Canon?
Content:
By whom? By what means?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 2, 2017 7:19 PM
Title: Re: Looking for sutta
Content:
The Anger-Eating Demon.

https://suttacentral.net/en/sn11.22


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 2, 2017 5:22 PM
Title: Re: Patticcasamupada: wrongly explained by Buddhaghosa
Content:
Though it’s true that there can be no kamma without contact, I don’t think it’s what the first of your two quoted suttas is saying. The pronoun ‘that’ in the phrase ‘in each case that is conditioned by contact’ doesn’t refer to kamma but to what the ascetics and brahmins say about kamma; in other words, ‘in each case of the ascetics’ and brahmins’ views’. This sutta’s teaching seems to be a specialized case of the Brahmajālasutta’s more general formulation, in which exactly the same phrase (tadapi phassapaccayā) is applied to all sixty-two views.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 2, 2017 4:14 PM
Title: Re: Why is the Visuddhimagga so influential, when it introduces teachings not sourced in the Pali Canon?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 2, 2017 8:39 AM
Title: Re: The racial appearance of the Buddha: Vasala 'outcaste'
Content:
https://www.academia.edu/25308643/Appendix_X_Was_there_Buddhism_in_Gandh%C4%81ra_at_the_time_of_Alexander


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 2, 2017 4:10 AM
Title: Re: Mayahana and Mainstream Indian Buddhist Accounts of Each Other
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 2, 2017 3:28 AM
Title: Re: The racial appearance of the Buddha: Vasala 'outcaste'
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 2, 2017 2:33 AM
Title: Re: Mayahana and Mainstream Indian Buddhist Accounts of Each Other
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 1, 2017 9:11 PM
Title: Re: The racial appearance of the Buddha: Vasala 'outcaste'
Content:
Have you seen Stephen Batchelor's critique of Beckwith's thesis?

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14639947.2016.1189141


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 1, 2017 5:48 PM
Title: Re: Mayahana and Mainstream Indian Buddhist Accounts of Each Other
Content:
That's the wrong Haribhadra. I meant this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haribhadra_%28Buddhist_philosopher%29


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 1, 2017 5:09 PM
Title: Re: Where are the enlightened westerners?
Content:
I tend to agree that his Socratic acumen is perhaps not being exhibited to quite its best advantage in this particular debate. Maybe it was the last debating session of the day and Moggalliputtatissa was wearied of talking to idiots. Or maybe it's a case of poor manuscript preservation, allowing termites to feast on the Kathāvatthu and nibble away a minor premise or two.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 1, 2017 5:03 PM
Title: Re: Mayahana and Mainstream Indian Buddhist Accounts of Each Other
Content:
Are you referring to the list of objections to Mahayana sutras that I quoted in my earlier post? If so, these are not Bhāvaviveka's own views. They're a summary of his opponents' views, i.e., those of sixth century non-Mahayana Buddhists. Having listed these objections he then attempts to refute them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 30, 2017 6:07 PM
Title: Re: Pali Term: Sakkāya
Content:
Yes. Sa + kāya gives the commentarial word sakāya, "one's own body", which is the opposite of parakāya, "another's body".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 30, 2017 4:59 PM
Title: Re: Origin of Thanisarro Bhikkhu's Meditation Method
Content:
Of modern approaches that are informed by the Paṭisambhidāmagga’s understanding, I’ve found most helpful that in chapter 4 of Ajahn Buddhadāsa’s Mindfulness with Breathing, the second of the ajahn’s two books on ānāpānassati.

.


 ./download/file.php?id=3757
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Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:11 PM
Title: Re: Where are the enlightened westerners?
Content:
The commentary attributes the view to the Andhakas and Uttarāpathakas, on account of their excessive affection for the Buddha's person. It's no surprise that the Uttarāpathakas would think such a thing, for they were a late-Mahāsaṅghika splinter group and the Mahāsaṅghikas were responsible for the lion's share of extravagant ideas about buddhahood. That the Andhakas (the school of Andhra Pradesh) would share the Uttarāpathakas' folly isn't so easily accounted for. On the whole the Andhakas seem to have been pretty reasonable regarding Buddha-related matters.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 29, 2017 10:45 PM
Title: Re: Origin of Thanisarro Bhikkhu's Meditation Method
Content:
The latter. Lee is the shortened form of his Thai birth-name, Charlee (from Skt. Jālī). His parents also had Thai names.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 29, 2017 9:30 PM
Title: Re: Where are the enlightened westerners?
Content:
It might be a good idea to split this thread.




Done!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 29, 2017 9:27 PM
Title: Re: Where are the enlightened westerners?
Content:
A Summary of Mahayana-like Errors 
Defended by pre-Mahayana Schools at the Third Council

(N.B., not all of these were held in common by all Mahayanists. Some, for example, are unique to Yogācārins, some to Tantrikas, some to Pure Landers, etc.)



1. Belittling of arahants

1.1. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv21.3

1.2. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv1.2

1.3. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv8.11

1.4. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv2.2

1.5. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv2.3

1.6. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv2.4

1.7. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv2.1

.

2. Moral errors

2.1. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv21.1

2.2. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv12.8

2.3. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv13.3

2.4. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv23.1

.

3. The docetic heresy and other wrong notions about Buddhas and Bodhisattas

3.1. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv18.1

3.2. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv18.2

3.3. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv2.10

3.4. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv23.3

3.5. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv21.4

3.6. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv21.6

3.7. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv18.4

3.8. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv11.5

3.9. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv13.4

.

4. Exaggerated ideas about how much is due to karma

4.1. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv7.7

4.2. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv12.3

4.3. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv7.8

4.4. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv7.5

4.5. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv12.4

4.6. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv16.8

4.7. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv17.3

.

5. Errors arising from wrong notions about suññatā and the two truths

5.1. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv17.6

5.2. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv17.7

5.3. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv17.8

5.4. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv17.9

5.5. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv17.10

5.6. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv19.5

.

6. Miscellaneous errors

6.1. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv8.1

6.2. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv3.11

6.3. https://suttacentral.net/en/kv20.3

.

Owing to the terseness of the English translation, the meanings of some of the above debates will be a little opaque. They should become clearer when read in the full translation in the link below as this also includes a précis of the commentary on each debate.

https://archive.org/details/PointsOfControversyKathavatthu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 29, 2017 9:01 PM
Title: Re: Where are the enlightened westerners?
Content:
Well, I meant that my post would seem boring from the point of view of those who are interested in talking about things like the Mahayana’s polemical contrast between emptiness of persons and emptiness of dharmas, how the Hinayanists fail to realize the latter, whether Theravadins are the same or different in this regard from other Hinayanists, etc., etc. Some Buddhists seem to really love this kind of talk. As for me, I’d rather spend a whole afternoon cleaning the monastery toilets than waste even a minute on it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 28, 2017 7:49 PM
Title: Re: Question on fruits and vegetables offerings
Content:
It isn't an action that's intrinsically an unwholesome kamma, but it may become one in certain circumstances, e.g., if it's done by a bhikkhu out of disrespect for the training.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 28, 2017 5:43 PM
Title: Re: Where are the enlightened westerners?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 28, 2017 12:27 PM
Title: Re: Where are the enlightened westerners?
Content:
If Malcolm and Astus were resorting to early Buddhist texts to make the case for their devalorised conception of arahantship, then their arguments would merit the kind of response made by Moggalliputtatissa to the Mahayana-like views propounded by certain non-Theravadins at the Third Council. At the said Council, Moggalliputtatissa and the proto-Mahayanists were in full agreement about what texts it’s legitimate to appeal to as sources of of the Buddha’s teaching; their disagreement was over how to interpret them.

Matters are quite otherwise in the Malcolm &amp; Astus exchange. Notwithstanding the palpable differences between them (one being stiffly doctrinaire, the other more freewheeling) both are agreed in accepting the Mahayana sutras and distinctions derived from these sutras as authoritative sources in matters of doctrine. It is from these and upon these sources —and these sources alone— that they derive their notion of the arahant being an inferior being who still has more work to do — a view plainly contradicted by the Pali suttas. That being so, nothing that they have to say deserves a Third Council type of response. All that is required is a reiteration of mainstream Indian Buddhism’s rejection of Mahayana sutras and the reasons for it.

I realize that this is a rather boring response and probably not at all what you were hoping for. I’m afraid that unless a Mahayanist is talking about mainstream/non-Mahayana Buddhist texts I have no interest in anything he has to say about Dhamma.

Moreover, I would note that Malcolm and Astus are not really engaged in an inter-sectarian debate of the kind that took place at the Third Council. Instead, theirs is a purely parish-pump discussion over the small-print in the Mahayana position regarding the arahant. As best I can tell, it forms no part of their intention to persuade Buddhists in general that the Mahayana position is the correct one. That being so, one wouldn’t expect them to try to ground their case in early Buddhist texts or to have anything to say that a Theravadin like me would be interested in getting his teeth into.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 27, 2017 4:08 AM
Title: Re: Abortion - who kills? Mother or doctor
Content:
I think the fourth factor, upakkama, would be better rendered as "making an effort".

When a person orders someone, hires someone, or hints to someone to kill a living being, both commit pāṇātipāta. The one who commissions the killing fulfils the factor of effort by the giving of the order; the hireling fulfils it by carrying it out. According to the commentaries the weightier kamma is that of the person giving the order.

Outside of the People's Republic of China (where many women are made to have abortions against their will) the mother's participation will normally consist in rather more than just allowing the doctor's action.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 27, 2017 12:07 AM
Title: Re: 9 levels of Pali exams in Thailand
Content:
The three grades of Nak Tham and Dhammaseuksa (an equivalent course for laypeople and mae chees) are very easy to pass. But with the Parien Pali course the lower grades are not too arduous but the highest ones are attained by very few monks because of the very stringent marking: in the translation and composition exams you will fail if you make even a single mistake.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 26, 2017 8:37 PM
Title: Mayahana and Mainstream Indian Buddhist Accounts of Each Other
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 23, 2017 4:38 AM
Title: Re: 9 levels of Pali exams in Thailand
Content:
Two of the Prince's books are available from archive.org.

The Buddhist Attitude towards National Defence
https://archive.org/details/cu31924023046216

Entrance to the Vinaya vol. II
https://archive.org/details/VinayaMukhaVol2MahtimakutRajavidyalaya


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 22, 2017 10:58 AM
Title: Re: 9 levels of Pali exams in Thailand
Content:
The Thai texts can be downloaded from numerous websites, but I don't know if anyone has scanned the English translations. Hard copies of the translations can be ordered from the Mahamakut Bookshop, Phra Sumen Road, Bangkok 10200.

This is the syllabus, though I can't now remember which have been translated and which haven't...


นักธรรมตรี - Elementary grade

นวโกวาท ธรรมวิภาคปริเฉทที่ ๑ - Navakovāda &amp; Dhammavibhāga part I
พุทธศาสนาสุภาษิต เล่ม ๑ - Buddhaśāsanāsubhāṣita - Buddhist Proverbs vol. I
พุทธประวัติเล่ม ๑ - Life of the Buddha vol. I
พุทธประวัติเล่ม ๒ - Life of the Buddha vol. II
พุทธประวัติเล่ม ๓ - Life of the Buddha vol. III
วินัยมุข เล่ม ๑ - Vinayamukha - Entrance to the Vinaya vol. I
ปฐมสมโพธิ - Paṭhamasambodhi
ศาสนาพิธีเล่ม ๑ - Buddhist ceremonies vol. I
แบบประกอบคำแนะเรียงความแก้กระทู้ธรรม - A Guide to Composing Essays on Dhamma vol. I

นักธรรมโท - Middle grade

พุทธศาสนาสุภาษิต เล่ม ๒ - Buddhaśāsanāsubhāṣita - Buddhist Proverbs vol. II
ธรรมวิภาคปริเฉทที่ ๒ - Dhammavibhāga part II
วินัยมุข เล่ม ๒ - Vinayamukha - Entrance to the Vinaya vol. II
อนุพุทธประวัติ - Anubuddhapravati - Lives of the Buddha’s disciples
พุทธานุพุทธประวัติ - Buddhānubuddhapravati - Another book about the Buddha’s disciples
สังคีติกถา - Saṅgītikathā - History of the Three Councils
ศาสนาพิธีเล่ม ๒ - Buddhist ceremonies vol. II
แบบประกอบคำแนะเรียงความแก้กระทู้ธรรม - A Guide to Composing Essays on Dhamma vol. II

นักธรรมเอก - Advanced grade

พุทธศาสนาสุภาษิต เล่ม ๓ - Buddhaśāsanāsubhāṣita - Buddhist Proverbs vol. III
ธรรมวิจารณ์ - Dhammavicāraṇa
วินัยมุข เล่ม ๓ - Vinayamukha - Entrance to the Vinaya vol. III
พระมงคลวิเสสกถา - Maṅgalavisesakathā
ธรรมสมบัติ - Dhammasampatti
สมถกัมมัฏฐาน - Samatha Kammaṭṭhāna
วิปัสสนากัมมัฏฐาน - Vipassanā Kammaṭṭhāna
มหาสติปัฏฐานสูตร และคิริมานนทสูตร - Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna and Girimānanda Suttas
ศาสนาพิธีเล่ม ๓ - Buddhist ceremonies vol. III
แบบประกอบคำแนะเรียงความแก้กระทู้ธรรม - A Guide to Composing Essays on Dhamma vol. III
แบบประกอบวินัยวินิจฉัย - A Guide to Composing Vinaya Adjudications
วินัยบัญญัติ - Thai law - the Saṅgha Acts of 1902, 1941 and 1962


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 22, 2017 4:56 AM
Title: Re: 9 levels of Pali exams in Thailand
Content:
I don't think so. Most of the textbooks for the three grades of Nak Tham have been translated, but not the Pali textbooks or the past Parien exam papers.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 21, 2017 7:44 PM
Title: Re: Where are the enlightened westerners?
Content:
Historically it was done by dismissing without appeal any Mahayana claims that had no support in the Buddha's teaching. The claim that an arahant will need to undergo a post-mortem arousing from some kind of samādhi state and then proceed on the path to buddhahood is one such example.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 20, 2017 8:59 AM
Title: Re: Do Taxes Violate The Second Precept?
Content:
No. Ordering or carrying out any killing at a government's behest, whether penally or martially, would certainly be considered a breach of the first precept. What is sometimes a point of hot dispute among Buddhists is not whether the first precept is broken in these cases, but whether there are ever circumstances in which one might be justified in doing so, i.e. in which breaking the precept would be the lesser of two evils. For example:

https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?t=21602


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 19, 2017 3:46 PM
Title: Re: Question on fruits and vegetables offerings
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 18, 2017 8:53 PM
Title: Re: Do Taxes Violate The Second Precept?
Content:
In the Jātakas' distinction between righteous and unrighteous (dhammika / adhammika) taxation, a rājā is not supposed to be extortionate in levying taxes. And so if he can carry out his duties with lower tax income than what he is presently receiving, then the rājā should lower the tax rate; otherwise his taxation will be adhammika. But his doing so is not an act of dāna but of sīla.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 18, 2017 7:46 PM
Title: Re: Question on fruits and vegetables offerings
Content:
They can certainly be offered. It's just that those monks who are most strict about Vinaya won't eat them until they've been "made allowable" using the procedure described in your link. In practice this procedure is still the norm in the stricter forest monasteries but elsewhere is largely neglected.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 17, 2017 4:35 PM
Title: Re: What's the point of gay marriage ?
Content:
Why as a Buddhist are you so anxious that the Romanian Orthodox Church should get to have everything its own way? I mean from what you’ve written, I gather nobody’s trying to force the Orthodox clergy to do anything they don’t want to (which btw makes your “right to hold a pork barbecue in a mosque” analogy completely inapt), so why the fuss?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 17, 2017 6:48 AM
Title: Re: What's the point of gay marriage ?
Content:
But are gay rights activists demanding that the Romanian Orthodox clergy be required to marry them? Or is it the more modest demand that if they were to contract some sort of marriage (for example, in the http://www.uua.org/international/blog/unitarian-leader-takes-equal-marriage-stand-in-romania — whose bishop is apparently in favour of it) that the Romanian state should recognize this?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 16, 2017 8:47 PM
Title: Re: Monks Average Meditation Routine
Content:
See above.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 16, 2017 8:36 PM
Title: Re: Unconditioned
Content:
The poster imagines that there is some hidden significance in the Buddha's choosing to express himself in the passive voice rather than the active voice, and that that s/he has discovered this hidden significance and now deigns to reveal it to us.

In my response I pointed out that there are no grounds for supposing this to be the case. It's simply that certain Pali verbs are more commonly (or just as commonly) used in the passive than in the active voice. To illustrate this I gave a couple of examples, taken from quite pedestrian narratives in the Vinaya Piṭaka in which there isn't even the tiniest likelihood of a hidden meaning.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 15, 2017 5:53 PM
Title: Re: Unconditioned
Content:
... as it is conceived in the more flabby-minded forms of Hindu perennialism.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 15, 2017 5:03 PM
Title: Re: Did Buddha teach tolerance and missionary proselytism?
Content:
If you read the link, you'll see those are among the things that they're not supposed to do.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 15, 2017 2:10 PM
Title: Re: Unconditioned
Content:
In narrative Pali, acts of seeing, hearing, sensing, suspecting, etc., are routinely indicated with passive rather than active constructions. No need to go reading Hindu philosophy into it.

Diṭṭhosi, pārājikaṃ dhammaṃ ajjhāpannosi, assamaṇosi, asakyaputtiyosi.

“I have seen that you have committed an offence entailing defeat. You are no longer an ascetic, not a son of the Sakyan.”

A form-equivalent rendering would be:

“You are-seen; you are one-who-has-transgressed a defeating rule; you are a non-ascetic; you are a non-son-of-the-Sakyan.”

Uṭṭhehi, āvuso, diṭṭhosi bhagavatā; natthi te bhikkhūhi saddhiṃ saṃvāso ti.

“Stand up, friend. The Blessed One has seen you. For you there is no communion with the bhikkhus.”

or:

“Stand up, friend. You have been seen by the Blessed One ...”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 15, 2017 9:39 AM
Title: Re: "Why secular Buddhism is Not True"
Content:
That was [name redacted by admin], not Binocular.

https://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?t=29833


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 14, 2017 9:15 PM
Title: Re: Abortion poll
Content:
I think David might have in mind the case of Savita Halappanavar, though it was actually an Indian Tamil woman and the country was Ireland. (Under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Saudi_Arabia an abortion would probably have been permitted in identical circumstances).

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

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/19/savita-halappanavar-abortion-midwife


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 14, 2017 6:28 PM
Title: Re: Inspiring Words
Content:
Roger Scruton, https://spectator.org/39831_gratitude-and-grace/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 12, 2017 10:22 PM
Title: Re: Do devas have mind made bodies?
Content:
No, the five groups of http://awake.kiev.ua/dhamma/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/3Samyutta-Nikaya/Samyutta3/31-Valaha-Samyutta/01-Valahakavaggo-e.html are way down in the sense-sphere heavens, closer to us than they are to the Arūpa devas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 12, 2017 5:00 PM
Title: Re: AN 2.18 Adhikaraṇa Sutta 8. Categorically.
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 11, 2017 7:57 AM
Title: Re: Buddha and Mahavira
Content:
Sure, it's a stock epithet. All Indian religious eminences get called 'mahāvīra' by somebody or other, just as all of them get called 'bhagvan' by somebody or other. 

In the Buddha's case 'mahāvīra' is used of him 258 times in the Pali Tipiṭaka. One will find it in both the Vinaya Piṭaka and in all five Nikāyas of the Sutta Piṭaka, but most frequently in the verse texts of the Khuddaka Nikāya.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 10, 2017 8:32 PM
Title: Re: Do devas have mind made bodies?
Content:
No. In the Pali texts nāgas and nāgīs are elite, upper-class animals. They're made of snaky flesh, eat frogs and have a poisonous breath. When not fighting with (or fleeing from) their enemies, the garuḍas, they like to amuse themselves with circle-dancing around anthills.

 

http://aimwell.org/DPPN/nagaa.html#5


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 10, 2017 7:02 AM
Title: Re: Viable Pāli etymologies
Content:
It be a witchy thing.



Ka.jpg (24.42 KiB) Viewed 2684 times


.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 10, 2017 6:47 AM
Title: Re: "Two Emptinesses", śūnyatā & anattā
Content:
"It is going too far to say that, to me, the sekha is essentially arahat, and that, rigorously, I exclude him from paticcasamuppāda anuloma. Where paticcasamuppāda is concerned, we are dealing with the difference between the puthujjana and the arahat, and the question of the sekha simply does not arise. He is in between. The sekha, like the two-faced Roman god Janus (whose month this is), is looking both ways, to the past and to the future. The past is anuloma, and the future is patiloma, and if it is too late to include the sekha in anuloma it is too early to include him in patiloma. Or if you wish he is something of both."

http://www.nanavira.org/letters/post-sotapatti/1962/59-l-149-10-january-1962


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 9, 2017 10:42 PM
Title: Re: Are devas attracted to metta?
Content:
I suppose they might be if the term amanussa ("non-humans") above is to be understood as including nāgas. The commentaries variously define it as, "yakkhas and pisācas, etc.," "nāgas and garuḍas, etc.," or "devas and rakkhasas, etc." But in the present case there's no definition given.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 9, 2017 8:06 PM
Title: Re: Convertion of muslims
Content:
Should this be:

"I think muslims if they converted to Buddhism" ?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 9, 2017 8:14 AM
Title: Re: Caroline Rhys Davids, D.Litt
Content:
That sounds pretty likely, for in neither of her two collections of collected papers is there anything that sounds like it might be a doctoral thesis. Nor is there any mention of correspondence with doctoral supervisors and suchlike.

http://www.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/resources/ms1082.pdf

https://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/library/archive/rhys#cafrd


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 8, 2017 8:03 AM
Title: Re: Popular concepts not found in the Pali Canon
Content:
The phrase "can still do..." is ambiguous. It might mean either that one may still be accounted a good person even as one is in the act of doing a bad thing, or, that although a person is habitually good, he nevertheless retains a potential for doing bad things. The former would be contrary to Buddhist teaching. The latter would be true of every puthujjana and in the suttas is classically illustrated by the case of the householder Vedehikā.

https://suttacentral.net/en/mn21


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 8, 2017 7:10 AM
Title: Re: The Dharma according to Shakespeare
Content:
Sure. But judging from what the blogger has posted so far, and from the statement of purpose in his maiden post, I'm confident that Mr. Dickey doesn't regard all of Shakespeare's works as instances of Dhamma. (I could be mistaken though; and so in the unlikely event that we see Mr. Dickey posting, say, Launce's farting dog monologue in Two Gentlemen of Verona, or anything at all in The Comedy of Errors, as examples of Dhamma, I'll be sure to let him know he's barking up the wrong tree.)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 7, 2017 9:09 PM
Title: Re: How is the word "immaterial" used in Buddha's teaching?
Content:
https://www.dhammatalks.net/Books/Ajahn_Brahm_The_Jhanas.htm

But this isn't correct. The term 'arūpajjhāna' dates back to the Dhammasaṅgaṇī of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 6, 2017 4:04 PM
Title: Re: 'Skill' in Pali
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 6, 2017 2:33 PM
Title: Re: what anime is this from
Content:
It’s from the Devadatta episode of a serialised life of the Buddha produced by members of the Taiwanese branch of the Jōdo Shinshū.

if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }https://phpbbex.com/ .

.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 5, 2017 7:13 PM
Title: Re: The Dharma according to Shakespeare
Content:
I think the Bard had much to say that is conducive to dispassion rather than to passion; to absence of bondage rather than to bondage; to emptying out rather than to filling up; to fewness of wants rather than to greatness of wants; to content rather than to discontent; to solitude rather than to sociability; to putting forth energy rather than to indolence; and to being a light burden rather than to being a heavy burden.

Whatever he had to say of this sort might be reckoned as Dhamma as it's defined in the Saṃkhitta (or Gotamī) and Uttaravipatti Suttas.

https://suttacentral.net/en/an8.53
https://suttacentral.net/en/an8.8


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 5, 2017 8:27 AM
Title: Re: Theistic Belief/Believing in God/Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
Content:
That's good to hear! And now, thanks to the new "Thoughts and Prayers" app, one can go about it with the greatest of ease.

if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }https://phpbbex.com/ .


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 5, 2017 8:14 AM
Title: Re: The Dharma according to Shakespeare
Content:
Edward Dickey, the site-owner, is of Tibetan Buddhist persuasion. And so one would expect him to use Dharma or Chö rather than Dhamma.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 4, 2017 6:27 PM
Title: The Dharma according to Shakespeare
Content:
A new website.


https://shakespeareandharma.com


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 3, 2017 2:11 AM
Title: Re: A Libertarian Icon’s Descent Into Racist Pseudoscience
Content:
Yes, that's what I meant by "the Buddha's limitation of buddhahood to males".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 3, 2017 1:43 AM
Title: Re: Sentience & Insentience
Content:
Sentient and insentient would be saviññāṇaka and aviññāṇaka, or saññī and asaññī, or sacittaka and acittaka. However, none of these is the word being translated when we meet with the term "sentient being". For a discussion of this term see the last page of this thread:

https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?t=28124&start=40


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 3, 2017 1:22 AM
Title: Re: A Libertarian Icon’s Descent Into Racist Pseudoscience
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 3, 2017 12:50 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism & Big Bang Cosmology
Content:
Was this an Indian development or an East Asian one?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 3, 2017 12:39 AM
Title: Re: A Libertarian Icon’s Descent Into Racist Pseudoscience
Content:
That being so, the criterion for evaluating whether it's a good post will be how compelling are the correspondences drawn between the counsels of the sutta and the speeches of Trump. This has nothing to do with the question of whether Trump is a good or a bad president.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 2, 2017 9:34 AM
Title: Re: A Libertarian Icon’s Descent Into Racist Pseudoscience
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2017 5:14 PM
Title: Re: Suttanipata trans. by Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi
Content:
The case for the traditional understanding of the simile is both so ancient (i.e., it appears unambiguously as early as the KN's Niddesa), so widely attested (e.g. in non-Theravadin texts like the Mahāvastu) and so strong (see, for example, K.R. Norman's defence of it in the revised edition of his Sn. translation) that I don't perceive any imperative to go speculating on alternative possibilities based on unknowns.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2017 3:31 PM
Title: Re: Suttanipata trans. by Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi
Content:
... but then seems a trifle absurd when the reader thinks about it, for it requires him to imagine a detached rhinoceros’s horn gallivanting about in the jungle.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2017 2:43 AM
Title: Re: Suttanipata trans. by Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi
Content:
From very early times the parts of the Suttanipāta that were especial favourites for memorization/recitation were, firstly, the thirty-two suttas that make up the Aṭṭhakavagga and Parāyanavagga, and secondly, the seven suttas which came to be included in an early paritta collection called the Four Bhāṇavāras (also called the Mahāparit-poṭha). These are:

Maṅgalasutta
Ratanasutta
Karaṇīyamettasutta
Āḷavakasutta
Kasībhāradvājasutta
Parābhavasutta
Vasalasutta

Being of a rather solitary bent, my personal favourite —besides the above— is the Khaggavisāṇasutta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2017 12:33 AM
Title: Re: Suttanipata trans. by Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi
Content:
If it was anything like the bhāṇavāras that we do know about, then we shouldn't expect them to be based on anything more than ease of memorization. That is, that they would be simply eight divisions of roughly equal length. My guess would be something like this:

1. Uraga Sutta to Vasala Sutta
2. Mettā to Dhammacariya
3. Brāhmaṇadhammika to Pabbajjā
4. Padhāna to Sela
5. Salla to Nālaka
6. Dvayatānupassanā to Purābheda
7. Kalahavivāda to Bāvarīvatthugāthā
8. Ajitamāṇavapucchā to Piṅgiyamāṇavapucchā


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 1, 2017 12:23 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism & Big Bang Cosmology
Content:
Yes, though in this case since rūpa is to be found neither in the Brahmās living there (who, in contrast with the physically gigantic rūpa Brahmās, are purely intellectual beings whose attabhāva is characterized by location in space but not occupation of space) nor in the place they inhabit, the permanence would seem to lie solely in a continuity of locus.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 31, 2017 7:02 PM
Title: Re: Suttanipata trans. by Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi
Content:
On second thoughts, I believe I misunderstood what you were asking, while you in turn misunderstood what the commentary means by "sections for recitation". The term bhāṇavāra doesn't mean suttas that have been singled out as being especially worthy of reciting. Rather, it refers to the divisions into which the original reciters would divide a sutta collection during the period when the transmission of the Buddha's teachings was entirely oral.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 31, 2017 11:53 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism & Big Bang Cosmology
Content:
I'm afraid not, for in Buddhist cosmology the persistence of the upper realms is like the persistence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus, not that of Platonic forms. That's why I earlier called it "quasi-eternal" and not "eternal". Throughout both "normal times" and the times of the three kinds of destruction, each of the higher Brahmā realms "persists" in the sense that (1) it continues to occupy the same locus, and (2) is perceived by the beings who inhabit it to be persisting. The rūpas that constitute it, however, are wholly evanescent.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 31, 2017 11:03 AM
Title: Re: Suttanipata trans. by Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi
Content:
Usually Pali texts will indicate this with statements like bhāṇavāraṃ paṭhamaṃ niṭṭhitaṃ, "Concluded is the first recitation section" etc. However, in the case of the Suttanipāta none of the extant editions of either the text or its commentary give this information.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 31, 2017 8:12 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism & Big Bang Cosmology
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:25 PM
Title: Re: Buddhism & Big Bang Cosmology
Content:
The detailed Pali expositions of Buddhist cosmology are mostly contained in commentarial texts that haven't yet been translated into English. There is, however, a 14th century Thai text, the Traibhūmikathā ("Treatise on the Three Planes of Existence"), which has been translated and which gives a generally accurate summary of the commentarial understanding. A copy, with both the Thai text and English translation, can be downloaded here:

http://www.ebooks.in.th/search/cat/0/traibhumikatha

Make sure you have a fast connection, as it's nearly 70MB in size.

The exposition of the devolution and re-creation of cakkavāḷas is to be found in Book X.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:00 PM
Title: Re: Theistic Belief/Believing in God/Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 30, 2017 12:35 PM
Title: Re: Buddhism & Big Bang Cosmology
Content:
If a cakkavāḷa were destroyed in its entirety, then there wouldn't be any Abhassara heaven for deceased beings to go to.
If the entire universe (i.e. the collectivity of all cakkavāḷas) were destroyed, then there would be no other cakkavāḷas for those beings to transmigrate to who don't have the requisite jhānic merit to be reborn in the Abhassara heaven in their own cakkavāla.

Moreover, even in Mahayana texts I don’t think there is any talk of a cakkavāḷa being completely annihilated. The Mahayana's sole innovation in this matter is the idea that certain Bodhisattvas can dedicate their vast accumulations of merit to constructing new Ariyan-friendly cakkavāḷas called “Buddha-fields”. Then by ritualistic adoration of one of these Bodhisattvas one can supposedly be reborn in his Buddha-field, whereupon enlightenment will be attainable with ease. By contrast, in mainstream Indian Buddhism there was no conception of an arising of new cakkavāḷas by any means.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 30, 2017 11:27 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism & Big Bang Cosmology
Content:
Not really, for the "big crunch" posited in the oscillating universe model amounts to a total dissolution. By contrast, in traditional Buddhist cosmology there is a plurality of cakkavāḷas ("world-systems"), with each cakkavāḷa being conceived as quasi-eternal, in the sense that it never undergoes total destruction. Rather, a cakkavāḷa is periodically subjected to severe damage by fire, water or wind, with wind-damage being the severest of the three. When damage by wind occurs, every realm of existence from the lowest hell up to the Parittasubha Brahmā realm gets wiped out. But the Brahmā realms from Abhassara up to the Nevasaññānāsaññāyatana remain completely intact and unaffected (except that they are more crowded than usual, because of all the "refugees" from the lower realms). After that there ensues the cosmogenetic and anthropogenetic re-creation narrative described in the Aggañña Sutta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 30, 2017 10:13 AM
Title: Re: The worst of both worlds
Content:
Their entries in the Dictionary of Pali Proper Names...

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

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 30, 2017 8:47 AM
Title: Re: Sutra in 42 Sections
Content:
Also, the DN’s https://suttacentral.net/en/dn14 has a past Buddha, Vipassī, giving his disciples the same order.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 30, 2017 3:49 AM
Title: Re: Sutra in 42 Sections
Content:
There isn't any one single sutta like it but most of its sections have either parallel passages in the Pali or else passages expressing similar ideas but in different phrasing.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 30, 2017 3:24 AM
Title: Re: Sutra in 42 Sections
Content:
It was also the first complete Buddhist text to be translated into a Western language, contrary to Justin McDaniel and others, who have mistakenly awarded this accolade to Viggo Fausbøll’s 1855 Latin translation of the Dhammapada.

Fausbøll’s work was actually preceded by two French and one German translation of the Sūtra in Forty-two Sections. The first French one, translated from the Chinese, was published in 1756 in C.L.J. de Guignes’ history of the Huns, Turks, Mongols and Tartars.



Histoire.jpg (60.27 KiB) Viewed 3575 times



Another point of interest is that Schopenhauer’s first encounter with Buddhism appears to have been via the German translation.

http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp200_schopenhauer.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 29, 2017 6:15 AM
Title: Re: Ordination in the Mahamevnawa in Sri Lanka
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 26, 2017 10:21 PM
Title: Re: "Sid"
Content:
The author keeps his word. It's only in the chapter on the life of the pre-awakened Bodhisatta that he uses “Sid”, presumably to appeal to the juvenile American harum-scarums who buy his books. But from the enlightenment onwards he drops the “Sid” stuff and consistently uses “the Buddha”.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 25, 2017 12:52 PM
Title: Re: Pali Resources
Content:
Aleix Ruiz-Falques: "On the Authorship of Kaccāyana, the Oldest Pāli Grammar"

https://www.academia.edu/34249890/On_the_Authorship_of_Kacc%C4%81yana_the_Oldest_P%C4%81li_Grammar


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 25, 2017 11:41 AM
Title: Re: Store consciousness in Theravada
Content:
Sure. Most mental processing is unconscious. For example, the sutta formulas for the twenty kinds of sakkāyadiṭṭhi, although represented in the form of verbalizations, are nonetheless not things that the puthujjana goes about mentally muttering to herself.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 25, 2017 11:29 AM
Title: Re: Joke!!! 2.0
Content:
accents1.png (75.64 KiB) Viewed 5758 times



.




accents2.png (74.59 KiB) Viewed 5758 times



.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 24, 2017 10:29 AM
Title: Re: How to translate and analyse "kāyanuttha"?
Content:
Yes.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 24, 2017 5:30 AM
Title: Re: Looking for a sutta
Content:
Māluṅkyaputta Sutta.

https://suttacentral.net/en/sn35.95


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 23, 2017 8:16 AM
Title: Re: How to translate and analyse "kāyanuttha"?
Content:
kāya is the feminine of the interrogative ko, inflected in either the instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive or locative case. In the quoted passage I believe it’s instrumental: “With what [subject of discussion]?” Though the dative is also possible: “For the sake of what [subject of discussion]?” Or even the ablative of cause: “On account of what [subject of discussion]?”

nuttha (or var. nottha) is nu + attha

nu is a (usually untranslatable) interrogative, dubitative or emphatic particle.

attha is the verb atthi in either the present indicative second person plural:

atthi, santi
asi, attha
asmi/amhi, asma/amha

Or the imperative second person plural:

atthu, santu
āhi, attha
asmi/amhi, asma/amha

In the quoted passage it’s undoubtedly present indicative.

kāya nuttha etarahi kathāya sannisinnā

You are [attha] with what/for what/because of what [kāya nu] subject of discussion [kathāya] now [etarahi] seated together [sannisinnā]?

Bhikkhu Bodhi translates it:

“What discussion were you engaged in just now as you were sitting together here?”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 4, 2017 9:35 AM
Title: Re: Personality type
Content:
"Logically" only to those committed to physicalism, which Buddhaghosa wasn't.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 3, 2017 12:27 AM
Title: Re: Pali - English translations
Content:
Whenever the commentators make a distinction between pāḷiyaṃ (“in the Canon") and aṭṭhakathāyaṃ (“in the Commentary”) the former denotes just the Tipiṭaka.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 2, 2017 8:11 PM
Title: Re: Pali - English translations
Content:
The Thera Apadāna, Therī Apadāna, and later sections of the Abhidhamma's Yamaka and Paṭṭhāna.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 2, 2017 12:03 PM
Title: Re: Sanskrit Resources
Content:
There’s plenty of great software for Sanskrit (http://indology.info/links/soft/, for example) but I don’t think there is yet anything corresponding to the Pali Digital Reader.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 2, 2017 11:19 AM
Title: Re: Sitting
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 2, 2017 11:03 AM
Title: Re: How do I navigate the Vinaya?
Content:
You could download the Vinaya Piṭaka pages from Sutta Central, put all the files in a single folder and then use a word-search program to look for whatever key term you're interested in.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 1, 2017 5:29 PM
Title: Re: Theravada and Jung
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:34 AM
Title: Re: Theravada and Jung
Content:
I don't think you'll find much. Most comparative studies are either of Tibetan/Zen with Jungianism and Theravada with either Freudianism (Padmasiri de Silva) or behaviourism (Rune Johanson).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:29 AM
Title: Re: Theravada and Jung
Content:
And Tibetan Buddhism too. As well as his lengthy preface D.T. Suzuki's Introduction to Zen Buddhism Jung also wrote a psychological commentary to accompany Evans-Wentz's Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation and in all his works seems to have been majorly obsessed with maṇḍalas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jul 30, 2017 11:24 PM
Title: Re: Theravada is a later sect?
Content:
Just a translator's idiosyncrasy. The Pali is pāṇīnam anukampāya, "out of pity for living [lit. "breathing"] beings."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jul 29, 2017 5:43 AM
Title: Re: Personality type
Content:
The idea of each satipaṭṭhāna being a "medicine" for a particular temperament comes from the Nettipakaraṇa:

Attachment-temperament (rāgacarita): contemplation of body
Aversion-temperament (dosacarita): contemplation of feeling
Dull view-temperament (manda diṭṭhicarita): contemplation of mind
Intelligent view-temperament (udatta diṭṭhicarita): contemplation of dhammas

By the time of Buddhaghosa the scheme seems to have fallen into virtual desuetude, with even the Netti commentaries having little to say about it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jul 29, 2017 5:08 AM
Title: Re: Personality type
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jul 27, 2017 8:04 AM
Title: Re: Sutta Nipata Commentary
Content:
The publisher's blurb doesn't make it clear. It states that the volume contains "numerous excerpts" from the Niddesa, but it doesn't state whether the Paramatthajotikā has been excerpted or rendered in full.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jul 27, 2017 3:53 AM
Title: Re: Remorse or regret as fruits of kamma
Content:
That may be the case in some popular western Buddhism, but I've never encountered it among Asian Buddhists. Of course Asian folk Buddhism has many errors of its own regarding the kamma doctrine, but it doesn't seem to be afflicted with this particular one.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jul 27, 2017 2:27 AM
Title: Re: Picking and choosing: arahant, rebirth, kamma
Content:
To maslo one's kleb one might be interessovat in composing a horrorshow sequel to Burgess’s Clockwork Orange, but with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadsat argot of Alex and his droogs changed from Cockney-cum-Russian to Cockney-cum-Slovenian.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jul 27, 2017 2:09 AM
Title: Re: Remorse or regret as fruits of kamma
Content:
This is probably due to the fact there there are some passages in the Tipiṭaka where the word kukkucca refers to wholesome states of mind. The Buddha, for example, is said to have kukkucca with regard to the welfare of the bhikkhusaṅgha. Scrupulous bhikkhus are sometimes said to have kukkucca not because they have done anything wrong but because they find themselves in a situation where they might break one of their training rules and are anxious not to do so. In these contexts Theravādin ābhidhammikas would not take the word kukkucca as denoting the unwholesome mental factor of this name, but rather as terms used in common speech which, when translated into Abhidhammic terms, would denote beautiful mental factors. And so the Buddha's "kukkucca" is actually his solicitousness for the welfare of the sangha and comprises mettā and karuṇā; the scrupulous bhikkhus' "kukkucca" is actually hiri and ottappa.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jul 27, 2017 1:45 AM
Title: Re: Remorse or regret as fruits of kamma
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jul 26, 2017 11:51 PM
Title: Re: PTS Tipitaka in Thailand
Content:
Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation of the Niddesa (which is the only English translation) will be coming out at the end of September.
https://www.amazon.com/Suttanipata-Collection-Discourses-Commentaries-Teachings/dp/1614294291

As for the Paṭisambhidāmagga / "Path of Discrimination" and the Nettippakaraṇa / "The Guide", there are scanned copies of these available online, albeit in violation of the PTS's copyright terms.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:51 PM
Title: Re: Changes in attitudes towards global warming
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jul 24, 2017 7:48 AM
Title: Re: Margaret Cone on the Pāli term “suttānta”
Content:
"[That which is] well-spoken" (su + ukta).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jul 23, 2017 3:45 AM
Title: Re: Is There Clear Delineation Of What Is/Not "Early Buddhism"?
Content:
Your latest post confirms my suspicion that you haven't a clue how either of the two languages work and are incompetent to evaluate what is a tenable analysis of a word and what is not. I prefer not to spend any more time addressing your pseudo-scholarship.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jul 23, 2017 12:24 AM
Title: Re: Is There Clear Delineation Of What Is/Not "Early Buddhism"?
Content:
My point is that if your proposed parsing of ekaggatā as eka + gata is correct, then we should expect the Sanskrit form to also be ekaggatā. But no such form is to be found.

On the other hand, if the eka + agga parsing is correct, then we should expect the Sanskrit form to be ekāgratā. This form is invariably found. 

Therefore your proposal requires one to assume that not a single translator of Prakritic Buddhist texts into Sanskrit correctly construed how the word ekaggatā is constructed. They all got it wrong. And not just the Sarvāstivadin translators but also the Lokuttaravādins, the Sammitiyas, the various Mahāyāna schools — everybody without exception got it wrong. I find this assumption highly improbable.

Besides this, one further problem with your proposal is that ekaggatā is plainly a noun, but you have translated it as a past participle: “caused to obtain an understanding of .... (the one).” If you wanted to make your proposed participial construal into a noun, then its form would not be ekaggatā but rather ekaggatatā. But no such word exists.

By the way, may I ask, have you actually studied any Pali or Sanskrit, or does your research just consist in ransacking 19th century dictionaries?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jul 22, 2017 2:53 PM
Title: Re: Is There Clear Delineation Of What Is/Not "Early Buddhism"?
Content:
What grounds have you for supposing ekāgratā to be a "made-up word"? Ekāgra and ekāgratā are simply the forms that ekagga and ekaggatā invariably take in any Sanskrit passage that parallels a Pali one. For example:

From the Theragāthā verses of Mahākassapa:

Pañcaṅgikena turiyena,
na ratī hoti tādisī.
Yathā ekaggacittassa,
sammā dhammaṃ vipassato ti.
(Thag. 1074)

Compare with a verse from the Citta chapter of the Udānavarga:

Pañcāṅgikena tūryeṇa
na ratir bhavati tādrsī.
Yādṛśy ekāgracittasya
samyag dharmāṃ vipaśyataḥ.

Moreover, this pattern is to be found in Sanskrit Buddhist sources as diverse as the Dharmaskandha, the Sarvāstivāda Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra, the Mūlasarvāstivāda Prātimokṣa, the Sanghabhedavastu’s account of Devadatta, the Bhaiṣajyavastu’s account of Piṇḍolabharadvāja, the Mahāvastu’s version of the Kṣāntivādin and Gaṅgapāla Jātakas, etc., etc.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jul 22, 2017 12:27 PM
Title: Re: should i abandon my possessions and become homeless
Content:
Are your debts of a kind that require regular repayments no matter what, thereby necessitating your being in regular paid employment? Or are they like certain kinds of student loan debt, where repayment is only required if you are earning? If they are of the latter sort, then you might consider going to reside in a monastery as a brahmacari layman or an anagarika.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:43 PM
Title: Re: Is There Clear Delineation Of What Is/Not "Early Buddhism"?
Content:
There is more to it than that. For example, the Sanskrit form of the word (in both Classical and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit) is consistently ekāgratā. This form would lend itself to the parsing of Dmytro and of the Pali commentaries (i.e., Skt. eka + agra + tā = Pali eka + agga + tā) but is quite impossible with your own proposal, which would require the Sanskrit to take an identical form to the Pali.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:19 PM
Title: Re: Coming Out of the Closet: Yes I am a Buddhist
Content:
The only thing that I took issue with was your misstating what the near-enemy of karuṇā is. The near-enemy is grief or sorrow not 'pity' [in its modern degraded sense]. On the contrary karuṇā is pity [but in its pre-20th century sense] and was in fact rendered so in the first English translation of the Visuddhimagga by Pe Maung Tin.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 21, 2017 9:56 PM
Title: Re: was jesus an arahant
Content:
Definitely misremembering. 

I believe the only positive thing that the Pali sources ever say about Jainism is that it is a kammassakatā teaching (i.e., one that upholds ownership of kamma). On this account, Jain converts to Buddhism who wish to become bhikkhus are exempted from the Vinaya requirement that followers of outside sects must first undergo a four-month probationary period.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 21, 2017 6:08 PM
Title: Re: was jesus an arahant
Content:
Do you mean that you're not convinced that the Buddha taught the sekha's eventual deliverance to be assured? Or that you do accept that he taught this but you're not convinced that it's true?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 21, 2017 4:48 PM
Title: Re: was jesus an arahant
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:59 AM
Title: Re: Coming Out of the Closet: Yes I am a Buddhist
Content:
This is often said by modern meditation teachers (especially North American ones) but it isn't what the texts say. The near-enemy of compassion is given in the Visuddhimagga as the six kinds of gehasita domanassa, or "grief related to the household life", a term taken from the http://www.yellowrobe.com/component/content/article/120-majjhima-nikaya/279-salyatanavibhanga-sutta-the-exposition-of-the-sixfold-base.html, while in the Nettipakaraṇa-atthakathā it is given simply as soka, "sorrow".

As an aside, I would note that for most of the eight centuries that the two words have been present in English, the meanings of 'pity' and 'compassion' seem to have been more or less the same. The drawing of a distinction between them, with compassion conceived as a desirable trait and pity as an undesirable one (because it's patronising or whatever), seems to have been a development of early 20th century folk psychologists, along with various Nietzsche- or Freud-influenced literati.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 21, 2017 10:57 AM
Title: Re: was jesus an arahant
Content:
But with infinitely different penalties incurred in the event of failure. In the Buddhist conception, no matter how badly you screw up there can never be an absolute and irreversible failure.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jul 20, 2017 4:23 PM
Title: Re: was jesus an arahant
Content:
I'm surprised to hear that. Thomas Aquinas seems to have had it all figured out.

http://www.drbo.org/sum/question/58201.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2017 11:10 AM
Title: Re: Pāli Meaning: A Student or Suppiya's Student?
Content:
In theory one can make such coinages in English, but in practice it wouldn't be something that the average speaker would ever do. Those who do so are the likes of Marvell, Traherne, Carlyle and Emerson — i.e., writers with an exceptional flair and fondness for verbal gaucheries.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jul 19, 2017 1:35 AM
Title: Re: Pāli Meaning: A Student or Suppiya's Student?
Content:
In a predominantly fusional language like Pali, nouns can be formed from verbs rather more liberally than they can in a predominantly analytic language like English. From the English verbs 'to teach', 'to instruct' and 'to train' one may derive 'teacher', 'instructor' and 'trainer', but it wouldn't normally occur to a native English speaker to turn 'to edify', 'to enlighten' or 'to instil knowledge' into 'edifier', 'enlightener' or 'knowledge-instiller'. In Pali, on the other hand, any verbs related to teaching can be (and are) made into nouns.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2017 4:08 PM
Title: Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?
Content:
... purisassa viññāṇasotaṃ ... ubhayato abbocchinnaṃ ...  — "A man's stream-of-consciousness that is uninterrupted between both [this world and the next]."

The phrase is unique to this sutta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:50 PM
Title: Re: Pāli Meaning: A Student or Suppiya's Student?
Content:
A few that come to mind:

The preface to R.C. Childers’ https://archive.org/details/adictionaryplil00chilgoog

Chapter IX (‘The Augustan Age’) of G.P. Malalasekera’s https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.57270

The introduction to Franklin Edgerton’s https://archive.org/details/BuddhistHybridSanskritGrammar

Subhūti’s translation of Moggallāna’s https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.292635

Amarasimha’s http://sanskritdocuments.org/doc_z_misc_amarakosha.html (the Sanskrit thesaurus that influenced Moggallāna’s Abhidhānappadīpikā and from which many of mediaeval Pali’s neologisms were derived)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jul 17, 2017 5:01 PM
Title: Re: Pāli Meaning: A Student or Suppiya's Student?
Content:
The dictionaries of course contain a great many words that are not found in the Canon but are artificial words formed from Sanskrit. As such they won't be of any interest to those who are interested only in the canonical language. I wouldn't see this as a problem however.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jul 17, 2017 4:46 PM
Title: Re: Kamma vipaka in this life
Content:
See the https://suttacentral.net/en/dn32 and https://suttacentral.net/en/an5.42 Suttas. 

But more importantly, the https://suttacentral.net/en/thag4.10.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jul 17, 2017 1:27 PM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jul 15, 2017 12:34 PM
Title: Re: Pāli Meaning: A Student or Suppiya's Student?
Content:
The distinction that I drew between relational and non-relational terms for 'teacher' and 'pupil' comes from observing how the various terms are employed in all the Pali texts that I've studied over the years. If I had to single out just one text as being particularly instructive in this matter, it would be the Vinaya Piṭaka.

Then for less commonly used terms, many of which aren't found in the Vinaya, the source I've found most valuable is the https://tinyurl.com/ycdndqqe to the Abhidhānappadīpikā, a 13th century Pali thesaurus.

Lastly, it's helpful to have copies of the Pali-English dictionaries of Rev. A.P. Buddhadatta and Robert C. Childers. The Abhidhānappadīpikā and its ṭīkā were two of the principal sources for the entries in these dictionaries.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jul 15, 2017 11:14 AM
Title: Re: Which sutta is this Pali from?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2017 7:25 PM
Title: Re: Pāli Meaning: A Student or Suppiya's Student?
Content:
The various Pali words for ‘teacher’ and ‘student’ can be broadly divided into two classes, which we might call the relative and the non-relative. In the early texts (and especially in the Vinaya), the relative terms are used when speaking of X being the teacher of Y, or of Y being the student of X. They would not be applied to X if X is a teacher who doesn’t presently have any students, nor to Y if Y is a student who doesn’t presently have any teacher. The non-relative ones would be used no matter whether X presently has any students or whether Y presently has any teacher; in other words, they would function either as titles or as descriptions of what the person habitually spends his time doing.

Relative terms for a teacher

ācariya / ācariyaka
ācarī / ācarinī
kammaṭṭhānadāyaka
nissayadādika
nissayadāyaka
pavattinī
upajjhā
upajjhāya / upajjha

Relative terms for a student

antevāsika / antevāsī / antevāsinī
nissitaka
paccagū / paṭṭhagū
paddhacara / baddhacara
piṭṭhi-ācariya
saddhivihārī / saddhivihārika / saddhivihārinī
sissa

Non-relative terms for a teacher

dassetu
desetu
desika
dhāretu
gaṇī / gaṇācariya
garu / guru
lokagaru
pavattu
pubbācariya
satthu
vādī
vinetu
viññāpetu

Non-relative terms for a student

chatta
kumāra
māṇava / māṇavaka
neyya
sekha

With regard to the relative terms there are certain common correspondences. For example, the pupil of an upajjhaya is usually a saddhivihārī; the pupil of an ācariya is usually an antevāsī or a sissa; the bhikkhunī pupil of a pavattinī is usually a saddhivihārinī or a sahajīvinī; etc.

So, in the case of the passage you cited in your post, the use of the relational antevāsī should indicate to the reader that Brahmadatta is not just a student, but rather the student of some other named person, i.e., Suppiya.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2017 7:54 AM
Title: Re: Which sutta is this Pali from?
Content:
Hello Shin Mei,

Nice to see you around.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 14, 2017 7:45 AM
Title: Re: Which sutta is this Pali from?
Content:
Vinaya Piṭaka, Section on the first defeating offence
https://suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-bu-vb-pj1

Bhayabherava Sutta (MN. 4)
https://suttacentral.net/en/mn4

Verañja Sutta (AN. iv. 172)
https://suttacentral.net/en/an8.11


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jul 11, 2017 5:04 PM
Title: Re: Serious problems in buddhist Thailand
Content:
The Telegraph is certainly one of the most respected newspapers in the world. In fact all the British broadsheets —both left and right— would fit this description on account of the care that they take to keep news reporting separate from editorial comment.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jul 11, 2017 12:39 AM
Title: Re: New forest monastery in Norway
Content:
For a sāmaṇera ordination only one is required, the preceptor.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jul 11, 2017 12:25 AM
Title: Re: Should we practice in a certain way because we feel it is working for us personally ?
Content:
From where did you learn this? In Pali sources all that is said about the Suttavādins is that they were a school that split off from Saṅkantikas who split off from the Kassapikas who split off from the Sabbatthivādins who split off from the Mahiṃsāsakas. Nothing at all is reported of their doctrines or practices or stance regarding the Visuddhimagga's meditation instructions. 

If we accept the conjecture of some modern scholars that Saṅkantika may be another name for the Sautrāntika (making the Sautrāntikas the parent school of the Suttavādins), then it's improbable that they had even heard of the Visuddhimagga, for the Sautrāntikas were located in Gandhara (= modern North-West Pakistan) and had no presence in Sri Lanka.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jul 10, 2017 9:24 PM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
It's explained by Dara O'Briain at 3:40

"Anyone can call themselves a 'nutritionist'. 'Dietician' is the legally protected term. 'Dietician' is like 'dentist'. 'Nutritionist' is like 'toothiologist'."

if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }https://phpbbex.com/ .


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jul 10, 2017 1:36 PM
Title: Re: Is contraception mentioned in the Pali Canon?
Content:
There's no doubt that a bhikkhu would be doing so in the case of a postcoital birth control pill that works by inducing an abortion and cannot work in any other way.

But the case that you bring up, where the pill may work either by preventing conception or by inducing an abortion, is obviously a little trickier. Looking at it from the woman's point of view, I think the closest analogy in the Vinaya would be the case of a bhikkhu who sweeps the leaves on a path where there are many insects. His intention is to sweep the path and not to kill the insects, but he knows that there is a chance that some insects may in fact be killed by his sweeping. Would he commit the pācittiya offence of killing an animal if any insects did in fact get killed? The Buddha's ruling is that he would not, in spite of his foreknowledge that such a thing might happen.

And so if a woman after sex were to take a pill of the kind under discussion, with the wish to prevent conception but aware of the possibility that it might instead result in an abortion, then she would be in an analogous position to this bhikkhu. And any bhikkhu who had suggested to her to take such a pill would be in an analogous position to the abbot who had ordered the leaves to be swept. Or so it seems to me.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jul 10, 2017 10:13 AM
Title: Re: Is contraception mentioned in the Pali Canon?
Content:
As for abortion, my impression is that the general attitude towards it is similar to that which prevailed in western Christian countries before the 1960's: they're legal and women do have them, but it's regarded as a very shameful thing to do.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jul 9, 2017 3:16 PM
Title: Re: Pāli Sentence Analysis: "no ajānato no apassato"
Content:
The words are the negative forms of passaṃ and jānaṃ. They may function as participles, adjectives or nouns. Their inflections are the same as those of mahā. With the -ato inflection they will usually be either a dative ("for one who sees") or a genitive of time ("when one sees", "when seeing").



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Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jul 8, 2017 11:52 PM
Title: Re: The Historical Jesus or the Historical Buddha?
Content:
And for yet others there may simply be a spontaneous arising of faith upon a mere encounter with something Buddhism-related — a phenomenon that ābhidhammikas would attribute to natural decisive support condition. Simply and crudely put, it means that one has been a Buddhist in a former life and acquired a strong taste for it that effects one's attitude towards it in later lives.

In none of the above would convictions about the Buddha's historicity play any crucial role in the arising of saddhā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jul 8, 2017 8:15 AM
Title: Re: The Historical Jesus or the Historical Buddha?
Content:
I refer you again to the earlier quotation from your fellow Mahayanist, Dharmakīrti. But this time maybe try giving it a little thought.

In my case, I would be sufficiently impressed with the teachings of the Pali Canon that I would call whomever gave those teachings "a Buddha". This would not oblige me to take up or defend any particular view regarding the historicity of Gotama and the degree of accuracy with which Buddhists have reported his life story. (As a matter of fact I do assume that Theravada Buddhists have reported it accurately, but I wouldn't sink into dismay if it were proven that they hadn't).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 7, 2017 3:04 AM
Title: Re: jhana similes in Vism? Where?
Content:
Yes. They're in the 7th and 8th chapters of the Vimuttimagga, but nowhere in the Visuddhimagga.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 7, 2017 12:54 AM
Title: Re: The Historical Jesus or the Historical Buddha?
Content:
You are misinformed. Catholic Purgatory is not hell but a waystage to heaven. In the Catholic view of the afterlife, the unsaved go to eternal hell; those who died as saints go directly to heaven; those who are saved (i.e. Roman Catholics) but still have unabsolved venial sins or mortal sins that have been confessed and absolved, but not sufficiently punished, go to Purgatory and then are let into heaven after a period of purifying torture.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jul 7, 2017 12:31 AM
Title: Re: The Historical Jesus or the Historical Buddha?
Content:
Whether it is well-supported in the Bible, or whether it is ill-supported in the Bible, the idea of everlasting conscious torment — at least mental, but usually physical too — has historically been the dominant Christian conception of hell. And it was of Christianity that you were earlier speaking, not the Bible.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jul 6, 2017 11:52 PM
Title: Re: The Historical Jesus or the Historical Buddha?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jul 6, 2017 10:05 PM
Title: Re: Aussie Buddhists - 6 min documentery
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jul 6, 2017 9:19 PM
Title: Re: Looking for source of story about the monkey offering honey to Buddha & the parileyya elephant
Content:
The elephant story is in the Vinaya's account of the schism at Kosambī.

https://suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-kd10
(Scroll down to the section entitled On going to Pārileyyaka)

The monkey story is from the Dhammapada Atthakathā.

http://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/English-Texts/Buddhist-Legends/01-05.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jul 6, 2017 8:59 PM
Title: Re: The Historical Jesus or the Historical Buddha?
Content:
And then perhaps you will get an inkling of why your apologetic ardour elicits so little enthusiasm here. The historicity of the Buddha simply doesn’t matter in Buddhism in the way that the historicity of Jesus matters in Christianity.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jul 6, 2017 8:51 PM
Title: Re: name change
Content:
The forum software doesn't allow members to change it themselves, but if you notify one of the admins they will do it for you.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jul 6, 2017 12:49 PM
Title: Re: Trumpcare is immoral
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jul 5, 2017 5:23 AM
Title: Re: The Historical Jesus or the Historical Buddha?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jul 5, 2017 12:26 AM
Title: Re: Is unvirtuous Sangha an immeasurable field of merit?
Content:
I've found the reference. It's in the Sayadaw's Discourse on the Bhara Sutta.

http://aimwell.org/mahasi.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jul 5, 2017 12:14 AM
Title: Re: Is unvirtuous Sangha an immeasurable field of merit?
Content:
And so an even more prudent giver will determine her gift as being for the sangha rather than for any individual bhikkhu. In order for it to count as saṅghagatā dakkhiṇā the gift should be given to whichever bhikkhu the sangha appoints to receive it or to the first bhikkhu that the giver happens to meet, without discriminating between good and bad bhikkhus. (If a giver sets out to give saṅghagatā dakkhiṇā but then discriminates, spurning one bhikkhu and then selecting a more impressive-looking one, then her gift will revert to being pāṭipuggalikā dakkhiṇā, which means that even if the recipient happens to be an arahant, the gift will not be as meritorious as it would have been if she'd stuck to her original plan).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jul 4, 2017 11:25 PM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
To what is it an exception? Meat, fish and eggs are consumed daily in all Mahayana countries by most Mahayana Buddhists. The only conspicuous exceptions —the Mahayanists who take seriously the anti-meat injunctions in the Lankavatara and Shurangama Sutras— are East Asian bhikshus and bhikshunis, along with a tiny handful of the more dedicated lay bodhisattvas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:57 AM
Title: Re: Female Buddhists, rape, and the 1st precept
Content:
The consensus among Vinaya scholars is that a drug that works by preventing conception is blameless, while one that works by inducing abortion is not. I can't really comment on RU486 in particular as I've never heard of it before. (I'm afraid I'm about thirty years behind the times with regard to the particulars of birth control methods).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 28, 2017 10:07 PM
Title: Re: Lumbini, Kapilavastu, Kusinara sites now in doubt.
Content:
I'll leave the addressing of it to those who share your conviction that the issue is a momentous one.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:14 PM
Title: Re: Lumbini, Kapilavastu, Kusinara sites now in doubt.
Content:
I'm not, however, interested in proving it wrong. Nor am I interested in proving wrong any claims to the effect that the locations of the four sites have been misidentified. As I understand the above sutta, the beneficial effect of pilgrimage to these sites arises from the faith that the pilgrims bring with them and the recollections that they undertake while visiting them, rather than from any magical quality inherent in the sites themselves.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:51 PM
Title: Re: Female Buddhists, rape, and the 1st precept
Content:
The case of impregnation of a nun via rape is not explicitly covered in the Vinaya. I would assume that the same provisions would apply as with any other kind of pregnant nun:

Now at that time a certain woman had gone forth among the nuns when she was already pregnant, and after she had gone forth she was delivered of a child. Then it occurred to that nun: “Now what line of conduct should be followed by me in regard to this boy?” They told this matter to the Lord. He said: “I allow her, monks, to look after him until he attains to years of discretion.” [1]

Then it occurred to that nun: ‘It is not possible for me to live alone, nor is it possible for another nun to live with a boy. Now, what line of conduct should be followed by me?’ They told this matter to the Lord. He said: “I allow them, monks, having agreed upon one nun, to give her to that nun as a companion. And thus, monks, should she be agreed upon: First, that nun should be asked; having asked her, the Order should be informed by an experienced, competent nun, saying: ‘Ladies, let the Order listen to me. If it is pleasing to the Order, the Order may agree upon the nun So-and-so as companion to the nun So-and-so. This is the motion. Ladies, let the Order listen to me. The Order is agreeing upon the nun So-and-so as companion to the nun So-and-so. If the agreement upon the nun So-and-so as companion to the nun So-and-so is pleasing to the ladies, they should be silent; she to whom it is not pleasing should speak. The nun So-and-so is agreed upon by the Order as companion to the nun So-and-so. It is pleasing to the Order; therefore it is silent. Thus do I understand this.’”

Then it occurred to that nun who was the companion: ‘Now what line of conduct should be followed by me in regard to this boy?’ They told this matter to the Lord. He said: “I allow them, monks, to behave in regard to that boy exactly as they would behave to another man, except for sleeping under the same roof.” [2]


Notes from Vinaya Commentary

1. Until he is able to eat and wash himself properly.
2. The mother is able to lie down and having put the child on her breast to wash it, make it drink, feed it and adorn it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 28, 2017 3:36 PM
Title: Re: The Caste System in Buddhist Countries
Content:
No. The adverse consequences for a Sinhalese ordaining in a nikāya associated with another caste than his own would be merely mundane. For example, Rev. Nārada Thera (the author of Buddhism in a Nutshell and translator of the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha) was from a low caste but ordained in a sub-nikāya of the Amarapura Nikāya that was associated with one of the higher castes. Despite his seniority, scholarly accomplishments and worldwide missionary work, for most of his life Nārada's name would be passed over in favour of some junior or less-accomplished monk whenever the nikāya's elders were appointing one of their monks to some high office or teaching post.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 28, 2017 2:44 PM
Title: Re: The Caste System in Buddhist Countries
Content:
"Segregated" is way too strong. The situation nowadays is that each Sri Lankan sub-nikāya consists preponderantly of monks born into some particular caste. If a Sinhalese wants to ordain then he'll be likely to select the sub-nikāya that has been historically associated with his caste. He isn't, however, obliged to do so. It's similar to how when a man from the rural provinces of Thailand goes to ordain in Bangkok he will be likely to select a monastery whose monks are mostly from his region; e.g., Wat Benjama if he's from the North; Wat Somanat if he's a southerner; Wat Mahathat if he's a Northeasterner etc. This simply reflects the human tendency to prefer the company of one's own people.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 28, 2017 2:13 PM
Title: Re: The Historical Jesus or the Historical Buddha?
Content:
When Christian evangelists are proselytizing to East Asian Pure Land Buddhists it is a common opening tactic to try to meet the Pure Lander halfway: "We fully agree with you that man can't save himself by his own efforts and needs divine aid ... etc., etc." Having come to this agreement they then try to convince the Pure Lander that it makes more sense to put your trust in an historical figure like Jesus rather than a mythical figure like Amitābha.

But is it really common in Theravada countries? In twenty-three years living in Thailand I've bumped into plenty of evangelists and have never known them to argue by casting doubt on the Buddha's historicity. Their techniques are just the usual Protestant stock-in-trade:

• The watchmaker argument for God's existence.
• C.S. Lewis's "Liar, lunatic or Lord" argument for Jesus's divinity.
• "The Buddha's in his grave, but Jesus's tomb is empty!"
Etc.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 28, 2017 1:15 PM
Title: Re: The Caste System in Buddhist Countries
Content:
It's of Aryan provenance and isn't influenced by Buddhism. Rather, it influences Buddhism in certain ways. For example, a Sinhalese who wants to become a monk will be likely to ordain in the Nikāya with which his caste is historically associated.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 27, 2017 3:42 PM
Title: Re: Confused about Bhikkhu Sujato's translation of Thag 1.1
Content:
The Theragāthā commentary says that 'deva' in this context means 'cloud'. Some translators accept the commentary's gloss and render the term 'cloud' or 'sky'. Others reject the gloss and render it 'deva'. Yet others aren't sure, so they hedge their bets:
My small hut is roofed, pleasant, draught-free; rain, (sky-) deva, as you please; my mind is well-concentrated, released; I remain zealous; rain, (sky-) deva.
(K.R. Norman)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 26, 2017 7:22 PM
Title: Re: The Ten Perfections: A Study Guide by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Content:
The idea that cultivation of the paramīs is specifically for buddhahood and cultivation of the eightfold path specifically for arahantship is a Mahāyāna innovation.

The Pali texts that treat of the ten paramīs present them as dhammas to be cultivated by everyone, not just those intent upon anuttara sammāsambodhi. And so according to this conception, the difference between the arahant’s path and the bodhisatta’s lies, firstly, in the duration of paramī-cultivation required, and secondly, in the degree to which they are cultivated. For example, in the cultivation of the perfection of giving the Theravādin would-be arahant isn’t required to undertake the fivefold great sacrifice (i.e., of wealth, wife, children, limbs and life) that would be required of a Theravādin bodhisatta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 25, 2017 10:23 PM
Title: Re: Pali Script?
Content:
An Ethiopian member of my linguistics forum, tells me that the Ge’ez text is an Amharic prayer to St. Mary. The letters printed in red ink are ማርያም ወላዲተ አምላክ = Māriyāmi weladīte āmilaki = Mary, Mother of God.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 25, 2017 6:04 PM
Title: Re: Pali Script?
Content:
The scripts are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ge%27ez_script and Tibetan, but I don’t know what the texts are. The likelihood, however, is that the first will be something from either Ethiopian Judaism or the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the second will be something Buddhist.

Edit: a friend tells me that the Tibetan text is for a Hayagriva practice — a Tibetan deity with a horse sticking out of his head.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 22, 2017 5:42 PM
Title: Re: Does atheism and existentialism lead to existential crisis ?
Content:
Not really. He served in a meteorological unit monitoring weather balloons and never saw any action. After the fall of France he spent just nine months as a POW before being released on account of his bad eyesight. 

Perhaps the worst dukkha he encountered in his life —in the aftermath of experimenting with mescaline— were persistent hallucinations that he was being pursued by giant crustaceans.

https://bluelabyrinths.com/2015/06/18/sartres-existential-lobsters/

https://philosophynow.org/issues/67/Crabs


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 22, 2017 1:24 PM
Title: Re: Going to Heaven after we die
Content:
Firstly, nihilism (natthikavāda), haphazardism or acausalism (ahetukavāda) and the doctrine of the inefficacy of action (akiriyavāda). See the http://www.wisdompubs.org/book/middle-length-discourses-buddha/selections/middle-length-discourses-60-apannaka-sutta for details.

And secondly, any other views that have the aforementioned as their consequence. For example, the fatalism of Makkhali Gosāla entails both ahetukavāda and akiriyavāda.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 22, 2017 7:18 AM
Title: Re: Going to Heaven after we die
Content:
All apparitionally-born beings are said to recall their former life. This would include devas and nerayikas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2017 10:42 AM
Title: Re: Why grammar still matters in the 21st century
Content:
A headline from today's Grauniad:

Trump just passed on the best deal the planet has ever seen

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/01/trump-paris-climate-deal-planet


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2017 7:07 AM
Title: Re: Maranasati (Mindfulness of Death/Charnel Ground Reflection)
Content:
What is nothing to do with maraṇasati? If you're referring to the three suttas I linked to, they were offered as canonical sources for the cemetery contemplations, not for maraṇasati.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 1, 2017 7:34 PM
Title: Leaves and Moss
Content:
Ajahn Brahm's story in his Truckload of Dung book appears to be a liberal adaptation of an anecdote that the late https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Leggett would often tell when talking about his Zen training at Eiheiji. It's not a very satisfactory re-telling however. Compared with the original, Ajahn Brahm's version suffers a complete loss of verisimilitude and concludes a bit feebly and obscurely.

This is how the original goes (or rather one of the originals, for Trevor used to tell the story a lot) ...
LEAVES and MOSS

In some Japanese Temples, moss is cultivated as a symbol of inner realization. Its progress cannot be forced, and the cultivation in fact amounts to removing the obstacles to the natural growth. If they are patiently and continuously got rid of, however, it makes a surprisingly rapid advance. Moss, like realization, has a great inner strength against even extremes of change in the environment; under very warm or very dry conditions, mosses can become dormant, and quickly revive and grow again when conditions improve. If they feel like it, some of them can keep on growing even on hot, dry and exposed rocks.

Most of them, however, grow best in shady and moist environments, and so in the temple gardens where they are cultivated, small trees are planted which shed their leaves at different times of year, thus providing a certain amount of shade almost all the time. A huge training temple like Eiheiji of the Soto Zen sect has a good number of courtyards covered with moss, and one of the daily jobs is to do some weeding out of competitors, and then to sweep the moss clear of fallen leaves. This is done with a light broom of twigs, and there is quite an art to it: if the strokes are too heavy, the surface of the moss is damaged, but if the strokes are not strong enough, the leaves are not taken up. So it has to be done just right, and then the piles of leaves are put into sacks and burnt to help heat the bath. After the sweeping is over, the unbroken lines of the undulating green carpet are a rewarding sight.

The job, however, may involve little irritations. When one is sweeping a courtyard, and the part that has been done is taking on its pristine appearance, a breeze dislodges a few more leaves. One goes back and picks them up, only to see a couple more redly blotting the ground somewhere else.

When I was first given a courtyard to sweep, I thought to myself (as foreigners tend to do): ‘Well, I may not be so good as some of these professionals at sitting in meditation, and perhaps I don’t always understand ‘what’s said to me, but this I can do, and I’ll do it perfectly ‑ absolutely perfectly‑”

To me that meant sweeping every last leaf from the moss, as I had been asked to do. It was surprising, and then infuriating, to find that it seemed impossible to get the desired result; the first day I left the place spotless, having made a last quick circuit picking up the few newly fallen ones, but as I took the sack and turned to go, I saw a few more come down. There was no time to go back yet again.

I evolved a strategy, which I tried out the next day. Before beginning to sweep, I visited each tree in turn and shook it furiously, in both senses of the word. I was then still fairly strong, and knew how to use my strength. Every leaf that was even beginning to weaken its hold on the tree came down in the shower with all the others. Then I happily swept them all up into piles, and the piles into the sack. No leaves remained to defile the perfect carpet of the place. As I moved off triumphantly, I noticed a monk watching me. He said: “Leggett San, don’t you think that was a bit extreme?” I replied. shortly: ‘Well, it got all the leaves up.” “Yes,” he said, “Yes, it did. But you know, we sweep these places everyday. If a few leaves come down after we’ve finished, we shall take them up the next day. And just a few of them might make an attractive pattern, don’t you think?” I remembered a Chinese poem: “One spot of red in a sea of green.” I don’t know if he was referring to that; anyway, I suddenly felt a bit uncivilized.

So I stopped fighting the trees. Years afterwards I came across a Japanese poem by a great Japanese master named Mamiya, written early this century. The experience I had in mind helped me to appreciate it:

We sweep up the fallen leaves in the garden,
But we don’t hate the trees for dropping them.

It doesn’t apply only to leaves.


___________________________________

Better still, listen to the man himself, who was a masterful raconteur...

https://www.tlayt.org/yoga-and-zen-say-we-can-begin-to-see-and-express-beauty/

(A slightly different telling of it from the version I quoted)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 1, 2017 6:29 PM
Title: Re: Maranasati (Mindfulness of Death/Charnel Ground Reflection)
Content:
http://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/Texts-and-Translations/Kayagatasati/index.htm (MN. iii. 88)
https://suttacentral.net/si/mn119

https://suttacentral.net/en/dn22 (DN. ii. 290)
https://suttacentral.net/si/dn22

https://tinyurl.com/yanh6est (AN. ii. 322)
https://suttacentral.net/si/an6.29


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 31, 2017 7:42 PM
Title: Re: Maranasati (Mindfulness of Death/Charnel Ground Reflection)
Content:
I think the opening poster used the word maraṇasati by mistake. It's clear that what he actually had in mind were the nine cemetery contemplations.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 30, 2017 7:44 PM
Title: Re: Tea and coffee at temples
Content:
They look a bit namby-pamby to me. And what's the advantage of the element not coming into contact with the water? Won't that just mean that it takes longer to boil?



anex.jpg (8.47 KiB) Viewed 7170 times



Nothing beats a nice old-fashioned whistling kettle.




whistling kettle.jpg (169.71 KiB) Viewed 7170 times


.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 30, 2017 2:47 PM
Title: Re: The Bodhisattva Ideal in Mahayana Buddhism
Content:
The age of a manuscript (of whatever sort) will provide a basis for determining the age of its contents only in cases where it can be known: (1) that the manuscript is a "first edition" of the work it preserves; and (2) that the work it preserves was a written or printed text from the very outset, not, say, an orally transmitted one, later committed to writing or print. For example, it's legitimate to appeal to the relative age of manuscripts, foul papers or printed editions when assessing whether Hamlet is older than Twelfth Night or Twelfth Night older than Hamlet.

However, in the case of Indian and Central Asian Buddhist manuscripts neither of these conditions obtains. And so for the purpose of dating it's irrelevant whether the oldest extant manuscripts happen to preserve mainstream Buddhist texts or Mahayana Buddhist texts.

What is relevant to the question is the fact that with the suttas in the Pali nikāyas, and with those in the Chinese āgamas and Sanskrit fragments of āgamas, we have texts that show every indication of having been originally orally transmitted. By contrast, with most Mahayana sutras we have texts that self-referentially show themselves to have been literary artefacts from the very outset. Given the non-use of writing in the early transmission of the Buddha's teaching, the orality of the Pali suttas and the literariness of the Mahayana sutras make it a reasonable inference that the former are several centuries earlier than the latter.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 29, 2017 2:03 PM
Title: Re: are mosquito nets "cheating"?
Content:
I'm sure that the rules and regulations that you need to follow to be a law-abiding Sri Lankan citizen are far numerous and more complicated than the monastic Vinaya. Nevertheless, in the course of a typical day it's unlikely that you'll spend a lot of time thinking about all those rules (unless you happen to be a lawyer). There are some (e.g. traffic laws) that you'll obey out of sheer habit and there are others (e.g. not murdering people) that you'll obey because it never occurs to you to do otherwise. Then there are some laws that you might need to think about, but only every now and then, such as when you're filling in a tax declaration.

The Vinaya is much the same in this regard: some rules a monk follows out of habit because that's how he was trained in his formative years, and others because it doesn't occur to him to do the prohibited action. Then every now and then there'll be some event (e.g. the establishing of a monastery sīmā) that requires the monk to give a bit of thought to the matter and maybe hit the books if he's forgotten the details.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 29, 2017 11:41 AM
Title: Re: are mosquito nets "cheating"?
Content:
Monastic property is rather a complicated and contested issue. See the following from Ven. Thanissaro's Buddhist Monastic Code:

Monastic Buildings and Property
http://www.elibrary.ibc.ac.th/files/accesstoinsight/html///lib/authors/thanissaro/bmc2/bmc2.ch07.html

Lodgings
http://www.elibrary.ibc.ac.th/files/accesstoinsight/html///lib/authors/thanissaro/bmc2/bmc2.ch06.html

Inheritance
http://www.elibrary.ibc.ac.th/files/accesstoinsight/html///lib/authors/thanissaro/bmc2/bmc2.ch22.html

Tenth Nissaggiya Pācittiya Rule
http://www.elibrary.ibc.ac.th/files/accesstoinsight/html///lib/authors/thanissaro/bmc1/bmc1.ch07-1.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 28, 2017 10:38 PM
Title: Re: are mosquito nets "cheating"?
Content:
He could if it had been given to him by a layperson for his personal use. If it was a mosquito net borrowed from the store of the monastery he was residing at, then it would depend on that monastery's in-house rules.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 28, 2017 2:24 PM
Title: Re: Temporary ordination in Thailand
Content:
As Ven. Clyde hasn't logged in for a couple of months it might be better to contact him via his Facebook page.

https://web.facebook.com/clyde.brannan


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 28, 2017 2:18 PM
Title: Re: are mosquito nets "cheating"?
Content:
Yes, and fans too.
Now at that time bhikkhus were pestered by mosquitoes. They told this matter to the Blessed One. He said: “I allow, bhikkhus, a mosquito-net.”
(Vin. ii. 119)

Now at that time a mosquito-fan accrued to the saṅgha. They told this matter to the Blessed One. He said: “I allow, bhikkhus, a mosquito-fan.”
(Vin. ii. 130)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Apr 8, 2017 2:20 PM
Title: Re: The teachings of Ven. Waharaka Abhayaratanalankara Thero
Content:
Between attā (Skt. atmān) and atthaṃ (Skt. arthaṃ) there is neither any historical etymological relationship nor any overlap in meaning.

However, Lal’s error with regard to these two words is of a different kind from those that he makes with regard to the ‘saṃ’ in ‘saṃsāra’. Whereas errors of the latter sort arise from a simple failure to understand what kind of a language Pali is (i.e. his treating it as if it were an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutinative_language language when in fact it’s primarily a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusional_language one), in the the case of attā and atthaṃ the source of error appears to be: (1) the absence of the aspirated consonant [t̪ʰ] in the modern Sinhala phonemic system, which leads Sinhalese to pronounce ‘attā’ and ‘attha’ identically, and (2) Lal’s eccentric belief that how a modern Sinhalese pronounces a Pali word gives us clues as to its deeper hidden meaning.

Like Ven. Pesala I’ll make this my final contribution to this thread. Breaking butterflies on a wheel is boring.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Apr 8, 2017 11:53 AM
Title: Re: [MN 111] Fallacy of Anupadadhammavipassana while in a jhana
Content:
Arguments don't get much more QED than that. With a single sentence Tilman Vetter cuts asunder endless pages of baloney from the promoters of jhāna-lite.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Apr 7, 2017 10:42 PM
Title: Re: To possess the Noble Eightfold Path
Content:
The commentaries explain the phrase as referring to the simultaneous arising of all eight of the path-factors at the ariyan path-consciousness-moment. But to grasp what this means one needs to understand how the Eightfold Path is conceived in the Abhidhamma. Do you? If not I can go over it tomorrow.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Apr 7, 2017 10:31 PM
Title: Re: Why Leftists have shifted their focus away from important issues
Content:
ISIS mice, infiltrated into Disneyland Paris.
 



ISIS Mice.jpg (59.61 KiB) Viewed 1829 times



Unhappily for ISIS, the rodent recruitment campaign fizzled out after the Salafist scholar Muhammad al Munajjid issued his fatwa against Mickey Mouse.



Kill Mickey.jpg (54.74 KiB) Viewed 1829 times


https://youtu.be/j7IpMIhR6Yg

.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Apr 7, 2017 7:45 PM
Title: Re: Giving With One's Own Hand
Content:
The banker's delivery of the money isn't dāna at all because he's not parting with anything of his own.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Apr 7, 2017 7:40 PM
Title: Re: wisdom and compassion developed equally
Content:
There are sutta passages from which the general idea can be inferred, but the explicit treatment of the complementarity of wisdom and compassion is more a commentarial theme. Here's the best-known Pali example:

From the Paramatthadīpanī, Dhammapāla’s commentary to the Cariyāpiṭaka

Like the aspiration, great compassion (mahākaruṇā) and skillful means (upāyakosalla) are also conditions for the pāramīs. Therein, “skillful means” is the wisdom which transforms giving (and the other nine virtues) into requisites of enlightenment.

Through their great compassion and skillful means, the Great Men devote themselves to working uninterruptedly for the welfare of others without any concern for their own happiness and without any fear of the extremely difficult course of conduct that great bodhisattvas must follow. And their nature is such that they are able to promote the welfare and happiness of beings even on occasions when they are merely seen, heard of, or recollected, (since even the sight, report, or thought of them) inspires confidence. 

Through his wisdom the bodhisattva perfects within himself the character of a Buddha, through his compassion the ability to perform the work of a Buddha.

Through wisdom he brings himself across (the stream of becoming), through compassion he leads others across. 

Through wisdom he understands the suffering of others, through compassion he strives to alleviate their suffering. 

Through wisdom he becomes disenchanted with suffering, through compassion he accepts suffering. 

Through wisdom he aspires for nibbāna, through compassion he remains in the round of existence. 

Through compassion he enters saṃsāra, through wisdom he does not delight in it.

Through wisdom he destroys all attachments, but because his wisdom is accompanied by compassion he never desists from activity that benefits others.

Through compassion he shakes with sympathy for all, but because his compassion is accompanied by wisdom his mind is unattached.

Through wisdom he is free from “I-making” and “mine-making,” through compassion he is free from lethargy and depression.

So too, through wisdom and compassion respectively, he becomes his own protector and the protector of others, a sage and a hero, one who does not torment himself and one who does not torment others, one who promotes his own welfare and the welfare of others, fearless and a giver of fearlessness, dominated by consideration for the Dhamma and by consideration for the world, grateful for favors done and forward in doing favors for others, devoid of delusion and devoid of craving, accomplished in knowledge and accomplished in conduct, possessed of the powers and possessed of the grounds of self-confidence. Thus wisdom and compassion, as the means for attaining each of the specific fruits of the pāramītās, is the condition for the pāramīs.

(Translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi in Treatise on the Pāramīs)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Apr 6, 2017 9:51 PM
Title: Re: Courage in the face of versatility and supremacism regarding the Dharma?
Content:
When I was in Thailand in the 1980s Ajahn Buddhadāsa influenced many and Ñāṇavīra Thera a few. Nowadays the principal influence seems to be academic scholarship on Buddhist sectarian history.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Apr 6, 2017 9:40 PM
Title: Re: Non-Thai Theravāda Forest Traditions?
Content:
Interesting. When I was living in a mountain hermitage in Phrao, passing thudong monks would sometimes come and stay with me for a night or two. The younger ones would typically carry a copy of the Pāṭimokkha and a book of paritta chants. The older ones (who had presumably already memorized the Pāṭimokkha and the parittas) would often have the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha, along with a pocket-sized edition of the Pubbasikkhāvaṇṇanā (a 19th century Thai Vinaya commentary).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Apr 5, 2017 9:19 PM
Title: Re: Stand Against Suffering
Content:
Looking at the full passage it seems to be a PC thing. It's the phrase kulitthiyo kulakumāriyo that they’ve translated as “the vulnerable”, though it actually means “women and girls”. Presumably the aim is to placate feminists of a certain stripe. I mean the kind who profess to find it patronising and offensive when men hold doors open for them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Apr 5, 2017 8:18 PM
Title: Re: The teachings of Ven. Waharaka Abhayaratanalankara Thero
Content:
The nicca in anicca has nothing to do with the adjective iccha (wishing) or the noun icchā (a wish) or the verb icchati (to wish).

The colloquial Sinhala pronunciation of it is actually a mispronunciation when judged by the phonetic descriptions in the ancient Pali grammars. When Sri Lankans pronounce Pali words their commonest mistake is to make aspirated consonants into non-aspirates and non-aspirated consonants into aspirates. This can be seen in the unorthodox romanization system used at the Pure Dhamma site:

gathi instead of gati
hethu-pala instead of hetu-phala.
micca-ditthi instead of micchā-diṭṭhi
satipattana instead of satipaṭṭhāna
Etc., etc.

By contrast, this is the international standard used by indologists for over a century:
ක ඛ ග ඝ ඞ
ka, kha, ga, gha, ṅa

ච ඡ ජ ඣ ඤ
ca, cha, ja, jha, ña

ට ඨ ඩ ඪ ණ
ṭa, ṭha, ḍa, ḍha, ṇa

ත ථ ද ධ න
ta, tha, da, dha, na

ප ඵ බ භ ම
pa, pha, ba, bha, ma

ය ර ල ව ස හ ළ ං
ya, ra, la, va, sa, ha, ḷa, ṃ


Conclusion

The Pure Dhamma website offers a variety of revisionist readings of the Pali Suttas based upon the site-owner’s (or his guru’s) claimed re-discovery of supposed hidden meanings of key Pali terms.
These proposed hidden meanings, when not presented merely as bald assertions, are defended by resort to Pali philological analysis.
But since the site-owner is demonstrably incompetent in both Indic philology in general and Pali in particular his arguments are undeserving of credence. Rather than leading to the true understanding of the Dhamma via the revelation of higher (but long-concealed) meanings, they lead only to baloney.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Apr 5, 2017 2:33 PM
Title: Re: Pāḷi Words - Meanings
Content:
Yes, indeed.

Your earlier post, by the way, with its musical analogy, brought back a happy memory of Cook &amp; Moore's Welsh piano teacher sketch.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Apr 5, 2017 1:25 PM
Title: Re: Non-Thai Theravāda Forest Traditions?
Content:
Where did you hear it reported that Ajahn Mun was a Tipiṭaka memorizer?

Ajahn Maha Bua's biography of Ajahn Mun quotes him as saying:
"What’s the purpose of all that learning anyway? It doesn’t make sense to me. I can’t figure it out. I haven’t learned any grade of Pāli studies – not one. I have learned only the five kammaṭṭhāna [head-hair, body-hair, nails, teeth, skin] that my preceptor gave me at my ordination, which I still have with me today. They are all I need to take care of myself."
Even allowing for a bit of hyperbole on Ajahn Mun's part, it doesn't sound like a monk with any great enthusiasm for gantha-dhura.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Apr 5, 2017 12:47 PM
Title: Re: Pāḷi Words - Meanings
Content:
If it's particularly mediaeval devotional verse that interests you, then the following should get you fairly quickly to the point where you can manage at least a hack-level translation...

1. Buddhadatta's Pali Course vol. I. Study the whole book, paying especial attention to the inflectional endings of nouns. Should take about 6 weeks.

2. Ditto, vol. II. Just the chapter on Pali compounds. Learn to appreciate all the various ways in which two Pali words joined together might be semantically related to each other. 2 weeks.

3. Ditto vol. III. Skim through the whole book, chiefly with the aim of boosting your vocabulary. 4 weeks.

4. Try reading some existing verse translations alongside the Pali text. You'll find a lot of good material on Ven. Ānandajoti's website. In particular:

Narasīhagāthā - Verses about a Lion of a Man.
Buddhakhetta &amp; Buddhāpadāna (tr. Barua)

Two translations of the Jinacarita:
The Life of the Victorious Buddha (tr. Ānandajoti)
The Career of the Conqueror (tr. Charles Duroiselle, from archive.org)

Lakkhaṇa Sutta – Suttanta on the Marks (tr. Usha McNab, from the Samatha Trust website)
Verses from the Vessantara Jātaka (tr. Fausboll)

One last thing: get a copy of R.C. Childers' Pali-English dictionary. This is by far the best English source for the vocabulary of late Pali texts.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 4, 2017 6:42 PM
Title: Re: Courage in the face of versatility and supremacism regarding the Dharma?
Content:
What I said is that assāsa-passāsa plainly means in- and out-breaths even in the suttas, contrary to Pure Dhamma's claim that this was a later misunderstanding of the suttas. I mentioned the Mahāsaccaka and Bodhirājakumāra Suttas as examples.

With this you partially concurred, but with the qualifier that this is merely the wrong Hindu understanding of breath meditation that the Buddha rejected. However, there are also suttas dealing with the kind of breath meditation that the Buddha approves, and in these too assāsa-passāsa plainly means the in- and out-breath. 

Now there are indeed suttas where assāsa *by itself* has meanings other than 'in-breath'; e.g. the Kālāma Sutta, where it means 'comfort' or 'assurance'. There are none, however, were it has the fanciful meaning assigned to it by the Pure Dhamma website.

Sorry, must go now...


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 4, 2017 6:27 PM
Title: Re: Courage in the face of versatility and supremacism regarding the Dharma?
Content:
No, I would say not. It may exhibit one or two of the features of it, but not enough of the significant ones to really qualify. One characteristic of Buddhist messianic cults is that they tend to have some clearcut notion of when and why things allegedly started to go bad. This will be attributed to, say, the creation of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, the commentaries of the Mahāvihāra, the decline of the yogāvacara tradition in mediaeval Ceylon, the Dhammayutt-instituted reforms/screw-ups of Siamese monastic education, or suchlike. In the Ajahn Mun tradition there isn't any universally-held conception of Buddhist doctrinal history beyond the very vague one of uneducated Thais in general. 

Moreoever, the tradition's founding claim is merely that Ajahn Sao and Ajahn Mun arrived at arahatta at a time when "the whole Buddhist world" (i.e. Siam  ) thought it impossible. But it's not claimed that they did this as a result of some entirely new discovery (like, e.g., Luang Phor Sodh's discovery of the Dhammakaya) nor by correctly interpreting Sutta teachings that had long been misinterpreted (like, e.g., Ven. Waharaka).

The tradition's only revelatory feature, as far as I know, is Ajahn Maha Bua's claim that Ajahn Mun's visions of past arahants led him to see the correct way of observing certain Vinaya rules, how walking meditation should be done, and certain other minutiae of monastic life.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 4, 2017 5:41 PM
Title: Re: Pāḷi Words - Meanings
Content:
puppharāsimhā = puppha + rāsi + mhā

"From a heap of flowers" or "because of a heap of flowers".

It's "heap of flowers" in the ablative case. The grammatical case is shown by the ending -mhā. 

Though I hate to discourage you, if you haven't even got around to learning the inflectional endings of Pali nouns yet, then a project like this is way over your head. Even a well-seasoned Pali scholar would find it quite a challenging text. Best to read a Pali primer first.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 4, 2017 4:19 PM
Title: Re: Courage in the face of versatility and supremacism regarding the Dharma?
Content:
Sorry, but I have looked at a few pages of the Pure Dhamma website and find the Pali scholarship there just a congeries of philological and grammatical absurdities, and the Sutta interpretations based upon it entirely without merit. Specifically:

* The uncritical assumption that two Pali words that begin with the same letters, or that just happen to look a little alike, must be related.
* The unevidenced assumption that any two Pali or Sinhala words that look a little similar must be cognates.
* The assumption that what a Pali loanword now means in Sinhala is the same as what it originally meant in Pali, and that what it is now understood to mean in Pali is a corrupted understanding.
* The taking of the inflectional endings of nouns as being separate words.
Etc. Etc.

Ven. Pesala the other day described the site-owner as making "a schoolboy's mistake". I would say that's being a little unkind to schoolboys. A schoolboy monk with with just two or three months Pali study under his belt just couldn't make the kind of ridiculous errors that I observed on every page that I looked at.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 4, 2017 3:53 PM
Title: Re: Courage in the face of versatility and supremacism regarding the Dharma?
Content:
You seem to be overlooking the final part of the Buddha’s pre-parinibbāna exhortation. You will be dwelling with the Dhamma as your island and refuge by the practice of the four satipaṭṭhānas, not by putting your trust in this or that person. Time spent wondering whether 'tis nobler to trust the Dalai Lama or Glenn Wallis is time spent seeking another refuge; it is not time spent developing the satipaṭṭhānas. If you’ve reason to trust them, then do so. If you’ve reason not to, then don’t. If you’re uncertain whether to trust them or not, then ask yourself whether this uncertainty bugs you. If it doesn’t, then your non-knowledge of these teachers’ trustworthiness doesn’t signify. If it does bug you, then it’s an opportunity to practise contemplation of dhammas with vicikicchā, the fifth of the five hindrances as your object. By so doing you will be dwelling with yourself as your own island, with yourself as your own refuge, with no other refuge; with the Dhamma as your island, with the Dhamma as your refuge, with no other refuge.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 3, 2017 8:43 PM
Title: Re: Courage in the face of versatility and supremacism regarding the Dharma?
Content:
Just follow the psalmist’s advice: “Put not thy trust in princes nor in any child of man.”

Or as the Buddhist version goes...
Dwell with yourself as your own island, with yourself as your own refuge, with no other refuge; dwell with the Dhamma as your island, with the Dhamma as your refuge, with no other refuge. And how does a bhikkhu dwell with himself as his own island, with himself as his own refuge, with no other refuge; with the Dhamma as his island, with the Dhamma as his refuge, with no other refuge? Here, a bhikkhu dwells contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed covetousness and displeasure in regard to the world. He dwells contemplating feelings in feelings … mind in mind … phenomena in phenomena, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed covetousness and displeasure in regard to the world.

“Those bhikkhus either now or after I am gone, who dwell with themselves as their own island, with themselves as their own refuge, with no other refuge; with the Dhamma as their island, with the Dhamma as their refuge, with no other refuge—it is these bhikkhus who will be for me topmost of those keen on the training.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 3, 2017 8:35 AM
Title: Re: Cultural Marxism
Content:
No, as Dhamma Wheel's biggest Roger Scruton fan I can assure you his voice is much more nasally than your narrator's. For example...



I believe the fellow in your video is Thorium, aka James Alexander, and he's voicing his own views rather than Scruton's. In Scruton's Palgrave-MacMillan Dictionary of Political Thought "cultural Marxism" isn't even dignified with a mention, let alone an entry. https://tinyurl.com/kdacoww and https://tinyurl.com/kxapl2y do get entries but Scruton's description conforms to the consensus understanding rather than the American conspiracy theory one.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Apr 2, 2017 6:53 PM
Title: Re: Anapana Redux
Content:
I think it might be better to raise your questions in a new thread, as we shall be moving well away from the subject of ānāpānassati.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Apr 2, 2017 6:18 PM
Title: Re: Anapana Redux
Content:
Assāsa-passāsa always meant in- and out-breathing and the evidence for this in the suttas is overwhelming. For example, if you read the Buddha's account of his pre-enlightenment practice of breath-suspension in the Bodhirājakumāra or Mahāsaccaka Sutta, you will surely agree that to replace "in-breaths and out-breaths" with "cleansing the mind of fetters" would just result in utter absurdity.
"I thought: 'Suppose I were to become absorbed in the trance of non-breathing [appāṇaka jhāna].' So I stopped the in-breaths [assāsa] &amp; out-breaths [passāsa] in my nose &amp; mouth. As I did so, there was a loud roaring of winds [vātā] coming out my earholes, just like the loud roar of winds coming out of a smith's bellows ... So I stopped the in-breaths &amp; out-breaths in my nose &amp; mouth &amp; ears. As I did so, extreme forces sliced through my head, just as if a strong man were slicing my head open with a sharp sword... Extreme pains arose in my head, just as if a strong man were tightening a turban made of tough leather straps around my head... Extreme forces carved up my stomach cavity, just as if a butcher or his apprentice were to carve up the stomach cavity of an ox... There was an extreme burning in my body, just as if two strong men, grabbing a weaker man by the arms, were to roast &amp; broil him over a pit of hot embers. And although tireless persistence was aroused in me, and unmuddled mindfulness established, my body was aroused &amp; uncalm because of the painful exertion. But the painful feeling that arose in this way did not invade my mind or remain.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.036.than.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Apr 2, 2017 10:22 AM
Title: Re: Anapana Redux
Content:
Stentorian claims to the effect: “The true path was long lost, but thankfully through my personal reading of the Suttas I have rediscovered it. Re-opened are the gates to the Deathless!” are made by many Buddhist teachers. Yet it’s hard to find any two of them whose conception of the “true path” tallies. 

That being so, what would be extremely foolish would be to embrace this or that teacher’s approach merely on the strength of his making such claims; and especially if one’s embracing of it is in the spirit of Idam’eva saccaṃ mogham’aññan ti, “This alone is truth, all else is vanity!”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Apr 2, 2017 1:36 AM
Title: Re: The Buddha's Teachings on Social and Communal Harmony. Chapter I. Right Understanding
Content:
I think they are just making explicit a distinction that in the suttas is only implicit. Take for example the Sarada Sutta:
Seyyathāpi, bhikkhave, saradasamaye viddhe vigatavalāhake deve ādicco nabhaṃ abbhussakkamāno sabbaṃ ākāsagataṃ tamagataṃ abhivihacca bhāsate ca tapate ca virocati ca. Evamevaṃ kho, bhikkhave, yato ariyasāvakassa virajaṃ vītamalaṃ dhammacakkhuṃ uppajjati, saha dassanuppādā, bhikkhave, ariyasāvakassa tīṇi saṃyojanāni pahīyanti: sakkāyadiṭṭhi, vicikicchā, sīlabbataparāmāso.

“Bhikkhus, just as, in the autumn, when the sky is clear and cloudless, the sun, ascending in the sky, dispels all darkness from space as it shines and beams and radiates, so too, when the dust-free, stainless Dhamma-eye arises in the ariyasāvaka, then, together with the arising of vision, the ariyasāvaka abandons three fetters: personal-existence view, doubt, and wrong grasp of behavior and observances.
(AN. i. 242)
Now we know that the arising of the Dhamma-eye is synonymous with arrival at stream-entry, but in this sutta the person is already being denoted 'ariyasāvaka' before the Dhamma-eye arises. Yet before the eye arises he is a worldling, not a noble. And so here one can only conclude that prior to the arising of the Dhamma-eye the person is being referred to as an 'ariyasāvaka' because he is a disciple of the noble ones, not because he is a noble one himself.

Just going by memory, I believe examples of this kind are quite common in the Aṅguttara Nikāya, but are found rarely (if at all) in the Majjhima and Saṃyutta Nikāyas; in these two nikāyas the persons denoted 'ariyasāvaka' are in nearly every case stream-entrants or higher.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Apr 1, 2017 7:04 AM
Title: Re: does eating a human brain destroy one's credibility as a religous scholar?
Content:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/02/reza-aslan-why-he-is-not-a-muslim


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 31, 2017 7:14 PM
Title: Re: Petavatthu & Vimānavatthu in English.
Content:
A scanned copy of the pioneering Jean Kennedy/Henry Gehman translation is available here:

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.282259

This is only of the canonical part (i.e. the verses). A later translation by Peter Masefield (Vimāna Stories, Peta Stories) includes the commentary too, both the background story and word glosses.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 31, 2017 5:58 PM
Title: Re: does anyone know of good asubha resources?
Content:
Going through the thread I see that no-one’s mentioned Jonathan Swift yet. When I was a child my first ever exposure to the concept of asubha came from reading Swift’s close-up account of the Brobdingnagian Maids of Honour going about their toilet in Gulliver’s Travels. And so in the present thread I should like to propose as a “Good Asubha Resource” The Lady’s Dressing Room, Swift’s no-holds-barred account of Strephon’s disenchantment when he went peeping in his beloved Celia’s closet.

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/dressing.html


Women, however, may prefer this modern adaptation in which the maligned Celia gets a chance to reply to Strephon:

if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }https://phpbbex.com/ .


While the easily triggered may prefer the equally satirical (though poetically and asubhaically inferior) response to Swift by The Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: 

http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/t-montagu.htm

*


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 31, 2017 1:48 PM
Title: Re: does anyone know of good asubha resources?
Content:
In his Buddhist Meditation and Depth Psychology the American psychiatrist (and Buddhist) Dr. Douglas Burns also remarks to the same effect:

A cartoon in an American medical magazine shows four senior medical students standing together. Three are engaged in active conversation. Only the remaining one turns his head to take notice of a pretty nurse. The caption beneath the cartoon reads: "Guess which one has not done twelve pelvic examinations today." It is doubtful that many persons outside of the medical profession will appreciate the meaning, but to medical students and interns it speaks a reality. During his months of training in obstetrics and gynecology the medical trainee must spend many hours engaged in examining and handling the most repulsive aspects of female genitals. As a result he finds the female body becoming less attractive and his sexual urges diminishing. During my own years as a medical student and intern, this observation was repeatedly confirmed by the comments of my co-workers, both married and single. As we have seen, the same principle is utilized in the sections of the Discourse on repulsiveness and the cemetery meditations.

Other aspects of scientific and medical training can produce results similar to those sought in the latter three body meditations. Chemistry, biochemistry, and histology foster an objective way of viewing the body which is virtually identical to the contemplation of elements. Anatomy, of course, is similar to the contemplation of repulsiveness. And in hospital training the persistent encounter with old age, debilitation, and death continuously reinforces the words of the cemetery meditations: "Verily, also my own body is of the same nature; such it will become and will not escape it." Similarly, in order to acquire a vivid mental image of the cemetery meditations, Buddhist monks occasionally visit graveyards to behold corpses in various stages of decay. However, such experiences bear fruit only if one takes advantage of them and avoids the temptation to ignore and forget.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/burns/wheel088.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 30, 2017 11:42 PM
Title: Re: How old are you?
Content:
I've made it into one. 

To make one yourself in future, just start a new topic and then scroll down to "poll creation" and click on it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 29, 2017 10:40 AM
Title: Re: sila and pain
Content:
“And what, bhikkhus, is the way of undertaking things that is painful now and ripens in the future as pleasure? Here, bhikkhus, someone by nature has strong lust, and he constantly experiences pain and grief born of lust (rāgajaṃ dukkhaṃ domanassaṃ); by nature he has strong hate, and he constantly experiences pain and grief born of hate; by nature he has strong delusion, and he constantly experiences pain and grief born of delusion. Yet in pain and grief, weeping with tearful face, he leads the perfect and pure holy life. On the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in a happy destination, even in the heavenly world. This is called the way of undertaking things that is painful now and ripens in the future as pleasure.
(Cūḷasamādāna Sutta, MN. 45)
The Majjhima commentary doesn’t say why he obtains a good rebirth, but I would suppose that it would be through the power of the sīlamayapuñña (“merit constituted by moral habit”) that he accumulates by his restraint.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:40 AM
Title: Re: Psychotherapy
Content:
Oh? So Thomas Aquinas (13th century) might have been religious, but Augustine of Hippo (4th century) couldn't have been, right? But on what basis do you make this claim? What has changed between the time of Augustine and Aquinas that would permit one of the saints to be denoted "religious" and the other not?

Edit
To put the question more simply: Since we know that the Latin source of the word ‘religion’ is attested to well before the 13th century (e.g. in the Pagan Cicero and the Christian St. Jerome), what change of meaning did it undergo between 1200 and 1300 CE? Who was responsible for this?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:33 AM
Title: Re: The Buddha's Teachings on Social and Communal Harmony. Chapter I. Right Understanding
Content:
I think so. In the commentarial understanding ariyasāvaka in some contexts means "disciple who is an ariyan", while in others in means "disciple of the ariyans". In the latter sense the term includes virtuous worldlings (kalyāna putthujjana).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 28, 2017 12:05 PM
Title: Re: What Dhamma Book are you reading right now?
Content:
Would that by any chance be Phra Ṭhitavaṇṇo in Dusit? If so, we used to be virtual neighbours: he at Wat Somanas and I at Wat Benchamabophitr. I've never read any of his books, but I've always found his talks to be of a very high standard.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 27, 2017 12:46 PM
Title: Re: What is monkey mind?
Content:
Two further ways:

1. For those who know Pali:
Download the Chaṭṭhasaṅgīti Tipiṭaka CD (or use the online version at the Goenka website) and search it for all the Pali words for 'monkey'. If you don't know all the Pali words for 'monkey', then open the Abhidhānappadīpikā (Moggallāna's 13th century Pali thesaurus) and look up one that you do know. You'll then find all the others listed in the same quatrain:
makkaṭo vānaro sākhā,
migo kapi valīmukho,
palavaṅgo, kaṇhatuṇḍo,
gonaṅgulo ti so mato.
(verse 614)
Typically the first few names will be the ones found in the Tipiṭaka, the next few only in the commentaries, while the last two or three will be artificially generated cognates of Sanskrit or Sinhala words that have no existence outside of grammarians' imaginations. Having found these words you can then search for them on the Tipiṭaka CD. If, however, you're a Mac-user like me, then it will be better to convert all the CD's text files to Unicode romanized Pali and then search them with some program like BBEdit. This will save you having to invest in some expensive crossover program that will allow Windows programs to be used on a Mac.

2. For those who don't know Pali:
Download the whole of the Sutta Central website: https://suttacentral.net/downloads
Remove all the files that are in languages you don't know, especially those in Chinese, which are enormous in number and greatly slow down text searches. Then use BBEdit or whichever text-search program you prefer to search for 'monkey'.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 27, 2017 10:13 AM
Title: Re: What is monkey mind?
Content:
Another monkey simile:
“The craving of one given to heedless living grows like a creeper. Like the monkey seeking fruits in the forest, he leaps from life to life (tasting the fruit of his kamma).”
(Dhammapada 334; Theragāthā verses of Māluṅkyaputta)

The use of a monkey as a simile for the mind can be found in the Visuddhimagga’s description of meditation on the thirty-two parts of the body:

As to successive leaving: in giving his attention he should eventually leave out any [parts] that do not appear to him. For when a beginner gives his attention to head hairs, his attention then carries on till it arrives at the last part, that is, urine and stops there; and when he gives his attention to urine, his attention then carries on till it arrives back at the first part, that is, head hairs, and stops there. As he persists in giving his attention thus, some parts appear to him and others do not. Then he should work on those that have appeared till one out of any two appears the clearer. He should arouse absorption by again and again giving attention to the one that has appeared thus.

Here is a simile. Suppose a hunter wanted to catch a monkey that lived in a grove of thirty-two palms, and he shot an arrow through a leaf of the palm that stood at the beginning and gave a shout; then the monkey went leaping successively from palm to palm till it reached the last palm; and when the hunter went there too and did as before, it came back in like manner to the first palm; and being followed thus again and again, after leaping from each place where a shout was given, it eventually jumped on to one palm, and firmly seizing the palm shoot’s leaf spike in the middle, would not leap any more even when shot—so it is with this.

The application of the simile is this. The thirty-two parts of the body are like the thirty-two palms in the grove. The monkey is like the mind. The meditator is like the hunter. The range of the meditator’s mind in the body with its thirty-two parts as object is like the monkey’s inhabiting the palm grove of thirty-two palms. The settling down of the meditator’s mind in the last part after going successively [from part to part] when he began by giving his attention to head hairs is like the monkey’s leaping from palm to palm and going to the last palm, when the hunter shot an arrow through the leaf of the palm where it was and gave a shout. Likewise in the return to the beginning. His doing the preliminary work on those parts that have appeared, leaving behind those that did not appear while, as he gave his attention to them again and again, some appeared to him and some did not, is like the monkey’s being followed and leaping up from each place where a shout is given. The meditator’s repeated attention given to the part that in the end appears the more clearly of any two that have appeared to him and his finally reaching absorption, is like the monkey’s eventually stopping in one palm, firmly seizing the palm shoot’s leaf spike in the middle and not leaping up even when shot.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 27, 2017 9:51 AM
Title: Re: What is monkey mind?
Content:
The simile is from the Assutavāsutta. Note Bhikkhu Bodhi’s comment:
 “It should be noted that neither the sutta nor the commentary interprets the monkey simile here as saying that the untrained mind is as restless as a monkey; the point, rather, is that the mind is always dependent on an object.”
And his translation of the simile:
“It would be better, bhikkhus, for the uninstructed worldling to take as self this body composed of the four great elements rather than the mind. For what reason? Because this body composed of the four great elements is seen standing for one year, for two years, for three, four, five, or ten years, for twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years, for a hundred years, or even longer.* But that which is called ‘mind’ and ‘mentality’ and ‘consciousness’ arises as one thing and ceases as another by day and by night. Just as a monkey roaming through a forest grabs hold of one branch, lets that go and grabs another, then lets that go and grabs still another, so too that which is called ‘mind’ and ‘mentality’ and ‘consciousness’ arises as one thing and ceases as another by day and by night.**
(SN. ii. 94-5)
Translator’s notes

[*] Because this body ... is seen standing for a hundred years, or even longer. Spk: (Query:) Why does the Blessed One say this? Isn’t it true that the physical form present in the first period of life does not last through to the middle period, and the form present in the middle period does not last through to the last period?... Isn’t it true that formations break up right on the spot, stage by stage, section by section, just as sesamum seeds pop when thrown on a hot pan? (Reply:) This is true, but the body is said to endure for a long time in continuous sequence (paveṇivasena), just as a lamp is said to burn all night as a connected continuity (paveṇisambandhavasena) even though the flame ceases right where it burns without passing over to the next section of the wick.

[**] Spk: By day and by night (rattiyā ca divasassa ca): This is a genitive in the locative sense, i.e., during the night and during the day. Arises as one thing and ceases as another (aññadeva uppajjati, aññaṃ nirujjhati): The meaning is that (the mind) that arises and ceases during the day is other than (the mind) that arises and ceases during the night. The statement should not be taken to mean that one thing arises and something altogether different, which had not arisen, ceases. “Day and night” is said by way of continuity, taking a continuity of lesser duration than the previous one (i.e., the one stated for the body). But one citta is not able to endure for a whole day or a whole night. Even in the time of a fingersnap many hundred thousand of koṭis of cittas arise and cease (1 koṭi = 10 million). The simile of the monkey should be understood thus: The “grove of objects” is like the forest grove. The mind arising in the grove of objects is like the monkey wandering in the forest grove. The mind’s taking hold of an object is like the monkey grabbing hold of a branch. Just as the monkey, roaming through the forest, leaves behind one branch and grabs hold of another, so the mind, roaming through the grove of objects, arises sometimes grasping hold of a visible object, sometimes a sound, sometimes the past, sometimes the present or future, sometimes an internal object, sometimes an external object. When the monkey does not find a (new) branch it does not descend and sit on the ground, but sits holding to a single leafy branch. So too, when the mind is roaming through the grove of objects, it cannot be said that it arises without holding to an object; rather, it arises holding to an object of a single kind.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 27, 2017 2:26 AM
Title: Re: Is there an "anyone can reach enlightenment" view?
Content:
As I've already said, the notion got trounced by the Buddha Nature doctrine. It's merely an historical footnote.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 27, 2017 12:52 AM
Title: Re: Can someone knowledgable please fix the wikipedia page on Subhuti?
Content:
Apparently it's an ongoing problem with Wiki's English-language Buddhism pages. Ven. Sujāto:
And yes, this has been an issue on Wikipedia. Some time ago, for example, it was common on Wikipedia to see Pali words transliterated in Devanagari. It was rightly objected that Devanagari, a modern Indian script, has never been used for writing Pali, and Roman script is the universal convention for international Pali. However the Buddhist editors had to struggle against Hindutva editors. I haven't kept up with this debate, but I haven't seen such problems recently, so perhaps the argument is over.

https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/sutta-central-websites-article-on-wikipedia-an-urgent-help-needed/2475/6


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 27, 2017 12:43 AM
Title: Re: Iconism vs Aniconism
Content:
The commentary too...
“Whether the others are white, black, or brown, the Teacher is golden-coloured. But this is stated with reference to shape. And the shape alone is perceived by them. It is not the case that the Blessed One becomes like a foreigner or like one wearing pearl earrings; he sits there in the form of a Buddha. But they see him as having the same shape as themselves. Some speak with a broken voice, some with a cackling voice, some with the voice of a crow, but the Teacher always has the voice of Brahmā. This is stated with reference to the language. For if the Teacher is sitting in a king’s seat, they think, ‘The king speaks sweetly today.’ When the Blessed One departs after speaking, and they see the [real] king arrive, they wonder: ‘Who was that?’… Even though they investigate, they do not know. Then why does the Buddha teach the Dhamma to them if they do not know? To plant impressions (vāsanatthāya). For when the Dhamma is heard even in such a way, it becomes a condition for the future. Thus he teaches out of consideration for the future.”

(Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation of the commentary to the parallel passage in the AN)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 26, 2017 7:08 PM
Title: Re: Is there an "anyone can reach enlightenment" view?
Content:
But nobody has actually said that. You seem to be conflating two different icchāntika conceptions.

Dhammānando (based on the Theravāda Abhidhamma's theory of conditional relations): it's a theoretical possibility (though empirically very improbable) that a being might screw up so badly that he would cut off both the possibility of enlightenment and the possibility of ever doing anything meritorious and so be condemned to drift in the lower realms for ever.

Some Mahāyānists (based on one interpretation of the Yogācāra Abhidharma's theory of gotras: all existing beings have in fact cut off the possibility of awakening for ever. They haven't, however, cut off the possibility of acquiring mundane merit and therefore all realms of existence are open to them except the Pure Abodes.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 26, 2017 4:35 PM
Title: Re: Who are your mother and father?
Content:
In the Vinaya it varies. For example, the prohibition against ordaining a parricide applies only to one who has killed his biological mother or father. But the requirement that one should have one's parents' permission to ordain extends to anyone who has carried out a parental role in one's upbringing. For example if your biological parents gave you up for adoption and then had nothing further to do with raising you, then you would need the permission of your adoptive parents but not your biological ones.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 26, 2017 4:22 PM
Title: Re: Iconism vs Aniconism
Content:
The making of icons is neither advocated nor prohibited in any ancient Pali sources. The evidence for a supposed prohibition is very slender, consisting in just one statement preserved in a non-Theravadin recension of the Vinaya.

As for the Dīgha Nikāya, I can only think of one passage that has any bearing on the issue (or at least one sometimes hears it cited as if it had a bearing on it). This is the account of the eight assemblies in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (DN. ii. 109). The Buddha relates how he would change his appearance to that of a kṣatriya, a brāhmaṇa, a householder, a samaṇa, a Cātumahārājika deva, a Tāvatiṃsa deva, a Māra or a Brahmā when going to teach Dhamma to assemblies of these beings. The passage is cited by Burmese Buddhists in justification of their depicting the Buddha wearing royal ornaments, as for example with the Mahāmyatmuni Buddha, which is intended to represent the Buddha's form when visiting devas.
I know, Ānanda, that after approaching countless hundreds of assemblies of the Tāvatiṃsa devas, that there, before settling down, before conversing, and before entering upon discussion, whatever their appearance was, my appearance would become, whatever their voice was, my voice would become, and I instructed, roused, enthused, and cheered them with a talk about the Dhamma, and while I was speaking they did not know me and would ask: ‘Who is this speaking, a deva or a man?’ and having instructed, roused, enthused, and cheered them with a talk about the Dhamma, I disappeared. And when I had disappeared they did not know me and would ask: ‘Who is this who disappeared, a deva or a man?’

https://suttacentral.net/en/dn16


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 26, 2017 4:15 PM
Title: Re: Is there an "anyone can reach enlightenment" view?
Content:
I don't think it was a doctrine that actually had much historical influence. It just represented one little pocket of Yogācārin thought and in the long run was trounced by the more optimistic Buddha Nature teaching.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:26 PM
Title: Re: Is there an "anyone can reach enlightenment" view?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 26, 2017 11:58 AM
Title: Re: Is there an "anyone can reach enlightenment" view?
Content:
There is apparently a Mahayana text which maintains that we already are such beings! That is, every being in the universe with the potential for enlightenment exited the building long ago and those of us left behind are all icchāntikas (albeit in the milder Yogācārin sense of the term: a being condemned to transmigrate for ever, but not necessarily confined to the lower realms). I can't remember the name of the text now, but it was mentioned by the British scholar Stephen Hodge on a now-defunct forum.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 26, 2017 11:45 AM
Title: Re: Is there an "anyone can reach enlightenment" view?
Content:
I doubt it. The Ittha Sutta seems to suggest that mere aspiration for something isn't a lot of use.

https://suttacentral.net/en/an5.43


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 26, 2017 11:42 AM
Title: Re: Regarding paying off ALL of ones debts first.
Content:
It would happen most often with temporary ordinations. Men who are going to be in robes for just a few weeks or months will not be expected to pay off their mortgage loan or bank overdraft beforehand any more than they will be expected to give away all their money.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 26, 2017 5:50 AM
Title: Re: how to dispose a buddha statue
Content:
I think my position would be the same as Ven. Pesala's.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 25, 2017 9:33 PM
Title: Re: Is there an "anyone can reach enlightenment" view?
Content:
No more so than with the mental continuum of any other saṃsāric being. They're all conceived as enjoying a kind of quasi-permanence, having existed since time without beginning, being eternally separate from each other continuum, and condemned to continue existing until ignorance and craving have been rooted out. But the quasi-permanence of a cittasantāna doesn't make it an atmān for it's wholly constituted of dhammas that are radically impermanent.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 25, 2017 10:52 AM
Title: Re: Is there an "anyone can reach enlightenment" view?
Content:
The doctrine of aniccatā has to do with the impermanence of saṅkhāras. An absence of something is not a saṅkhāra.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 25, 2017 10:02 AM
Title: Re: how to dispose a buddha statue
Content:
I think the OP is using 'dispose' in the older sense of 'arrange' or 'set up', not the modern sense of 'get rid of'. In Spanish the cognate verb 'disponer' still retains the same meaning as the Latin source.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 25, 2017 2:28 AM
Title: Re: extroverts versus introverts
Content:
I think you will find that suttas promoting good companionship, association with the wise, and suchlike, are actually just as frequent as those promoting seclusion and solitude. 

Note also that in Dhammapada 61 (and even in verses 11-12 of the Rhinoceros Horn Sutta) it is companionship with the wise that's presented as the norm, while solitude is the resort when the norm is unavailable.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 25, 2017 1:53 AM
Title: Re: Is there an "anyone can reach enlightenment" view?
Content:
Given Theravadin premises, one could theoretically conceive of a being whose mental continuum was characterized by (1) an absence of any unripened meritorious kamma that would be the cause for his encountering a Buddha, a Buddha's disciple, a Dhamma book, etc., and (2) an absence of any wholesome disposition that would lead to his performance of such a meritorious kamma. Such a being, if he existed, would in effect be eternally debarred from the possibility of awakening.

Now as far as I know the Pali texts don't assert that there are any such beings, but nor do they deny that there might be. Though I personally doubt that there's anyone quite so unfortunate as this, nevertheless, if such a being did exist it wouldn't violate the teaching of impermanence. Being destined to remain permanently a puthujjana does not entail being possessed of a permanent self; it entails merely the permanent absence of those factors that would lead one to cease being a puthujjana.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 24, 2017 11:52 PM
Title: Re: Spiritual Obstacles
Content:
Either professing that ariyans don't exist ("There are no good and virtuous samaṇas and brahmins in the world who have realised for themselves by direct knowledge and declare this world and the other world") or else denying the ariyan qualities of a particular person.

From the Visuddhimagga:
“Revilers of Noble Ones”: being desirous of harm for Noble Ones consisting of Buddhas, Paccekabuddhas, and disciples, and also of householders who are stream-enterers, they revile them with the worst accusations or with denial of their special qualities; they abuse and upbraid them, is what is meant.

Herein, it should be understood that when they say, “They have no
asceticism, they are not ascetics,” they revile them with the worst accusation;
and when they say, “They have no jhāna or liberation or path of fruition, etc.,” they revile them with denial of their special qualities. And whether done knowingly or unknowingly it is in either case reviling of Noble Ones; it is weighty kamma resembling that of immediate result, and it is an obstacle both to heaven and to the path. But it is remediable.

The following story should be understood in order to make this clear. An elder and a young bhikkhu, it seems, wandered for alms in a certain village. At the first house they got only a spoonful of hot gruel. The elder’s stomach was paining him with wind. He thought, “This gruel is good for me; I shall drink it before it gets cold.” People brought a wooden stool to the doorstep, and he sat down and drank it. The other was disgusted and remarked, “The old man has let his hunger get the better of him and has done what he should be ashamed to do.” The elder wandered for alms, and on returning to the monastery he asked the young bhikkhu, “Have you any footing in this Dispensation, friend?”— “Yes, venerable sir, I am a stream-enterer.”—“Then, friend, do not try for the higher paths; one whose cankers are destroyed has been reviled by you.” The young bhikkhu asked for the elder’s forgiveness and was thereby restored to his former state.

So one who reviles a Noble One, even if he is one himself, should go to him; if he himself is senior, he should sit down in the squatting position and get his forgiveness in this way, “I have said such and such to the venerable one; may he forgive me.” If he himself is junior, he should pay homage, and sitting in the squatting position and holding out his hand palms together, he should get his forgiveness in this way, “I have said such and such to you, venerable sir; forgive me.” If the other has gone away, he should get his forgiveness either by going to him himself or by sending someone such as a co-resident.

If he can neither go nor send, he should go to the bhikkhus who live in that monastery, and, sitting down in the squatting position if they are junior, or acting in the way already described if they are senior, he should get forgiveness by saying, “Venerable sirs, I have said such and such to the venerable one named so and so; may that venerable one forgive me.” And this should also be done when he fails to get forgiveness in his presence.

If it is a bhikkhu who wanders alone and it cannot be discovered where he is living or where he has gone, he should go to a wise bhikkhu and say, “Venerable sir, I have said such and such to the venerable one named so and so. When I remember it, I am remorseful. What shall I do?” He should be told, “Think no more about it; the elder forgives you. Set your mind at rest.” Then he should extend his hands palms together in the direction taken by the Noble One and say, “Forgive me.”

If the Noble One has attained the final Nibbāna, he should go to the place where the bed is, on which he attained the final Nibbāna, and should go as far as the charnel ground to ask forgiveness. When this has been done, there is no obstruction either to heaven or to the path. He becomes as he was before.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 22, 2017 10:32 AM
Title: Re: States of Theravada Buddhism in years 700-1950
Content:
I think what "Age of X" means here is not that X is necessarily very common or conspicuous, but rather that it's the highest that beings in that age are capable of aspiring to and achieving.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 22, 2017 1:22 AM
Title: Re: Looking for quote about vexation and past lives...
Content:
Not in any Pali source. In early Buddhist texts this question (like the similar question as to where kammas are stored before they yield their vipāka) simply doesn't come up for discussion. In later texts, dating from when Buddhists did start discussing these matters, what you describe wasn't how the Theravādins fielded the question. What you describe sounds more like the sort of thing the Pudgalavādins would say.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 21, 2017 9:50 PM
Title: Re: How does Dependent Origination apply to formless (Arupavacara) beings?
Content:
There would be no cognizance of visible objects, sounds, etc.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:23 PM
Title: Re: How does Dependent Origination apply to formless (Arupavacara) beings?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:00 PM
Title: Re: Nibbana
Content:
Vedanā arises in all beings in all realms except for the impercipient devas.

However, the fact that all people are subject to feeling is irrelevant here, for it is the second sense of "one that feels", not the first sense, that applies here: one with some capacity to know or to understand the nature of the feelings that he undergoes.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 21, 2017 6:47 PM
Title: Re: How does Dependent Origination apply to formless (Arupavacara) beings?
Content:
I've uploaded the pages here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw2ZpMqGylXcQi0tX0RISnZCNEk


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 21, 2017 6:42 PM
Title: Re: How does Dependent Origination apply to formless (Arupavacara) beings?
Content:
Nāma and manāyatana are present in them. See the Dispeller of Delusion (Vibhaṅga Commentary) vol. I. pp. 213-218.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 21, 2017 6:05 PM
Title: Re: Nibbana
Content:
The term ‘to one who feels’ can mean either to one who merely undergoes or is subject to feeling (vedanaṃ anubhavati) or to one with some capacity to know or to understand the nature of the feelings that he undergoes (vedanā jānāti). The Aṅguttara Commentary gives examples of each usage and then takes the second sense as being the one applicable here. It then adds:

[Now it is for one who feels] that I proclaim: ‘This is suffering, ’ means: To a being capable of understanding I proclaim, cause to realize, cause to know: ‘This is dukkha, to this extent there is dukkha, and there is no dukkha beyond or apart from this.’” 

[Likewise with the other four truths].


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 21, 2017 5:50 PM
Title: Re: States of Theravada Buddhism in years 700-1950
Content:
But Kāliyuga is a Hindu concept. Except among the Tibetans it has no more bearing upon Buddhism than Anno Domini or At-taqwīm al-hijrī or Discworld’s Century of the Fruitbat.

As the Buddha’s dispensation still exists, we must presently be in one or another of the five dispensational yugas:

Vimuttiyuga – Age of liberation.
Samādhiyuga – Age of concentration.
Sīlayuga – Age of moral habit.
Sutayuga – Age of learning.
Dānayuga – Age of generosity.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 21, 2017 10:41 AM
Title: Re: Nibbana
Content:
The Buddha said it was for people “who feel” (vediyamānassa).
“In dependence on the six elements the descent of a future embryo occurs. When the descent takes place, there is name-and-form; with name-and-form as condition, there are the six sense bases; with the six sense bases as condition, there is contact; with contact as condition, there is feeling. Now it is for one who feels that I proclaim: ‘This is suffering,’ and ‘This is the origin of suffering,’ and ‘This is the cessation of suffering,’ and ‘This is the way leading to the cessation of suffering.’”
– https://suttacentral.net/en/an3.61


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 20, 2017 10:18 PM
Title: Re: Loka
Content:
No, not always, though this is the sense of loka that merits the most attention as far as the development of understanding is concerned.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 20, 2017 10:10 PM
Title: Re: Loka
Content:
In the commentarial understanding all of the different senses of ‘loka’ are understood to be derived from the same verbal root (i.e., √luj) and to be united by the shared feature of liability to crumbling (lujjana) and disintegration (palujjana).

As such, the different senses of the word would be examples of polysemes (words of the same spelling but of different but nonetheless related meanings) rather than homonyms (words identical in spelling and pronunciation but entirely different in meaning).



Chart A.jpg (188.14 KiB) Viewed 1520 times


See this Wikipedia entry for examples.

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 20, 2017 2:33 PM
Title: Re: Future resolution of division in US society?
Content:
I can see that it might seem depressing from a third party's point of view, but what about that of the toilet cleaner himself? If he has no talent for anything else, or lives in circumstances where nothing else is permitted or available to him, then isn't it more likely that viewing his lot in this way would be a source of consolation rather than an incitement to depression?

Granted, it isn’t a Buddhist way of regarding kamma, for in the Buddhist view though the particular circumstances of one’s birth are regarded as wholly kammically determined, one’s subsequent trajectory is not. Nonetheless, I should think that believing something like this would at least grant our toilet cleaner some contentment and equanimity. If nothing else it would save him from the alternative —one that would be truly depressing— namely, to be a toilet cleaner who's tormented by the notion that he's missing out on being something better.

Now John at the bar is a friend of mine,
He gets me my drinks for free.
And he's quick with a joke, or to light up your smoke
But there's someplace that he'd rather be.

He says, "Bill, I believe this is killing me,"
As a smile ran away from his face
"Well, I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place."

Oh, la la la, di da da,
La la, di da da da dum... etc.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 20, 2017 12:34 PM
Title: Re: Tantric Theravada?
Content:
Mid to late 19th century translations of Pali texts.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 20, 2017 4:23 AM
Title: Re: Rebirth as a Brahma
Content:
The Kaṇṭhaka story is from the commentaries; the Maṇḍūka story from the Vimānavatthu verses:
Ko me vandati pādāni, iddhiyā yasasā jalaṃ,
Abhikkantena vaṇṇena, sabbā obhāsayaṃ disā ti.

Maṇḍūkohaṃ pure āsiṃ, udake vārigocaro,
Tava dhammaṃ suṇantassa, avadhī vacchapālako.

Muhuttaṃ cittapasādassa, iddhiṃ passa yasañca me,
Ānubhāvañca me passa, vaṇṇaṃ passa jutiñca me.

Ye ca te dīghamaddhānaṃ, dhammaṃ assosuṃ gotama,
Pattā te acalaṭṭhānaṃ, yattha gantvā na socare ti.


The Blessed One:
“Who is it that salutes these feet of mine, blazing with iddhi and fame, lighting up all directions with surpassing complexion?”

Maṇḍūka the deva:
“I was in the past a frog in the water, with water for my pasture; whilst hearing your Dhamma a cowherd slew me.

“Though  of devotion of heart for [only] a moment, [yet now] behold my iddhi and fame; and behold my majesty, behold my complexion and brightness.

“And as for those who heard your Dhamma for a long length of time, Gotama, they have reached the immovable ground where having gone they sorrow no more.”
(Vv. 77, translation adapted from Masefield’s)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 19, 2017 1:24 PM
Title: Re: Tantric Theravada?
Content:
Yes, with regard to Brahminism and Shamanism. But the Buddhist component is not early Buddhism, but rather the very late-stage Buddhism of India's monastic universities. Of all the Buddhist nations in Asia, the Tibetans are probably the least well-informed about early Buddhism, largely as a consequence of Atīśa's decree that the Āgama sūtras should not be translated into the Tibetan language.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 19, 2017 12:17 PM
Title: Re: Tantric Theravada?
Content:
It’s just a shorthand locution. It spares us the inconvenience of having to say: “A socially marginal religious phenomenon, arising within a traditionally Theravadin cultural milieu but sharing a certain family resemblance with Tantrism”.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 19, 2017 11:33 AM
Title: Re: Regarding paying off ALL of ones debts first.
Content:
The Vinaya texts don’t say anything about debts owed to creditors whom the candidate for ordination has forgotten about or who can’t be tracked down. They do say, however, that an ordination will still be valid even though the candidate is in debt. That is to say, being in debt is not included among the absolute impediments to ordination, such as being a matricide, a seducer of bhikkhunīs, etc.

If having unpaid (and presently unpayable) debts troubles you, then before ordaining you might perhaps deposit a sum of money with a trusted friend or a solicitor, with instructions to use it to repay any creditors who happen to show up later.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 19, 2017 9:56 AM
Title: Re: Tantric Theravada?
Content:
The coiners of terms like “Tantric Theravāda” and “Theravāda Tantrism” are following the practice in academic Buddhist and Hindu studies of defining what counts as ‘tantric’ and what does not in a polythetic manner (i.e. based on Wittgenstein’s conception of “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance”) rather than the monothetic way that would be employed by Tibetans.

As Donald Lopez summarizes the approach:
Another approach would be to employ the notion of polythetic classification. In monothetic classification, the composition of a conceptual class is determined by the invariable presence of certain common properties found in each and every member of that class. In a polythetic classification, however, no single feature is deemed necessary or sufficient for inclusion in the class. The members of the class do not share a single feature in common, but are grouped together based on the greatest number of features in common, with no a priori decision as to the relative importance of these multiple features. Under a polythetic classification, tantra, instead of being reduced to some essence, would constitute the intersection of certain of a larger number of family resemblances. The features constituting this family serve as descriptions rather than criteria. Among these features, one would immediately include elements such as those listed by Gombrich in his definition above, that is, elements that commonly occur in texts called tantras, such as mantras, mudrās, and maṇḍalas. To these one could quickly add the importance of the guru, abhiṣekha (empowerment), vajra (diamond or thunderbolt), sukha (bliss), sahaja (“together-born”), and siddhis (powers). From here, one could move to traditional characterizations of tantra as a form of practice that is secret, easy, and rapid in its effect, based upon the premise that reality resides in the mundane. In modern studies, tantric texts are described as highly ritualistic, antinomian, and nonspeculative, evincing nonduality and often setting forth an elaborate esoteric physiology of cakras and nāḍīs that give special importance to the genitals.

Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart Sutra. p. 86


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 19, 2017 1:45 AM
Title: Re: Tantric Theravada?
Content:
Lersi or reusii (ฤษี) is just the Thai pronunciation of the Sanskrit ṛṣī (Pali isi), meaning a hermit or sage. He might practise tantric methods, but not necessarily.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 18, 2017 11:38 PM
Title: Re: Who are these Devas responsible for creation?
Content:
Petas. Or more precisely, they're vemānikapetas: ghosts experiencing the vipāka of mixed dark and light kamma, who get to spend half of their time living like a deva in their own celestial mansion, and the other half experiencing the privations of a preta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 18, 2017 4:39 PM
Title: Re: Robe Colors
Content:
http://www.elibrary.ibc.ac.th/files/accesstoinsight/html//lib/authors/thanissaro/bmc2/bmc2.ch02.html

Scroll down to "Robes of the following colors should not be worn..."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 18, 2017 3:55 PM
Title: Re: Who are these Devas responsible for creation?
Content:
In the case of the Nimmānarati devas, I think "creating", rather than, "creation", would more accurately and unambiguously convey the nimmānaṃ component of Nimmānarati.

On the other hand, there are other contexts where the sense would be better conveyed by "creation", or even adjectivally by "creative". For example, issaranimmānahetu in the Devadaha Sutta:
Sace, bhikkhave, sattā issaranimmānahetu sukhadukkhaṃ paṭisaṃvedenti; addhā, bhikkhave, nigaṇṭhā pāpakena issarena nimmitā yaṃ etarahi evarūpā dukkhā tibbā kaṭukā vedanā vediyanti.

“If, monks, the pleasure and pain which creatures undergo are due to creation by an overlord, certainly, monks, the Jains were created by an evil overlord in that they now experience such painful, severe, sharp feelings.”
(I.B. Horner)

If the pleasure and pain that beings feel are caused by the creative act of a Supreme God, then the Nigaṇṭhas surely must have been created by an evil Supreme God, since they now feel such painful, racking, piercing feelings.
(Bodhi)

"If beings experience pleasure &amp; pain based on the creative act of a supreme god, then obviously the Niganthas have been created by an evil supreme god, which is why they now feel such fierce, sharp, racking pains.
(Thanissaro)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 15, 2017 8:21 PM
Title: Re: Interesting thing about the Abhidhammattha Sangaha
Content:
Though the matter isn’t discussed in his extant writings, Anuruddha would almost certainly have gone along with the commentarial understanding of viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ. The commentators did not regard viññāṇaṃ in this context as having anything to do with any sort of consciousness. Rather, they considered viññāṇaṃ in the sense of ‘consciousness’ and viññāṇaṃ in ‘viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ’ as being two homonyms (i.e., words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning). And so according to this view, the one is a noun and the other a modified form of viññātabbaṃ (“should be known”). If we translate viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ according to this understanding, then the correct rendering would be: “the non-manifestive [= Nibbāna] should be known”, rather than the familiar rendering of “non-manifestive consciousness”.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 14, 2017 4:15 AM
Title: Re: Vibration and Vipassana
Content:
The relevant sources here are the Senāsana Sutta's account of the characteristics of a suitable lodging and the Visuddhimagga's list of eighteen faults that make a monastery a place to be avoided by meditators. In neither of these is there any mention of good or bad vibrations (unless by "bad vibrations" one merely means "noise"). Concern about vibrations, whether of people or of places, is a quirk of the U Ba Khin/Sri Goenka tradition that doesn't seem to have any solid foundation in the Pali texts.

https://suttacentral.net/en/an10.11

https://tinyurl.com/hxgp579


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 12, 2017 10:52 PM
Title: Re: A. Brahm's When Does Human Life Begin..?
Content:
To show that one is singular and the other plural.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 12, 2017 10:49 PM
Title: Re: why turn the wheel?
Content:
No, I haven't, but then I'm not very well-versed in Indian archaeology. There are a few mentions of kilns (kumbhakārapāka) in the suttas, but in connection with pot-making rather than brick-making. The Parivīmaṃsana Sutta, for example.

https://suttacentral.net/en/sn12.51


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 12, 2017 7:31 PM
Title: Re: A. Brahm's When Does Human Life Begin..?
Content:
Nobody in this thread has proposed that the gandhabba of the https://suttacentral.net/en/mn38 is the same as the celestial musicians who feature in the SN’s https://suttacentral.net/sn31.

On the other hand, it’s not implausible to suppose that the Buddha’s choice of the word ‘gandhabba’ (rather than any of the other words he might have used) in the Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya Sutta was influenced by the folk belief that gandhabbas (in the celestial musician sense) were in some way connected with fecundity and a successful conception.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 12, 2017 7:09 AM
Title: Re: why turn the wheel?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 12, 2017 12:54 AM
Title: Re: why turn the wheel?
Content:
From the Paṭisambhidāmagga:

‘Dhammacakkan’ ti kenaṭṭhena dhammacakkaṃ? Dhammañca pavatteti cakkañcāti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Wheel of the Dhamma: in what sense ‘Wheel of the Dhamma’? [The Blessed One] sets rolling the Dhamma and that itself is the Wheel, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Cakkañca pavatteti dhammañcāti: dhammacakkaṃ.
He sets rolling both the Wheel and the Dhamma, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhammena pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
He sets rolling by means of the Dhamma, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhammacariyāya pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
He sets rolling by means of the habit of the Dhamma, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhamme ṭhito pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Standing in the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhamme patiṭṭhito pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Established in the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhamme patiṭṭhāpento pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Establishing others in the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhamme vasippatto pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Attained to mastery in the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhamme vasiṃ pāpento pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Making others attain to mastery in the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhamme pāramippatto pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Attained to perfection in the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhamme pāramiṃ pāpento pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Making others attain perfection in the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhamme vesārajjappatto pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Attained to assurance in the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhamme vesārajjaṃ pāpento pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Making others attain assurance in the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhammaṃ sakkaronto pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Honouring the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhammaṃ garuṃ karonto pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Respecting the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhammaṃ mānento pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Revering the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhammaṃ pūjento pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Venerating the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhammaṃ apacāyamāno pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
Reverencing the Dhamma, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhammaddhajo pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
With the Dhamma as his flag, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhammaketu pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
With the Dhamma as his banner, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Dhammādhipateyyo pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
With Dhamma dominant, he sets rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Taṃ kho pana dhammacakkaṃ appaṭivattiyaṃ samaṇena vā brāhmaṇena vā devena vā mārena vā brahmunā vā kenaci vā lokasminti: dhammacakkaṃ.
And that Wheel of the Dhamma is not to be stopped by any samaṇa or brahmin or deva or Māra or Brahmā or by anyone in the world, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

Saddhindriyaṃ dhammo. Taṃ dhammaṃ pavattetīti: dhammacakkaṃ.
The faith faculty is a dhamma and he sets that dhamma rolling, thus it is the Wheel of the Dhamma.

(Repeat for the faculties of energy, mindfulness, concentration and understanding; five powers, seven enlightenment factors, and eightfold path).

(Paṭisam. pp. 159-60)


From the commentaries:

Dhammacakkan ti: desanāñāṇassapi paṭivedhañāṇassapi etaṃ nāmaṃ. Tesu desanāñāṇaṃ lokiyaṃ, paṭivedhañāṇaṃ lokuttaraṃ.

“Wheel of the Dhamma: this is a term for teaching knowledge and realization knowledge. Of these, teaching knowledge is mundane, realization knowledge is supramundane.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 8, 2017 7:32 PM
Title: Re: Gavesī Sutta
Content:
Then he'll be refining his saṃvara in a different order from that prescribed in the Mahā-assapura Sutta. There isn't, however, anything necessarily amiss in that, for the sutta's prescription is aimed at monks. The serious lay practitioner is at liberty to go about such refinement in the order that best suits his disposition and circumstances.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 8, 2017 7:12 PM
Title: Re: Commentary
Content:
From the Atthasālinī (Dhs-a. 325): the non-generation of further rūpa dhammas by the cuticitta of an arahant ("decease-consciousness of saints")...



Expositor II 424a.jpg (430.73 KiB) Viewed 2318 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 8, 2017 5:19 PM
Title: Re: Parinibbana according to the commentary tradition
Content:
This summarizes what can be found in many places in the commentaries. For example, Path of Purification ch. XVI para. 73.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 8, 2017 4:16 PM
Title: Re: Gavesī Sutta
Content:
Observance of the 5, 8, 10, 227 or 311 precepts is a more fundamental restraint (saṃvara) than moderation in eating.

But moderation in eating is a higher / more refined training in restraint than observing the five precepts.

See the Mahā-assapura Sutta.

http://www.leighb.com/mn39.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 7, 2017 1:23 PM
Title: Re: Desert Island books religious/secular/mixture
Content:
Just the Dhamma texts.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 7, 2017 10:58 AM
Title: Re: Does anybody know where I can request some or these chanting books?
Content:
That would increase the likelihood that it is indeed Ed Stauffer's book. Ajahn Suchart, the abbot of Wat Yan, would often come to stay at Wat Boworniwet at the time when Stauffer was a monk there and they stayed in the same section of the wat.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 6, 2017 11:30 PM
Title: Re: POTUS 2016, part 3
Content:
Indeed.

https://youtu.be/rAdUuGsi30g?t=5


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 6, 2017 11:21 PM
Title: Re: Should we change the Sutta, if we find a grey area, to reflect our personal opinion and understanding?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 6, 2017 12:49 PM
Title: Re: I want to read the Visuddhimagga but...
Content:
Kalupahana is referring mainly to Buddhaghosa’s exposition of Abhidhamma; in particular his theory of dhammas and the doctrine of momentariness. He is saying that these were shared by a number of Buddhist schools (which is indisputable) and then hinting that Buddhaghosa may have been influenced by these schools in his own exposition of the dhamma theory and momentariness (which is a more conjectural and controversial, and in my opinion, more doubtful claim). To quote him at greater length than the Wiki article does:
In the commentary on the Dhammasangaṇī, Buddhaghosa makes a very important remark regarding the theory of moments (khaṇa-vāda). He says, “herein, the flowing present (santatipacuppanna) finds mention in the commentaries (atthakathā), the enduring present (addhā-paccuppanna) in the discourses (sutta). Some say (keci vadanti) that the thought existing in the momentary present (khaṇa-paccuppanna) becomes the object of telepathic insight.” This account leaves the upholders of the theory of moments unidentified. The identification was made only by Ānanda, who compiled subcommentaries on Buddhaghosa’s commentaries a few centuries later. The theory, even according to Buddhaghosa, was found neither in the discourses nor in the commentaries preserved at the Mahāvihāra, which Buddhaghosa was using for his own commentaries in Pali. Yet this momentary telepathic insight (khaṇika-samādhi) appears as an extremely important theory in his Visuddhimagga.

Furthermore, Buddhaghosa utilized the theory of moments rather profusely in this and other works, especially in his explanation of the functioning of the mind and of the experience of material phenomena. It is important to note that the application of the theory of moments in explaining insight or intuition was popular in the Mahāyāna schools before and after Buddhaghosa, while its use in the explanation of empirical phenomena was common among the Sarvāstivādins and Sautrāntikas. It is not possible to say whether the monks of the Mahāvihāra were aware of the far-reaching consequences of Buddhaghosa’s adoption of the theory of moments. There is no question that it did change the character of the original teachings introduced by Mahinda immediately after Moggallīputtatissa’s refutation of the heretical views during the third century B.C.
In any case, what Kalupahana notes as being shared with other schools does not include any of those things that made the Mahāyāna so objectionable in the eyes of mainstream Indian Buddhists. For example, it has nothing to do with things like the Mahāyāna’s offensive depiction of the arahant (including some of the Buddha’s greatest arahant disciples), its slide towards antinomianism and superstition, the claimed co-opting of autochthonous spirits and deities, the extravagant multiplication of ritual, the mendacious claims regarding the provenance of its sūtras, etc. etc. Kalupahana’s claim is merely that Buddhaghosa’s Abhidhamma shares some features with other abhidharma systems, including one Mahāyāna one (i.e. that of the Yogācārins). In short, even if Kalupahana is right, it ought not to be a cause for concern.

Here is the chapter in full:


 ./download/file.php?id=3513
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Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 6, 2017 11:11 AM
Title: Re: supernormal powers
Content:
In a Buddhist context the wrong term would be "supernatural", for iddhis, abhiññās and vijjās are conceived as the natural products of certain kinds of mind-development, as opposed to, say, divine gifts.

As for "supernormal", this would be the right term to use in a Buddhist context, for the normal average person does not have these cognitive capacities. Hence the description of them as uttarimanussadhammā, "dhammas exceeding the [merely] human".

See the discussion in chapter IX of Jayatilleke’s http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/Early%20Buddhist%20Theory%20of%20Knowledge_Jayatilleke.pdf.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 5, 2017 4:32 PM
Title: Re: 2 versions of foundations of mindfulness
Content:
I'm afraid I'm not really the person to consult on a matter like this, for I treat the Pali sources as authoritative and I don't do "higher criticism".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 5, 2017 7:28 AM
Title: Re: 2 versions of foundations of mindfulness
Content:
No, it was for virtually the opposite reason. It was to ensure that the Dhamma recited by Ānanda and the Vinaya recited by Upāli would gain acceptance as authoritative on account of its endorsement by the rest of the five hundred arahant bhikkhus. See these links for the Vinaya's account of the two councils...

https://suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-kd21

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 4, 2017 4:38 AM
Title: Re: Looking for a sutta: on visiting monks
Content:
The same list of questions is found also in the DN’s Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda and Lakkhaṇa Suttas. Also in the paracanonical Peṭakopadesa, citing a sutta that's now missing from the Canon.

https://suttacentral.net/en/dn26

https://suttacentral.net/en/dn30


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 4, 2017 3:21 AM
Title: Re: Looking for a sutta: on visiting monks
Content:
“Here, student, some man or woman does not visit a recluse or a brahmin and ask: ‘Venerable sir, what is wholesome? What is unwholesome? What is blameable? What is blameless? What should be cultivated? What should not be cultivated? What kind of action will lead to my harm and suffering for a long time? What kind of action will lead to my welfare and happiness for a long time?’ Because of performing and undertaking such action…he reappears in a state of deprivation…But if instead he comes back to the human state, then wherever he is reborn he is stupid. This is the way, student, that leads to stupidity, namely, one does not visit a recluse or brahmin and ask such questions.

“But here, student, some man or woman visits a recluse or a brahmin and asks: ‘Venerable sir, what is wholesome? What is unwholesome? What is blameable? What is blameless? What should be cultivated? What should not be cultivated? What kind of action will lead to my harm and suffering for a long time? What kind of action will lead to my welfare and happiness for a long time?’ Because of performing and undertaking such action…he reappears in a happy destination…But if instead he comes back to the human state, then wherever he is reborn he is wise. This is the way, student, that leads to wisdom, namely, one visits a recluse or brahmin and asks such questions.

(Cūḷakammavibhanga Sutta)
https://suttacentral.net/en/mn135


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 4, 2017 2:39 AM
Title: Re: Are you using your head or the heart?
Content:
From karuṇā and paññā.
Through his wisdom the bodhisattva perfects within himself the character of a Buddha, through his compassion the ability to perform the work of a Buddha. Through wisdom he brings himself across (the stream of becoming), through compassion he leads others across. Through wisdom he understands the suffering of others, through compassion he strives to alleviate their suffering. Through wisdom he becomes disenchanted with suffering, through compassion he accepts suffering. Through wisdom he aspires for nibbāna, through compassion he remains in the round of existence. Through compassion he enters saṃsāra, through wisdom he does not delight in it. Through wisdom he destroys all attachments, but because his wisdom is accompanied by compassion he never desists from activity that benefits others. Through compassion he shakes with sympathy for all, but because his compassion is accompanied by wisdom his mind is unattached. Through wisdom he is free from "I-making" and "mine-making," through compassion he is free from lethargy and depression.

So too, through wisdom and compassion respectively, he becomes his own protector and the protector of others, a sage and a hero, one who does not torment himself and one who does not torment others, one who promotes his own welfare and the welfare of others, fearless and a giver of fearlessness, dominated by consideration for the Dhamma and by consideration for the world, grateful for favors done and forward in doing favors for others, devoid of delusion and devoid of craving, accomplished in knowledge and accomplished in conduct, possessed of the powers and possessed of the grounds of self-confidence.

(Dhammapāla, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/wheel409.html)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 3, 2017 1:24 PM
Title: Re: A manual of the Dhamma by Ledi Sayadaw
Content:
I was checking to make sure that I'd remembered Ajahn Brahm's argument correctly and discovered that the article in question has now been removed from the Dhammaloka website.

It is still available, however, from Binh Anson's site:

http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha177.htm

It wouldn't surprise me if Ajahn Brahm has now changed his mind on the issue. The dodgy (and absurdly supercilious) article was written many years ago, before his association with monks like Brahmali and Sujāto.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 3, 2017 10:57 AM
Title: Re: A manual of the Dhamma by Ledi Sayadaw
Content:
Yes, I would suppose so.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 3, 2017 9:34 AM
Title: Re: A manual of the Dhamma by Ledi Sayadaw
Content:
Not much of a controversy, really. Virtually all Theravadin teachers, Eastern or Western, hold to the traditional view, which is that stated by venerables Bodhi and Thanissaro. I believe Ajahn Brahm is completely on his own in his quirky contention that the ariyasaṅgha is a subset of the monastic sangha. More to the point, the sole proof he offers doesn’t really prove his point at all. His argument, in a nutshell, is:

1. One of the nine special qualities of the ariyasaṅgha is that it is “worthy of gifts” (dakkhiṇeyya).
2. The bhikkhu and bhikkhunī saṅghas live off gifts, but householders don’t.
3. Therefore the ariyasaṅgha is limited to ariyan bhikkhus and ariyan bhikhunīs; ariyan householders, ariyan devas, ariyan brahmās, etc., are not members of it.

In the Suttas, however, it is not only the ariyasaṅgha that is said to be dakkhiṇeyya. One’s parents are also described in this way. Secondly, even if it were only the ariyasaṅgha that was described as dakkhiṇeyya, the fact that a person is said to be worthy of gifts carries no implication that he is someone who lives off that which he is worthy of. Most parents, for example, don’t live off their children’s gifts.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 28, 2017 8:51 AM
Title: Re: Tea and coffee at temples
Content:
I've never tried the Burmese product.

For three years I lived in a Northern Thai mountain village where it was too high to grow rice and so the main crop was mieng — green tea that's munched like chewing gum with a bit of salt. Despite long and frequent exposure to it, I was never able to acquire a taste for it. To me it's just unbelievably bitter and horrible.



miang.jpg (78.57 KiB) Viewed 7843 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2017 4:25 PM
Title: Re: How common is stream entry?
Content:
There are said to be several stages in the disappearance of the Saddhamma, with two different schemes describing this: one a five-stage one and the other a three-stage one. In both schemes the disappearance of ariyan attainments (adhigama-antaradhāna) is only the first stage.

Then, according to the five-stage scheme...

After the first disappearance there is still practice but it's a practice that's incapable of yielding the highest fruits in the present life. But after some time people give up practising. This is the second disappearance, called paṭipatti-antaradhāna.

Even though practice has disappeared, the scriptures still exist and are still studied. But after some time even study comes to be neglected and disappears. This is pariyatti-antaradhāna.

Nevertheless a remnant of the monastic saṅgha still exists, albeit scarcely more than a token saṅgha, knowing nothing of the Dhamma and hardly observing any Vinaya. But even this eventually disappears. This is called liṅga-antaradhāna. I think liṅga here means something like an outward visible sign of something.

Then, some time after the saṅgha has disappeared the Buddha's bodily relics disappear. This is called disappearance of the elements dhātu-antaradhāna. Only then is the dark age in between Sammāsambuddhas said to begin.

In the three-stage scheme the last two stages are omitted.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2017 10:43 AM
Title: Re: Tea and coffee at temples
Content:
In most Thai and Sri Lankan temples they are permitted to monks and laity alike. In some Burmese temples tea is not permitted after midday for monks or for laity observing the eight precepts. The reason is that it's considered to be a food rather than a medicine because of the Burmese practice of fermenting tea leaves and eating them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 26, 2017 7:08 PM
Title: Re: Wat Dhammakaya
Content:
I don’t think it’s correct to call the terrorist attacks and atrocities in Thailand’s far South “Islamic terror attacks” any more than it would be to call the Thai army’s atrocities there “Buddhist terror attacks”. The perpetrators in the former case are indeed Muslims, but their actions are carried out in the cause of Malayan nationalist separatism, not Islam. In other words, as in the case of Northern Ireland in the 1970's, it's not in essence a religious conflict; rather, it's a political conflict with an exacerbating religious dimension to it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 26, 2017 6:21 PM
Title: Re: Taking refuge in attachment, aversion and ignorance?
Content:
Sorry, I overlooked your reply. Nothing really to add at the moment, though the hindsight narrative suggestion seems an interesting possibility.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 26, 2017 6:05 PM
Title: Re: Are there seven Indriya for an Arahant?
Content:
The indriyas that are cetasikas will take the same ārammaṇa as the citta with which they arise.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 26, 2017 2:52 PM
Title: Re: Are there seven Indriya for an Arahant?
Content:
The article doesn't say this. Rather, the Wiki contributor has offered eye/vision faculty as a translation of cakkhundriya to reflect two competing opinions (one realist and the other phenomenological) as to the nature of these faculties.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 26, 2017 2:46 PM
Title: Re: Are there seven Indriya for an Arahant?
Content:
All four brahmavihāras are dhammas. But what they take as their objects (ārammaṇa) are concepts.

In the case of karuṇā and muditā the ārammaṇa can only ever be a living being.

In the case of adosa (freedom-from-hate) and tatramajjhattatā (neutrality), the ārammaṇa may be either a living being or a saṅkhāra. But when adosa occurs in the mode of mettā-brahmavihāra, or when tatramajjhattatā occurs in the mode of upekkhā-brahmavihāra, the ārammaṇa can only be living beings.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 26, 2017 10:50 AM
Title: Re: Are there seven Indriya for an Arahant?
Content:
Perhaps because the brahmavihāras’s objects (i.e. living beings) are concepts (paññatti), not dhammas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:56 AM
Title: Re: Elements Of Unethical For Verdict 4 (Of 5), 8, 10 Sīla
Content:
It seems to be a google (or some other computer-generated) English translation of a Vietnamese article on Vinaya. This can be seen from the fact that a number of Vietnamese words have been left untranslated and the article is for the most part unintelligible.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 25, 2017 11:44 PM
Title: Re: Are there seven Indriya for an Arahant?
Content:
No. The sense-faculties are rūpa-dhammas generated by past kamma. The spiritual faculties are nāma-dhammas generated by one's encountering various kinds of wholesome influence and having the vāsanā to respond appropriately to them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 25, 2017 5:05 PM
Title: Re: Are there seven Indriya for an Arahant?
Content:
Assuming that I've guessed right, I don't know of any particular text that says what the thera says, but it's something that might be readily inferred from the Abhidhamma's description of these faculties.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 25, 2017 10:47 AM
Title: Re: Phra Khantipalo
Content:
Would you happen to know what became of Susaññā, the Australian nun whom Khantipālo ordained? As a mae chee she came to spend the vassa with us at Wat Pa Ban Tard in 1986. After Khantipālo's disrobing I heard that she had ordained as a sāmaṇerī somewhere, but since then I've lost track of her.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 25, 2017 10:12 AM
Title: Re: Taking refuge in attachment, aversion and ignorance?
Content:
I find your solution a little too easy; more of an explaining away than an explaining. It would be plausible if the Buddha was represented as automatically and instinctively revering the Dhamma from the get-go, but the two suttas don't depict the Buddha's reverence for the Dhamma in this way. They depict it as involving a decision on his part – a decision made as the outcome of some mental deliberation. It wasn't automatic: the newly awakened Gotama had to have a think about it. Though this decision was made not long after his enlightenment, nonetheless, it was made after it. That is to say, it wasn't part and parcel of the enlightenment experience like the paṭisambhidās or the tathāgatabalas. And so on the face of it the suttas seem to be saying that there was an interval in between the enlightenment and the deliberation under the Ajapālanigrodha tree during which the Buddha did not live "honouring, revering, and dwelling in dependence upon the Dhamma alone"; and that this living without an object to revere was a felt lack on his part.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 24, 2017 7:38 PM
Title: Re: Taking refuge in attachment, aversion and ignorance?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 24, 2017 10:43 AM
Title: Re: Sakka
Content:
And for the account in the SN's Sakkasaṃyutta see the following suttas:

Sakka's vows
https://suttacentral.net/en/sn11.11

Sakka's names
https://suttacentral.net/en/sn11.12

The poor man
https://suttacentral.net/en/sn11.14


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 24, 2017 10:34 AM
Title: Re: Sakka
Content:
For the Dhammapada Commentary's account go to the link below and scroll down to "The Story of Magha".

https://www.bps.lk/olib/wh/wh287-p.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 24, 2017 12:53 AM
Title: Re: exact meaning of the fetter "attachment to rites and rituals" & the term "precept"
Content:
It can be either sīla or sikkhāpada ("training clause").

And so for "five precepts" one will meet with both pañca sīlāni (or, as a compound, pañcasīlaṃ) and pañca sikkhāpadāni.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 23, 2017 12:23 PM
Title: Re: Āgama translation questions
Content:
Possibly visaṅkhāra then. In the earliest Pali sources the word is only found in Dhammapada 154.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 23, 2017 9:20 AM
Title: Re: Āgama translation questions
Content:
Do you know what Indic word it translates?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 23, 2017 6:29 AM
Title: Re: How to deal with "found cash"?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 23, 2017 3:19 AM
Title: Re: Which jhanas are nessecary to attain Nibbana?
Content:
It isn't safe to assume this, for to do so entails the further assumption that one can crave only for things that one has experience of, but this latter assumption is empirically false. One can crave, for example, to visit a country that one has never visited before.

What it is safe to assume is that since everyone's attainment of arahatta entails his abandoning of the fetters of rūpa-rāga and arūpa-rāga, the said fetters are in some way inherent in the constitution of the non-arahant.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 22, 2017 1:24 PM
Title: Re: Marine Le Pen and monasticism
Content:
I doubt it.

It may seem quite reasonable to a non-Frenchman that if a niqab counts as an "ostentatious religious symbol", then so should a turban. But the outlook of Le Pen and her people isn't informed by this kind of reasoning. Their outlook is informed by the French Enlightenment conception of the https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/rousseau/#IdeGenWil (volonté générale), or rather, to one particular (and rather extreme) form that this conception has taken. In short, if Le Pen gets her way, niqabs will be banned because lots of French don't like them or the people who wear them. The Sikh turban will not be banned because few French care one way or the other about turbans or the people who wear them. The "ostentatious religious symbol" talk is merely a pretext.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 22, 2017 12:11 PM
Title: Re: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Content:
But I hadn't heard that the Magisterium had declared scrupulosity to be a blameless neurological disorder. Do you have a source for that?

In the Pali commentaries scrupulosity is treated as a mode of the hindrance of worry and a near-enemy of zeal for the training (sikkhākāmatā).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 22, 2017 10:01 AM
Title: Re: Marine Le Pen and monasticism
Content:
I don't think so. I saw an interview with her where the question was posed regarding Catholic nuns. She replied that the law would not apply to "les religieux et les religieuses", meaning monks, priests, nuns or any other professional religious persons who are required to wear special costumes.

The same position was taken by Jacques Myard, a politician from Les Républicains (a centre-right party), who defended the French government's position in the Doha debate on whether France was right to ban the niqab.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 22, 2017 7:31 AM
Title: Re: Pali Term: Nimitta
Content:
The link's dead. Use this:

http://web.archive.org/web/20160410071256/http://www.globalbuddhism.org/15/cox14.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 21, 2017 2:34 PM
Title: Re: The whole body, not the heart, as "seat of consciousness": the Buddha's view
Content:
In the Kiṭāgirisutta, body-witnesses are so called because they contact the list of attainments with their body (kāyena phusitvā). The commentary takes body here as meaning the nāmakāya (i.e. consciousness + all the mental factors except for the jhāna factors themselves), not the rūpakāya:
"kāyena phusitvā" ti sahajātanāmakāyena phusitvā

"Having reached/contacted [the attainment] with the body" means having reached/contacted with the conascent body of mental [factors].
(MA. iii. 191)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 21, 2017 10:53 AM
Title: Re: Is Māra traditionally considered a "deva"?
Content:
I couldn't get the link to work, but this one does:

https://tinyurl.com/zqgfs79

As it's an 11MB file from the very slow website of the University of Peradeniya, if you have problems then try downloading after midnight when the Sri Lankans have gone to bed.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 21, 2017 10:36 AM
Title: Re: Looking for Russian speaking Teachers
Content:
Though the English page doesn't mention it, the Russian page states that there won't be any more courses in Russian because Ajahn Hubert is returning to teach in Latvia.

Do you know where Mae Chee Nadezhda is living nowadays? Last I heard she was acting as assistant teacher to a Russian bhikkhu somewhere in Thailand.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 20, 2017 3:50 PM
Title: Re: Thai police raid Dhammakaya temple in hunt for wanted monk
Content:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1201409/officials-may-be-wishing-monk-has-fled


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 20, 2017 10:35 AM
Title: Re: A people who claims he is arahat and he smokes a lot of cigarettes and drinks coffee
Content:
All of the known Vinayas of Indian Buddhist schools are the same in this matter:

A bhikkhu who believes himself to be an arahant tells a fellow bhikkhu or bhikkhuni of his attainment: no offence.

A bhikkhu who believes himself to be an arahant tells an unordained person of his attainment: a middling offence (pācittiya) that can be cured by confession.

A bhikkhu who knows himself to be not an arahant tells anyone —monastic or householder— that he is an arahant: a defeating offence.

In all cases it’s irrelevant whether the bhikkhu has actually attained anything or not. In the second scenario guilt lies in his disclosure to a householder, while in the third it lies in his intention to deceive.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 19, 2017 7:55 PM
Title: Re: Phra Khantipalo
Content:
He was still alive on 30th November last year.

https://www.facebook.com/Laurence-of-Embracia-1536075609963440/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 19, 2017 7:47 PM
Title: Re: Patisambhidamagga
Content:
Perhaps pirated editions may be available, but not legal ones.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 19, 2017 1:23 PM
Title: Re: Patisambhidamagga
Content:
No.

The Eighteen Kinds of Knowledge of Imperfections

The following are obstacles to concentration:

(i) The internally distracted consciousness of one who follows with mindfulness the beginning, middle, and end of the in-breath.
(ii) The externally distracted consciousness of one who follows with mindfulness the beginning, middle, and end of the out-breath.
(iii) A state of craving consisting of desire for, and expectation of, in-breath.
(iv) A state of craving consisting of desire for, and expectation of, out-breath.
(v) Longing for the obtaining of the out-breath by one wearied by the in-breath.
(vi) Longing for the obtaining of the in-breath by one wearied by the out-breath.
(vii) Consciousness which wavers in regard to the in-breath when one adverts to the sign.
(viii) Consciousness which wavers in regard to the sign when one adverts to the in-breath.
(ix) Consciousness which wavers in regard to the out-breath when one adverts to the sign.
(x) Consciousness which wavers in regard to the sign when one adverts to the out-breath.
(xi) Consciousness which wavers in regard to the out-breath when one adverts to the in-breath.
(xii) Consciousness which wavers in regard to the in-breath when one adverts to the out-breath.
(xiii) Consciousness which runs after the past (breaths) and is attacked by distraction.
(xiv) Consciousness which looks forward to the future (breaths) and is attacked by wavering.
(xv) Slack consciousness attacked by indolence.
(xvi) Over-exerted consciousness attacked by agitation.
(xvii) Consciousness which is attracted and attacked by greed.
(xviii)Consciousness which is discontented and attacked by ill will.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 19, 2017 1:12 PM
Title: Re: Brahmacariyā among the devas
Content:
No. It means that every sound is either intrinsically desirable or undesirable, but beings are unequal in their capacity to discern which it is. If one hears a desirable sound and finds it desirable, then one is perceiving it as it really is, but if one doesn't enjoy it, it's because of mental distortion (vippallāsa). In the stories mentioned in my link, the frog, the parrot and the 500 bats had the requisite accumulations to be able to recognize desirable sounds as desirable and respond appropriately.

And so it's not that the sound itself "produces both wholesome and unwholesome" but that the mental processing of it does.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 19, 2017 12:25 PM
Title: Re: Brahmacariyā among the devas
Content:
As this passage comes from an account of how to practise buddhānussati, recollection of the qualities of the Buddha, I would suppose that it's the Buddha's special ability that it aims to highlight. There are other passages, however, that speak of animals benefiting in one way or another when taught Dhamma even by non-Buddhas. There are a couple of examples mentioned in Rita Langer's Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth.

https://tinyurl.com/zccd6xq


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 19, 2017 12:04 PM
Title: Re: Patisambhidamagga
Content:
I don't think it's really a substitute. The Paṭisambhidāmagga has a lot of helpful material that isn't found in the Visuddhimagga. For example, its description of the eighteen faults (aṭṭhārasa upakkilesa) that may occur in the beginning stage of ānāpānassati isn't mentioned in the Visuddhimagga's account of this method, nor in any other commentary except the Saddhammappakāsinī.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:49 AM
Title: Re: American Exceptionalism
Content:
I asked an Afghan Facebook friend. Apparently they sing the Milli Surood, a Pashto song with a bit of Arabic tacked on at the end. With its listing of all the nation's tribes it reminds me a little of the Anglo-Saxon poem http://www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/Institute/Anglistik/Anglistik_I/Downloads/Archiv/SS_06/VL06_Widsith.pdf. And it's definitely MUCH more exceptional than God Bless America. 

In translation:
This land is Afghanistan
It is the pride of every Afghan 
The land of peace, the land of the sword
Its sons are all brave.

This is the country of every tribe:
Land of Baluch, and Uzbeks,
Pashtoons, and Hazaras,
Turkman and Tajiks with them.
Arabs and Gojars, Pamirian,
Nooristanis, Barahawi, and Qizilbash.
Not to mention the Aimaq and the Pashaye.

This Land will shine for ever
Like the sun in the blue sky 
In the chest of Asia.
It will remain as the heart for ever.
We will follow the one God
We all say, Allah is great!
We all say, Allah is great!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:32 AM
Title: Re: Brahmacariyā among the devas
Content:
The Visuddhimagga on the Buddha’s epithet “Satthā deva-manussānaṃ”.
TEACHER OF GODS AND MEN

He teaches (anusāsati) by means of the here and now, of the life to come, and of the ultimate goal, according as befits the case, thus he is the Teacher (satthar). And furthermore this meaning should be understood according to the Niddesa thus: 

“‘Teacher (satthar)’: the Blessed One is a caravan leader (satthar) since he brings home caravans (sattha). Just as one who brings a caravan home gets caravans across a wilderness, gets them across a robber-infested wilderness, gets them across a wild-beast-infested wilderness, gets them across a foodless wilderness, gets them across a waterless wilderness, gets them right across, gets them quite across, gets them properly across, gets them to reach a land of safety, so too the Blessed One is a caravan leader, one who brings home the caravans, he gets them across a wilderness, gets them across the wilderness of birth” (Nidd. I 446).

Of gods and men: devamanussānaṃ = devānañ ca manussānañ ca (resolution of compound). This is said in order to denote those who are the best and also to denote those persons capable of progress. For the Blessed One as a teacher bestowed his teaching upon animals as well. For when animals can, through listening to the Blessed One’s Dhamma, acquire the benefit of a [suitable rebirth as] support [for progress], and with the benefit of that same support they come, in their second or third rebirth, to partake of the path and its fruition.

Maṇḍūka, the deity’s son, and others illustrate this. While the Blessed One was teaching the Dhamma to the inhabitants of the city of Campā on the banks of the Gaggarā Lake, it seems, a frog apprehended a sign in the Blessed One’s voice. A cowherd who was standing leaning on a stick put his stick on the frog’s head and crushed it. He died and was straight away reborn in a gilded, divine palace, twelve leagues broad in the Tāvatiṃsa heaven. He found himself there, as if waking up from sleep, amidst a host of celestial nymphs, and he exclaimed, “So I have actually been reborn here. What deed did I do?” When he sought for the reason, he found it was none other than his apprehension of the sign in the Blessed One’s voice. He went with his divine palace at once to the Blessed One and paid homage at his feet. Though the Blessed One knew about it, he asked him:

“Who now pays homage at my feet,
Shining with glory of success,
Illuminating all around
With beauty so outstanding?”

“In my last life I was a frog,
The waters of a pond my home;
A cowherd’s crook ended my life
While listening to your Dhamma” (Vv. 49).

The Blessed One taught him the Dhamma. Eighty-four thousand creatures gained penetration to the Dhamma. As soon as the deity’s son became established in the fruition of stream-entry he smiled and then vanished.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 18, 2017 3:55 PM
Title: Re: Brahmacariyā among the devas
Content:
Certainly in the commentaries there are lots of episodes where devas attain stream-entry while listening to a Dhamma talk. As for the Suttas, there are mentions of certain devas being ariyans, but I'm not sure if there are any which describe someone becoming an ariyan as a deva. There might be, but I can't immediately think of one. The Sakkapañha Sutta has Sakka declaring himself to be a stream-entrant, but afaik it's not stated in the Suttas whether he attained sotāpatti as a human or as a deva.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 18, 2017 3:47 PM
Title: Re: Brahmacariyā among the devas
Content:
Fair enough. If you would rather not have the above comment quoted, I'll be happy to delete this thread too. I just thought that this particular point was worth remarking on as the error seems so widespread nowadays.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 18, 2017 12:34 PM
Title: Brahmacariyā among the devas
Content:
Actually, though this is said surprisingly often by certain modern Buddhist teachers, there is no report of the Buddha ever doing so. At the Third Council the Theravādins explicitly rejected the view (propounded by the Sammitīyas) that "there is no living of the brahmacariyā among the devas".

https://suttacentral.net/en/kv1.3


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:10 PM
Title: Re: I am literally on the 8th jhana right now (sarcasm)
Content:
This is how I'm tempted to deal with it...

if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }https://phpbbex.com/ .

But so far I've always managed to resist the temptation. In practice, unless the person specifically sought me out, looking for confirmation, I just wouldn't involve myself with it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 17, 2017 6:20 PM
Title: Re: Five-Māras
Content:
The view that the term 'Māra' is to be understood as having five applications.

In ancient times it was opposed to the views of certain non-Theravadin schools who posited more than five or less than five applications.

Nowadays it's mostly opposed to the views of those modernists who hold that the term is always to be understood figuratively, thereby denying the existence of Māra devaputta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 17, 2017 6:12 PM
Title: Re: POTUS 2020, part 1
Content:
Not in any very obvious way.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 17, 2017 4:30 PM
Title: Re: SN 16.1 Santuṭṭhi Sutta. Content.
Content:
Usually he is referred to in the Suttas as Mahākassapa (= Skt. Mahākaśyapa), though sometimes —as in the present case— it's shortened to Kassapa. This is actually his brahmin clan name; his personal name was Pippali.

http://aimwell.org/DPPN/maha-kassapa_thera.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 17, 2017 12:56 PM
Title: Re: Is Māra traditionally considered a "deva"?
Content:
Your source is actually G.P. Malalasekera's Dictionary of Pali Proper Names. The full entry with endnotes is available from Ven. Pesala's site: http://aimwell.org/DPPN/mara.html

Nyanaponika didn't compile a dictionary, as far as I know. His teacher Nyanatiloka did, and upholds the orthodox five-māra view (i.e. four figurative meanings and one literal):
Māra: (lit. 'the killer'), is the Buddhist 'Tempter-figure. He is often called 'Māra the Evil One' (pāpimā māro) or Namuci (lit. 'the non-liberator', i.e. the opponent of liberation). He appears in the texts both as a real person (i.e. as a deity) and as personification of evil and passions, of the totality of worldly existence, and of death. Later Pāḷiliterature often speaks of a 'fivefold Māra' (pañca-māra): 1. M. as a deity (devaputta-māra), 2. the M. of defilements (kilesa-m.), 3. the M. of the aggregates (khandha-m.), 4. the M. of the kamma-formations (kamma-m.), and 5. Māra as death (maccu-m.).

As a real person, M. is regarded as the deity ruling over the highest heaven of the sensuous sphere (kāmāvacara ),that of the paranimmitavasavatti-devas, the 'deities wielding power over the creations of others' (Com. to M. 1). According to tradition, when the Bodhisatta was seated under the Bodhi-tree, Māra tried in vain to obstruct his attainment of Enlightenment, first by frightening him through his hosts of demons, etc., and then by his 3 daughters' allurements. This episode is called 'Māra's war' (māra-yuddha). For 7 years M. had followed the Buddha, looking for any weakness in him; that is, 6 years before the Enlightenment and one year after it (Sn. v. 446). He also tried to induce the Buddha to pass away into Parinibbāna without proclaiming the Dhamma, and also when the time for the Buddha's Parinibbāna had come, he urged him on. But the Buddha acted on his own insight in both cases. See D. 16.
For (3) M. as the aggregates, s. S. XXIII, 1, 11, 12, 23. See Padhāna Sutta (Sn. v. 425ff.); Māra Saṃyutta (S. IV).

http://www.budsas.org/ebud/bud-dict/dic3_m.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 17, 2017 11:31 AM
Title: Re: POTUS 2020, part 1
Content:
One possible connection is that one can easily imagine the new president launching an economy-boosting scheme like this:
At one time the awakened one, the Lord was staying at Rājagaha in the Bamboo Grove at the squirrels’ feeling-place. Now at that time Vesālī was prosperous and flourishing, full of folk, thronged with people, and it was well off for food; and there were seven thousand seven hundred and seven long houses, and seven thousand seven hundred and seven gabled buildings, and seven thousand seven hundred and seven parks, and seven thousand seven hundred and seven lotus-tanks. There was the courtesan Ambapālī, beautiful, good to look upon, charming, she was possessed of the utmost beauty of complexion, was clever at dancing and singing and lute-playing, much visited by desirous people and she went for a night for fifty, and through her Vesālī shone forth all the more.

Then the urban council of Rājagaha went to Vesālī on some business. The urban council of Rājagaha saw that Vesālī was prosperous and flourishing, full of folk, thronged with people, and well off for food; and (they saw) the seven thousand seven hundred and seven long houses … seven thousand seven hundred and seven lotus-tanks, and Ambapālī, the courtesan, beautiful, good to look upon, charming … and (they saw) that through her Vesālī shone forth all the more. Then the urban council of Rājagaha, having transacted that business in Vesālī, came back again to Rājagaha; they approached King Seniya Bimbisāra of Magadha; having approached they spoke thus to King Seniya Bimbisāra of Magadha:

“Sire, Vesālī is prosperous and flourishing … and through her Vesālī shines forth all the more. It were good, sire, if we too might establish a courtesan.”

“Well now, good sirs, do find such a girl as you might establish as a courtesan.”
(Vin. i. 268)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 16, 2017 4:32 PM
Title: Re: Executive Action of Deportations
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 16, 2017 4:37 AM
Title: Re: The myth of "Sthaviravada"
Content:
That doesn't follow. Mutual intelligibility isn't always a two-way street. Modern Icelanders, for example, can read and readily understand the Old Icelandic verse of Egil Skallagrímsson, the 10th century Viking. But it's highly unlikely that Egil would make any sense of a Halldór Laxness novel. For a start he would be completely flummoxed by all the neologisms.

A speaker of the Vedic language, if presented with, say, a play by Kālidāsa, like Egil Skallagrímsson would have to deal with a mountain of neologisms, but unlike Egil he would also have to confront a radically altered grammar.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 16, 2017 3:39 AM
Title: Re: Nessajika: Sleeping upright not lying down
Content:
Actually the latter appears to have observed almost all of the dhutangas.
https://suttacentral.net/en/thag16.7

Finally, in the MN's Sappurisa Sutta the sitter's practice, along with some other austerities, is included in a list of several good practices that certain monks undertake for bad reasons.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 15, 2017 10:05 AM
Title: Re: more controversial views of theravada buddhism
Content:
Lance Cousins' critical review of Anderson's book is an interesting read:

http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2010/04/cousins0111.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 15, 2017 1:07 AM
Title: Re: Bhikkhu Bodhi on War and Thanissaro's rebuttal
Content:
Actually my first post to this thread wasn’t aimed at suggesting anything. It was a factual correction on a point of history.

And I don’t think you’ve got it quite right about the Assassins' method. It wasn’t that they killed “very violently” (there’s nothing especially violent about using a poison-tipped dagger) that made them feared. Rather, it was the fact that no tyrant or warlord was safe from them. No matter how well you guarded yourself, the Assassins could still find a way to get to you.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:43 AM
Title: Re: Bhikkhu Bodhi on War and Thanissaro's rebuttal
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:13 AM
Title: Re: Killing Rats
Content:
Congratulations.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 14, 2017 8:47 PM
Title: Re: Bhikkhu Bodhi on War and Thanissaro's rebuttal
Content:
As far as I know, venerables Bodhi, Thanissaro and myself are all of one mind in regarding the act of intentional killing as being always an akusala kamma. On this point there's no dispute.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 14, 2017 7:09 PM
Title: Re: Bhikkhu Bodhi on War and Thanissaro's rebuttal
Content:
It has been known to do so.

For about two centuries, the hashashin specialized in assassinating their religious and political enemies. These killings were often conducted in full view of the public and often in broad daylight, so as to instill terror in their foes. Assassinations were primarily carried out with a dagger, which was sometimes tipped with poison. Due to being immensely outnumbered in enemy territory, the hashashin tended to specialize in covert operations. Hashashin would often assimilate themselves in the towns and regions of their targets and, over time, stealthily insert themselves into strategic positions. They did not always kill their targets, however, preferring at times to try to threaten an enemy into submission. This could sometimes be accomplished with a dagger and a threatening note placed on an enemy's pillow. The assassin group was indeed feared enough so that these threats were sometimes taken seriously, as in the case when Saladin, the Muslim Sultan of Egypt and Syria, made an alliance with the rebel sect in order to avoid more attempts on his life. One of these attempts involved the Assassins placing a poisoned cake on Saladin's chest as he slept, with a warning note to desist from his military exploits.

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 13, 2017 10:37 AM
Title: Re: Principles of right speech in argumentation
Content:
Sorry, I haven't kept a record of the links. I could probably find them with Google, but so could you.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 13, 2017 8:48 AM
Title: Re: Principles of right speech in argumentation
Content:
When Theravada monks disagree about a point of Dhamma or Vinaya, they may well debate the matter, but nowadays it's seldom that the debate will be in the public arena, except of course when it takes the form of publishing articles. A few examples in recent years:

Thanissaro vs. Anālayo on bhikkhuni ordination.
Bodhi vs. Thanissaro on war.
Critics of Ñāṇavīra vs. proponents of Ñāṇavīra.
Proponents of Thanissaro's view of jhāna vs. proponents of Brahmavaṃso's view.
Sujāto vs. Winton Higgins on secular Buddhism.

Etc.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 13, 2017 8:21 AM
Title: Re: AN 10.177 Jāṇussoṇī Sutta. To Janussonin.
Content:
The sutta says that it's possible to benefit beings in the peta/preta realm and nowhere else. 

The Milindapañha narrows it down further, stating that there are four kinds of peta, of which only one, the paradattūpajīvī, is able to benefit from the gifts of humans.
“Three of the four classes of peta do not receive it: those who feed on what has been vomited up, those who are tormented by hunger and thirst, those who are consumed by craving.” (Mil. 294)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 12, 2017 9:13 PM
Title: Re: What are 18 types of perceptios (Sanna)?
Content:
In the Tipiṭaka it's only in the Paṭisambhidāmagga that all eighteen are collated, especially in the opening chapter, the Ñāṇakathā. Individually, or in smaller numerical groups, many also appear in various suttas of the Aṅguttara Nikāya.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 12, 2017 2:05 PM
Title: Re: Does anybody know where I can request some or these chanting books?
Content:
I’m not 100% sure, but I believe it’s one that was compiled by the American Ed Stauffer when he was a monk at Wat Boworniwet from 1985-7. After he disrobed he set up a computer typesetting company in Bangkok and printed a few copies of the book. I don’t think it will be easy to get hold of a copy now, but if you want to get in touch with Ed (assuming he’s still alive), his company is/was called COMSET Ltd.

May I ask where you encountered it?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 12, 2017 11:51 AM
Title: Re: Mahadma Agama and other Mahayana texts
Content:
It can be downloaded from the translator's personal website.

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Translations/PlatformSutra_McRaeTranslation.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 12, 2017 11:30 AM
Title: Re: Anger Rebound During Metta?
Content:
In the Brahmavihāra chapter of the Visuddhimagga, Buddhaghosa describes ten different ways for bringing about the subsidence of anger that may arise while practising mettabhāvanā. His account conveniently collates and expands upon most of what is said about this in the Suttas. You might try experimenting with these until you find which one works best for you.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanamoli/PathofPurification2011.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 12, 2017 11:10 AM
Title: Re: Great Doubt
Content:
Sure there’s room for tentativeness. It is for the tentative, the hesitant and the sceptical that the https://suttacentral.net/en/mn60 is intended. In this sutta, one whose doxastic commitment is spurred by consideration of “lucky throws” and “unlucky throws” is certainly being tentative, yet the Buddha calls her “wise”.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 12, 2017 8:35 AM
Title: Re: Great Doubt
Content:
Yes, they undoubtedly were, but I think for the most part this didn't result in any serious misrepresentation of the Buddha's teaching. Mostly it just entailed the translators' use of terms that would nowadays strike a person well-informed about Buddhism as a bit odd or even funny. For example, the translation of vassa-vasāna as "Buddhist Lent" or sāmaṇera as "deacon".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 11, 2017 8:12 PM
Title: Re: Killing Rats
Content:
These threads always remind me of Jasper Carrott's "I've got this mole..." sketch.


if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }https://phpbbex.com/ .


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 11, 2017 8:03 PM
Title: Re: Killing Rats
Content:
The secret (as I learned from a visiting thudong monk) is to lightly toast the ball of sticky rice over a candle flame before attaching it to the dangling pin. Doing it this way I would catch a rat virtually every night and the captures only came to an end when the whole family had been safely removed.

I also made a modification to the trap by using a hacksaw to cut off the bottom quarter inch of the trapdoor. The resulting gap is too small for the trapped rat to escape through, but it ensures that its tail doesn't get damaged when the door snaps shut.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 11, 2017 5:39 PM
Title: Re: Contemporary threats to free speech
Content:
Hi Lyndon,

You say that a lot of them don't impress you. Would I be right then in concluding that at least some of them do impress you?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 11, 2017 11:05 AM
Title: Re: Killing Rats
Content:
It's not bad, but why waste olive oil, which costs a fortune in Thailand, when the most common of the country's non-lethal traps will cost you only one little lump of sticky rice per rat?



1.jpg (41.73 KiB) Viewed 2679 times





2.jpg (63.83 KiB) Viewed 2679 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 11, 2017 7:53 AM
Title: Re: Great Doubt
Content:
I don't think this is something that is generally the case, though it might be justly said in connection with the Vajrayana and certain teachers in the Thai forest tradition.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 11, 2017 7:28 AM
Title: Re: I have attained the fruition of Anagami
Content:
The member hasn't logged in for the last fortnight.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 10, 2017 2:32 PM
Title: Re: Contemporary threats to free speech
Content:
Have you any notions as to what may have caused this decline in civility?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 10, 2017 12:09 PM
Title: Re: Great Doubt
Content:
May I first of all ask whether the following would be a fair statement of your present position:

• The Buddha teaches the cutting off of greed, hate and delusion as the highest aim for a sentient being.
• The course of practice that this entails is represented by a rich variety of imagery, whose tropes include the botanical, the horticultural, the mercantile, the gastronomic, etc. Then in some Suttas the tropes are martial – relating to success in battle and suchlike.
• What is martial is violent.
• Therefore the cutting off of greed, hate and delusion is violent.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 9, 2017 8:56 PM
Title: Re: Contemporary threats to free speech
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 9, 2017 7:50 PM
Title: Re: Great Doubt
Content:
First of all, why does the Buddha give similes or metaphors of any sort? The answer is that sometimes he gives a simile because a disciple specifically requests that he do so. More often, however, a simile is given unsolicited. On these occasions the Buddha usually justifies his doing so with the stock phrase; “... because some intelligent people here understand the meaning of what is said by means of a simile.” As far as I know, the texts (the Pali ones at least) don’t delve into the question of precisely why some intelligent people understand things more readily this way. (Though the attached file below may give you some ideas about this). For our present purposes, however, the explanation for their efficacy doen’t really matter. All that matters is that some persons in the Buddha’s audience understood things better when they were presented in figurative terms.

That being so, the frequency of martial subjects as the vehicle of comparison in the Suttas’ similes and metaphors may be credited to the Buddha’s having a substantial number of followers who would best understand a teaching when it was presented to them using tropes of this sort. That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise when we look at the list of the Buddha’s most prominent disciples and observe how many of them were of kshatriya upbringing.

________________________________

Theories of metaphor, from M.H. Abrams' A Glossary of Literary Terms (10th edition)


 ./download/file.php?id=3460
(90.57 KiB) Downloaded 7 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 9, 2017 12:15 PM
Title: Re: Great Doubt
Content:
The absence of violence. "No sentient beings were harmed in the making of this movie."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 9, 2017 11:39 AM
Title: Re: Great Doubt
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 9, 2017 11:13 AM
Title: Re: Sutta which teachers meditation on a flower
Content:
It sounds like the Dhammapada Commentary's background stories to Dhammapada 285 &amp; 377.

http://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/English-Texts/Buddhist-Legends/20-09.htm

http://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/English-Texts/Buddhist-Legends/25-08.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 9, 2017 10:53 AM
Title: Re: Visuddhimagga Summary?
Content:
For the Sīla section there is Damien Keown's article Morality in the Visuddhimagga.

http://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8593


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 9, 2017 9:51 AM
Title: Re: Monotheistic religions are the productions of Mara (Devil)
Content:
The Buddha isn't reported to have met any of the six prominent samaṇa teachers of his day, but it's only in the case of Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta that any reason is given for the failure to meet. As the Dhammapada Atthakathā has it:

Now it was a distinguishing trait of the Elder Sāriputta that he always held a teacher in profound respect. Therefore said he to his friend, “Friend, let us inform our teacher, the wandering ascetic Sañjaya, that we have attained the Deathless. Thus will his mind be awakened, and he will comprehend. But should he fail to comprehend, he will at any rate believe what we say to be true; and so soon as he has listened to the preaching of the Buddhas, he will attain the Path and the Fruit.”
Accordingly the two wandering ascetics went to Sañjaya. When Sañjaya saw them, he asked, “Friends, did you succeed in finding anyone able to show you the Way to the Deathless?”
“Yes, teacher, such a one have we found. The Buddha has appeared in the world, the Law has appeared, the Order has appeared. You, sir, are walking in vain unreality. Come, sir, let us go to the Teacher.”
“You may go; I cannot go.”
“For what reason?”
“In the past I have gone about as a teacher of the multitude. For me to become a pupil again would be as absurd as for a chatty to go to the well. I shall not be able to live the life of a pupil.”
“Do not act thus, teacher.”
“Never mind, friends, you may go, but I cannot go.”
“Teacher, from the moment of the Buddha’s appearance in the world the populace will take perfumes, garlands, and so forth in their hands and will go and do honor to him alone. Let us also go there. What do you intend to do?”
“Friends, which are more numerous in this world, the stupid or the wise?”
“Teacher, the stupid are many, the wise are few.”
“Well then, friends, let the wise men go to the wise monk Gotama, and let the stupid come to stupid me. You may go, but I shall not go.”
“You will become a famous man, teacher!” said his two former pupils, and departed.
(tr. Burlingame, Buddhist Legends)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 8, 2017 10:17 AM
Title: Re: Alternatives to "moments"
Content:
But they are already alienated, simply by virtue of their membership of a different canonical community.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 7, 2017 9:40 PM
Title: Re: Hello from darkest Yorkshire
Content:
From one Yorkshireman to another, welcome to Dhamma Wheel. I hope it will prove valuable for you.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 7, 2017 5:48 AM
Title: Re: Looking for a meditation group in Bristol, UK
Content:
The Buddhist Directory at http://www.buddhanet.net lists just two Theravadin groups in Bristol. One is affiliated with the Samatha Trust, while the other describes itself as a vipassanā group, affiliated with Gaia House, which meets regularly at a Quaker meeting house. It doesn't say which vipassanā tradition it is affiliated with, but you might find the answer on one of these sites:

http://www.bristolmeditation.org.uk/

http://gaiahouse.co.uk/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 6, 2017 11:14 PM
Title: Re: Killing Rats
Content:
If the pet-owner is so spectacularly ill-informed about ophidian ethology that he honestly expects the python's interest in the rat to be recreational rather than gastronomic, then I suppose we must acquit him of blame in the event of the rat's premature demise.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 6, 2017 9:06 PM
Title: Re: Killing Rats
Content:
The only sort of pet-keeping that would perforce entail breaking the first precept is where the animal is of a kind that needs to be fed live prey, such as a pogona or a boa constrictor.

As for breaking the first precept "by implication", there isn't any such thing. Either the transgressional factors of object, perception, intention, effort and outcome are present in their entirety or they’re not. In the case of the typical cat fancier or dog lover, there's no particular reason for any of the factors to arise on account of their pet.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 6, 2017 8:18 PM
Title: Re: Arabic Language
Content:
You might also put your query to Arjuna Pranidhi Uddiyana, the editor of the Arabic section at the Berzin Archives. Though the Archives are actually Vajrayanist in orientation, nevertheless their materials tend to treat the Theravada much more fairly and accurately than is usually the case with Tibetan outfits.

https://www.facebook.com/Pure.Aspiration

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVwS9VRonC7B1QaRKVassxQ


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 6, 2017 8:04 PM
Title: Re: Killing Rats
Content:
When one sets a lethal rat trap because one wishes to kill a rat, there is no possibility of the first precept not being broken should a rat be killed by it.

Keeping a dog or a cat, on the other hand, is something that one might do in the hope that its mere presence would deter the rats. Of course if one acquired the animal in the hope that it will kill rats, then I suppose it wouldn't be any different from setting a lethal trap. Likewise, if one saw a rat and ordered the dog to kill it, then it wouldn't be any different from hiring a contract killer.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 6, 2017 6:28 PM
Title: Re: Arabic Language
Content:
https://think2behumain.blogspot.com/2016/06/pdf_85.html
The Dhammapada. Translated by Saadi Youssef

https://think2behumain.blogspot.com/2016/06/pdf_60.html
Claude B. Levenson, Le Bouddhisme. Translated by Muhammad Ali


I expect there’ll be more. The places to look are sites https://kotobmamno3a.wordpress.com/ which specialize in etexts of books that are banned in some Arab-speaking countries. Unfortunately this will mean wading through dozens of texts relating to evangelical Christianity, anti-Islamic polemics, and defences of the theory of evolution.  

Alternatively you might try searching for the word الدامابادا (“al-Damapada”). The Dhammapada is available from several hundred Arabic sites and some of them may have other Buddhist texts too.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 6, 2017 12:13 PM
Title: Re: America First
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 6, 2017 6:25 AM
Title: Re: Alternatives to "moments"
Content:
It is to be found in many texts that predate the Visuddhimagga. For example, the Mahāniddesa, Apadāna and Paṭisambhidāmagga of the Suttanta Piṭaka; the Kathāvatthu, Yamaka and Paṭṭhāna of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka. Not to mention its pre-Visuddhimagga occurrences in the works of non-Theravādin schools.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 5, 2017 5:08 PM
Title: Re: Bai Sutthi?
Content:
It depends how temporary it is. For example, if it's just a weekend ordination to make merit for your mum at her funeral then most abbots won't bother, but for a 3-month vassa ordination they usually will.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 5, 2017 4:53 PM
Title: Re: How did historical Buddha looked like?
Content:
In the suttas its provenance is given as Brahmanic rather than Shramanic; it's said to be found in the brahmins' hymns. Then according to Buddhaghosa, prognostication by the 32 marks is taught to brahmins by devas from the Suddhāvāsa shortly before the birth of each Buddha or cakkavatti-rājā, so that they'll be able to recognize them. But then after each Buddha's parinibbāna the science quickly falls into desuetude and disappears.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 5, 2017 11:02 AM
Title: Re: In orthodox Theravada is there such a thing as physical/material?
Content:
Indeed.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 4, 2017 11:46 PM
Title: Re: Misunderstanding the Buddha
Content:
.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 4, 2017 10:18 PM
Title: Re: Killing Rats
Content:
Well, the idea is to select a spayed female of the kind of breed that will be content to stay in the house (though not so passive that she won't bother to hunt). An American shorthair or a Chinese Li Hua, for example.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 4, 2017 4:06 PM
Title: Re: Killing Rats
Content:
Have you considered getting a cat? With the right sort its mere presence should keep the rats at bay.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 3, 2017 6:03 PM
Title: Re: Is the End of Suffering Actually Possible?
Content:
He may appear angry to you, but actually it's quite possible to deliver a stern and strongly-worded reprimand without being inwardly angry at all. Ask any school teacher.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 3, 2017 7:03 AM
Title: Re: The Two Wheels
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 3, 2017 5:27 AM
Title: Re: The Two Wheels
Content:
At E-sangha he used to say that they could incarnate as medicinal herbs. The source in both cases is Mahayana —Shantideva— though I don't think most Mahayanists would go for M's hyper-literalist reading of what is surely intended as poetry:

I am the protector of the unprotected and the caravan-leader for travellers. I have become the boat, the causeway, and the bridge for those who long to reach the further shore.

May I be a light for those in need of light. May I be a bed for those in need of rest. May I be a servant for those in need of service, for all embodied beings.

For embodied beings may I be the wish-fulfilling jewel, the pot of plenty, the spell that always works, the potent healing herb, the magical tree that grants every wish, and the milch cow that supplies all wants.
(Bodhicaryavatara III. 17-19)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 2, 2017 7:45 PM
Title: Re: Pure Land Buddhism and the Pali Canon
Content:
Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.

May I ask what kind of Pure Land Buddhist you are? I seem to detect in your post a mélange of three rather different (though not necessarily discordant) perspectives on this strand of Mahayanism: the Shin, the mainland East Asian, and the Tantric.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 2, 2017 7:11 PM
Title: Re: Dispeller of Delusion; Chapt. 16, Classification of Knowledge
Content:
In Sutta usage, the terms attano kammaṃ (“one’s action”), sakakammaṃ (“one’s own action”) and attanā kataṃ kammaṃ (“action done by oneself”) are synonymous and one will indeed find them applied to wholesome and unwholesome actions alike.

In the commentaries, however, in some contexts the word saka has a connotation that is not adequately conveyed by the usual translation “one’s own”. The connotation is that the thing in question is not only one’s own but that it is suitable and fitting for oneself. Unwholesome actions, inasmuch as they obstruct flourishing, conduce to pain, etc., are not “fitting for oneself” (saka) even though they may be “one’s own” (attano). [*]

Let me therefore propose an alternative translation to Ñāṇamoli’s:

Herein, the three kinds of bodily bad conduct, the four kinds of verbal bad conduct and the three kinds of mental bad conduct are not called ‘kamma appropriate for oneself’. The ten kinds of good conduct in the three doors is called ‘kamma appropriate for oneself’. Whether it is [done] by oneself (attanā) or by another, all unprofitable [kamma] is not called ‘kamma appropriate for onself’. Why not? Because it destroys benefit (attha) and promotes harm. Whether it is [done] by oneself or by another, all profitable [kamma] is called ‘kamma appropriate for onself’. Why? Because it destroys harm and promotes good.

_______________________________

[*] The commentarial use of saka might be profitably compared with that of the Latin proprius, which etymologically is the source not only of ‘property’ (i.e., that which one owns), but also of ‘proper’ (i.e., correct and suitable).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 2, 2017 2:36 PM
Title: Re: Original teachings of the Buddha
Content:
Ko pana vādo paccuppannassa!

This is a phrase used in many suttas in the SN’s Khandhavagga and Saḷāyatanavagga. The “Ko pana vādo...” part is an idiom used for expressing rhetorical questions regarding something that the speaker deems to be obvious. Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation of it is unfortunately a bit flat and doesn’t really express the rhetorical force. For example:
Cakkhuṃ, bhikkhave, aniccaṃ atītānāgataṃ; ko pana vādo paccuppannassa!

“Bhikkhus, the eye is impermanent, both of the past and the future, not to speak of the present.” (Bodhi)
The sense might be better conveyed by:
“Bhikkhus, both the eye of the past and the eye of the future are impermanent. Why even bother to speak of the eye of the present?”
When translated so, the implication is that the impermanence of the eye in the present is of a kind more evident than that of the eye of the past and the eye of the future. Why should that be so? The Theravada answer to this question (based on the verses in the MN’s http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.131.nana.html) is that the eye of the past has ceased to be, or more literally, it’s been “left behind” (yad’atītaṃ taṃ pahīnaṃ), while the eye of the future “is as yet unreached” (appattaṃ anāgataṃ). And so the impermanence of the one is knowable only via memory and that of the other via inference. The eye of the present, by contrast, is neither left behind nor unreached.

Unsurprisingly then, the impermanence of the eye in the three times is to elicit different responses in the disciple:
“Seeing thus, bhikkhus, the instructed noble disciple is indifferent towards the eye of the past; he does not seek delight in the eye of the future; and he is practising for revulsion towards the eye of the present, for its fading away and cessation.”
Notice that it is non-action that is advocated regarding the eye of the past and future. It is the eye of the present alone that can be acted upon, for it is this eye alone that exists. Likewise with the other āyatanas and (in the Khandhavagga) the khandhas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 2, 2017 3:29 AM
Title: Re: Original teachings of the Buddha
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 1, 2017 4:16 PM
Title: Re: Original teachings of the Buddha
Content:
By Mahāyāna Āgamas I take it you mean the Dīrgha-, Madhyama-, Saṃyukta and Ekottara-āgamas, right? But if so, why do you call them Mahāyāna Āgamas?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 31, 2017 7:12 PM
Title: Re: POTUS 2016, part 3
Content:
From Sam White's blog...

ANTI-TRUMP FURY AND PROGRESSIVE&nbsp;PREJUDICE

[...]

... Or how about Sunday Times writer India Knight? She got the ball rolling with a light-hearted, homicide-themed tweet. Subsequently deleted, it read “The assasination is taking such a long time.”

Having garnered&nbsp;attention but turned off anyone who isn’t so much into political murder, she then came out with this stunning&nbsp;piece of anti-Islamic stereotyping:



India.jpg (81.24 KiB) Viewed 2067 times


“He” refers to Trump, and according to outraged, trigger-happy Knight, Muslims are so thin-skinned and eager to blow things up that they can be radicalized in their hundreds just by listening to the American president speak. In her world, followers of Islam&nbsp;might be liable to kill people whose politics they disagree with. And bizarrely, just like Nanjiani, she is implying this as part of her argument&nbsp;against&nbsp;Trump’s order.

Liberal progressives who like to throw around accusations of bigotry and racism are sometimes&nbsp;in possession of their own disguised prejudices. They mask them behind platitudes, while&nbsp;exchanging virtue signals with their co-saints. But as the above tweets show, you don’t have to look hard to see their true nature. It’s revealed not in expressions of hatred, but in conspicuous compassion, through patronising&nbsp;vast groups of people, by blurring individuals into demographic blocks, and through the simpering low expectations inherent in the fallacy of cultural relativism.

A concern now is that the mixture of virtue signalling, exaggeration, and&nbsp;ramped up outrage we’ve seen over the past couple of days sets the tone for the rest of Trump’s time in office, and distracts from the real details. Perhaps more than any previous president,&nbsp;he must be held scrupulously to account. But there’s only so much right-on fury that normal people can stomach, and placard wielding, angry&nbsp;marches are limited in both usefulness and wider appeal.

If the anti-Trump rage&nbsp;never subsides, and is accompanied by a constant undercurrent of physical menace, then it will quickly become little more than white noise, and would-be allies will start to melt away. Those who really want to make sure that Trump is kept under close scrutiny need to stick to the facts, cut out the radical posturing, and try to keep their emotions in check.


https://upallnight.tokyo/2017/01/31/anti-trump-fury-and-progressive-prejudice/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 31, 2017 4:13 PM
Title: Re: Original teachings of the Buddha
Content:
In mainland Indian Buddhism, both mainstream and Mahāyāna, the Theravāda was referred to by other names, usually either https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibhajyav%C4%81da or names like Tambapaṇṇiya, Tāmraparṇīya and Tāmraśāṭiya, derived from http://ocbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Tambapan%CC%A3n%CC%A3iya-and-Ta%CC%84mras%CC%81a%CC%84t%CC%A3iya.pdf.

As for the name 'Theravāda' (or its Sanskrit cognate), this was generally used in mainland India in the same way that it's used in Pali chronicles like the Dīpavaṃsa, i.e., as a collective name for all of the non-Mahāsaṅghika schools.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 31, 2017 8:08 AM
Title: Re: Sources on the manipulation of sila
Content:
The meaning of your question seems a little opaque to me. Could you perhaps phrase it some other way?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 30, 2017 3:48 PM
Title: Re: Please tell me more about Theravada Buddhism
Content:
I'm an occasional reader of several Thai-language Dhamma forums. They're actually not much different from Dhamma Wheel. The content of the discussions is substantially similar to here, with the only conspicuous difference being the manner of interaction between members. Dhamma discussion among Thai Buddhists is generally more akin to a ballroom dance than to a debate.

For what the OP seems to be looking for it might be better to check out a forum for Thai amulet enthusiasts. Most of these are in Thai, but there is an English one here:

https://amuletforums.com/

Edit

I mean in particular the General Buddhism sub-forum of the above:

https://amuletforums.com/forums/general-buddhism.17/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 22, 2017 10:44 PM
Title: Re: Linguistics Reason: Ananda Memorized Sutta For The Other, But Sariputta Memorized Abhidhamma That Buddha Directly Ta
Content:
I think you have jumped to a wrong conclusion here. Our member Buddha Vacana is from France and (as far as I know) has no connection with the พุทธวจนะ organization of Phra Kukrit Sotthiphalo in Thailand. Nor (as far as I know) does Buddha Vacana make any use of the พุทธวจนะ organization's software application. That they are both called "Buddhavacana" is just a coincidence.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 31, 2016 4:30 AM
Title: Re: Pali Term: Satipaṭṭhāna
Content:
The conjecture will no doubt serve well as an edifying (albeit ersatz) folk etymology, but as far as historical philology goes it's quite untenable.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 31, 2016 4:21 AM
Title: Re: POTUS 2016, part 3
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 31, 2016 4:03 AM
Title: Re: Recieved alcohol as gift
Content:
http://phickle.com/wine-vinegar-how-to/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 30, 2016 5:55 PM
Title: Re: POTUS 2016, part 3
Content:
While I don’t think you’re “completely deluded”, I do think it might pay you to be more discriminating in your choice of English dictionary, especially when it comes to highly polysemous idiomatic verbs. On the website that you linked to the only entry that was anywhere near satisfactory was #4 from the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms (which you didn’t quote).

To conclude, here is the Oxford lexicographers’ full list:
to turn out


1. Turn out. (See simple senses and out adv.) 
2. To change from one’s normal condition, to ‘put out’; or to divert from one’s course.
3. To cause to go or come out; to drive out or forth, to expel; also, to fetch or summon out.
4. To drive or put out (beasts) to pasture or to the open, or (pheasants, etc.) into a covert.
5. To dismiss or eject from office or employment. 
6. To put (things) out of a house, room, or receptacle; to empty out by sloping or inverting the containing vessel. 
7. To clear (a receptacle or room) of its contents; to empty (usually for the sake of examining or re-arranging the contents). 
8. To put or throw (land) out of cultivation. 
9. To put out, extinguish (a lamp, gas) by turning a tap or the like. 
10. To finish making and get off one’s hands; to dispose of as a finished product; to produce (usually implying rapidity, facility, or skill). 
11. To equip, ‘rig out’, ‘get up’. 
12. To refer to, look up: = turn up.
13. To alter the position of so as to bring it to the outside. (In quot. with figurative allusion.) 
14. To direct or cause to point outwards. 
15. To turn aside and go out; to go away, depart, ‘clear out’; to go forth, sally forth (usually with the notion of some compelling force, or of leaving a place of safety or comfort for one of danger or discomfort). 
15. To get out of bed. 
16. To leave one’s abode and betake oneself to some outside occupation. spec. (Austral. slang) to become a bush-ranger. 
17. To abandon one’s work; to go out on strike. 
18. To bend or be directed outwards. (intr. of n.) 
19. To come about in the end or issue; to result, eventuate. Now always with adv., advb. phr., or as; †also absol. (obs. rare: nearly = turn up).
20. To come to be, become ultimately (and so be found or known to be).
21. To be ultimately found or known, to prove to be (without the implication of having become).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:57 PM
Title: Re: Mount Meru/"Sumeru"
Content:
The mountain is present in the Tipiṭaka but infrequent. Of its seven Pali names, Neru is mentioned once in the Apadāna and four times in the Jātaka verses, Sineru five times in the Saṃyutta and five times in the Anguttara, Meru twice in the Jātaka, Tidiva once in the Cariyāpiṭaka, twice in the Jātaka and once in the Vimānavatthu; Sumeru, Ādhāra and Tidivādhāra are found only in the Commentaries.

The Pali commentarial elaboration goes into about the same amount of detail that you’ll find in, say, Vasubandhu and his commentators. The material has had considerable influence on the representation of Buddhist cosmology in SE Asian Buddhist art, but doesn’t seem to play a prominent part (if any) in the way the Dhamma is nowadays expounded in Theravada countries.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 30, 2016 3:39 PM
Title: Re: Bhikkhu nissaya training
Content:
No reason is given for prescribing this particular duration.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 30, 2016 2:23 PM
Title: Re: Pali Term: Satipaṭṭhāna
Content:
The ‘upaṭṭhāna’ or ‘paṭṭhāna’ in ‘satipaṭṭhāna’ have no connection with either of the above words, no matter which of the possible derivations one opts for:

Most likely derivation: upaṭṭhāna = upa + √ṭhā

Less likely: paṭṭhāna = pa + √ṭhā

Least likely: upaṭṭhāna = u + pa + √ṭhā

The elements pa, u and upa are verbal prefixes (upasagga), not nouns. Duroiselle summarises their principal meanings:

U (= Skt. ud): upwards, above, up, forth, out.

Upa: unto, to, towards, near, with, by the side of, as, like, up to, (opposed to apa), below, less.

Pa (= Skt. pra): onward, forward to, forth, fore, towards, with. It expresses beginning.

But he also remarks:
The prefixes or prepositions, called in Pāli upasagga, are prefixed to verbs and their derivatives; they have been, on that account, called verbal prefixes. They generally modify the meaning of the root, or intensify it, and sometimes totally alter it; in many cases, they add but little to the original sense of the root.
Charles Duroiselle, A Practical Grammar of the Pāli Language
Some examples of word-modification with the above prefixes...

u

√khip, to throw = ukkhipati, to throw up, get rid of; ukkhepanaṃ, excommunication.
√chid, to cut = ucchindati, to cut off.
√ṭhā, to stand = uṭṭhahati, to stand up, rise, uṭṭhānaṃ, rising.
√har, to take = uddharati, to draw out. uddharaṇaṃ, pulling out.

The prefix u also reverses the meaning of a few verbs:
√pat, to fall = uppatati, to leap up, spring up.
√nam, to bend = unnamati, to rise up, ascend.

upa

√kaḍḍh to drag = upakaḍḍhati, to drag or draw towards, to draw below or
down.
√kar, to do = upakaroti, to do something towards unto; viz, to help, upakāro,
help, use; upakaraṇaṃ, instrument (lit. doing with).
√kam to step, go = upakkamati, to attack, (lit. to go towards).

pa

√bhā, to shine = pabhāti to shine forth, to dawn. pabhā, radiance.
√bhū, to be = pabhavati, to begin to be, viz., to spring up, to originate.
√jal, to burn = pajjalati, to burn forth, to blaze.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 30, 2016 12:15 PM
Title: Re: Past Buddhas and Earth
Content:
For details of the past Buddhas see the two tables in Rhys Davids' translation of the Mahāpādāna Sutta.
https://suttacentral.net/en/dn14

For the Buddha Metteyya see the Cakkavattīsīhanāda Sutta.
https://suttacentral.net/en/dn26


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 29, 2016 7:07 AM
Title: Re: Sex positive movement
Content:
Oh? It's hard to imagine a rabble being very much roused by Prof. Pepper's cerebral blend of Marx according to Althusser, Freud according to Lacan, and the grace-based Buddhism of Shinran Shōnin. I doubt many among the rabble would even understand it; I certainly don't.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 28, 2016 7:50 PM
Title: Re: Trump vs. Bush
Content:
Yes, the forenames would be of assistance here. I was just about to compose a disquisition on the relative merits of Percy Bush and Harvey Trump, when it suddenly struck me that the OP might not in fact be referring to these two British cricketers but rather to some other Bush and Trump of a less glorious stripe.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 26, 2016 4:19 PM
Title: Re: The case against Reality
Content:
I don't think it's a terribly common position, but assuming that 'blame' here means 'attribute to', then among British philosophers the description would fit one or two of the Cambridge Platonists, all the Berkelians (i.e., Berkeley himself, A.A. Luce, Arthur Collier, and —in their juvenilia— Alexander Campbell Fraser and Thomas Reid), and then a few modern oddballs like the mystically inclined Paul Brunton and the unmystical John Foster.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 26, 2016 3:38 PM
Title: Re: Sex positive movement
Content:
Thanissaro's translation of the line isn't quite right. Bhikkhu Bodhi's rendering of modanti kāmakāmino as "they rejoice, enjoying sensual pleasures" is more accurate.

It means that those living as described will enjoy celestial pleasures in the next life. The teaching, however, has no bearing on what I wrote, for it's not concerned with a method prescribed for ascetic ends. In the Methunasutta (AN.iv.54) to desire heavenly rebirth is said to be a blotch on the brahmacariyā.
“… he does not look at a householder or a householder’s son enjoying himself furnished and endowed with the five objects of sensual pleasure, but he lives the spiritual life aspiring for [rebirth in] a certain order of devas, [thinking]: ‘By this virtuous behavior, observance, austerity, or spiritual life I will be a deva or one [in the retinue] of the devas.’ He relishes this, desires it, and finds satisfaction in it. This, too, is a breach, flaw, blemish, and blotch of the celibate life. He is called one who lives an impure celibate life, one who is fettered by the bond of sexuality. He is not freed from birth, from old age and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and anguish; he is not freed from suffering, I say.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 24, 2016 10:44 AM
Title: Re: Sex positive movement
Content:
Ultimately it’s done by cutting off the fetter of conceit by attaining arahatta, whereupon one ceases to conceive: “I am better than...”, “I am inferior to ...” or “I am equal to...”

In the meantime, as a non-arahant I do it by just minding my own business and not concerning myself with others’ tastes.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 24, 2016 10:42 AM
Title: Re: Sex positive movement
Content:
I think it was poorly phrased by me. Rather than “premised upon...” I ought to have written, “... compatible with the Sarvāstivādin conception of dharmas, but contradicted by the Theravādin conception.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 23, 2016 5:08 PM
Title: Re: Sex positive movement
Content:
The supposed transformation of passions posited by Tantric Buddhists (as opposed to the abandoning of them taught by the Buddha) is premised upon the Sarvāstivādin conception of dharmas, i.e. that dharmas are entities that persist through the three periods of time. If they didn't persist in this way there would be no possibility of grasping hold of a nasty dharma, so to speak, and transforming it into a nice one. However, since the Sarvāstivādin conception of dharmas was soundly refuted by Moggalliputtatissa at the Third Council we may safely dismiss the Vajrayāna’s preaching.

https://suttacentral.net/en/kv1.6


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 23, 2016 2:31 PM
Title: Re: Sex positive movement
Content:
To not appreciate that the Buddha’s doctrine is a doctrine of ascesis, at least with respect to its highest ends, and to not understand that, “The pursuit of sensual happiness in sensual pleasures … is low, vulgar, the way of worldlings, ignoble, and unbeneficial,” (Vin. i. 10; SN. v. 421) is already to be misguided. But to go further and take methods prescribed for ascetic ends and apply them to the pursuit of enhanced hedonic enjoyment is to go risibly astray.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 23, 2016 1:18 PM
Title: Re: Dying without attaining Sotapanna
Content:
Contextually it seems that the terms sagga-parāyana and niraya-parāyana have only to do with one’s destination immediately after the present life.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 22, 2016 10:45 AM
Title: Re: Sex positive movement
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 21, 2016 11:52 AM
Title: Re: Turns out Libertarians have the highest IQ
Content:
The complete article is here: http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Wineburg.pdf

And the links in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_the_United_States#Critical_reception for Zinn's book offer some rather more abrasive critiques.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 19, 2016 8:52 PM
Title: Re: Questions re: right livelihood - samma ajivo
Content:
It wouldn't be included under wrong livelihood unless it was of a kind that involved cheating the patrons.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 19, 2016 10:02 AM
Title: Re: Questions re: right livelihood - samma ajivo
Content:
Maṃsavaṇijjā refers to the trade of butchery, but in the older rather than the more recent sense of the word. In the older usage a butcher was one whose trade was slaughtering tame animals and selling their flesh. Nowadays most people called "butchers" (at least in the industrialized countries) are really only meat traders who don't actually kill the animals whose flesh they sell. This occupation would not be included in the term maṃsavaṇijjā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 19, 2016 1:41 AM
Title: Re: POTUS 2016, part 3
Content:
My thoughts exactly! What a close shave he had.  


He reminds me of one of the less unfortunate of Thomas Hardy's ill-starred lovers — the one who forgot his walking stick one day:

OUTSIDE THE WINDOW

“My stick!” he says, and turns in the lane
To the house just left, whence a vixen voice
Comes out with the firelight through the pane,
And he sees within that the girl of his choice
Stands rating her mother with eyes aglare
For something said while he was there.

“At last I behold her soul undraped!”
Thinks the man who had loved her more than himself;
“My God—’tis but narrowly I have escaped. -
My precious porcelain proves it delf.”
His face has reddened like one ashamed,
And he steals off, leaving his stick unclaimed.

— http://fullonlinebook.com/poems/satires-of-circumstances-in-fifteen-glimpses/vph.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 18, 2016 2:22 PM
Title: Re: Is the dhamma in hell realms?
Content:
Not in classical Theravadin texts, but the motif is common in Thai and Laotian folk Buddhism, in the form of Phra Malai. Some believe this hell-preaching being to have been an arahant from Sri Lanka and spiritual heir to Mahāmoggallāna, while others identify him with the Mahayana figure Phra Kasitikappa Phothisat (= Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha).

Try googling “Phra Malai” or พระมาลัย


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 16, 2016 7:39 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism and God
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 15, 2016 12:08 PM
Title: Re: What is the "self-doer" in AN 6.38?
Content:
It's a mistranslation. The words found in the body of the sutta are attakāra and parakāra, meaning 'self-determination' and 'determination by others'. The word attakārī occurs only as one of the variant readings of the name of the sutta.

"Self-determination" and "determination by others", together with "personal determination" (purisakāra) are among the things that are repudiated in the fatalistic teaching of Makkhali Gosāla. I can't recall how they are formally defined in the commentaries, but I do recall that the most useful source is the commentary to the Sāmaññaphala Sutta, translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi as Discourse on the Fruits of Recluseship. If anyone has a copy perhaps they would care to post the definitions.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 14, 2016 4:34 PM
Title: Re: Seeking advice on the best way to apply Ajahn Mun's dhutanga kammaṭṭhāna practice in modern times
Content:
I see that there's now a whole website devoted to the late thera:

http://ven-nyanavimala.buddhasasana.net/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 14, 2016 2:46 PM
Title: Re: Seeking advice on the best way to apply Ajahn Mun's dhutanga kammaṭṭhāna practice in modern times
Content:
I think Ajahn Mun's path would be best replicated in the present time by ordaining and getting one's formative training in a Thai Dhammayutt forest wat and then (after five years or so) moving to Sri Lanka and following in http://dharma-records.buddhasasana.net/texts/bhante-guttasila-remembers-ven-nanavimala-transcript footsteps.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 11, 2016 8:04 PM
Title: Re: Do bhikkhus who justify abortion risk becoming parajika?
Content:
No, it wouldn’t.

I googled for source of your quote and read the full http://subhuti.withmetta.net/2016/12/05/buddhism-and-abortion/. It’s rather poor and seems to have been written without consulting the Vinaya Piṭaka’s detailed exposition but only the bare training rule as it’s found in the Pāṭimokkha.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 10, 2016 7:33 PM
Title: Re: Entrance to the vinaya Vol 2
Content:
When you're next in Bangkok you can get a very cheap copy from the Mahamakut bookshop on Phra Sumen Road in Banglumpoo. It's just opposite the front entrance to Wat Boworniwet and looks more like an office block than a bookshop.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2016 11:44 AM
Title: Re: Morality of killing in war
Content:
Given that Siha was a Licchavi it's possible he was only a peacetime general. I think the only reported military conflict involving Licchavis came three years after the Buddha's passing when Ajatasattu invaded their territory.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2016 11:25 AM
Title: Re: 2 very intelligent men
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2016 11:08 AM
Title: Re: 2 very intelligent men
Content:
There's a 3-part post, comprising:

Why Smart People Are Not Always Rational
http://www.skeptic.com/insight/why-smart-people-are-not-always-rational/

More On Why Smart People Are Not Always Rational
http://www.skeptic.com/insight/more-on-why-smart-people-are-not-always-rational/

Why Smart Doesn’t Guarantee Rational, Part III
http://www.skeptic.com/insight/why-smart-doesnt-guarantee-rational-part-iii/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2016 10:42 AM
Title: Re: 2 very intelligent men
Content:
Barbara Drescher is quite interesting on this...

http://www.skeptic.com/author/barbara-drescher/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:52 AM
Title: Re: Serial killer kittens?
Content:
You can reduce the number of successful bird kills by 40% by attaching a bell to your cat's collar. You can reduce it by 87% by having your cat wear a https://catgoods.com/, a http://www.birdsbesafe.com/, or just a bright-coloured https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrunchie. The relative inefficacy of collar-bells is owing to the fact that many cats are smart enough to stifle the bell while stalking prey.

I don't think there is any way to train an adult cat to embrace ahiṃsā and refrain from hunting smaller creatures. Those cute cats that one sees in youtube videos living pacifically, or even amicably, alongside budgerigars, mice, hamsters, etc., have been socialized this way from kittenhood.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 27, 2016 9:35 AM
Title: Re: Yoga in the Pali Canon
Content:
No. The divine eye (dibbacakkhu) is something attainable only after mastery of the fourth jhāna and the supposed third eye is a non-Buddhist notion.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 27, 2016 7:59 AM
Title: Re: Yoga in the Pali Canon
Content:
The reference given in Mallinson's article is to the Bodhisatta's austerities in the Mahasihanada Sutta.

https://suttacentral.net/en/mn12

The author assumes that the words, "I was one who squatted continuously, devoted to maintaining the squatting position," can be identified with a particular āsana in Haṭha Yoga texts. It seems to me that the brevity of the Buddha's account makes such an identification highly tenuous.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 26, 2016 8:13 AM
Title: Re: Is Buddha higher than Arahant?
Content:
Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. The problem here is that the Indian Mahayanists were inconsistent in their conception of an arahant. In some texts he is conceived exactly as he is in Theravadin texts (i.e., he is katakaraṇīya — "one who has done what had to be done"), while in others he's represented as an inferior and only semi-liberated being who still has more work to do.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 24, 2016 10:56 PM
Title: Re: Carefull attention to the hindrances?
Content:
"Careful", "wise", "proper" and "reasoned" have all been used by different translators to translate the 'yoniso' in 'yoniso manasikāra'.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 24, 2016 12:43 PM
Title: Re: What does the "Red Pill" mean
Content:
I'm not surprised, for I too had never given it any thought until at the age of 32 I read Virginia Woolf's attempt to account for the absence of any female Shakespeare in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Room_of_One%27s_Own. Woolf attributes this in large part to the lack of female space during the period in question.

If a woman wrote, she would have to write in the common sitting-room. And, as Miss Nightingale was so vehemently to complain,—"women never have an half hour...that they can call their own"—she was always interrupted. Still it would be easier to write prose and fiction there than to write poetry or a play. Less concentration is required. Jane Austen wrote like that to the end of her days. 'How she was able to effect all this', her nephew writes in his Memoir, 'is surprising, for she had no separate study to repair to, and most of the work must have been done in the general sitting-room, subject to all kinds of casual interruptions. She was careful that her occupation should not be suspected by servants or visitors or any persons beyond her own family party. Jane Austen hid her manuscripts or covered them with a piece of blotting-paper.

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200791h.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 24, 2016 12:10 PM
Title: Re: What does the "Red Pill" mean
Content:
Among those regularly posting at the moment I can think of five whom I know to be women.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 24, 2016 12:06 PM
Title: Re: What does the "Red Pill" mean
Content:
You're a walrus!? Now I don't mind most marine mammals, but walruses? I could do without walruses!



sjw.jpg (171.05 KiB) Viewed 2414 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 24, 2016 10:25 AM
Title: Re: What does the "Red Pill" mean
Content:
No idea at all.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 24, 2016 8:06 AM
Title: Re: What does the "Red Pill" mean
Content:
The Industrial Revolution: The Beginning of the End of Male Space

Before the Industrial Revolution, you could find most men working in or around the home. This was a time of self-sufficient small farmers and noble artisans. A man used his home as his place of business and, consequently, homes were designed to accommodate the needs of the dirty work of farming, blacksmithing, and leatherworking. When you work every day in dirt and grime, you can’t worry about taking off your boots so you don’t soil the rug. That just slows down the work!

Additionally, the home design luxuries we take for granted today just weren’t available to people in this agrarian society. Carpeting, wallpaper, drapes and even glass windows were items reserved for the very wealthy.

Consequently, the home had a predominately masculine vibe. Exposed beams, dirt floors, and earthen fireplaces were the norm. Tools were left here and there, guns hung above the fireplace, the sheep dog came in and out as he pleased, and a man didn’t think about wiping his feet before he came inside. He didn’t have to worry about a nagging wife getting on to him for mucking up the place because the place was already mucked up. But little did men know that the days of a male-centered abode were numbered.

By the middle of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. Families moved from the country to the city, and men left home to work in the factories. Women, of course, stayed home to run the household. Thus a strict work/home dichotomy developed, with women given domain over the latter. The Cult of Domesticity, popular during this time, encouraged middle and upper class women to make the home a “haven in a heartless world” for her husband and children, a place where a man could relax and feel comforted after a long day of toiling in the trenches. Without an earthen floor and sawdust shavings everywhere, the possibility of keeping things clean and tidy became attainable, and women bought carpets, white drapes, and flower-filled vases in the name of creating a soft oasis for their husbands. But what they really had made was the type of place a woman would feel most comfortable, and men fled their doily-laden home to spend time at the bars and fraternal lodges with their boys. The home had become female space.
More here:
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/01/10/the-decline-of-male-space/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 22, 2016 1:31 AM
Title: Re: World Chess Championship 2016
Content:
Karpov offered Osipov a draw but he refused it and then lost on time.

1. d4 Nf6
2. c4 e6
3. Nc3 Bb4
4. a3 Bxc3+
5. bxc3 c5
6. dxc5 Na6
7. Bg5 Nxc5
8. Nf3 b6
9. g3 h6
10. Bxf6 Qxf6
11. Nd4 Bb7
12. f3 O-O
13. Bg2 Ba6
14. f4 Rac8
15. O-O Bxc4
16. f5 e5
17. Nf3 d5


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 20, 2016 6:39 PM
Title: Re: new interpretation of samsara and patisandhi from my experience
Content:
How does any of this support your position?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 19, 2016 1:54 PM
Title: Re: The Official Dhamma Wheel Cat Thread
Content:
Mort aux Chats

There will be no more cats.
Cats spread infection,
cats pollute the air,
cats consume seven times
their own weight in food a week,
cats were worshipped in
decadent societies (Egypt
and Ancient Rome), the Greeks
had no use for cats. Cats
sit down to pee (our scientists
have proved it). The copulation
of cats is harrowing; they
are unbearably fond of the moon.
Perhaps they are all right in
their own country but their
traditions are alien to ours.
Cats smell, they can’t help it,
you notice it going upstairs.
Cats watch too much television,
they can sleep through storms,
they stabbed us in the back
last time. There have never been
any great artists who were cats.
They don’t even deserve a capital C
except at the beginning of a sentence.
I blame my headache and my
plants dying on to cats.
Our district is full of them,
property values are falling.
When I dream of God I see
a Massacre of Cats. Why
should they insist on their own
language and religion, who
needs to purr to make a point?
Death to all cats! The Rule
of Dogs shall last a thousand years!

(Peter Porter)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 19, 2016 12:38 PM
Title: Re: new interpretation of samsara and patisandhi from my experience
Content:
I think there's a serious error in your reading. The Udāna passage states that the unborn provides the means of escape from the born. It doesn't say that the unborn makes the born. Still less does it say that the unborn "is something that creates and manages our thoughts." You seem to be turning nibbāna into something like the puggala of the Puggalavādins.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 17, 2016 10:47 AM
Title: Re: new interpretation of samsara and patisandhi from my experience
Content:
“For you are the heir of your deeds.”

“And this is not the kind of deed to bring you to full enlightenment...”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 16, 2016 2:53 PM
Title: Re: What happens to the past Kamma of Arahants?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 15, 2016 6:50 PM
Title: Re: POTUS 2016, part 3
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 15, 2016 6:22 PM
Title: Re: 5 times to achieve awakening Sutta
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 15, 2016 9:26 AM
Title: Re: leonard cohen dead at 82
Content:
Last interview.


if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }https://phpbbex.com/ .


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 14, 2016 9:06 PM
Title: Re: POTUS 2016, part 3
Content:
Actually there's been one for over a century — the Nostratic hypothesis of the Danish linguist Holger Pedersen. In his scheme the Semitic family of languages is claimed to derive from Proto-Afro-Asiatic and the Indo-European family from Proto-Eurasiatic. Each of these source families is then claimed to derive from Proto-Nostratic.

It is, however, a controversial thesis, with linguists about evenly divided between believers, sceptics and agnostics.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Pedersen_%28linguist%29



Nostratic.png (23.88 KiB) Viewed 1955 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 14, 2016 12:09 PM
Title: Re: Vietnamese Language
Content:
Thiện Phúc's dictionary of Buddhist terms. Available in three formats:

Vietnamese - English
English - Vietnamese
Sanskrit/Pali - Vietnamese

http://thuvienhoasen.org/p10a11807/tu-dien-phat-hoc-thien-phuc


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 14, 2016 1:07 AM
Title: Re: Translations of the Niddesa of the Khuddaka Nikaya?
Content:
As far as I know there isn't yet any complete translation of the Niddesa. There are, however, about twenty quotations from it in the Path of Purification, Ñāṇamoli's translation of the Visuddhimagga, including the oft-quoted verses on momentarism that are available at Access to Insight.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 14, 2016 12:52 AM
Title: Re: Zen
Content:
Yeah, so they say. Nevertheless, I'm personally persuaded by the Japanese Critical Buddhists (i.e., Matsumoto Shirō and his merry men) that tathāgatagarbha is an un-dhammic and anti-dhammic doctrine, being merely an ātman by another name.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 14, 2016 12:15 AM
Title: Re: Beginner Terminology and Kathavatthu 9.2
Content:
The translations of both the Kathāvatthu and its commentary are among the works on which the PTS has removed copyright restrictions. Both are available from archive.org

Points of Controversy
https://archive.org/details/PointsOfControversyKathavatthu

The Debates Commentary
https://archive.org/download/TFIC_ASI_Books


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 13, 2016 1:39 PM
Title: Re: Beginner Terminology and Kathavatthu 9.2
Content:
The canonical Kathāvatthu simply presents debates on controversial views and interpretations, but without ever stating who holds the views in question. The attribution of the views to particular schools comes from the Kathāvatthu Commentary and the translator proceeds on the assumption that this attribution is correct.

"Controverted point" is the translator's rendering of vatthu. This too is from the Commentary.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 13, 2016 7:54 AM
Title: Re: Zen
Content:
One of the four kinds of attachment-rooted consciousness accompanied by wrong view.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 13, 2016 7:24 AM
Title: Re: POTUS 2020, part 1
Content:
Trey Gowdy as the GOP candidate — not a prediction, just a hope.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 11, 2016 11:13 PM
Title: Re: POTUS 2016, part 3
Content:
No, sukun or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakina is native to the Semitic language family. It corresponds to Hebrew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekhinah and Aramaic shekinta, but not to anything in the classical Indic languages.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 9, 2016 2:28 PM
Title: Re: POTUS 2016, part 3
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 9, 2016 10:03 AM
Title: Re: Wat Dhammakaya
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 9, 2016 9:27 AM
Title: Re: Refuge in Whole Sangha, not in Ariya Sangha
Content:
The distinction is between a provisional understanding of the refuge object and a higher understanding. It has nothing to do with householder versus homeless renunciate. The provisional understanding is that of a newly converted outsider (who may be a householder or a homeless renunciate) who goes for refuge to the only sangha that he knows of: the one that he can see, which is the bhikkhusangha. The higher understanding is that of one who has been instructed; he too may be either a householder or a homeless renunciate.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 8, 2016 10:28 PM
Title: Re: Walking with a purpose
Content:
From the detailed description of the qualities of the Sangha it's clear that it's the Noble Sangha that is the proper subject of one's recollection.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 8, 2016 10:19 PM
Title: Re: Refuge in Whole Sangha, not in Ariya Sangha
Content:
This phrase (or the alternative one which substitutes “bhikkhuni-saṅgha”) is used in the Suttas by freshly converted outsiders (i.e. by persons who know nothing of the Ariyasaṅgha), not by the Buddha’s longstanding disciples. In the Vinaya’s account of the evolution of bhikkhu ordination, at the stage when upasamapadā was granted by recital of the three refuges, the formula was “saṅghaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi” and not “bhikkhusaṅghaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi”. Likewise with the refuge-going formula for sāmaṇeras.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 8, 2016 3:59 PM
Title: Re: Walking with a purpose
Content:
In the Aṅguttara’s Appaṇṇaka Sutta (AN. i. 114), pacing back and forth and sitting are the two postures specified for a bhikkhu devoted to wakefulness. He is said to be devoted to wakefulness when all his waking hours are devoted to purging his mind of obstructive qualities (defined in the Aṅguttara Commentary as the five hindrances) in these two postures:
“And how is a bhikkhu intent on wakefulness? Here, during the day, while walking back and forth and sitting, a bhikkhu purifies his mind of obstructive qualities. In the first watch of the night, while walking back and forth and sitting, he purifies his mind of obstructive qualities. In the middle watch of the night he lies down on the right side in the lion’s posture, with one foot overlapping the other, mindful and clearly comprehending, after noting in his mind the idea of rising. After rising, in the last watch of the night, while walking back and forth and sitting, he purifies his mind of obstructive qualities. It is in this way that a bhikkhu is intent on wakefulness.
(Appaṇṇaka Sutta, AN. i. 114)
While he is pacing up and down, there are any number of things that a bhikkhu might be doing to purify his mind of obstructive qualities.

If he is developing sampajañña while walking, then in satipaṭṭhāna-bhāvanā this would be included under body-contemplation. But it doesn’t follow from this that “walking meditation is all about mindfulness of the body”. He might be developing any of the four satipaṭṭhānas or any of the objects used in samatha-bhāvanā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 8, 2016 9:55 AM
Title: Re: I have a question regarding IQ and mental stability
Content:
It's the same disciple whom Santa referred to, except that his name is Cūḷapanthaka in the Pali texts. His story is recorded in the Dhammapada Commentary.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 8, 2016 6:17 AM
Title: Re: Walking with a purpose
Content:
What is beneficial is recollection of the special qualities of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. One of the stated benefits of these recollection (anussati) practices is that one comes to live as if one were in the presence of whichever of the three jewels one is recollecting. As Buddhaghosa states:

When a bhikkhu is devoted to this recollection of the Buddha, he is respectful and deferential towards the Master. He attains fullness of faith, mindfulness, understanding and merit. He has much happiness and gladness. He conquers fear and dread. He is able to endure pain. He comes to feel as if he were living in the Master’s presence. And his body, when the recollection of the Buddha’s special qualities dwells in it, becomes as worthy of veneration as a shrine room. His mind tends toward the plane of the Buddhas. When he encounters an opportunity for transgression, he has awareness of conscience and shame as vivid as though he were face to face with the Master. And if he penetrates no higher, he is at least headed for a happy destiny.

When a bhikkhu is devoted to this recollection of the Dhamma, he thinks: “I never in the past met a master who taught a law that led onward thus, who possessed this talent, nor do I now see any such a master other than the Blessed One.” Seeing the Dhamma’s special qualities in this way, he is respectful and deferential towards the Master. He entertains great reverence for the Dhamma and attains fullness of faith, and so on. He has much happiness and gladness. He conquers fear and dread. He is able to endure pain. He comes to feel as if he were living in the Dhamma’s presence. And his body, when the recollection of the Dhamma’s special qualities dwells in it, becomes as worthy of veneration as a shrine room. His mind tends towards the realization of the peerless Dhamma. When he encounters an opportunity for transgression, he has vivid awareness of conscience and shame on recollecting the well-regulatedness of the Dhamma. And if he penetrates no higher, he is at least headed for a happy destiny.

When a bhikkhu is devoted to this recollection of the Community, he is respectful and deferential towards the Community. He attains fullness of faith, and so on. He has much happiness and bliss. He conquers fear and dread. He is able to endure pain. He comes to feel as if he were living in the Community’s presence. And his body, when the recollection of the Sangha’s special qualities dwells in it, becomes as worthy of veneration as an Uposatha house where the Community has met. His mind tends towards the attainment of the Community’s special qualities. When he encounters an opportunity for transgression, he has awareness of conscience and shame as vividly as if he were face to face with the Community. And if he penetrates no higher, he is at least headed for a happy destiny.
(Path of Purification, ch. VII)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 7, 2016 1:37 PM
Title: Re: Ordain as a monk and still stay vegetarian/vegan?
Content:
Assuming you mean Sunyataram, this is the address of the wat:

Samnak Pa Sunyataram,
Tambol Prang Phen,
Amphoe Sangkhlaburi,
Kanchanaburi 71240

สำนักป่าสุญญตาราม
ตำบล ปรังเผล
อำเภอ สังขละบุรี
จังหวัด กาญจนบุรี 71240

And its Facebook page:

https://web.facebook.com/%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%B3%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%9B%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%B8%E0%B8%8D%E0%B8%8D%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A1-%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B4%E0%B8%87%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B0%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B5%E0%B8%A2%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%8D%E0%B8%88%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%B8%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B5-1649463855305359



I would remark, however, that abstention from meat can be practised at nearly any monastery in Thailand, excepting those of Ajahn Maha Bua and his disciples, where it's expressly prohibited.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 5, 2016 9:36 AM
Title: Re: Interpenetrationality
Content:
I know little about Buddhist art, but the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta pointedly contrasts the non-weeping arahants with the weeping non-arahants:
Then, when the Blessed One had passed away, some bhikkhus, not yet freed from passion, lifted up their arms and wept; and some, flinging themselves on the ground, rolled from side to side and wept, lamenting: "Too soon has the Blessed One come to his Parinibbana! Too soon has the Happy One come to his Parinibbana! Too soon has the Eye of the World vanished from sight!"

But the bhikkhus who were freed from passion, mindful and clearly comprehending, reflected in this way: "Impermanent are all compounded things. How could this be otherwise?" (DN. 16)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 5, 2016 8:22 AM
Title: Re: What will happen to an Arhant / Anagami if his body was destroyed while he is in Nirodha Samapatti
Content:
Not according to the Theravada.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 5, 2016 8:12 AM
Title: Re: what do no-selfers think the aggregates are?
Content:
It seems you’ve got the wrong Rumi. The poster almost certainly means the Persian Sufi poet, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, and not the Bangladeshi jihadist, Aminul Islam Rumi.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 3, 2016 5:26 PM
Title: Re: Metta Training: Wat Phleng
Content:
He didn't do so when I was there, but perhaps Anagarika could offer you a more up-to-date picture. I've sent him a note.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 30, 2016 11:04 AM
Title: Re: Is turning to reiki going for refuge?
Content:
In general, in choosing to seek treatment from a particular kind of medical practitioner one would neither be performing any of these five actions towards the practitioner nor viewing his treatment as “one’s highest value”. Therefore this wouldn’t amount to a breach of one’s refuge-going.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 28, 2016 11:38 PM
Title: Re: My criticism of english-speaking buddhist
Content:
To quote from Michael Pye’s book:
Since translations of the [Lotus Sūtra's] story of the burning house have now found their way into popular anthologies, and since it is rather verbose when given in full, a very brief summary of the story itself will suffice here. A wealthy old man has a great house with only one door. The house is in a decrepit state, and a fire breaks out, threatening to engulf all the man’s children who are absorbed in play within the house. The old man calls them in vain, then resorts in desperation to skilful means (fang-pien). Knowing the kinds of things which they all like he calls out that there are goat-carts, deer-carts and bullock-carts waiting for them outside the door. Upon this they all come scrambling out of the house and are saved from the flames. The three kinds of carts are nowhere to be seen, but instead the old man gives to each one a still more splendid chariot, beautifully ornate and drawn by a white bullock.

The question is then raised, by way of comment on the story, as to whether the old man was guilty of a falsehood. Śāriputra’s answer to this is that he was not, but it is not only this judgement which is interesting but also its justification. The emphasis is put not on the fact that the children received a better vehicle than intended, which might after all be taken to cover their failure to receive the specific kinds which were originally promised. Rather, the discrepancy is justified by the fulfilment of the old man’s intention to bring them out from the flames. Even if they had not received any cart at all it would have been inappropriate to speak of a falsehood, because the original thought of the old man was: ‘I will get my children to escape by a skilful means.’
(Skilful Means: a Concept in Mahayana Buddhism, pp. 27-8)

So, assuming Pye’s summary to be accurate, it would seem that the stance attributed to pseudo-Śāriputra in the Lotus Sūtra is that a lie told for a good purpose is not really a lie at all. If that’s the case then the sūtra’s self-referential assertion of its protagonist’s veracity must perforce be an uncompelling one for an adherent of the Theravada (and probably of any of the pre-Mahayana Indian Buddhist schools), for it can be upheld only by embracing the sūtra’s departure from the earlier Indian Buddhist understanding of what lying and truth-telling are all about (i.e. that the former occurs with any act of communication that aims to deceive):

The cetanā setting up the bodily and vocal effort to mislead, with the intention of deceiving others, is termed ‘musāvāda.’ Alternatively: ‘musā’ is applied to a thing which is not genuine or does not exist, and ‘vāda’ means the representation of that as actual or true. The characteristic of ‘musāvāda’ is the volition of one desirous of representing to others an untrue thing as true, which gives rise to a corresponding [bodily or vocal] intimation.
(Dhs-a. 98-9; Expositor I. 131)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 28, 2016 11:30 PM
Title: Re: Mala - Garland or tool
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 28, 2016 11:07 PM
Title: Re: Why First Precept?
Content:
In Pali there are three common terms for living beings: satta, bhūta and pāṇa. Each seems to have a narrow meaning specific to itself and then a broader meaning. In their broader meanings the three terms are synonymous, each of them a term that covers all saṃsāric beings who have been born in any of the thirty-one planes. 

When used in their narrow sense:

Satta means animal. (Its Sanskrit cognate is the source of the Thai sat).

Bhūta ("one who has come to be") is synonymous with amanussa ("non-human"), a term that can refer to all beings except humans and animals, but most commonly to those normally invisible creatures that more or less share this world with us; for example, petas, tree devas, mountain devas, nāgas, and suchlike.

Pāṇa literally means "breathing being" and is most often used in connection with the sort of beings that it's possible for humans to kill: animals, other humans, and some kinds of amanussas.

Regarding the translation of these terms, I think "sentient being" would be best avoided altogether. Firstly because of the reason stated in my last post. Secondly because not all of them are in fact sentient: the impercipient devas live out their days without ever experiencing anything at all, yet the commentary to the Mahānidāna states that they are to be included in the phrase sabbe sattā ("all beings") on account of their being subject to the cycle of saṃsāra.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 28, 2016 9:16 PM
Title: Re: Why First Precept?
Content:
"Sentient beings" is most commonly used by translators of Mahayana texts as a rendering of the Sanskrit word sattva or satva. Pali translators usually render the cognate word satta as "beings", "living beings" or "creatures".

Lexically the "sentient" in "sentient being" doesn't correspond to anything in either the Sanskrit or the Pali word. Rather, it's a translators' explanatory addition, perhaps for the purpose of making it clear that the term includes animals but not plants. In this respect it enjoys a slight advantage over the renderings "beings" and "living beings", which don't make this clear, and over "creatures", which might be misconstrued as limiting it to animals and excluding humans, devas, petas, etc.

Unfortunately the rendering also has the drawback of generating a lot of bootless discussion about the limits of sentience etc., based on the assumption that the word 'sentient' in this context is more semantically pregnant than it actually is.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 28, 2016 8:53 PM
Title: Re: Mala - Garland or tool
Content:
In fact they are pretty common in SE Asia. Many Thai and Burmese Buddhists use them as an aid when engaged in one or another of the recollection practices (anussati).

In the Vinaya wearing a mālā is considered a breach of the eighth of the ten precepts of a sāmaṇera and so presumably the same would be so with the seventh of the eight householder's precepts. To get around this problem some mālā-wearers in Thailand will make a point of not referring to their mālā as a mālā (and correcting anyone who does call it that), but instead using the term luuk borikam, "preparatory [meditation] beads".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 28, 2016 12:37 AM
Title: Re: The World's Top Ten Most Generous Countries
Content:
That's one of the criteria, but there are two others: rendering assistance to a stranger and being engaged in full-time voluntary work. The top and bottom ten in each group...

Most generous in helping a stranger

Iraq 81
State of Libya 79
Kuwait 78
Somalia 77
United Arab Emirates 75
Malawi 74
Botswana 73
Sierra Leone 73
United States of America 73
Saudi Arabia 73

Least generous

Latvia 33
Slovakia 32
Paraguay 32
Czech Republic 31
Croatia 30
Serbia 28
Madagascar 28
Japan 25
Cambodia 25
China 24

Most generous in donating money

Myanmar 91
Indonesia 75
Australia 73
Malta 73
New Zealand 71
Iceland 70
United Kingdom 69
Norway 67
Netherlands 66
Ireland 66

Least generous

Greece 9
Senegal 9
Palestinian Territories 8
Togo 8
Democratic Republic of Congo 8
Zimbabwe 8
Tunisia 6
China 6
Yemen 5
Morocco 4

Most generous in full-time voluntary work

Turkmenistan 60
Myanmar 55
Indonesia 50
Sri Lanka 49
United States of America 46
New Zealand 44
Philippines 42
Kenya 42
Honduras 41
Ireland 40

Least generous

Cote d'Ivoire 7
Macedonia 7
Romania 7
Bulgaria 7
Yemen 6
Armenia 6
Serbia 5
China 4
Bosnia and Herzegovina 4
Egypt 4


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 27, 2016 11:52 PM
Title: Re: Buddha's teaching from programmer's view
Content:
Thank you.


