Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 27, 2016 10:31 PM
Title: Re: Buddha's teaching from programmer's view
Content:
This link isn't working.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 27, 2016 9:42 PM
Title: Re: The World's Top Ten Most Generous Countries
Content:
I wouldn’t have thought so.

It may nonetheless be of some tangential interest to note that among the first written languages of the Germanic family, Old English does have the distinction of expressing the earliest recorded praise for the virtue of generosity. It’s contained in a collection of 9th century kennings illustrating the meaning of the Anglo-Saxon runes. Of the runes ᚠ (feoh, ‘wealth’, = F) and ᚷ (gyfu, ‘gift’, = G) it is said:

ᚠ
Feoh byþ frofur fira gehwylcum;
sceal ðeah manna gehwylc miclun hyt dælan
gif he wile for drihtne domes hleotan.

ᚷ
Gyfu gumena byþ gleng and herenys,
wraþu and wyrþscype and wræcna gehwam
ar and ætwist, ðe byþ oþra leas.

“Wealth is a comfort to every man,
Yet every man must share it mightily
If   he wishes to meet the Measurer’s mercy.”

“Generosity is the grace and praise of men,
and warmth and worthship to all exiles:
sustenance for him who is stripped of all else.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 27, 2016 6:55 PM
Title: Re: "Moderation in what is beneficial"?
Content:
"What is beneficial" (sappāya) isn't glossed in the commentary to this particular sutta, but in other contexts it's taken to mean either one or another of the four requisites or else some combination of these (most commonly food and medicine).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 27, 2016 6:29 PM
Title: Re: UK leaves EU
Content:
If you mean “pesquisas de boca-de-urna”, these are “exit polls” in English. “Urna” by itself is a “ballot box”.

The national broadcasting media in the UK always commission such polls at general elections, but at the EU referendum they opted not to do so because of the higher than usual chance of getting a wrong result. The problem they faced was that the result in each area was to be reported by local authorities that didn’t correspond (geographically or demographically) to the normal general election voting wards, and secondly, because voter allegiance wasn’t split along party lines and so pollsters would have needed to base their calculations on a variety of more or less ad hoc assumptions.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 27, 2016 11:47 AM
Title: Re: The mechanism of gandhabba
Content:
The arising of the cuti-citta ("cutting-off consciousness") is death. It is this, and not any occurrence in one's body, that marks the end of one's life in that state.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 27, 2016 10:42 AM
Title: Re: The mechanism of gandhabba
Content:
I think you may be mixing the Sri Lankan folk conception of the cuti- and paṭisandhi-cittas with the Abhidhammic one. In the latter they are not disembodied ghosts in search of a new home but consciousnesses in the mental continuum, just as evanescent as any other citta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 27, 2016 8:04 AM
Title: Re: The mechanism of gandhabba
Content:
The gandhabba is nearly always spoken of in conventional rather than abhidhammic terms: it's merely a deceased being approaching rebirth and the kind of specificity that you're asking for simply isn't given.

I think I once came across some Abhidhamma passage which identified the gandhabba with certain cittas in the death-process cittavīthi, but I don't recall the details now.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 27, 2016 7:56 AM
Title: Re: The mechanism of gandhabba
Content:
From trusted textual authority. Unless we happen to be Buddhas or highly accomplished jhāna dudes, in which case it would be from recollection of former lives and/or the deva eye that sees the decease and rebirth of beings according to their kamma.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 27, 2016 7:51 AM
Title: Re: Bhikkhu Analayo and bare attention
Content:
I found his arguments for "direct path" quite convincing. Your objection regarding convolutedness might hold water if the cessation of suffering depended on one's doing each and every thing described in the sutta, but plainly it doesn't, for the Ānāpānassatisutta (for example) makes a complete path out of just mindfulness of breathing.

In my opinion, if there is any fault in Anālayo's presentation it's that he is rather too charitable to the exclusive "only path" interpretation.* Firstly, I think it's questionable whether this is really a faithful paraphrase of any of the five commentarial glosses on ekāyana; secondly, even if I were to agree with Anālayo that the fourth gloss can be paraphrased this way, I would still consider it the least probable of the possibilities offered on account of the huge philological and semantic stretch that it requires.

* In saying that I don't mean to suggest that satipaṭṭhāna is not the only way, but merely that this is unlikely to be what is being said here.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 27, 2016 7:14 AM
Title: Re: Bhikkhu Analayo's Lectures on the Madhyama-āgama
Content:
I’m not sure which is to be preferred from a doctrinal point of view, but as far as philology goes “bare” and “purified” are both possible renderings. 

Whereas the prefix-modified visuddha and parisuddha are unambiguously concerned with purity, the unmodified suddha has a broader range of meanings, one of which is ‘mere’, ‘simple’, ‘plain’, ‘bare’. In the commentaries it will sometimes be glossed with the delimiting indeclinable particle eva: ‘just’, ‘only’.

For example, the suddhakesā in the Vinaya’s second saṅghādisesa rule is “mere hair” (as contrasted with hair that’s been decorated with garlands, gems or whatever). Or the suddhasaṅkhārapuñja of the Vajirasutta is not a “purified mass of compositions” but a “mere mass of compositions”.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 26, 2016 4:10 PM
Title: Re: HAPPY BIRTHDAY COORAN!!
Content:
Happy birthday.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 25, 2016 11:02 PM
Title: Re: The mechanism of gandhabba
Content:
Beings subject to rebirth are called “gandhabbas” when they've died and are about to be reborn, but it's not usual to call them that at any other time.

“‘Sir, we know how the descent of an embryo comes about. Here, there is the union of the mother and father, and the mother is in season, and the gandhabba is present. Thus the descent of an embryo comes about through the union of these three things.’
(Asslāyanasutta)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 25, 2016 10:33 PM
Title: Re: Metta Training: Wat Phleng
Content:
I dropped in on Ajahn Chatchai some years ago to pose some questions about mettabhāvanā.

I wouldn’t count on there being anyone there who speaks English. Though in residential meditation centres there will often be a translator on hand, Wat Phleng isn’t this kind of place. It’s a tuppenny ha’penny Bangkok funeral temple that happens to have a meditation teacher in residence, Ajahn Chatchai, who leads day-long meditation sessions for the general public once a week.

If you go by taxi make sure that the driver takes you to the right Wat Phleng, for there are two wats of this name in the same district of Bangkok. To distinguish them the larger and more famous one of the late Ajahn Praderm is called Wat Phleng Vipassanā, while the smaller one that you want is called Wat Phleng Bang Phlat. The taxi drivers know it as Wat Phleng Jaran 75 because of its location on the Jaran Sanitwong Road. This is the address:

Phra Mahā Chatchai Rakkhitacitto,
Wat Phleng Bang Phlat (or Wat Phleng Jaran 75)
Soi Phanurangsi, Jaransanitwong 75,
Yi Khan Sub-district,
Bangphlat District,
Bangkok 10701.

พระมหาฉัตรชัย รักขิตจิตโต
วัดเพลงบางพลัด (วัดเพลง จรัญฯ ๗๕)
ซอยภาณุรังษี จรัญสนิทวงศ์ ๗๕
แขวงบางยี่ขัน
เขตบางพลัด
กทมฯ ๑๐๗๐๑

And here it is on https://www.google.co.th/maps/place/Wat+Phleng+Bang+Phlat/@13.7948108,100.4861921,17z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x30e29bcd988629af:0xca351792368aa34a!8m2!3d13.7948108!4d100.4883808.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 25, 2016 2:58 PM
Title: Re: The mechanism of gandhabba
Content:
These are three of the five kinds of anāgāmin. https://suttacentral.net/en/sn46.3


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 25, 2016 9:29 AM
Title: Re: The mechanism of gandhabba
Content:
By the way, in case you didn’t already know, there is a 3-volume Sinhala translation of the Kathāvatthu by Ven. Paṇḍita Kodāgoda Ñāṇaloka available online.

http://www.aathaapi.net/tipitaka/48.OTAP_KathaVatthu_Prakarana_1.pdf

http://www.aathaapi.net/tipitaka/49.OTAP_KathaVatthu_Prakarana_2.pdf

http://www.aathaapi.net/tipitaka/50.OTAP_KathaVatthu_Prakarana_3.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 25, 2016 8:19 AM
Title: Re: The mechanism of gandhabba
Content:
https://suttacentral.net/en/kv8.2


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 24, 2016 9:16 PM
Title: Re: UK leaves EU
Content:
Which of course was the whole idea behind our joining in the first place!  


Senior Whitehall official, Sir Humphrey Appleby, explains the dastardly plan to a rather naive MP ...

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: Fri Jun 24, 2016 9:05 PM
Title: Re: Repulsivness of food
Content:
Attached is the account of the practice in the Vimuttimagga. It's similar to the Visuddhimgga's (linked to earlier in the thread) but shorter and with the ten aspects of repulsiveness reduced to eight.


 ./download/file.php?id=3063
(134.38 KiB) Downloaded 172 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 24, 2016 8:44 PM
Title: Re: 3 Exhortations to Ven. Mahakassapa
Content:
Other occurrences of sātasahagata in the Suttas concern the classification of different types of samādhi, but no connection is made with mindfulness of the body in particular.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2016 7:21 PM
Title: Re: What Dhamma Book are you reading right now?
Content:
Not right at the moment. The surprising things Clarke has to say seem to be based mostly on non-Theravadin recensions of the Vinaya that I'm little acquainted with. Having only just received a copy of the book I'll need to read it before I can evaluate the claims he makes in the interview.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2016 11:01 AM
Title: Re: What Dhamma Book are you reading right now?
Content:
Shayne Clarke, Family Matters in Indian Buddhist Monasticisms.

The author is interviewed in the latest Tricycle:

http://tricycle.org/magazine/rules-for-pregnant-nuns-married-monks/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 22, 2016 1:59 AM
Title: Re: Did God create everything that exists?
Content:
Kamma would be quite fittingly called a "magical force" if it were really the case that it had the power to cause arahants to do things to you without any intention on their part! As it is, such a conception of kamma and vipāka has no support whatever in the Buddha's teaching.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 22, 2016 12:50 AM
Title: Re: anti/Natalism
Content:
No. The Jātakas are stories, mostly commentarial, of the Buddha's former lives. The "origin stories" (nidāna) are the narratives in the canonical Vinaya Piṭaka about how each of the Pātimokkha rules came to be laid down. The tradition treats them as historical.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 22, 2016 12:34 AM
Title: Re: Did God create everything that exists?
Content:
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. Do you mean that when the Buddha was teaching, say, the five ascetics in the Deer Park, the ascetics' past kamma magically caused the Dhammacakkappavattanasutta to be uttered by him? That there was no thought or deliberation on the Buddha's part?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:20 PM
Title: Re: Wrong mindfulness
Content:
In the Suttas wrong mindfulness is mentioned but not really defined. The Majjhima Commentary, however, understands it to be the unskilful recalling of things past, as described in the Anuttariya Sutta:

“Here, someone recollects the gain of a son, a wife, or wealth; or else they recollect various kinds of gain; or else they recollect an ascetic or brahmin of wrong views, of wrong practice. There is this kind of recollection; this I do not deny. But this kind of recollection is low, common, worldly, ignoble, and unbeneficial; it does not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, peace, direct knowledge, enlightenment, and nibbāna.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 21, 2016 7:01 PM
Title: Re: Victims of Communism
Content:
But to judge from the links given in the first and subsequent posts, my impression is that it's Marxist revolutionary communism that the OP has in mind, and not kibbutzim, workers' cooperatives and other voluntaristic movements.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 21, 2016 6:08 PM
Title: Re: Question about jhana
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 21, 2016 2:35 PM
Title: Re: Question about jhana
Content:
He is perhaps referring to the Abhidhammic doctrine of the priority of ripening of kammas at the time of death:

1. Weighty kamma
2. Death-proximate kamma
3. Habitual kamma
4. Reserve kamma

On the positive side the attainment of jhāna, and on the negative side the committing of one of the five anantariyaka kammas, are said to take priority over the other three kinds of kamma in determining one's rebirth.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 21, 2016 12:59 PM
Title: Re: Did God create everything that exists?
Content:
That arahants' actions and speech don't amount to new kamma isn't because they don't think or intend. It's because they're free of the three unwholesome roots.
“Bhikkhus, there are these three causes for the origination of kamma. What three? Greed is a cause for the origination of kamma; hatred is a cause for the origination of kamma; delusion is a cause for the origination of kamma.
(Nidānasutta, AN. i. 134)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 21, 2016 5:55 AM
Title: Re: Niddesa, Apadana and Petakopadesa. When translation?
Content:
It's the romanised Pali edition. Ñāṇamoli's Piṭaka Disclosure is the only published translation.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 21, 2016 5:39 AM
Title: Re: anti/Natalism
Content:
Yes. Ajahn Brahmali's translation of the passage is here: https://suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-bu-vb-pj1.

Scroll down to "At one time Sudinna, the son of a prominent merchant, lived in a village called Kalandaka..." for the full story.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:09 PM
Title: Re: anti/Natalism
Content:
It has no bearing on the issue at all, for merely having sex causes defeat for a bhikkhu, whether or not the woman is impregnated by it. In the later evolution of the rule it doesn't even have to be a woman: sex with men or with animals also came to be made into a pārājika offence.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 16, 2016 3:46 PM
Title: Re: Global Warming: Recent Data
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 16, 2016 4:37 AM
Title: Re: Monk gets to the root of Thai problems
Content:
To champion the poor is not to valorise poverty.

I should imagine that what Professor Somrit has in mind are texts like the Cakkavatti­sīhanāda Sutta, in which taking care of the poor is prescribed as a royal duty, the neglect of which is likely set off a chain of unwished for consequences.

https://suttacentral.net/en/dn26


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 14, 2016 10:43 PM
Title: Re: Pali Resources
Content:
The text files are all compressed with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7z.

Mac users should be able to expand them with the Keka program:

http://www.kekaosx.com/en/

Windows users with 7z Extractor:

http://www.7zextractor.com/

The text file when opened should look like this:



Screen Shot.png (107.3 KiB) Viewed 27474 times


Let me know if you have any problems.

.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 14, 2016 8:54 PM
Title: Re: Dying without attaining Sotapanna
Content:
“Bhikkhus, the Dhamma well proclaimed by me thus is clear, open, evident, and free of patchwork. In the Dhamma well proclaimed by me thus, which is clear, open, evident, and free of patchwork, those who have sufficient faith in me, sufficient love for me, are all headed for heaven.”
(Vammikasutta)


Bhikkhu Bodhi: MA says that this refers to persons devoted to the practice of insight meditation who have not reached any supramundane attainment. Note that they are headed only for heaven, not for enlightenment, though if their practice matures they can attain the path of stream-entry and thus gain assurance of enlightenment. The expression saddhāmattaṁ pemamattaṁ might be rendered “simply faith, simply love” or “mere faith, mere love” (as it sometimes is), but this could not explain the guarantee of rebirth in heaven. It therefore seems obligatory to take the suffix matta here as implying a requisite amount of faith and love, not simple possession of these qualities.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 14, 2016 1:44 PM
Title: Re: Pali Resources
Content:
I have just uploaded a romanized version of the Royal Siam Tipiṭaka here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw2ZpMqGylXcVUFRSmtPeTJFbUU

It’s one that I made myself by converting the Thai files from http://www.84000.org

I haven’t proofread it, however, other than checking and correcting phonetically impossible consonant clusters and suchlike. Nor does it seem to have been proofread by the monks at Mahachulalongkorn University who originally scanned and OCR’d the hard volumes. So I’d say it’s in a similarly raw condition to the Sri Lankan digital Buddha Jayanti Tipiṭaka. At most it might come in handy if you want to do a quick and dirty check on alternative readings.

The format is plain text, Unicode encoding, Unix line breaks.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 12, 2016 12:05 PM
Title: Re: the great Nibbana = annihilation, eternal, or something else thread
Content:
Oh come on, you can do better than this. This kind of talk from Maha Boowa and his disciples is just an intellectually lazy tactic for ensuring that the irrationalist tendencies and textually unsupported views of his tradition are quarantined from any possible criticism.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 12, 2016 11:21 AM
Title: Re: is there any good vipassana retreat in india?
Content:
The correct url is http://www.dalhousietheravadabuddhistretreats.org/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 11, 2016 1:44 PM
Title: Re: Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā - renditions?
Content:
Yes, it’s remarkable what flights of philosophical fancy readers of Dhp. 1-2 can venture into when they attend only to the first line and overlook the part about speaking and acting with a pure/impure mind and the consequences of this. I remember once listening to an American monk (an admirer of Ñāṇavīra) dilating at great length on the phenomenological importance of understand the priority of mano to dhammā in structural rather than temporal terms.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 11, 2016 11:24 AM
Title: Re: Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā - renditions?
Content:
In their insertion of "all" translators are probably being influenced either by the detailed discussion of the Dhp. verses in the Peṭakopadesa or (more likely) by consideration of a closely related passage found in two suttas in the AN's Accharāsaṅghātavagga:
“Bhikkhus, whatever qualities (ye keci dhammā) are unwholesome, partake of the unwholesome, and pertain to the unwholesome, all of them (sabbe te) have the mind as their forerunner (manopubbaṅgamā). Mind arises first followed by the unwholesome qualities.”

“Bhikkhus, whatever qualities are wholesome, partake of the wholesome, and pertain to the wholesome, all of them have the mind as their forerunner. Mind arises first followed by the wholesome qualities.”
(AN.i.11)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 10, 2016 2:46 PM
Title: Re: Favourite quote from the Pali Canon
Content:
And then the Blessed One Vipassī, Arahant and Perfectly Awakened One, recited the Pātimokkha to the community of bhikkhus, thus:
“Patience and forbearance are the highest austerity; ‘Nibbāna is the highest’ say the Buddhas. He is not truly called ‘one gone forth’ who injures others, nor ‘an ascetic’ who harms another.

“The avoidance of all evil; the cultivation of the wholesome; the cleansing of one’s mind: this is the message of the Buddhas.

“Not abusing, not injuring and restraint under the Pātimokkha; knowing moderation in eating, secluded lodgings and exertion in the higher mind: this is the message of the Buddhas.”
(Ovādapātimokkha from the Mahāpādāna Sutta, DN. iii. 49; = Dhp 183-5)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 8, 2016 6:13 PM
Title: Re: What, exactly, is "the seen"?
Content:
The diagram leaves one wondering what exactly the man in the Mahāsāropama Sutta was looking for.

Seyyathāpi puriso sāratthiko sāragavesī sārapariyesanaṃ caramāno...

“It is as though a man needing heartwood, seeking heartwood, wandering in search of heartwood...” 
(Ñāṇamoli)

“It is like a man walking about aiming at the pith, seeking for the pith, looking about for the pith...” 
(I.B. Horner)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 8, 2016 1:33 AM
Title: Re: Tiramisu and precept breaking
Content:
No. Ignorance is exculpatory only where it has the effect of cancelling out one or more of the factors of transgression.

For example, when a person squashes a bug that he didn't see, he hasn't broken the first precept because his ignorance of the bug's presence cancels out the two factors of perception of a living being and the intention to kill it. But if he deliberately kills a bug because he is ignorant of the meaning of the first precept and thinks that it only applies to killing humans and mammals, then the factors of transgression would be complete.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 8, 2016 12:50 AM
Title: Re: Tiramisu and precept breaking
Content:
It’s not actually Bhikkhu Bodhi’s commentary, but rather his paraphrase of the Paramatthajotikā's four factors of transgression:

Surādīnañca aññataraṃ hoti, madanīyapātukamyatācittañca paccupaṭṭhitaṃ hoti, tajjañca vāyāmaṃ āpajjati, pīte ca pavisatī ti.

Ñāṇamoli:

(1) There is one or other of the things beginning with liquor.

(2) Cognizance of desire to drink an intoxicant is established.

(3) One undertakes the appropriate effort.

(4) When [the intoxicant] has been drunk it is absorbed.


Mahamakut University translation:

1. ของมึนเมามีสุราเป็นต้นอย่างใดอย่างหนึ่ง
(something or other intoxicating, starting with surā).

2. จิตคิดอยากจะดื่มของมึนเมา
(citta that thinks and wants to drink something intoxicating).

3. ความพยายามเกิดแต่จิตนั้น
(an effort arises from that citta).

4. ดื่มเข้าไปในลำคอ
(one drinks and swallows).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 7, 2016 5:13 PM
Title: Re: Buddha talked to Acharn Mun?
Content:
I suppose the Buddha could if this supposed "primordial citta" was a part of his doctrine. But there's no good reason to think that it was. And if you click on MikeNZ's links to Ajahn Sujāto's blog you'll see there are plenty of reasons to think that it wasn't.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 7, 2016 3:01 PM
Title: Re: Tiramisu and precept breaking
Content:
Yes.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 7, 2016 2:40 PM
Title: Re: Tiramisu and precept breaking
Content:
The "very unlikely situation" he refers to concerns a breach of the fifth saṅghādisesa rule, a prohibition against acting as a matchmaker. Breaking a saṅghādisesa is the next worst thing after committing a defeating offence. Twelve of the thirteen saṅghādisesa rules are sacittaka, but matchmaking is acittaka and the rule prohibiting it can be accidentally broken even by an arahant. The "very unlikely situation" is one related in Buddhaghosa's Vinaya Commentary where an arahant bhikkhu hears that his parents have become estranged and makes efforts to reconcile them (this is something the Vinaya permits). But unbeknownst to the bhikkhu, his parents have in fact already divorced and so his efforts to get them back together technically amount to matchmaking. Since this rule is acittaka the bhikkhu's ignorance of his parents' true state doesn't excuse him and so he has to confess a saṅghādisesa and do a six-day penance for it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 7, 2016 10:10 AM
Title: Re: The racial appearance of the Buddha: Vasala 'outcaste'
Content:
Shakyamuni images in which he is depicted in a Vinaya-compliant patchwork robe are actually quite common in Tibetan statues and line drawings.

That the Buddha isn't normally shown with a shaven head probably reflects the wish of artists to emphasize his status as a mahāpuruṣa rather than as a śramaṇa. You can't do both: either you make him a skinhead ascetic or you depict him (as far as is artistically possible) in full possession of the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks of a great man; several of the minor marks have to do with his head-hairs.

Having said that, I do recall seeing sketches of a shaven-headed Buddha used as illustrations in a number of 19th century English and American works on the Buddha and his teaching. I think Warren's Buddhism in Translation was one of them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 6, 2016 7:41 PM
Title: Re: Tiramisu and precept breaking
Content:
Well, I’m afraid you’re mistaken, as even a very cursory survey of the Suttavibhaṅga’s adjudications will show you.

Intention is what makes an action a skilful or an unskilful kamma. But moral restraint in the Vinaya has a much broader scope than just avoiding unskilful kammas. It’s concerned also with the maintenance of communal harmony within the sangha and harmonious relations between sangha and laity.

Certain kinds of action are objectively disruptive of this; that is, the disruption produced is quite independent of the bhikkhu’s intention for doing those actions. The Vinaya rules that prohibit such actions are therefore more likely to be ranked as acittaka than sacittaka (i.e. they’ll be rules where the bhikkhu’s state of mind and motivation is treated as irrelevant).

In this connection you might also look up the ten reasons the Buddha gave Upāli for his establishing the Pāṭimokkha. It is clear from these that (contrary to a statement in one of your later posts in this thread) there is actually a strong utilitarian component to the Vinaya.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 6, 2016 7:34 PM
Title: Re: Happy Birthday Bhante Dhammanando!!
Content:
Thanks everyone!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 6, 2016 5:40 PM
Title: Re: Viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ & appatiṭṭha viññāṇa, 2 types nibbana?
Content:
You have to double the p (appaṭigha), then you'll find it in the DN's Saṅgītisutta and the SN's Sallasutta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 4, 2016 2:22 PM
Title: Re: What do experienced lay buddhists or monks do throghout the day?
Content:
Sometimes the precept is split into two, as in the ten precepts of a sāmaṇera; sometimes it's a single precept, as in the eight uposatha precepts. I don't know of any particular reason for this.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 4, 2016 12:32 PM
Title: Re: Dealing with a hardcore JW in my family
Content:
So you can tell your father that if this is true then it’s no big deal whether you become a JW or not, for should their religion turn out to be true you’ll be sure to take full advantage of the opportunity that Jehovah offers to the resurrected unrighteous goats.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 4, 2016 10:05 AM
Title: Re: Need References: Did Siddhartha have an orgy the night he left Kapilavastu?
Content:
I think what you may be referring to is the Vinaya’s narrative of the going forth of Yasa. In later poetical biographies of the Buddha the episode not infrequently gets misassigned to Prince Gotama.


Here’s the Vinaya account:
At that time in Benares there was a young man of family, the son of a (great) merchant, delicately reared, called Yasa.

He had three mansions, one for the cold weather, one for the hot weather, one for the rains. Being ministered to by bands of female musicians for four months in the mansion for the rains, he did not come down from that mansion. Then while Yasa, the young man of family, was possessed of and provided with the five kinds of sense-pleasures, and was being ministered to, he fell asleep first and his suite fell asleep after him, and an oil lamp was burning all through the night.

Then Yasa, the young man of family, having awoken first saw his own suite sleeping, one with a lute in the hollow of her arm, one with a tabor at her neck, one with a drum in the hollow of her arm, one with dishevelled hair, one with saliva dripping from her mouth, muttering in their sleep, like a cemetery before his very eyes. Seeing this, its peril grew plain, and his mind was set on disregarding it. Then Yasa, the young man of family, uttered a solemn utterance: “What distress indeed, what affliction indeed.”

Then Yasa, the young man of family, having put on his golden sandals, approached the door of the dwelling. Non-human beings opened the door, thinking: “Let there be no obstacle for the going forth from home into homelessness of Yasa, the young man of family.” Then Yasa, the young man of family, approached the city-door. Non-human beings opened the door, thinking: “Let there be no obstacle for the going forth from home into homelessness of Yasa, the young man of family.” Then Yasa, the young man of family, approached the deer-park at Isipatana.

At that time, the Lord having risen in the night towards dawn, was pacing up and down in the open air. The Lord saw Yasa, the young man of family, coming in the distance: seeing him, having come down from (the place) where he was pacing up and down, he sat down on an appointed seat. Then Yasa, the young man of family, when he was near, uttered this solemn utterance to the Lord: “What distress indeed, what affliction indeed.” Then the Lord spoke thus to Yasa, the young man of family: “This, Yasa, is not distress, this, Yasa, is not affliction. Come, sit down, Yasa, I will teach you dhamma.”

Then Yasa, the young man of family, thinking: “It is said that this is not distress, that this is not affliction”, exultant and uplifted, having taken off his golden sandals, approached the Lord; having approached, having greeted the Lord, he sat down at a respectful distance. As he was sitting down at a respectful distance, the Lord talked a progressive talk to Yasa, the young man of family, that is to say, talk on giving, talk on moral habit, talk on heaven, he explained the peril, the vanity, the depravity of pleasures of the senses, the advantage in renouncing them.

When the Lord knew that the mind of Yasa, the young man of family, was ready, malleable, devoid of hindrances, uplifted, pleased, then he explained to him the teaching on dhamma which the awakened ones have themselves discovered: ill, uprising, stopping, the Way. And just as a clean cloth without black specks will take a dye easily, even so (as he was sitting) on that very seat, dhamma-vision, dustless, stainless, arose to Yasa, the young man of family, that whatever is of a nature to uprise, all that is of a nature to stop.”
(Vin. i. 14-16, tr. I.B. Horner)


And here’s the Mahāsaṅghika poet-monk Aśvaghoṣa describing the same thing happening to the Bodhisatta:
The king, the father, knew that his son’s mind was certain and could not be changed. He just had to do his utmost to hold him back. “Why the need for more words!”

He increased the exquisite happiness of the five desires with the ladies even more. Night and day suffering was warded off, so that [the Crown Prince] would certainly not wish to go forth.

The ministers in the land came to the Crown Prince and extensively spoke of the rules of propriety, urging him to comply with the king’s command.

When the Crown Prince saw that the king, his father, was sad and wept, his tears flowing, he momentarily returned to his palace. Sitting upright, he pondered in silence.

The ladies in the palace held him dear. They surrounded him and waited upon him. They observed him, gazing at his face. They gazed at him unblinking, just like a deer in the autumn forest, looking straight at the hunter.

The Crown Prince’s whole complexion was like a mountain of real gold. The singing women all looked at him and, listening for his instructions, waited for the expression of his voice. They observed his thoughts with reverence, just as that deer in the forest.

Gradually sunset arrived. The Crown Prince dwelled in the dark night, but his light was very bright, just as the sun shining on Mount Sumeru.

While he was sitting on his seat with the seven precious things, perfumed with fine sandalwood, the multitude of ladies surrounded him and played gandharva music. It was just like the son of Vaiśravaṇa and the many fine sounds of celestial music.

What the Crown Prince had on his mind was the highest happiness of renunciation. Even though [the ladies] brought many fine sounds, they still were not in his heart.

Then the celestial sons of the pure abodes knew that the Crown Prince’s time had come, and that he would surely go forth. They suddenly transformed and descended. Disdainful of the multitude of singing women, they caused them all to fall asleep.

The bearing [of the women] was uncontrolled. [With bodies] bent and lax, they showed their ugly appearance. They were numb, their faces alternately turned downward or upward. Their musical instruments were scattered in disarray. Some leaned sideways or had fallen over, and others looked as if they had been dropped into an abyss.

Their necklaces were like dragging chains, and their garments were swathed around their bodies. Some were lying down on the floor, clasping the zither, like someone who is experiencing suffering. Their yellow and green garments were spread out, just like broken karṇīkāra flowers.

With loose limbs they leaned against the walls, eyes closed, their shape like a hanging horn-bow. Some held on to a window with their hands and looked like strangled corpses. They groaned incessantly and gasped deeply. They were repugnant, sniveling and salivating.

With disheveled hair they showed their ugly appearance. They looked like mad people. Flower garlands were hanging across their faces. Some were lying face down on the floor, and some were trembling all over, just like a lone shivering bird.

Their bodies bent, they leaned on each other like pillows, hands and feet entwined. Some knit their brows and frowned, and some closed their eyes and opened their mouths. All kinds of bodies were dispersed, scattered about like corpses after an untimely death.

The Crown Prince then sat up and observed the ladies. They had all been utterly majestic before, talking and laughing, their thoughts ingratiating and clever. They had been bewitching and ingenious in seduction, but now they all were repugnant.

“If the nature of woman is such, how can one hold them dear? When bathing and making use of ornaments, they deceive the minds of men. I have understood now! I will certainly go forth, without any doubt!”
(Buddhacarita fasc. I. ch. v, 48-64 tr. Charles Willemen)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 15, 2016 12:24 PM
Title: Re: Japan may change temple icon to avoid Nazi confusion
Content:
By the time Hitler set about designing the Nazi flag, the runic swastika (as found on the Sæbø sword, for example), along with all the other European forms of the swastika, had long since ceased to serve any but a decorative function. For Europe the swastika no longer symbolized anything. And so Hitler was in effect appropriating not the runic but the Indian swastika (learned of from his dabbling in the writings of Blavatsky and other occultists).

The grotesqueness of such an appropriation lies in the fact that whereas Nazism, like all fascisms, was noted for (indeed virtually defined by) its advocacy of "redemptive violence", all of the Asian religious traditions making use of the swastika have ahiṃsā as one of their cardinal teachings.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 15, 2016 9:41 AM
Title: Re: What will happen to an Arhant / Anagami if his body was destroyed while he is in Nirodha Samapatti
Content:
The attainment is said to be the outcome of a mode of practice called the “development of dispassion towards perception” (saññāvirāga-bhāvanā). The Pali texts deal only very cursorily with this, presumably because it’s deemed to be a wrong practice that leads only to rebirth as an impercipient deva – a rather useless achievement unless you like the idea of spending five hundred aeons as a de facto stone.

In the Sammohavinodanī Buddhaghosa merely states:
“Of the non-percipient beings” means “of the beings lacking perception.” Certain persons, having gone forth in dispensations outside [of the Buddha’s teaching], perceive a defect in consciousness (citta), [thinking]: ‘being greedy, hateful or deluded depends on consciousness; but a state free of consciousness would be beautiful – it would be Nibbāna in the present life.’ They then generate dispassion towards perception (saññāvirāga) and developing the fifth attainment (samāpatti) in conformity with this [view] they are reborn there [i.e., in the realm of the impercipient beings]. At the moment of their rebirth only the aggregate of matter (rūpakkhandha) is produced. If they are reborn standing, they stand only; if sitting, they sit only; if lying down, they lie only. They then remain for five hundred kalpas just like painted statues. After that their bodies disappear and a sense-sphere perception arises leading those [former] devas to realize that their [non-percipient] body has now passed away.
(Vibh-a. 520-1)

Some non-Theravādin writers went into the matter in somewhat more detail. Dan Lusthaus’s Buddhist Phenomenology gives a useful overview of how different schools conceived of the difference between asaññā-samāpatti and saññāvedayita-nirodha-samāpatti. See attached file.


 ./download/file.php?id=2924
(219.33 KiB) Downloaded 207 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 15, 2016 6:26 AM
Title: Lord Avebury, RIP
Content:
Avebury 2.jpg (88.55 KiB) Viewed 4288 times





Avebury4.jpg (67.61 KiB) Viewed 4288 times





Avebury.jpg (495.07 KiB) Viewed 4288 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 15, 2016 6:03 AM
Title: Re: What will happen to an Arhant / Anagami if his body was destroyed while he is in Nirodha Samapatti
Content:
It doesn't actually say that. The problem is that the translator has chosen to use 'trance' for both the impercipient attainment (which is available to any worldling who cultivates the fourth jhāna while committed to the wrong view that saññā is the cause of all suffering) and the attainment of the cessation of feeling and perception (available only to a small minority of anāgāmins and arahants).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 13, 2016 9:54 AM
Title: Re: What will happen to an Arhant / Anagami if his body was destroyed while he is in Nirodha Samapatti
Content:
If you look in Points of Controversy you'll find family tree charts depicting the relationship of the different schools according to three different sources. In the Theravādin chart (based on the Dīpavaṃsa) the Theravāda is simply the original Buddhism out of which all the other schools grew. In the Sarvastivadin chart of Vasumitra the Theravada isn't mentioned. In Bhavya's chart the Vaibhadyavāda is probably the Theravāda (Vaibhadyavāda is the Sanskrit for Vibhajjavāda, the Theravāda's alternative name).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 13, 2016 7:22 AM
Title: Re: Study guide
Content:
Though to most enquirers I would give the same recommendation as Katavedi and Mike, given your own interests you might find this more meditation-oriented anthology of greater relevance:

https://www.amazon.com/Sayings-Buddha-Translations-Nikayas-Classics/dp/019283925X


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 13, 2016 6:41 AM
Title: Re: Interpreting the story of Gen Siha's meal
Content:
The assumption here is that General Sīha took his Jainism very seriously, with his life governed by Jaina ethics. There are, however, a couple of things that militate against this. Firstly there’s the fact that he was in military service, despite being affiliated with a dharma whose right livelihood teachings were so stringent that they prohibited even farming as an occupation for its adherents (lest one accidentally kill a worm or something). Secondly there’s the commentarial gloss on ‘Nigaṇṭhasāvaka’ (‘disciple of the Jains’), the term used to describe General Sīha whenever he makes an appearance in the Sutta and Vinaya Piṭakas. The interesting thing here is that whenever commenting on this term in connection with Sīha the commentators pointedly depart from their usual definition of ‘sāvaka’. Normally when a person is described as being ‘a disciple of teacher/group X’ the commentators will gloss it as ‘He listens to and heeds the exhortation of X’. But General Sīha is never described in this way; instead his discipleship is described in both Sutta and Vinaya commentaries as consisting merely in his being ‘a steward and a giver of the (four) requisites to the Nigaṇṭhas’. Thirdly there’s the fact that in the one and only reported encounter between Mahāvīra and Sīha the latter does not “listen to and heed” the former’s exhortation: he goes to visit the Buddha even though Mahāvīra has warned him not to.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 12, 2016 5:20 PM
Title: Re: What do experienced lay buddhists or monks do throghout the day?
Content:
It's a Burmese practice based on the Navaṅguposatha Sutta and comprising the usual eight uposatha precepts + mettabhāvanā.

https://suttacentral.net/si/an9.18 (Sinhala)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 12, 2016 2:09 PM
Title: Re: What will happen to an Arhant / Anagami if his body was destroyed while he is in Nirodha Samapatti
Content:
No, it's long extinct. It never seems to been much more than a regional spin-off of the Andhakas (i.e. the school of Andhra Pradesh), so tiny that it didn't even make the list of eighteen.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 12, 2016 12:36 PM
Title: Re: What will happen to an Arhant / Anagami if his body was destroyed while he is in Nirodha Samapatti
Content:
One's body is unaffected by weapons, poisons or fire when in nirodha-samāpatti. Even the Rājagirika sect, whose members held that it's possible to die while in this samāpatti, agreed that this could not happen by way of weapons, poisons or fire. The Theravada view at the Third Council is that while in nirodha-samāpatti it's not possible to die by any means whatever.

https://suttacentral.net/en/kv15.9


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 12, 2016 11:28 AM
Title: Re: Interpreting the story of Gen Siha's meal
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 12, 2016 11:00 AM
Title: Re: Interpreting the story of Gen Siha's meal
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 12, 2016 10:30 AM
Title: Re: Interpreting the story of Gen Siha's meal
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 12, 2016 9:51 AM
Title: Re: The causes for wisdom
Content:
The ṭīkā does nothing of the kind. On the contrary, it treats the two kinds of suppression as two different things. It states that in the non-arahant defilements may be suppressed by either mundane jhāna or by insight. In the case of the former the suppression is effected by the jhāna factors, while the path leading to it may entail deliberate acts of suppression of the kind outlined in the Vitakkasaṇṭhānasutta. As for suppression by insight (vipassanā-vikkhambhana), every instance of this described in the texts consists in the displacement of something akusala or flawed or inferior by the arising of some kind of knowledge. There isn’t a single case where it consists in the akusala thing being suppressed by a deliberate act of will.

Some examples of suppression by insight:

• Perception of permanence (niccasaññā) is displaced by the perception of impermanence (aniccasaññā).
• Perception of pleasure (sukhasaññā) is displaced by the perception of suffering (dukkhasaññā).
• Perception of self (attāsaññā) is displaced by the perception of not-self (anattāsaññā).
• Delight (nandi) is displaced by knowledge of disenchantment (nibbidā).
• Greed (rāga) is displaced by knowledge of dispassion (virāga).
• Origination (samudaya) is displaced by knowledge of cessation (nirodha).
• Appropriation (ādāna) is displaced by knowledge of relinquishment (paṭinissagga).
• Perception of compactness (ghanasaññā) is displaced by knowledge of destruction (khaya).
• Accumulation (āyūhana) is displaced by knowledge of disappearance (vaya).
• Perception of everlastingness (dhuvasaññā) is displaced by knowledge of transience (vipariṇāma).
• Signs (nimitta) are displaced by knowledge of the signless (animitta).
• Desire (paṇidhi) is displaced by knowledge of the desireless (appaṇihita).
• Voluntary adhesion (abhinivesa) is displaced by knowledge of emptiness (suññatā).
• Voluntary adhesion due to grasping at an essence (sārādānābhinivesa) is displaced by insight into dhammas at the level of higher understanding (adhipaññādhammavipassanā).
• Voluntary adhesion due to delusion (sammohābhinivesa) is displaced by knowledge and vision according to reality (yathābhūtañāṇadassana).
• Voluntary adhesion due to reliance [on formations] (ālayābhinivesa) is displaced by knowledge of the peril [in formations] (ādīnava).
• Non-reflection (appaṭisaṅkha) is displaced by reflection (paṭisaṅkha).
• Voluntary adhesion due to the fetters (saṃyogābhinivesa) is displaced by knowledge of turning away (vivaṭṭa).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 30, 2016 10:45 AM
Title: Re: The causes for wisdom
Content:
Your quotation from Sāriputta does not in fact contradict Robert’s point that the path is one of seeing.

Firstly, chandarāgavinaya would be more accurately translated: “the removal of desire and lust”.

Thanissaro’s decision to translate vinaya as if it were a gerund (‘subduing’), when in fact it’s a noun of state, gives the false impression that the elimination of chanda and rāga is something that one does, as opposed to being something that happens when dhammas have been correctly seen.

Secondly, if you research how rāgavinaya (along with dosavinaya and mohavinaya) are used in the Suttas, you will see that Sāriputta’s statement to the monks may be paraphrased: “Our teacher, friends, teaches Nibbāna.” For example:
 “The removal of desire and lust [chandarāgavinaya], the abandonment of desire and lust [chandarāgappahāna] for these five aggregates affected by clinging is the cessation of suffering.”
(MN. 28)
That it would be a mistake to conclude from Sāriputta’s words that the immediate task facing one is to make an active and deliberate effort to squelch one’s desires will be evident from any of the numerous suttas expounding the way to rāgavinaya. I’ll leave you with one example (it will have to be my last for a few days, for I’m going to be offline while our local satellite receiver undergoes repairs):
“And what, bhikkhus, is the escape in the case of material form? It is the removal of desire and lust, the abandonment of desire and lust for material form. This is the escape in the case of material form.

“That those recluses and brahmins who do not understand as it actually is the gratification as gratification, the danger as danger, and the escape as escape in the case of material form, can either themselves fully understand material form or instruct another so that he can fully understand material form—that is impossible. That those recluses and brahmins who do understand as it actually is the gratification as gratification, the danger as danger, and the escape as escape in the case of material form, can either themselves fully understand material form or instruct another so that he can fully understand material form—that is possible.”
(MN. 13)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 29, 2016 1:18 PM
Title: Re: Shelter at the root of a tree
Content:
It might be better if venerables Pesala, Gavesako or Kumāra weighed in here as property-ownership is quite a heavily disputed area of Vinaya and I don't myself have any expertise in it. Certainly the Vinaya prohibits the saṅgha from giving any of its collectively owned land or dwellings to be owned by an individual bhikkhu, but I gather there's some disagreement about whether this should be extended to prohibit a bhikkhu's continuing to own land that he had before ordaining or his accepting a donation of land (for his personal use) from householders after ordaining.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:50 PM
Title: Re: Doubt is fully eliminated only by Arahnats?
Content:
This is obviously not true, for if all smokers thought this then no smokers would ever quit. What you're describing is just one way in which certain smokers try to suppress the worry they feel about their addiction.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:09 PM
Title: Re: Shelter at the root of a tree
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:00 PM
Title: Re: Shelter at the root of a tree
Content:
No, those are the eight things that a monk must have. They are not a limit on what he may have.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 29, 2016 11:38 AM
Title: Re: The causes for wisdom
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 29, 2016 10:44 AM
Title: Re: Shelter at the root of a tree
Content:
In Thailand thudong monks consider tents allowable and in fact in recent years I've noticed them rapidly supplanting the umbrella and mosquito net as the portable shelter of choice.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 29, 2016 10:05 AM
Title: Re: Addition of diacritical marks
Content:
Mac users can install the EasyUnicode keyboard:

http://www.tipitaka.org/keyboard/

Keystrokes

All the Pali and Sanskrit diacritics are produced with the option key:

opt a: ā
opt i: ī
opt u: ū
opt g or k: ṅ
opt c or j: ñ
opt t: ṭ
opt d: ḍ
opt n: ṇ
opt m: ṃ
opt l: ḷ
opt r: ṛ
opt s: ś
opt x: ṣ
opt h: ḥ


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 29, 2016 9:42 AM
Title: Re: Shelter at the root of a tree
Content:
Many Thai thudong monks will carry a bottle of paraffin (US 'kerosene') with them. Besides using it as fuel for a lamp you can also leave a circle of it around your sitting place. This repels the crawling bugs. The krot mentioned by Ven. Pesala keeps away the flying ones.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 29, 2016 9:27 AM
Title: Re: Doubt is fully eliminated only by Arahnats?
Content:
This is irrelevant, for Santa was speaking of a case where the smoker does not doubt the harmfulness of smoking.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 29, 2016 7:03 AM
Title: Re: The causes for wisdom
Content:
There are several suttas (the https://suttacentral.net/en/mn29, for example) describing how a man might go forth, achieve some measure of success in bhāvanā (of a kind that falls short of knowledge of destruction of the āsavas), but whose progress is then halted owing to satisfaction with that success. One may conclude from such suttas that the progress described, and the practices which gave rise to it, are not in and of themselves the "path toward vipassanā". 

But perhaps our point of disagreement here is really over the meaning of "path toward vipassanā". I would use the term to refer only to those things that are directly the cause for the arising of insight and which cannot do otherwise than give rise to insight. It's my impression that you're using it in a broader sense than this, e.g., that if a person is described as developing insight on the basis of the fourth jhāna, then the efforts that lead to the attainment of that jhāna would also be included by you in the category "path toward vipassanā". I wouldn't classify these efforts so, for it's quite possible (and outside of the Buddha's teaching it's the norm) that the fourth jhāna will not issue in insight.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 28, 2016 7:41 PM
Title: Re: Make partner sexually happy in Buddhism
Content:
As I've never studied the relevant ethnographic data, I'm afraid I can't offer an informed opinion as to the desirability of relationships where there's a large age gap.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 28, 2016 1:41 AM
Title: Re: Make partner sexually happy in Buddhism
Content:
Opinions vary.

Some would take "woman protected by her parents" to apply to any woman of any age who is still living in her parents' home.
Some would exclude adult women who, though still living with their parents, have been given a free rein with regard to relationships.
Some would exclude adult women who are already earning their own living and paying their parents rent, and would pay no regard to her parents' wishes. In other words, they would look upon her parents as her landlords rather than her protectors.

Of these three I'm personally inclined to favour the second.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 27, 2016 11:57 PM
Title: Re: Big Buddhist park project upsets southern Thai Muslims
Content:
Though Buddhists are a minority in Pattani, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of them. In fact there are about 100,000 Buddhists in the whole province. As the province in question is about the size of the English county of Derbyshire or the American state of Rhode Island, most of those 100,000 would be within about an hour’s drive of the Buddhist park. In recent years, thanks largely to Saudi funding, there’s been no end of new mega-mosques springing up all over the North and Northeast of Thailand, where (except in Mae Hong Son and a couple of other places) Muslims are pretty thin on the ground. In no case that I know of does the Muslim population dwelling within a one-hour catchment area of these new mosques even approach the figure of 100,000. In some it doesn’t reach even 1,000. In http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Buddhists-in-Nan-take-a-stand-against-mosque-30255206.html it’s only sixty Muslims! Moreover, construction of several of these mosques has been given the go-ahead despite strong objections from Buddhist locals. In the case of the mega-mosque in Nan, for example, I don’t recall Waedueramae and Worawit, or any other Muslim leaders, urging the the province’s sixty Muslims to be reasonable, respect the wishes of Nan’s 400,000 Buddhists and build something a little less extravagant.

In short, barring the possibilty of the Pattani site being Muslim-owned, I am inclined to see the objections raised thus far as just another case of Islamic double standards and grievance-mongering.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 27, 2016 10:01 PM
Title: Re: The causes for wisdom
Content:
It is, rather, to assert that deliberate suppression is not the only way in which the hindrances may become absent.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 27, 2016 9:39 PM
Title: Re: The causes for wisdom
Content:
The comprehension by insight of the three characteristics takes care of the hindrances of kāmacchanda, byāpāda and kukkucca. But a complete description of the suppression of the five hindrances in insight development would be:

• First insight knowledge (defining nāma and rūpa): doubt.
• Third insight knowledge (comprehension of the three characteristics): sensual desire, ill will, remorse.
• Fourth insight knowledge (rise and fall): sloth and torpor, restlessness.

Now it may be that it’s one of the three characteristics in one of the five hindrances that is the object of insight in the third insight knowledge. However, this wouldn’t be in one and the same moment when the hindrance is present. Rather, the object would be a hindrance that has just ceased.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 27, 2016 7:05 PM
Title: Re: The causes for wisdom
Content:
The Majjhima-ṭīkā takes your quotation from the Dvedhāvitakka Sutta to be a description of what the Nettippakaraṇa calls “abandoning by suppression through the power of reflection” (paṭisaṅkhāna-balena vikkhambhana-pahāna). This is a feature of the development of calm /samatha.

Robert, on the other hand, was speaking of the development of insight /vipassanā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 27, 2016 1:11 PM
Title: Re: Make partner sexually happy in Buddhism
Content:
Okay, but being a minor and being under someone's protection aren't really equivalent terms. The former is a secular term meaning one who hasn't yet reached the age of sexual consent or the age when one is legally an adult. The Sutta phrase "a woman protected by her mother (father, brother, husband, etc.)" doesn't carry any implications about her age.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 27, 2016 7:16 AM
Title: Re: Wat Dhammakaya
Content:
I mean currying favour with monks in positions of power by making huge donations to their wat.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 26, 2016 8:02 AM
Title: Re: Suttas on walking meditation technique?
Content:
Though they don't actually answer your question, below are the Vinaya passages relevant to the Buddha's allowance for a caṅkama (translated by I.B. Horner as "a place for pacing up and down in") along with various ancillary regulations.

https://suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-kd15
(Scroll down to: At present, Lord, monks are very ill with their bodies full of (bad) humours...).

https://suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-kd12
(Scroll down to: A monk under probation should not sit down on the same seat with a regular monk...).

https://suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-kd5
(Scroll down to: Now at that time the Lord was pacing up and down without sandals in the open air...).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 25, 2016 12:32 PM
Title: Re: Make partner sexually happy in Buddhism
Content:
Which Sutta?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 25, 2016 11:19 AM
Title: Re: Envy definition
Content:
I think there was actually a potential source of confusion in my post, namely, my neglecting to state that what the two interpretations are disagreeing about is not a single situation but rather, (1) an occasion when there arises both aversion and envy, and (2) an occasion when there arises aversion alone.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 25, 2016 11:11 AM
Title: Re: Make partner sexually happy in Buddhism
Content:
If you mean 'minors' as defined by the laws governing the age of consent, then having sex with them would break the third precept in that they are "women whose use incurs punishment".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 25, 2016 10:39 AM
Title: Re: Is it insulting for non buddhist to have a Buddha tattoo?
Content:
Mahāvīra is recognisable from his nakedness — he doesn't have a robe over his left shoulder as Buddha statues do. As for distinguishing Amitābha from Gotama Buddha, this is a little trickier though the Wikipedia entry gives some indications...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amit%C4%81bha#Iconography


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 25, 2016 10:20 AM
Title: Re: Envy definition
Content:
Yes, though if it's a stream-entrant there would be only the craving and not the envying of Steve. Even in the case of a worldling one can easily conceive situations where a man covets another's wife but without envying her husband. (Confessions of a Window Cleaner and other Robin Askwith bedroom farces from the seventies would be a good fictional example of this. The window-cleaning protagonist isn't in the least envious of the husbands whose wives' sexual favours he enjoys; if anything he relishes the fact that he can enjoy these favours while leaving it to the husbands to support the women).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 25, 2016 9:28 AM
Title: Re: Is it insulting for non buddhist to have a Buddha tattoo?
Content:
That it's "only Amitābha" isn't likely to make much difference. In those regions where offence might be taken at a Buddha tattoo, few people will be iconographically literate enough to tell an Amitābha tattoo from a Gotama tattoo, or even tell either of these from a tattoo of Mahāvīra the Jain.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 25, 2016 3:06 AM
Title: Re: Walking meditation (cankama) in Thai forest tradition
Content:
Yes, you're right – I didn't read the OP carefully enough.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 25, 2016 1:40 AM
Title: Re: Walking meditation (cankama) in Thai forest tradition
Content:
The instruction may have its source in Dhammapāla's ṭīkā to the Visuddhimagga. In commenting on Buddhaghosa's recommendation that a bhikkhu intent on meditation should reside in a place where the resort for almsfood is located to the north or the south, Dhammapāla explains that this is in order to avoid getting the sun in his eyes when walking to and from the village.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 25, 2016 1:10 AM
Title: Re: Enlightenment from giving
Content:
The Buddha used other terms for this, notably, "diligence/negligence (appamāda/pamāda) with regard to wholesome dhammas".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 25, 2016 12:46 AM
Title: Re: Enlightenment from giving
Content:
Yes, but macchariya is not a form of greed, nor even a mental factor that arises with greed. Rather it's a hate-related mental factor — a loathing of the idea of giving or sharing one's possessions with others.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 24, 2016 11:57 PM
Title: Re: Pali chants to show respect to teachers
Content:
The sound files are still obtainable via Wayback Machine.

https://web.archive.org/web/20121029173803/http://learningthai.com/sound/chanting_04.mp3

https://web.archive.org/web/20121029173821/http://learningthai.com/sound/chanting_05.mp3


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 24, 2016 11:28 PM
Title: Re: Make partner sexually happy in Buddhism
Content:
Marrying a woman much younger than oneself doesn’t break the third precept but isn't recommended. In the Parābhavasutta the Buddha includes it as one of twelve causes of failure in life.
“When a man, past youth, doth wed
A maid with rounded breasts
And cannot sleep for jealousy:
A source of failure that.”
(Sn. 110)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 24, 2016 11:07 PM
Title: Re: Envy definition
Content:
There is a difference of opinion among teachers of Abhidhamma on this point. Suppose that Bill, a low-paid unskilled worker, observes that Fred, his wealthy stockbroker neighbour, has just bought himself a brand new Ferrari. Each time Bill thinks about Fred and his Ferrari various unwholesome mental factors arise:

1. Sometimes he craves a Ferrari of his own.
2. Sometimes he wants to have Fred’s Ferrari.
3. Sometimes he resents Fred on account of his possession of something that he himself lacks (and is unlikely to obtain).
4. Sometimes his resentment is directed at the situation, i.e. a state of affairs in which another person possesses something that he doesn’t. If he’s a petulant socialist type, for example, he might deem it an “injustice” that Fred gets to ride around in a Ferrari while he himself must make do with a 1970 Volkswagen.

Now all ābhidhammikas would agree that #1 is ordinary greed (lobha) and #2 is perverse greed (avisama lobha), otherwise known as covetousness (abhijjhā).

As for the other two, some ābhidhammikas would say that #3 is envy (issā) and #4 aversion (dosa). Others would put it the other way around. And so the difference of opinion here is over the question of whether envy takes a person or a situation as its object.

Those who hold that envy is directed only at persons (this is actually the majority view) would argue along these lines:

1. The mental factor directly opposed to envy is sympathetic joy (muditā).
2. Sympathetic joy, like all the brahmāvihāras, incontestably takes only living beings as its object.
3. In any case where a wholesome and an unwholesome mental factor are directly opposed, their range of possible objects is identical (for if it were otherwise then it would not be possible for the wholesome mental factor to completely displace the unwholesome one, or vice versa. But this is in fact possible).
4. Since sympathetic joy takes only living beings as its object, the possible objects of envy are likewise living beings.


As for the minority view, wherein envy is held to consist in Fred’s resentment at the situation, this is defended by appeal to the Abhidhamma’s fourfold description of issā, which, prima facie does seem to indicate that it is Fred’s possession of the Ferrari, rather than Fred himself, that is the object of the mental factor:

“Envy] has the characteristic of being bitter about the successes [possessions, prosperity, accomplishments] of another.
Its function is to take no delight in [or be discontented with] the successes of another.
Its manifestation is antipathy on account of that.
Its proximate cause is the success of another.”
(Dhs-a. 257)

It seems to me, however, that this argument is not a strong one. It is weakened by the fact that in the fourfold description of muditā (a mental factor which nobody disputes takes a living being as its object) the same proximate cause is given as for envy:
“Sympathetic joy has the characteristic of gladness.
Its function is freedom from envying.
Its manifestation is the destruction of discontent [arati – another term for issā].
Its proximate cause is the success of living beings.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 24, 2016 2:09 PM
Title: Re: Envy definition
Content:
I'll reply later today. I just need to look up a definition...


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 24, 2016 9:30 AM
Title: Re: Buddha and anger
Content:
Something like that. Here's a relevant discussion from the Milindapañha:

‘Venerable Nāgasena, it was said by the Elder Sāriputta, the commander of the faith: “The Tathāgata, brethren, is perfect in courtesy of speech. There is no fault of speech in the Tathāgata concerning which he should have to take care that no one else should know it.” And on the other hand the Tathāgata, when promulgating the first Pārājika on the occasion of the offence of Sudinna the Kalanda, addressed him with harsh words, calling him a useless fellow [...] Now if the first statement be correct, the allegation that the Tathāgata called Sudinna the Kalanda a useless fellow must be false. But if that be true, then the first statement must be false. This too is a double-pointed problem now put to you, and you have to solve it.’

‘What Sāriputta the Elder said is true, O king. And the Blessed One called Sudinna a useless fellow on that occasion. But that was not out of rudeness of disposition, it was merely pointing out the real nature (of his conduct) in a way that would do him no harm. And what herein is meant by “pointing out the real nature.” If any man, O king, in this birth does not attain to the perception of the Four Truths, then is his manhood (his being born as a man) in vain, but if he acts differently he will become different. Therefore is it that he is called a useless fellow. And so the Blessed One addressed Sudinna the Kalanda with words of truth, and not with words apart from the facts.’

‘But, Nāgasena, though a man in abusing another speaks the truth, still we should inflict a small fine upon him. For he is guilty of an offence, inasmuch as he, although for something real, abused him by the use of words that might lead to a breach (of the peace).’

‘Have you ever heard, O king, of a people bowing down before, or rising up from their seats in respect for, or showing honour to, or bringing the complimentary presents (usually given to officials) to a criminal?’

‘No, if a man have committed a crime of whatever sort or kind, if he be really worthy of reproof and punishment, they would rather behead him, or torture him, or bind him with bonds, or put him to death, or deprive him of his goods.’

‘Did then the Blessed One, O king, act with justice or not?’

‘With justice, Sir, and in a most fit and proper way. And when, Nāgasena, they hear of it the world of men and gods will be made tender of conscience, and afraid of falling into sin, struck with awe at the sight of it, and still more so when they themselves associate with wrong-doers, or do wrong.’

‘Now would a physician, O king, administer pleasant things as a medicine in a case where all the humours of the body were affected, and the whole frame was disorganised and full of disease?’

‘No. Wishing to put an end to the disease he would give sharp and scarifying drugs.’

‘In the same way, O king, the Tathāgata bestows admonition for the sake of suppressing all the diseases of sin. And the words of the Tathāgata, even when stern, soften men and make them tender. Just as hot water, O king, softens and makes tender anything capable of being softened, so are the words of the Tathāgata, even when stern, yet as full of benefit, and as full of pity as the words of a father would be to his children. Just, O king, as the drinking of evil-smelling decoctions, the swallowing of nasty drugs, destroys the weaknesses of men’s bodies, so are the words of the Tathāgata even when stern, bringers of advantage and laden with pity. And just, O king, as a ball of cotton falling on a man raises no bruise, so do the words of the Tathāgata, even when stern, do no harm.’

‘Well have you made this problem clear by many a simile, Very good, Nāgasena! That is so, and I accept it as you say.’

[End of the dilemma as to the Buddha’s harsh words to Sudinna.]

(tr. Th. Rhys Davids)

And here's the Vinaya passage that King Milinda was referring to:

“Is it true, Sudinna, that you had sexual intercourse with your former wife?”

“It is true, Master.”

The Buddha, the Master, rebuked him: “Foolish man, it is not suitable it is not becoming, it is not proper, it is unworthy of a recluse, it is not allowable, it is not to be done. How could you go forth in such a well-proclaimed Dhamma and training and not be able for life to practice the perfectly complete and pure spiritual life? Have I not taught the Dhamma in many ways for the sake of dispassion, not for the sake of passion; for the sake of freedom from bondage, not for the sake of bondage; for the sake of non-grasping, not for the sake of grasping? When the Dhamma has been taught by me for the sake of dispassion, how can you be intent upon passion? When the Dhamma has been taught by me for the sake of freedom from bondage, how can you be intent upon bondage? When the Dhamma has been taught by me for the sake of non-grasping, how can you be intent upon grasping? Friend, has not the Dhamma been taught in many ways by me for the waning of passion, for the subduing of intoxication, for the restraint of desire, for the abolition of clinging, for the annihilation of the round of existence, for the destruction of craving, for fading away, for cessation, for extinguishment? Have I not in many ways declared the abandoning of sense pleasures, the full understanding of the perception of sense pleasures, the abolishing of thirst for sense pleasures, the elimination of thoughts of sense pleasures, the stilling of the fever of sense pleasures?

“It would be better, foolish man, for your male organ to enter the mouth of a terrible and poisonous snake than to enter a woman. It would be better for your male organ to enter the mouth of a black snake than to enter a woman. It would be better for your male organ to enter a charcoal pit, burning, ablaze, afire, than to enter a woman. Why is that? Because for that reason you might die or experience deadly suffering, but you would not on that account, at the breaking up of the body after death, be reborn in the plane of misery, a bad destination, the abyss, hell. But for this reason, at the breaking up of the body after death, you might be reborn in the plane of misery, a bad destination, the abyss, hell. Foolish man, you have practised what is contrary to the true Dhamma, the common practice, the low practice, the coarse practice, that which ends with a wash, that which is done in private, that which is done wherever there are couples. You are the forerunner, the first performer of many unwholesome things. It will not give rise to confidence in those without it, nor increase the confidence of those who have it, but it will hinder confidence in those without it and it will cause some with confidence to change their minds.”

(tr. I.B. Horner)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 24, 2016 9:25 AM
Title: Re: Abhassara Brahma
Content:
Your chart seems to be faulty. The destruction by wind is correctly represented but the chart presents the Parittābhā and Appamāṇābhā Brahmā-worlds as surviving the destruction by fire and the Parittāsubhā and Appamāṇāsubhā Brahmā-worlds as surviving destruction by water. Neither of these is the case:

“Herein, there are three kinds of contraction: contraction due to water, contraction due to fire, and contraction due to air (see MN 28). Also there are three limits to the contraction; the Ābhassara (Streaming-radiance) Brahmā- world, that of the Subhakiṇha (Refulgent-glory), and that of the Vehapphala (Great-fruit). When the aeon contracts owing to fire, all below the Ābhassara [Brahmā-world] is burnt up by fire. When it contracts owing to water, it is all dissolved by water up to the Subhakiṇha [Brahmā-world]. When it contracts owing to air, it is all demolished by wind up to the Vehapphala [Brahmā-world].”
(Path of Purification VIII 30)
Here's the account in full:


 ./download/file.php?id=2886
(127.51 KiB) Downloaded 98 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 22, 2016 4:56 PM
Title: Re: Om Mani Padme Hum in Pali?
Content:
It would be the same as in Sanskrit except for a shortening of the vowel in the last word.
Sanskrit: Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ.

Pali: Oṃ maṇi padme huṃ.
Also 'padume' would be the more regular Pali form for the third word, though one might shorten it to 'padme' metri causa.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 22, 2016 1:54 PM
Title: Re: Thailand's Bhikkhunis
Content:
She's of Chinese descent and the temple was founded by her mother Voramai (Bhikṣunī Tatao Fatzu), a Taiwan-ordained Mahayana nun. The Mahayana statuary was there before Dhammānandā took over. Though as Mike remarked, its presence would be unremarkable in a modern Thai wat even if it weren't for this history.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 22, 2016 1:33 PM
Title: Re: Envy definition
Content:
I agree.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 22, 2016 11:03 AM
Title: Re: Envy definition
Content:
Envy (issā) is resentment at the fact that they have it and you don't. As envy always arises in an aversion-rooted consciousness, and as every aversion-rooted consciousness has sadness of mind (domanassa) as its concomitant feeling, disappointment always goes hand in hand with envy. It isn't, however, identical to it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 22, 2016 9:36 AM
Title: Re: What is this chanting style?
Content:
I've just been discussing this with Ven. Anandajoti. Though neither of us can identify the style, one thing we noticed is that it's not actually the monks in the video who are doing the chanting. Watch it again and you'll see that the chanting continues even while the monks are prostrating. And so the appearance of the monks wouldn't be relevant to identifying the chanting style.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 22, 2016 1:26 AM
Title: Re: Is it possible and would be ok to become a monk with a serious mental problems
Content:
There are many monasteries where you could live as a layman observing the eight precepts and without being required to ordain. I think that might be the best way for you to start.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 21, 2016 7:12 PM
Title: Re: Abhassara Brahma
Content:
The mere fact that a being happens to be an Ābhassara Brahmā doesn't allow one to draw any conclusion as to whether he still has the fetter of byāpāda, for some of them may have attained sotāpatti or sakadāgāmitā as humans and then anāgāmitā after rebirth in the Ābhassara. Others may be worldlings with all ten fetters fully intact.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 21, 2016 6:57 PM
Title: Re: What is this chanting style?
Content:
It sounds typically Sri Lankan to me, though it might also be one of the styles used by Indian Ambedkarite Buddhists, which also tend to have a sing-song melody to them. If no one here can tell you the name of the style you might try enquiring of Ven. Anandajoti via his Facebook page.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 21, 2016 6:40 PM
Title: Re: Is this a betrayal?
Content:
No, for as I've already said it's not a vow but a different sort of speech act. It happens to take the form of a vow but in fact serves a different performative function. For other examples of this see the article below.


8. I promise not to bore you with my lecture.

This is not in fact a commitment speech at all. For a successful speech act one must, among other things, be in the position to realize what one promises. But what one ‘promises’ in is to produce a certain effect in the hearer that is, of not being bored; however, it is outside the power of the speaker to guarantee such an effect. I would like to call such cases optatives; they express the wish to produce a certain effect in the hearer or hearers.

Optatives are double-edged. They on the one hand bind the speaker to a certain course of action and in the other convey to the hearer the information that the speaker has so bound himself. What differentiates them from commitment is that the proposition of the speech acts is something which cannot be realized by the speaker but is dependent on a subjective reaction of the hearer. The question of the hearer’s reaction to the speaker’s utterance is important in other cases as well which then lead to speech act not being successful.
https://www.uni-due.de/~lan300/08_A_Promise_is_a_Promise_%28Hickey%29.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 21, 2016 10:08 AM
Title: Re: Is this a betrayal?
Content:
No. He might betray her either by infidelity or by abandoning her after promising not to do so [i.e. in the present life]. But a vow to the effect: "I will love you and be with you forever [i.e. throughout our future lives]" is not really a vow at all. That is to say it's not an earnest and sober contractual undertaking that might actually be fulfilled. Rather, it's something that in the very nature of things cannot be fulfilled and as a speech-act is typically no more than a hyperbolical declaration of the ardour the lover presently feels.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 21, 2016 4:07 AM
Title: Re: Hello from Wyoming, USA
Content:
Welcome to Dhamma Wheel, and thanks for the nice expansive introduction.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 20, 2016 12:00 PM
Title: Re: Practicing true patience
Content:
Dhammapāla’ Eleven Reflections for Fortifying Patience


1. Ete sattā khantisampattiyā abhāvato idhaloke tappanti, paraloke ca tapanīyadhammānuyogato.

“Those beings who lack patience are afflicted in this world and apply themselves to actions which will lead to their affliction in the life to come.”

2. Yadipi parāpakāranimittaṃ dukkhaṃ uppajjati, tassa pana dukkhassa khettabhūto attabhāvo bījabhūtañca kammaṃ mayāva abhisaṅkhataṃ.

“Although this suffering arises through the wrong deeds of others, this body of mine is the field for that suffering, and the kamma which is its seed was sown by me alone.”

3. Tassa ca dukkhassa āṇaṇyakāraṇametaṃ.

“This suffering will release me from the debt of that kamma.”

4. Apakārake asati kathaṃ mayhaṃ khantisampadā sambhavati.

If there were no wrong-doers, how could I accomplish the perfection of patience?”

5. Yadipāyaṃ etarahi apakārako, ayaṃ nāma pubbe anena mayhaṃ upakāro kato.

“Although he is a wrong-doer now, in the past he was my benefactor.”

6. Apakāro eva vā khantinimittatāya upakāro.

“A wrong-doer is also a benefactor, for he is the basis for developing patience.”

7. Sabbepime sattā mayhaṃ puttasadisā, puttakatāparādhesu ca ko kujjhissati.

“All beings are like my own children. Who becomes angry over the misdeeds of his own children?”

8. Yena kodhapisācāvesena ayaṃ mayhaṃ aparajjhati, svāyaṃ kodhabhūtāveso mayā vinetabbo.

“He wrongs me because of some residue of anger in myself; this residue I should remove.”

9. Yena apakārena idaṃ mayhaṃ dukkhaṃ uppannaṃ, tassa ahampi nimittaṃ.

“I am just as much the cause as he for the wrong on account of which this suffering has arisen.”

10. Yehi dhammehi apakāro kato, yattha ca kato, sabbepi te tasmiṃ eva khaṇe niruddhā kassidāni kena kopo kātabbo.

“All those dhammas by which wrong was done, and those to whom it was done—all those, at this very moment, have ceased. With whom, then, should you now be angry, and by whom should anger be aroused?

11. Anattatāya sabbadhammānaṃ ko kassa aparajjhati.

Since all dhammas are not self, who can do wrong to whom?”

(Paramatthadīpanī, 298)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 19, 2016 5:30 PM
Title: Re: Vinaya-Piṭaka Mahā-Vibhaṅga translation by Ven Suddhaso
Content:
I don't know anyone who has, but if one were to count every single procedural instruction (i.e. for ordinations, confession, uposatha, kathina, etc.) in the Mahāvagga and Cūḷavagga as a "rule", then the total would be at least in the hundreds and possibly a thousand or two.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 19, 2016 4:31 PM
Title: Re: Vinaya-Piṭaka Mahā-Vibhaṅga translation by Ven Suddhaso
Content:
The Mahāvibhaṅga is only concerned with the Bhikkhu and Bhikkhuni Patimokkhas. The rule about displaying psychic powers to the unordained is outside the Pātimokkha and found in the Vinaya's Cūḷavagga.

https://suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-kd15

Scroll down to:
Now at that time a block of sandal-wood of costly choice sandal-wood had accrued to a (great) merchant of Rājagaha...


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 19, 2016 1:19 PM
Title: Re: Is this a betrayal?
Content:
Do you mean in the future during the present life or in a post-mortem future life?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 19, 2016 11:27 AM
Title: Re: Visiting Tailand
Content:
That would depend on how much free time you have (i.e. it wouldn't be much use to drive all that way if you weren't going to spend at least a week there) and how important it is to you to go to this monastery in particular (as opposed to, say, one of the forest wats in Lamphun Province itself). Having spent five years in Lamphun during my first stay in Thailand, my own recommendation would be that you take a one-hour drive south-east and pay a visit to Sayadaw Gandhasāra at Wat Tha Ma O in Lampang or a one-hour drive south to see Ajahn Sanit at Wat Huai Bong in the Li District of Lamphun. But if it's particularly an Ajahn Chah wat that you're looking for (or at least a samnak where monks in that tradition like to stay) then I know there are at least 3 such places in Lamphun. I can't remember their names now, but Ajahn Sanit could probably help you out here.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:41 AM
Title: Re: Wat Dhammakaya
Content:
I wrote a little on this matter two years ago:

http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=339&start=120#p266510

I don't expect his appointment to have much impact. Firstly he's in his nineties, so is unlikely to be in the job very long. Secondly, as best as I can gauge, the man's a diplomat and negotiator at heart and as such is more concerned with promoting harmony between competing factions than with taking sides. Thirdly, he'll be so busy with social duties that much of his power will have to be delegated to other Wat Paknam monks, some of whom are not at all enamoured with Wat Dhammakaya. Fourthly, even if some other Somdet were to get the top job, I'm pretty sure Wat Dhammakaya would just go overboard to corrupt him too.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 19, 2016 12:05 AM
Title: Re: What Ahosi kamma really is?
Content:
That's true of the peroration to the sutta, but not of what Ven. Mahākoṭṭhita says before he gets to the peroration, i.e., his referring to various kinds of kamma, denoted according to whether, when and how each kind will ripen. One of those kinds is called "an action [whose result] is not to be experienced (avedanīya kamma)".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 18, 2016 10:05 PM
Title: Re: Doubting supernatural side of Buddhism
Content:
Vern Lovic — a Thailand-based writer, photographer, meditator and snake-conservationist.

http://www.vernlovic.com/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 18, 2016 2:02 PM
Title: Re: Teacher claims to receive teachings from Brahma god
Content:
The page, and indeed the entire site, appears to be in Sinhalese – a language familiar to only a few of our regular posters. Have you anything relevant in English?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 17, 2016 7:31 AM
Title: Re: Enlightenment from giving
Content:
It’s a poor translation and needs to be corrected before it is interpreted.

Pali: “Macchariyānaṃ pahānāya samucchedāya brahmacariyaṃ vussati.

Thanissaro: “With the abandoning and eradication of the five forms of stinginess, the holy life is fulfilled.”

Thanissaro appears to have taken pahānāya and samucchedāya (the nouns pahāna and samuccheda in the dative case) to be absolutive forms of the verbs pajahati and samucchindati. But the actual absolutive forms would be pahāya and samucchetvā.

As for vussati, I’m not sure what Thanissaro has taken it to be, but it is in fact the verb vasati (to live) in the passive voice.

Bhikkhu Bodhi renders the line correctly:

Bodhi: “The spiritual life is lived for the abandoning and eradication of five kinds of miserliness.”

How to interpret it? I don’t think there's very much to say really. It’s just one of numerous Anguttara suttas that enumerate the various defiled states for whose abandoning the brahmacariyā is lived.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 16, 2016 3:56 PM
Title: Re: Two branches of the same tree
Content:
It certainly isn't orthodox Theravada, but one will hear it from many a Mahayana Buddhist who's been influenced by either the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtras or the Japanese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongaku concept, or by both. And considering how much of a melting pot western Buddhism is, it wouldn't be too surprising to find Theravadin teachers spouting the same spiel.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 16, 2016 7:38 AM
Title: Re: Buddhist Scriptures prophesizing Prophet Muhammad.
Content:
In his mystical writings (the Commentary on the Forty Hadith, for example) the ayatollah undoubtedly had some astute and insightful things to say about the contemplative life that may well have been born of personal experience. Nonethless I rather doubt that he "meditated at all times". For example, do you suppose the ayatollah was meditating while he was busily urging the killing of Jews, Baha'is, members of the People's Mujahedin, and Salman Rushdie?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 15, 2016 12:38 PM
Title: Re: How does monks memorise Sutta?
Content:
I don't know if they're allowed to, but no layman ever has.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 15, 2016 11:36 AM
Title: Re: How does monks memorise Sutta?
Content:
There have been some non-Burmese monks who've taken the Dhammacariya and Vimamsa exams, so I imagine they'd be allowed to take the Tipitakadhara one if they wanted to. But I don't think it's likely to happen, since (as far as I know) outside of Burma there's no living tradition of memorizing even a single Nikāya, let alone the whole Tipitaka. Even within Burma a monk needs to go to one of several monasteries that specialize in memorization-training (and where they do almost nothing else) and such training has to start from early childhood. But non-Burmese who go to study in Burma are usually already over twenty, making it too late to embark upon such a course.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 15, 2016 11:09 AM
Title: Re: Any named female devas in the Tipitaka?
Content:
According to the Sammohavinodanī the faculties of masculinity and femininity (two kinds of rūpa dhamma) arise only in beings of the sense-sphere. This would mean that Brahmas, strictly speaking, are sexless. Nonetheless they are conventionally designated 'male' on account of their presenting a male appearance — an appearance that includes the presence of non-functioning male genitalia.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 15, 2016 7:44 AM
Title: Re: Any named female devas in the Tipitaka?
Content:
No. It means that anyone reborn as Brahma will not be female in that life. It would probably have been better to translate purisa and itthī as 'male' and female' here, for although 'man' and 'woman' are literally correct they are liable to lead to just such a misunderstanding owing to these terms applying to humans only in English.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 15, 2016 12:43 AM
Title: Re: Looking for a sutta
Content:
I think you mean Dhammapada 294-5, though misremembered somewhat. It's not about attachment to one's parents, but rather that mother and father are metaphors for craving and conceit.
Mātaraṃ pitaraṃ hantvā, rājāno dve ca khattiye,
Raṭṭhaṃ sānucaraṃ hantvā, anīgho yāti brāhmaṇo.

Mātaraṃ pitaraṃ hantvā, rājāno dve ca sotthiye,
Veyagghapañcamaṃ hantvā, anīgho yāti brāhmaṇo.

Having slain mother (craving), father (self-conceit), two warrior-kings (eternalism and nihilism), and destroyed a country (sense organs and sense objects) together with its treasurer (attachment and lust), ungrieving goes the holy man.

Having slain mother, father, two brahman kings (two extreme views), and a tiger as the fifth (the five mental hindrances), ungrieving goes the holy man.
(Buddharakkhita tr.)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 14, 2016 9:11 PM
Title: Re: offering dana - onion and garlic
Content:
I doubt it, for Thai monks love garlic and as the Forest Sangha monks are often fed by Thai laypeople I should imagine that they too wouldn't have any problem with it (though Ven. Gavesako would be better placed than I to answer this).

As far as I know it's only East Asian Mahayana monks who would decline a food offering containing onions or garlic. For them the consumption of these is prohibited both in their recension of the Vinaya and by their Bodhisattva vows, and without the Theravadin loophole for cooked garlic.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 14, 2016 7:57 AM
Title: Re: Silence Vows
Content:
There might in English be broad everyday uses of "thought" in which perceptions and feelings would be included, but in the above sutta "thought" is used to translate vitakka which neither is nor contains feeling or perception.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 14, 2016 7:52 AM
Title: Re: Relationship with non buddhists.
Content:
Indeed.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 13, 2016 8:58 PM
Title: Re: offering dana - onion and garlic
Content:
It shouldn't be. Although there is a prohibition against bhikkhus consuming garlic (except as a medicine when afflicted with a sickness for which garlic is the only cure) there is also a widely held view that this rule applies only to garlic eaten by itself and not to garlic cooked with other foods. I believe this opinion is universally accepted in the Thai forest tradition.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 13, 2016 8:44 PM
Title: Re: Silence Vows
Content:
In the Kolita Sutta (SN. ii. 272-4) noble silence is defined as the second jhāna, but the Saṃyutta Commentary then extends the range of the term:
There the Venerable Mahāmoggallāna addressed the bhikkhus thus: “Friends, bhikkhus!”
“Friend!” those bhikkhus replied. The Venerable Mahāmoggallāna said this:
“Here, friends, while I was alone in seclusion, a reflection arose in my mind thus: ‘It is said, “noble silence, noble silence.” What now is noble silence?’
“Then, friends, it occurred to me: ‘Here, with the subsiding of thought and examination, a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the second jhāna, which has internal confidence and unification of mind, is without thought and examination, and has rapture and happiness born of concentration. This is called noble silence.’”

Bhikkhu Bodhi’s note

Spk explains that the second jhāna is called noble silence (ariya tuṇhībhāva) because within it thought and examination (vitakka-vicārā) cease, and with their cessation speech cannot occur. At 41:6 (IV 293,24-26) thought and examination are called the verbal formation (vacīsaṅkhāra), the mental factors responsible for articulation of speech. But, Spk adds, when the Buddha says “either speak on the Dhamma or observe noble silence” (e.g., at MN I 161,32-33), even attention to a meditation subject can be considered noble silence.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 13, 2016 5:26 PM
Title: Re: The racial appearance of the Buddha: Vasala 'outcaste'
Content:
The marks along with their past causes:

https://suttacentral.net/en/dn30


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 13, 2016 3:55 PM
Title: Re: masturbation what's wrong?
Content:
That masturbation, if not done excessively, is a harmless and blameless enjoyment does in fact appear to be the prevalent view among educated people throughout the developed world, excepting only those with a religious commitment (Roman Catholic, for example) which instructs them otherwise. 

I don't think this has any particular effect on these people's practice of the threefold training. If they decide to ordain or to become brahmacāri householders, then they simply take on the monkish perspective on masturbation and stop doing it. (Whether this will be a hard or an easy thing to do doesn't seem to be much affected by what beliefs about masturbation one was raised with). If they remain kāmabhogi householders then the practice (for those who do it) simply persists as one of the various non-transgressive sensual pleasures that they may enjoy from time to time.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 13, 2016 3:02 PM
Title: Re: The racial appearance of the Buddha: Vasala 'outcaste'
Content:
These descriptions are from the list of the thirty-two marks of a mahāpurisa. Was it also normal for the ancient Aryans to have forty teeth, sheathed penises and webbed fingers?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 13, 2016 2:40 PM
Title: Re: Stephen Batchelor's “After Buddhism.” Yale University Press, 2015
Content:
Roger Jackson's review.

[...]

My own chief objection to Batchelor’s previous work is that in his quest to justify his particular version of Buddhism, he has, with scant methodological self-awareness and insufficiently rigorous argument, cherry-picked Buddhist literature (especially the Pali canon) for evidence of his views. Unsurprisingly, he has discovered that what he thinks Buddhism ought to be in our era turns out to be what Buddhism was at the beginning, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Batchelor’s conflation of ideological prescription and historical description—the ought and the is—has probably undermined his credibility with critically informed readers more than his radical prescription for contemporary Buddhism—with which, I suspect, many such readers might in various ways agree.

I’m happy, then, to report that in his latest and most ambitious work, After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age, Batchelor makes a sustained and serious attempt to argue for his vision of Buddhism, primarily through a theoretically self-conscious, historically informed, and linguistically nuanced analysis of the Pali canon and other early sources. The book is perhaps not quite the work of “systematic theology” Batchelor claims, but it is a careful, honest, and typically eloquent exposition of what he believes and why he believes it.

[...]
http://www.lionsroar.com/review-stephen-batchelors-after-buddhism/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 13, 2016 1:53 PM
Title: Re: Stephen Batchelor's “After Buddhism.” Yale University Press, 2015
Content:
As noted above, the householders in question were not arahants. In any case, it wasn't the commentarial view that a householder couldn't achieve arahatta, but only that he couldn't achieve it and thereafter remain a householder.

Here is the sutta with Bhikkhu Bodhi's endnote:
“Bhikkhus, possessing six qualities, the householder Tapussa has reached certainty about the Tathāgata and become a seer of the deathless, one who lives having realized the deathless. What six? Unwavering confidence in the Buddha, unwavering confidence in the Dhamma, unwavering confidence in the Saṅgha, noble virtuous behavior, noble knowledge, and noble liberation. Possessing these six qualities, the householder Tapussa has reached certainty about the Tathāgata and become a seer of the deathless, one who lives having realized the deathless.”

[repeat for the twenty others]


Note

It is often claimed that this series of suttas testifies to a large number of lay arahants during the Buddha’s time. This, however, is a misunderstanding. For we find on this list Anāthapiṇḍika, Pūraṇa (or Purāṇa), and Isidatta, all of whom were reborn in the Tusita heaven (see 6:44 and MN 143.16, III 262,1). We also find Ugga of Vesālī, who is said (at 5:44) to have been reborn among the mind-made deities, and Hatthaka, who is said (at 3:127) to have been reborn in the Aviha heaven of the pure abodes. The terms used to describe these lay followers are descriptive of all noble ones from stream-enterers on up. They all have unwavering confidence (aveccappasāda) in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha, have “reached certainty about the Tathāgata” (tathāgate niṭṭhaṅgata), and are seers of nibbāna, the deathless (amataddasa). See 10:63, where certainty about the Buddha is ascribed to disciples at levels lower than arahantship. The statement that these people have noble liberation (ariyena vimuttiyā) is unusual, but Mp glosses it “by the liberation of the fruit of trainees” (sekhaphalavimuttiyā). Quite a different formula is used to describe an arahant. In the Nikāyas there are no recorded cases of laypeople who attained arahantship and then continued to lead the lay life. Those who do attain it entered upon the homeless life soon after their attainment, like Yasa at Vin I 17,1–3.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 13, 2016 12:25 PM
Title: Re: masturbation what's wrong?
Content:
From Wikipedia's entry for John Harvey Kellogg (inventor of the breakfast cereal Kellogg's cornflakes).
Views on Sexuality

[...]

He was an especially zealous campaigner against masturbation; this was an orthodox view during his lifetime, especially the earlier part. Kellogg was able to draw upon many medical sources' claims such as "neither the plague, nor war, nor small-pox, nor similar diseases, have produced results so disastrous to humanity as the pernicious habit of onanism," credited to one Dr. Adam Clarke. Kellogg strongly warned against the habit in his own words, claiming of masturbation-related deaths "such a victim literally dies by his own hand," among other condemnations. He felt that masturbation destroyed not only physical and mental health, but the moral health of individuals as well. Kellogg also believed the practice of this "solitary-vice" caused cancer of the womb, urinary diseases, nocturnal emissions, impotence, epilepsy, insanity, and mental and physical debility; "dimness of vision" was only briefly mentioned.

Masturbation prevention

Kellogg worked on the rehabilitation of masturbators, often employing extreme measures, even mutilation, on both sexes. He was an advocate of circumcising young boys to curb masturbation and applying phenol to a young woman's clitoris. In his Plain Facts for Old and Young, he wrote:

“A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision, especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed.”

[...]

“Kellogg thought that masturbation was the worst evil one could commit; he often referred to it as "self-abuse". He was a leader of the anti-masturbation movement, and promoted extreme measures to prevent masturbation. In addition, Kellogg thought that diet played a huge role in masturbation and that a bland diet would decrease excitability and prevent masturbation. Thus, Kellogg invented Corn Flakes breakfast cereal in 1878. He hoped that feeding children this plain cereal every morning would help to combat the urges of "self-abuse".”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 13, 2016 7:45 AM
Title: Re: New Translation Project from Sutta Central
Content:
The practice of leaving all of the Pali technical terms untranslated is actually the standard way of translating Pali Buddhist texts in Asia. It was also successfully used (though not quite as consistently as in Asia) by some of the Franco-Belgian translators like Étienne Lamotte and Louis de La Vallée-Poussin.

I wouldn't consider it to be impractical. Though it does have the drawback of making the translated text look overly forbidding and unapproachable to the newcomer, it also has the advantage of allowing the reader to presuppositionlessly build up his own meaning-picture of each term solely by considering what the texts have to say about it, rather than having this picture distorted by the irrelevant connotations found in some word from his native tongue.

I wish Sutta Central would do it this way.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 13, 2016 7:00 AM
Title: Re: Silence Vows
Content:
Perhaps you mean this...
Paññā Sutta (AN. iv. 151-5)

“Bhikkhus, there are these eight causes and conditions that lead to obtaining the wisdom fundamental to the spiritual life when it has not been obtained and to its increase, maturation, and fulfillment by development after it has been obtained. What eight?

[...]

(7) “In the midst of the Saṅgha, he does not engage in rambling and pointless talk. Either he himself speaks on the Dhamma, or he requests someone else to do so, or he adopts noble silence. This is the seventh cause and condition that leads to obtaining the wisdom fundamental to the spiritual life when it has not been obtained and to its increase, maturation, and fulfillment by development after it has been obtained.”

https://suttacentral.net/en/an8.2


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 12, 2016 11:05 PM
Title: Re: Silence Vows
Content:
https://suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-kd4


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 12, 2016 11:14 AM
Title: Re: Stephen Batchelor's “After Buddhism.” Yale University Press, 2015
Content:
Okay, but I didn't mean to suggest that Batchelor was necessarily a reliable spokesman for the Korean Zen tradition — something I’m unqualified to judge; moreover, in the “Great Doubt” chapter of Confession of a Buddhist Atheist he cheerfully admits that he isn’t. What I wrote would probably have been better expressed: “Batchelor has substituted a conception of awakening that’s informed by the change in view he underwent during his training in Korean Zen rather than by his present study of the Suttas.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 11, 2016 11:52 PM
Title: Re: Music legend David Bowie dies
Content:
There's one inaccuracy in it. It wasn't Trungpa but another Karmakagyu teacher, Chime Rinpoche, who told him to forget Buddhism and just follow music.
WITHOUT TIBET HOUSE, there may never have been a David Bowie.

Young David Jones was 13 when he developed an interest in Buddhism after reading "The Rampa Story" by T. Lobsang Rampa. Over the next four years, his interest in Buddhism and Tibet grew until he was visiting the Tibet House in London up to four times a week.

"One day, I walked into the office and it was empty," Bowie said, calling from his New York office. "I went down the stairs and saw a man in saffron robes. He said, in very broken English, 'You are looking for me.' I realized years later that it was a question, but as a 16-year-old, I took it as a statement: 'You are looking for me.'"

The man in the saffron robes, Chime Yong Dong Rinpoche, became Jones' guru for several months.

"After a few months of study, he told me, 'You don't want to be Buddhist,'" Bowie said. "He said, 'You should follow music.'"

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/stardust-memories-without-tibet-house-david-bowie-never-may-have-gotten-ziggy-with-it-now-the-pop-star-returns-the-favor-by-performing-at-the-annual-benefit-concert-1.396658


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 11, 2016 8:26 PM
Title: Re: Can you follow the Noble Eight Fold Path by just observing the breath?
Content:
The speaker is actually Ven. Kumārakassapa, not the Buddha.

I would think that in this sort of context (i.e. a rather propaedeutic exposition of the Dhamma) the right view referred to would be the “accompanied by āsavas” kind: “There is what is given, sacrificed, and offered; there is fruit and result of good and bad actions; there is this world and the other world; there is mother and father; there are beings spontaneously reborn; there are in the world ascetics and brahmins of right conduct and right practice who, having realized this world and the other world for themselves by direct knowledge, make them known to others.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 11, 2016 1:02 PM
Title: Re: Pali Dictionaries
Content:
I would think he is probably referring to the dictionary of Robert Caesar Childers, though it's publication date is actually 1872-5. An online copy:

https://archive.org/details/adictionaryplil00chilgoog


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 11, 2016 12:57 PM
Title: Re: Can you still ordain at age 50?
Content:
There is no upper age limit in the Vinaya. Certain monasteries set their own limit, but only a small number. See this thread:

http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=24968


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 11, 2016 11:48 AM
Title: Re: Are dead bodies more heavier than the live body?
Content:
Yes to both, but in the sense of their being more sluggish or less sluggish (the primary old Indic sense of garu and lahu) rather than of their being greater or lesser in mass (the sense in which these terms might be used by a physicist).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 11, 2016 11:14 AM
Title: Re: Can you follow the Noble Eight Fold Path by just observing the breath?
Content:
Sammā-samādhi is what the translator has chosen to render as "right rapture", though it's a use of "rapture" that's probably informed by the translator's reading of Christian contemplative writings http://sacred-texts.com/chr/tic/tic21.htm, rather than its everyday sense.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 11, 2016 7:21 AM
Title: Re: Ways of making significant good kamma?
Content:
There is no need to be more specific (let alone to respond to your sarcasm). It is evident from those suttas containing such words and phrases as 'vipassanā', 'vipassati', 'yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti' etc., that vipassanā is intimately and essentially bound up with the aggregates, elements, sense-bases, dependent arising, and the comprehension thereof. Therefore any suttas on these matters are vipassanā-related suttas. Hence the whole of the three named vaggas from the SN are relevant.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 10, 2016 11:05 PM
Title: Re: About "Female & Male"
Content:
I'm quite sure that there isn't any textual support for this claim. It was one of Ajahn Buddhadāsa's quirkier notions that the Hindu use of 'dharma', in the sense of one's caste-based social duty, applied in Buddhism also. As far as I know this was a claim that he made simply on his own authority and without citing any Sutta in support of it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 10, 2016 10:44 PM
Title: Re: Shipping gifts to monastics
Content:
The merit wouldn't be affected.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 10, 2016 1:39 PM
Title: Re: Stephen Batchelor's “After Buddhism.” Yale University Press, 2015
Content:
It's clear from chapter 3 that Batchelor is quite aware of the traditional account:
"Whether we accept the traditional account of the awakening as having occurred in the course of one moonlit night beneath a pipal tree in Uruvelā (Bodh Gaya)..."
but doesn't agree with it:
"... or we accept what I think is the more likely course, that it occurred gradually over many years of studying, learning, reflecting, discussing, arguing, and meditating in various groves and cities throughout northern India..."
and has substituted a conception of awakening that's probably informed more by his training in Korean Zen than by his study of the Suttas. On the whole the book seems to be his most strongly Zen-influenced one since The Faith to Doubt.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 10, 2016 11:16 AM
Title: Re: Ways of making significant good kamma?
Content:
My own compilation would include, for example, three of the five vaggas of the Saṃyutta Nikāya (i.e., the Nidāna-, Khandha- and Saḷāyatana-vaggas), along with much of the SN's Mahāvagga. The aforesaid are concerned with little else but vipassanā-bhāvanā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 10, 2016 8:39 AM
Title: Re: Wat Dhammakaya
Content:
There is no chance, since none of the eligible Somdets is a Wat Dhammakaya monk. The closest would be the abbot of Wat Paknam, the temple in Thonburi where the founders of Wat Dhammakaya learned the sammā arahaṃ meditation method.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 10, 2016 8:22 AM
Title: Re: Ways of making significant good kamma?
Content:
I didn't mean to imply that you were. Only that like Thanissaro you base your conclusions upon too brief a compilation and one that doesn't take into account the full range of vipassanā-relevant teachings.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 10, 2016 12:10 AM
Title: Re: First Jhāna Vitakka in Early Buddhism
Content:
They should display if you set your browser to Unicode-8 encoding and your font settings to a Unicode font that includes Chinese characters.

Anyhow, they are...



jue and nian.jpg (18.56 KiB) Viewed 2649 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 9, 2016 11:52 PM
Title: Re: Ways of making significant good kamma?
Content:
It isn't simply that. You are making the same mistake as Ajahn Thanissaro (in One Tool Among Many) when he claims that the Buddha never told his disciples: "Go do vipassanā!" The compilation you've made, and from which you (and Thanissaro before you) draw your conclusions, consists only of a handful of extracts from suttas that happen to contain the noun vipassanā. But to be anything like a comprehensive survey you would need to cover also those containing the verb vipassati, not to mention the hundreds of suttas where insight is expounded without using either of these words (e.g., any sutta containing phrases like: "X should be seen as it really is with right understanding").


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 9, 2016 4:21 PM
Title: Re: Are some monks asexual?
Content:
Sexual desire isn’t the only reason why a monk might disrobe. Here are a few others that I’ve known of:

• Boredom.
• Loss of faith.
• Ill health.
• Inability to observe the Vinaya.
• Despair at one’s ability to progress.
• Parental pressure.
• Temptation resulting from the monk’s receiving a large inheritance.
• The belief that the monastic state is a less than optimal one for teaching Dhamma in the West.
• Some kilesa other than sexual desire; e.g., a musically inclined monk might miss music or a gourmet monk might miss the kind of food that he likes. Many Thai monks disrobe because they want to do boxing.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 9, 2016 3:54 PM
Title: Re: Ways of making significant good kamma?
Content:
For a commentary-informed account of this (and your later questions), see Mahasi Sayadaw’s Brahmavihāra Dhamma, available from Ven. Pesala’s website.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 9, 2016 3:48 PM
Title: Re: Thai translation help needed
Content:
Chomrom Phutthakhun. Chomrom means a circle, a gathering or a place where people gather. Phutthakhun is the Thai pronunciation of buddhaguṇa, meaning the nine special qualities of the Buddha. It's the name of a Burmese-inspired Buddhist organization in Bangkok.

https://web.facebook.com/ChmrmPhuththkhun

http://www.puthakun.org/

Both pages are Thai-only.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 9, 2016 10:18 AM
Title: Re: Ways of making significant good kamma?
Content:
I would suppose so, inasmuch as there won't be much opportunity for akusala kammas to ripen in the Suddhāvāsa.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 9, 2016 7:50 AM
Title: Re: I'd feed a starving child before a healthy arahant
Content:
Though there are many monastic nikāyas it is generally assumed by Buddhists that all of their ordination lineages extend back to the Buddha's time. So in that sense Buddhist monastics constitute one sangha.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 9, 2016 7:42 AM
Title: Re: Are some monks asexual?
Content:
As a fair number of humans are asexual (1% according to one British study) and as this isn't a hindrance to ordaining, it's a reasonable assumption that there are probably some asexual monks.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 9, 2016 7:32 AM
Title: Re: Ways of making significant good kamma?
Content:
It is a translation of puññākiriyavatthu, "bases of meritorious activity". In the Suttas (e.g., Puññakiriyavatthusutta, AN. iv. 241) these are given as three: dāna, sīla and bhāvanā. In the commentaries the three are expanded to ten, though all ten are said to be contained within the three given in the Sutta list.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 9, 2016 7:24 AM
Title: Re: Ways of making significant good kamma?
Content:
This sutta isn't talking about the development of the illimitables alone, but about the development of them as the basis for insight development culminating in what Thanissaro translates as "awareness-release" (i.e., paññā-vimutti). So the kammas can only ripen in that life as there isn't going to be another one.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 9, 2016 2:04 AM
Title: Re: Thai translation help needed
Content:
It's not a full address but just the centre's name and the province:

Sathaan Patibat Tham Nanachat Pa Auk Tawya, Saakhaa Prathet Thai
(Translation: International Dhamma Practice Place of Pa Auk Forest Monastery, Thailand Branch)
Ang Thong Province,
Central Thailand.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 8, 2016 9:41 PM
Title: Re: I'd feed a starving child before a healthy arahant
Content:
Yes, that's right. What makes the difference is (1) that with saṅghadāna the giver mentally determines that the gift is for the saṅgha as a whole (even though it may be only one bhikkhu who receives it) and (2) that she undiscriminatingly gives it either to the first bhikkhu she sees or to whichever bhikkhu the saṅgha has appointed to receive it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 8, 2016 9:31 PM
Title: Re: Ways of making significant good kamma?
Content:
Appamāṇa by itself...

Vatthasutta (SN. v. 70)
Satisambojjhaṅgo iti ce me, āvuso, hoti, ‘appamāṇo’ti me hoti, ‘susamāraddho’ti me hoti, tiṭṭhantañca naṃ ‘tiṭṭhatī’ti pajānāmi. Sacepi me cavati, ‘idappaccayā me cavatī’ti pajānāmi.

[Sāriputta:]
“If it occurs to me that there is the mindfulness enlightenment factor, it occurs to me that it is measureless, and it occurs to me that is well undertaken; and while it is remaining I know that it remains; and if it falls away in me, I know that it falls away in me owing to specific conditionality.”

[repeat for the rest of the seven bojjhaṅgas]
(SN v. 70)
Paṭisambhidāmagga commenting on the above (Paṭisam. ii. 127):
Kathaṃ appamāṇo iti ce me hotī ti bojjhaṅgo? Pamāṇabaddhā kilesā, sabbe ca pariyuṭṭhānā, ye ca saṅkhārā ponobhavikā appamāṇo nirodho acalaṭṭhena asaṅkhataṭṭhena. Yāvatā nirodhūpaṭṭhāti tāvatā appamāṇo. Iti ce me hotīti bojjhaṅgo.

“How is there an enlightenment factor thus: ‘It occurs to me that it is measureless’? Defilements are bound up with [the limitation of] measure, and so are all obsessions, and those formations that produce renewed being; cessation is measureless in the sense that it is immobile and in the sense that it is unformed. As long as cessation is established, so long is there an enlightenment factor thus: ‘It occurs to me that it is measureless’.
(Ñāṇamoli trans.)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 8, 2016 9:05 PM
Title: Re: Ways of making significant good kamma?
Content:
The Sagāthakasutta (SN. ii. 232) and a parallel passage in the Itivuttaka’s Sakkārasutta (Iti. 73-5):
Yassa sakkariyamānassa, asakkārena cūbhayaṃ,
Samādhi na vikampati, appamāṇavihārino.

Taṃ jhāyinaṃ sātatikaṃ, sukhumaṃ diṭṭhivipassakaṃ,
Upādānakkhayārāmaṃ, āhu sappuriso itī ti.

“Whether he is showered with honour, 
Shown dishonour, or offered both, 
His concentration does not vacillate 
As he dwells in the measureless state.

“When he meditates with perseverance, 
An insight-seer of subtle view 
Delighting in the destruction of clinging,
They call him truly a superior man.”
(Bodhi trans.)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 8, 2016 8:53 PM
Title: Re: Should we modify the Buddha's teaching so it appeal to other religions and the western audience?
Content:
The general opinion among peer-reviewed academic Bible scholars is that the theory has no merit whatever.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 8, 2016 8:48 PM
Title: Re: Who is worthy to teach the Dhamma, are these teachers a trust worthy source?
Content:
Yes, but I don't know why they don't use Gradual Sayings, the pioneering PTS translation, which I believe is among those which the PTS recently put into the public domain. It's nowhere near as good as Bhikkhu Bodhi's, but very much better than Uppalavaṇṇā's.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 8, 2016 8:39 PM
Title: Re: Ways of making significant good kamma?
Content:
I don't see any contradiction to reconcile. They are two different suttas, in which appamāṇavihārī is used in one sense in one and in another sense in the other.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 8, 2016 3:52 PM
Title: Re: Hello from UK
Content:
Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 8, 2016 1:08 PM
Title: Re: Who is worthy to teach the Dhamma, are these teachers a trust worthy source?
Content:
It surely isn't. Though there's no doubt, as you say, that Uppalavaṇṇā lived an exemplary life as a Buddhist ascetic, still, her translations are atrocious, as will be evident to even a novice in Pali who tries reading them alongside the original. In fact they are so clumsy, so flawed, and so riddled with lacunae that I'm surprised the Suttacentral folks even deem it worthwhile linking to them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 8, 2016 12:51 PM
Title: Re: Why Kusala is more powerful than Akusala?
Content:
I don't have one. It's the kind of "Why?" question that I wouldn't ask.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 8, 2016 12:39 PM
Title: Re: Ways of making significant good kamma?
Content:
That is the translator's (and Zom's) opinion.

However, the term "dwelling with the immeasurable" (appamāṇavihārī) is used in two different senses in the Suttas. In some it refers to one who has developed the brahmavihāras (or one of them) to an unlimited degree (i.e. to the point of regarding all beings without distinction with the attitude of the brahmavihāra in question). Then in other Suttas appamāṇavihārī is a term for an arahant. The commentary to the Loṇakapallasutta takes the word in the second sense.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 8, 2016 8:33 AM
Title: Re: What Ahosi kamma really is?
Content:
It means origination. Of the four ways that rūpa dhammas are originated one is kamma-samuṭṭhāna which is responsible for producing:

1. The eight inseparable materialities present in the nine kinds of kamma-generated materiality-clusters.
2. The five sensoria: eye-sensitivity, ear-sensitivity, etc.
3. Masculinity and femininity faculties.
4. Life-faculty.
5. Heart-base.
6. Space.

Kamma alone is said to produce items 2-5. The others are produced by kamma only when they arise in a kamma-generated materiality-cluster.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 8, 2016 12:39 AM
Title: Re: What Ahosi kamma really is?
Content:
Owing to the ripening of weighty kamma from the distant past — weighty kamma of the kind that persists indefinitely until it yields a vipāka, as opposed to kammas that have a fixed limit on the time when they can do so.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 7, 2016 11:20 AM
Title: Re: What Ahosi kamma really is?
Content:
I would suppose because this is a term whose semantic range is broad enough to encompass all of the items the Buddha considered relevant in the generation of kusala and akusala.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 7, 2016 7:04 AM
Title: Re: What is in a monk's bowl?
Content:
No. Though in some ill-informed quarters one will find that the actual Vinaya principle that a monk may eat only what has been offered to him has been transformed into the faux Vinaya principle that he must eat everything that has been offered to him (i.e. in order to please the donors). This faux principle is a major cause of obesity in the sangha. For example, one sometimes goes along to a meal invitation at someone's house where all the donor's friends and neighbours have brought along their own contribution to the meal. While you're eating some of the laypeople will sit there watching to make sure that you're partaking of their personal contribution. If their contribution should go untouched for a few minutes they'll start dropping hints to the invited monks to take some of it or even importunately badgering them to do so. This is motivated by the belief that their merit will grow according to how much of their offering the monks eat — a belief that was in fact rejected by the Theravadins at the Third Council.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 6, 2016 8:24 PM
Title: Re: What is in a monk's bowl?
Content:
It's common in the more ascetic meditation traditions, but isn't the norm in the less ascetic or in the non-ascetic ones.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 6, 2016 9:41 AM
Title: Re: Please, ordination exam???
Content:
The monks are receiving certificates testifying to their completion of the training course for Thai dhammadūta monks in foreign countries.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 5, 2016 5:27 PM
Title: Re: [MN 86] Fallacy of Aṅgulimāla Paritta
Content:
My query had nothing to do with asserting the superiority of one school over another, or of one school's canon over another school's canon. It's simply that the presence or absence of some mention of the Aṅgulimālaparitta in the Nāgasena Bhikṣu Sūtra is evidentially relevant to assessing the relative likelihood of the two possibilities suggested in this thread.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 5, 2016 2:43 PM
Title: Re: Any named female devas in the Tipitaka?
Content:
No, that's Brahmās.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 5, 2016 10:56 AM
Title: Re: Any named female devas in the Tipitaka?
Content:
It's more complicated. In Pali if one wants to be specific about a deva's sex one uses deva or devaputta for the male and devī or devadhītā for the female. As for "devatā", though this is popularly used in Thailand for the female of the deva species, in Pali it doesn't imply either sex. In fact the named devas in the Devatā-samyutta mostly have male names.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 5, 2016 8:15 AM
Title: Re: Any named female devas in the Tipitaka?
Content:
When female devas appear in the Tipiṭaka they are seldom given names. A few exceptions:

Kokanadā
https://suttacentral.net/en/sn1.39

Cūḷakokanadā
https://suttacentral.net/en/sn1.40

The three daughters of Māra: Taṇhā, Arati and Ragā
https://suttacentral.net/en/sn4.25


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 4, 2016 7:10 PM
Title: Re: [MN 86] Fallacy of Aṅgulimāla Paritta
Content:
Would you happen to know if the Milindapañha's list of parittas (including the Aṅgulimālaparitta) is found also in the shorter Chinese version, the Nāgasena Bhikṣu Sūtra?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 4, 2016 5:36 PM
Title: Re: Mindfulness Inc: Buddhist practice beyond religion
Content:
I would assume that at least some of them did, given the Buddha's glowing praise for this observance.
“So it is, Vāseṭṭha, so it is! If all khattiyas would observe the uposatha complete in eight factors, that would lead to their welfare and happiness for a long time. If all brahmins … vessas … suddas would observe the uposatha complete in eight factors, that would lead to their welfare and happiness for a long time. If the world with its devas, Māra, and Brahmā, this population with its ascetics and brahmins, its devas and humans, would observe the uposatha complete in eight factors, that would lead to the welfare and happiness of the world for a long time. If these great sal trees would observe the uposatha complete in eight factors, that would lead to the welfare and happiness of these great sal trees for a long time, [if they could choose]. How much more then for a human being!”
(AN.iv.259 — Bodhi trans.)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 4, 2016 3:05 PM
Title: Re: Mindfulness Inc: Buddhist practice beyond religion
Content:
I think in the part of the talk that you're alluding to Wilson is making an historical point rather than a Buddhist doctrinal one. He is talking about what monks and laity actually did in pre-modern times, not about what they were supposed to do. Moreover he appears to be referring to the intensive cultivation of mindfulness rather than just the occasional arisings of it that are required for dāna and sīla. And so his claim is that such intensive cultivation was in pre-modern times the exclusive province of monastics. He may be right or wrong on this point, but either way I don't think any conclusion can be drawn from this about whether he has a good or a bad understanding of the Buddha's teaching.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 4, 2016 1:17 PM
Title: Re: Mindfulness Inc: Buddhist practice beyond religion
Content:
Precept-keeping is a momentary event. It consists in the arising of one of the abstinence mental factors (virati cetasika) on any occasion when one is aware of an opportunity to break a precept. The abstinence mental factor holds one back from the act of transgression and the kusala cetanā that arises conascently with it creates sīlamayapuñña (“meritorious kamma produced by an act of virtuous restraint”). Since the abstinence mental factor and the kusala cetanā can only arise in a wholesome consciousness, and since mindfulness is present in every wholesome consciousness, it follows that precept-observance is absolutely inseparable from mindfulness.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 4, 2016 10:49 AM
Title: Re: posture
Content:
A talk by James Baraz on the method of Ajahn Naeb, a Thai laywoman who specialised in mindfulness of the postures.

http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/86/talk/2571/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 4, 2016 10:40 AM
Title: Re: Happy birthday Khalil Bodhi!
Content:
Happy birthday!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 4, 2016 9:20 AM
Title: Re: Mindfulness Inc: Buddhist practice beyond religion
Content:
I think Wilson is simply going along with the widespread assumption that prior to the rise of the modern lay meditation movements the Theravada laity didn't meditate at all. But this is really no more than an assumption. If we stick strictly to the evidence all we can really say is that we have very little idea about what the Theravada laity got up to in pre-modern times. All we know about are those activities that leave traces, e.g., getting one's name engraved in stone because one has made a large donation to some monastery construction project. Practising meditation wouldn't leave any such traces.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 4, 2016 2:00 AM
Title: Re: When is it ok to lie?
Content:
"Murder" is a legal term. It's the unlawful killing of one human by another with malice aforethought. Nobody here has ever sought to justify that, not even in the Euthanasia thread.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 3, 2016 10:10 PM
Title: Re: Evidence of reincarnation
Content:
The Theravada teaching is that rebirth occurs without any interval between one life and the next. Some non-Theravada schools teach that there is an intermediate state between the two lives.

This difference of opinion leads to different interpretations of the terms "beings who have come to be" and "beings seeking to be". Those who believe in an intermediate state take "beings who have come to be" as referring to those who have already been reborn, while "beings seeking to be" is taken as referring to those who are still waiting in the intermediate state.

The Theravada commentators offer two possible interpretations of the terms"

1. "Beings who have come to be" = those which have already emerged from a womb or hatched from an egg. "Beings seeking to be" = those which are still inside the womb or egg.

2. "Beings who have come to be" = arahants. "Beings seeking to be" = worldlings and sekhas. The meaning is that an arahant has been born but won't be born any more, but worldlings and sekhas are still subject to further existences.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 3, 2016 3:54 PM
Title: Re: Who can't become a monk or nun?
Content:
It has nothing to do with their infectiousness (the idea that it does is a modern one with no support in the texts). The rule was laid down because the five maladies were rife in Magadha in the Buddha's time and it happened that Jīvaka, the physician to King Bimbisāra and the bhikkhusangha, was the best person to treat them. And so men were getting ordained just so that they could get free treatment from Jīvaka. In the end Jīvaka became overburdened with treating bhikkhus all the time.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 3, 2016 3:18 PM
Title: Re: When is it ok to lie?
Content:
What seems “funny” to me is that someone like yourself who professes to be an absolutist on the issue of veracity should post a slanderous falsehood like the one above.

The following contributors to this thread appear to think it morally defensible to deceive a would-be murderer in order to save innocent lives:

Cittasanto
David Snyder
Dhammanando
Khalil Bodhi
Leon-nl
Mr Empty
Mr Man
No_Mind
Samseva

Now I don’t recall what these posters’ views are on the issue of intellectual copyright (except my own of course), but I do know that not one of them has ever written to justify “murdering in the hope of some greater outcome”.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 3, 2016 8:02 AM
Title: Re: When is it ok to lie?
Content:
Just a couple of general observations...

1. ‘Musā’ Doesn’t Mean ‘Non-Factual’

In Pali factually false and factually true statements are not indicated by the terms musāvāda and saccavāda, but rather by abhūtavāda (“speech on what is not [the case]”) and bhūtavāda (“speech on what is [the case]”) respectively.

As for musāvāda and saccavāda, although these get popularly translated as “false speech” and “truthful speech”, this is misleading, for in fact they have nothing to do with truth or falsity. For an utterance to be musāvāda it does not have to be false (abhūtavāda); it’s enough that the speaker believes it to be false. And for a statement to be saccavāda it does not have to be true (bhūtavāda); it’s enough that the speaker believes it to be true.

In short, musāvāda and saccavāda hinge entirely on whether it’s the speaker’s intention to communicate a falsehood or a truth. As such the terms would be better translated as dishonest speech and honest speech.

To illustrate the point, consider the following Vinaya scenarios (in connection with the fourth pārājika rule — a prohibition against making false claims about spiritual attainments) and the Buddha’s verdict on them:

1. Factual and honest (bhūta, sacca): A bhikkhu believes that he has attained the first jhāna and has in fact done so. He informs a fellow bhikkhu of his attainment. Verdict: no offence.

2. Non-factual and dishonest (abhūta, musā): A bhikkhu believes that he has not attained the first jhāna and has not in fact attained it. Yet he informs a fellow bhikkhu that he has attained it. Verdict: a defeating offence.

3. Non-factual but honest (abhūta, sacca): A bhikkhu believes that he has attained the first jhāna but has not in fact attained it. He informs a fellow bhikkhu of [what he mistakenly believes to be] his attainment. Verdict: no offence.

4. Factual but dishonest (bhūta, musā): A bhikkhu believes that he has not attained the first jhāna but has in fact attained it (i.e. he attained it but didn’t realize he had done so). He informs a fellow bhikkhu that he has attained it [even though he thinks that he hasn’t]. Verdict: a defeating offence.

_________________________________________


2. Rounding up or down when telling people the time

I think that the relevant teaching in this connection is the Araṇavibhaṅga Sutta (“Exposition on Non-Conflict”). Among the ways of not creating conflict that the sutta details, one is the instruction that “one should not flout the normal/accepted/commonly agreed usage” (samaññaṃ n’ātidhāveyya).

When asked the time, the accepted usage will vary from one situation to another. For example, if the questioner is a doctor recording the time of a patient’s decease on a death certificate, or someone who wants to ascertain the accuracy of his own timepiece, then clearly a precise answer is being sought and the accepted usage would be to give him one. But in response to more casual enquiries about the time such precision is not being sought and the accepted usage is to round up or round down to the nearest five minutes or quarter of an hour. If it’s nearly 12 noon but one insists on replying “It’s 11:58 and 36 seconds” the response will at best seem peculiar and at worst might be construed as sarcastic or as an expression of passive-aggressive irritation. It’s highly unlikely that the questioner will think: “Goodness, what an admirably honest fellow this is!”

As for musāvāda in this connection, I think this would hinge principally upon what sort of answer the speaker believes the questioner to be soliciting. For example:

He believes an accurate answer is being sought but gives an approximate one with the intention of deceiving: blameworthy on account of musāvāda.

He believes an accurate answer is being sought but gives an approximate one out of mere laziness or habit: not musāvāda but blameworthy because it flouts accepted usage.

He believes an approximate answer is being sought, but gives an exact one out of a concern for complete honesty: not musāvāda but blameworthy on account of over-scrupulosity that leads him to flout accepted usage.


Or so it seems to me.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 3, 2016 12:04 AM
Title: Re: Who can't become a monk or nun?
Content:
I don't know if things are still the same today, but it used to be the case that the ordained were not obliged to submit to the ball-selecting ceremony and so only got conscripted if they disrobed while still young enough for the draft.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 2, 2016 8:49 PM
Title: Re: What Ahosi kamma really is?
Content:
Both unwholesome actions and the mental causes of these.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 2, 2016 8:36 PM
Title: Re: What Ahosi kamma really is?
Content:
I don’t think one can really generalise about this because remorse affects different people in different ways. One person might be led to repent of his misdeed and turn over a new leaf, while another might be led to lose himself in drink, drugs, and mindless distractions.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 2, 2016 7:41 PM
Title: Re: Who can't become a monk or nun?
Content:
Mere eligibility for the draft doesn’t count as an obstacle in the Vinaya, though if some country decided that it did count and that those eligible could not ordain, then the Sangha would have no choice but to conform.

Thailand has a selective conscription system, in which all the young men who are eligible for the draft have to pick a rubber ball out of a box and are conscripted if they pick the wrong colour (though in the case of rich kids it’s usual for their parents to pay a bribe to the conscripting officer to enable their son to evade it. Hence the cannon fodder in the Thai military consists overwhelmingly of peasant lads). The national policy regarding ordination is that mere eligibility for the draft doesn’t debar a man from ordaining, but if he’s already gone along to the conscription office and picked the wrong ball (and his parents haven’t paid the requisite bribe) then he can’t ordain until he’s done his two years in the military.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 1, 2016 12:55 PM
Title: Re: Happy New Year
Content:
สวัสดีปีใหม่

Sawatdee pee mai!

Here it's twelve hours old already.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 31, 2015 8:59 PM
Title: Re: Heavy Kamma
Content:
Although there aren't any cases exactly like these in the Vinītavatthu, there can be little doubt that both would be pārājika offences.

1. If it were claimed that the change of mind rendered the bhikkhu innocent of pārājika, then the general maxim that would follow from this would be: "In any scenario where a bhikkhu, intending to kill a man, makes an effort (whether by his own hand or by inciting another) aimed at bringing that death about, and where that effort is such as will make the fulfilment of the bhikkhu's intention irrevocable, he will be held innocent of pārājika if he changes his mind at any point between the making of the effort and the victim's death.

2. But this would be an absurd maxim. For example, it would mean that if a bhikkhu stabbed a man, intending to kill him, but the victim took a minute or two to die, if the bhikkhu were to regret his decision and change his mind about wanting the man dead during those minutes, then he would be innocent of pārājika. The difference between this scenario and yours is only the time-span, for in both scenarios the bhikkhu has made an effort that is irrevocable.

3. Furthermore, the maxim would be contradicted by those Vinaya cases where a bhikkhu aims to kill someone by setting a deadly pitfall trap. Even if he changes his mind, unless or until he fills in the hole he has dug he will be held responsible for any death that results from someone falling into it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 31, 2015 3:20 PM
Title: Re: Rebirth - who cares?
Content:
I think Nicolas's point is a response to the OP's contention that any possible future life is not something worth caring about because the continuing sense of personal identity will be broken by our failure to remember this life. And so according to this view in the next life (if there is one) we shall be a wholly different person.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 31, 2015 11:11 AM
Title: Re: Help with the Abhidharma wikipedia article
Content:
Typos and missing or erroneous diacritics:

Abdhidhamma — Abhidhamma
Abhidhammattha-sangaha — Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha
Abhidhammatthasangaha — Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha
Abhidhammavatara — Abhidhammāvatāra
Abhidharmakosa — Abhidharmakośa
Abhidharmakosabhasya — Abhidharmakośabhāṣya
Abhidharmakosha — Abhidharmakośa
Abhidharmasamayapradipika — Abhidharmasamayapradīpikā
Abhidharmikas — Ābhidharmikas
Adhidhamma — Abhidhamma
agamas — Āgamas
aisvarya — aiśvarya
alayavijnana — ālayavijñāna
Alu — Aḷu
Ananda — Ānanda
Anutika — Anuṭīkā
Asanga — Asaṅga
Ashoka — Aśoka
Atman — Ātman
Atthakatha — Atthakathā
Banarsidarass — Banarsidass
bhavanga — bhavaṅga
Dhammasangani — Dhammasaṅgaṇī
Dhatukatha — Dhātukathā
Dhatukaya — Dhātukāya
Hetuvada — Hetuvāda
Jiva — Jīva
Jnanaprasthana — Jñānaprasthāna
Katha Vatthu — Kathāvatthu
Kathavatthu — Kathāvatthu
Khāṇavāda — Khaṇikavāda
Khemappakarana — Khemappakaraṇa
ksanika — kṣaṇika
laksana — lakṣana
Madhyamaka — Mādhyamaka
Mahabhivasa — Mahāvibhāśa
Mahaprajnaparamita — Mahāprajñāpāramitā
Mahasanghika — Mahāsāṃghika
Mahavibhasa — Mahāvibhāśa
Mahayana — Mahāyāna
Mahayanists — Mahāyānists
Mahisasaka — Mahīśāsaka
mahisasakaversion — Mahīśāsaka version
Mohavicchedani — Mohavicchedanī
Mulatika — Mūlaṭīkā
Nagarjuna — Nāgārjuna
Namacaradipak — Nāmacāradīpaka
Namarupapariccheda — Nāmarūpapariccheda
Nikaya — Nikāya
Nikayas — Nikāyas
nippariyaya — nippariyāya
Nirvana — Nirvāṇa
Nyayanusara — Nyāyānusāra
Pancappakaranatthakatha — Pañcappakaraṇatthakathā
paramannu — paramāṇu
paramanu — paramāṇu
paramänu — paramāṇu
pariyaya — pariyāya
Parmatthavinicchaya — Paramatthavinicchaya
Paticcasamupada — Paṭiccasamuppāda
Patthana — Paṭṭhāna
pitaka — piṭaka
prajna — prajñā
prajnapti — prajñapti
Prajnaptisastra — Prajñaptiśāstra
Prajñaptivadins — Prajñaptivādins
Prakaranapada — Prakaraṇapāda
Pudgalavada — Pudgalavāda
Pudgalavadins — Pudgalavādins
Puggala Pannatti — Puggalapaññatti
Puggalapannatti — Puggalapaññatti
rupa — rūpa
rüpa — rūpa
Rūpa — Rūpa
Ruparupavibhaga — Rūpārāpavibhāga
rüpas — rūpas
sabhaava — sabhāva
sabhäga — sabhāga
Saccasamkhepa — Saccasaṅkhepa
sahabhu — sahabhū
Samghabhadra — Saṃghabhadra
Sammohavinodini — Sammohavinodanī
samutpada — samutpāda
Sangitiparyaya — Saṅgītiparyāya
Sariputra — Śāriputra
Sariputrabhidharmasastra — Śāripūtrābhidharmaśāstra
Sariputta — Sāriputta
Sarvastivada — Sarvāstivāda
Särvastiväda — Sarvāstivāda
Sarvāstivādan — Sarvāstivādin
Sarvastivadas — Sarvāstivādins
Sarvastivadin — Sarvāstivādin
Sarvastivadins — Sarvāstivādins
sastra — śāstra
Sautrantika — Sautrāntika
Shannagarika — Channāgārika
süksma — sūksma
Sutra — Sūtra
sutras — sūtras
Sutta Nipata — Suttanipāta
Suttapitaka — Suttapiṭaka
svabhava — svabhāva
svalaksana — svalakṣana
Theravāda — Theravāda
Theravadin — Theravādin
Theravadins — Theravādins
Tipitaka — Tipiṭaka
treat is — treatise
Vaibhasika — Vaibhāṣika
Vaibhasikas — Vaibhāṣikaa
Vainasikas — Vainaśikas
Vaisheshika — Vaiśeṣika
Vatsiputriya — Vātsīputrīya
Vibhajyavada — Vibhajyavāda
Vibhajyaväda — Vibhajyavāda
Vibhanga — Vibhaṅga
Vibhasa — Vibhāṣa
Vibhasa-sastrins — Vibhāśaśāstrins
Vijnanakaya — Vijñānakāya
Vijñanakaya — Vijñānakāya
vipäka — vipāka
vipassana — vipassanā
Vism-mhþ — Vism-mhṭ
Yogacara — Yogācāra


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 31, 2015 1:19 AM
Title: Re: doubt
Content:
Dhammasaṅgaṇī and Vibhaṅga version.

Doubt about...

1. The Teacher.
2. The Dhamma.
3. The Saṅgha.
4. The training.
5. The ultimate beginning of living beings.
6. The ultimate end of living beings.
7. Both the beginning and the end of living beings.
8. Specific conditionality and dependently arisen dhammas.


Niddesa version.

Doubt about...

1 - 4. The four noble truths.
5 - 8. Same as 5-8 above.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 30, 2015 10:46 PM
Title: Re: When is it ok to lie?
Content:
The point of interest here is the Buddha's decision to use the more specialised na lajjā rather than the more general ahirika to express the idea of shamelessness. Although both words mean “shameless”, na lajjā carries the implication that the shamelessness in question is a persistent defect of character. In the Vinaya, for example, whereas a bhikkhu who is totally lacking in respect for the training rules and transgresses them all the time is referred to as alajjī, a bhikkhu who is not of this type but who happens to fall into a transgression on one particular occasion is referred to as ahirika. And so in this context to be a recluse "who is not ashamed to tell a deliberate lie" most likely means to be one in whom mendacity is a deeply ingrained trait. As such it has no bearing upon the case of an habitually truthful person telling a one-off lie, as in our Gestapo officer scenario.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 30, 2015 8:02 PM
Title: Re: Wat Dhammakaya
Content:
But it has nothing to do with Wat Dhammakaya. It's some other monks who were going around the malls of Chiang Mai soliciting money.

https://web.facebook.com/chayuti.janrakongtong/posts/10153152550081831?pnref=story

http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2015/12/30/monk-flips-man-who-refuses-make-donation-buddhism


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 29, 2015 7:33 PM
Title: Re: Buddhism and fallacies of idol worship
Content:
But the scope of shirk isn't limited to just that. In the Kitab al-Asnam and other Islamic chronicles of monotheism (and deviations therefrom) some of the latter-day pagans are depicted not as forsaking Allah but as simply carrying on the idolatrous observances they'd inherited from their forefathers; Allah had been long forgotten by them. Yet they still get classed as mušrikūn.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 29, 2015 4:23 PM
Title: Re: Buddhism and fallacies of idol worship
Content:
And it was to this that I was responding.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 29, 2015 4:14 PM
Title: Re: Ajahn Chah Website/Talk In Thai
Content:
http://www.baanjomyut.com/pratripidok/cha/09.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 29, 2015 3:48 PM
Title: Re: Buddhism and fallacies of idol worship
Content:
I quite agree and in effect said as much myself when agreeing with Pasada's first point.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 29, 2015 2:15 PM
Title: Re: What Ahosi kamma really is?
Content:
Akusala Dhammas

1. The three unwholesome roots, i.e., the mental factors of attachment, aversion, and delusion.
2. The other unwholesome mental factors that can only arise when one of the unwholesome roots is present, such as shamelessness, envy, stinginess, sloth, torpor, etc.
3. Any morally neutral mental factors that arise simultaneously with the three unwholesome roots: feeling, perception, intention, attention, zest, one-pointedness, energy, etc.
4. The consciousness that arises with all of the above.
5. Body-door, speech-door and mind-door kammas generated by the above.


Kusala Dhammas

1. The three wholesome roots: freedom-from-attachment, freedom-from-aversion, and freedom-from-delusion.
2. The beautiful mental factors that can only arise when one of the wholesome roots is present, such as a sense of shame, mindfulness, faith, compassion, etc.
3. Any morally neutral mental factors that arise simultaneously with the three wholesome roots: feeling, perception, intention, attention, zest, one-pointedness, energy, etc.
4. The consciousness in which all of the above arise.
5. Body-door, speech-door and mind-door kammas generated by the above.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 28, 2015 6:48 PM
Title: Re: What Ahosi kamma really is?
Content:
Each to his own taste. To me one of the few redeeming features of Saṃsāra is the fact that kusala dhammas wield more power than akusala ones.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 28, 2015 6:20 PM
Title: Re: US & UK: Are we really developed?
Content:
Perhaps indignation at their hypocrisy — the discovery that the men whom they so generously support, supposing them to be fields of merit, are not in fact what they suppose them to be.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 28, 2015 6:17 PM
Title: Re: When is it ok to lie?
Content:
For example in the Nidāna to the Pātimokkha:
Yadi saṅghassa pattakallaṃ, saṅgho uposathaṃ kareyya, pāṭimokkhaṃ uddiseyya. Kiṃ saṅghassa pubbakiccaṃ? Pārisuddhiṃ āyasmanto ārocetha, pāṭimokkhaṃ uddisissāmi. Taṃ sabbeva santā sādhukaṃ suṇoma manasikaroma. Yassa siyā āpatti, so āvikareyya. Asantiyā āpattiyā tuṇhī bhavitabbaṃ. Tuṇhībhāvena kho panāyasmante parisuddhāti vedissāmi. Yathā kho pana paccekapuṭṭhassa veyyākaraṇaṃ hoti. Evamevaṃ evarūpāya parisāya yāvatatiyaṃ anussāvitaṃ hoti. Yo pana bhikkhu yāvatatiyaṃ anusāviyamāne saramāno santiṃ āpattiṃ nāvikareyya, sampajānamusāvādassa hoti. Sampajānamusāvādo kho panāyasmanto antarāyiko dhammo vutto bhagavatā. Tasmā saramānena bhikkhunā āpannena visuddhāpekkhena santī āpatti āvikātabbā, āvikatā hissa phāsu hoti.

"I will recite the Pātimokkha (while) one and all of us present listen properly and pay attention to it. He for whom there may be an offence should reveal it. If there is no offence, you should become silent. By your becoming silent I shall thus know that the venerable ones are quite pure. For as there is an answer for each question, so it is proclaimed up to the third time in an assembly like this. Whatever monk remembering while it is being proclaimed up to the third time that there is an existent offence and should not reveal it, there comes to be conscious lying for him. Now, conscious lying, venerable ones, is a thing called a stumbling-block by the Lord. Therefore the existent offence should be revealed by a monk who remembers that he has fallen (into an offence) and who desires purity; for when it is revealed there comes to be comfort for him."
(Vin. i. 102-3; Horner translation)
For the larger context and the commentary on terms go to https://suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-kd2 and scroll down to "Allowance to recite the Pātimokkha".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 28, 2015 12:47 PM
Title: Re: Buddhism and fallacies of idol worship
Content:
I accept your first point.

As for the second, this is still off topic. The question of whether those who accuse Buddhists of idol worship are also idol worshippers is irrelevant to the question of whether the charge is factual.

I might add, however, that since one of the hadiths in the Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī collection states that the Kaaba is "a stone that can neither benefit nor harm" (Vol. II, Hajj, ch. 56, Hadith 675), it's rather questionable whether bowing in its direction would in fact fit any of the usual definitions of idol worship.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 28, 2015 12:06 PM
Title: Re: When is it ok to lie?
Content:
"From the principle of truthfulness Kant draws the grotesque conclusion that I must even reply with an honest “yes” to the enquiry of the murderer who breaks into my house and asks whether my friend whom he is pursuing has taken refuge there. In such a case self-righteousness of conscience has become an outrageous presumption that blocks the path of reasonable action. Responsibility is our total and realistic response to the claim of our neighbour; but this example shows in its true light how the response of a conscience which is bound by principles is only a partial one."
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics p. 221


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 28, 2015 12:02 PM
Title: Re: When is it ok to lie?
Content:
Yes, it does. The Vinaya is explicit on this point. If you remain silent in response to a question, hoping that your silence will be construed in a particular way by the listener, and if that construal is a false one (e.g. if you hope that the Gestapo officer will conclude that there are no Jews in your home and then go away), then you've lied.

Regarding your other post, I'm afraid I'll have to delay replying as I've got a lot of proof-reading to do over the next couple of days.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 28, 2015 10:57 AM
Title: Uposatha Calendars for 2016
Content:
Courtesy of Ven. Ānandajoti, image files and a pdf of five calendars, showing the Uposatha days for Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thai Mahanikaya, Thai Dhammayuttika Nikaya, and the Chinese Mahayana.

http://records.photodharma.net/notices/uposatha-calendars-2016


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 28, 2015 4:29 AM
Title: Re: What Ahosi kamma really is?
Content:
No. In Buddhist countries (especially in Tibet) one will encounter popular superstitions to the effect that by doing such and such one will be purified of lots of unwholesome kamma, but these superstitions have no basis in the Pali texts.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 28, 2015 2:50 AM
Title: Re: Setting up Buddha shrine
Content:
I've been in several Burmese and in one Chinese Buddhist home where this was done, albeit for different reasons. In the case of the Burmese it was because they didn't have enough rooms in their home to allot one room for a shrine, and so they had to install the rupa in a room that was in regular use. However they didn't want the rupa to be just another household ornament and so they would keep it hidden from view except when meditating or performing puja. In the case of the Chinese it was because the rupa was kept in a woman's bedroom and she thought it would be undecent to undress in front of it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 28, 2015 2:07 AM
Title: Re: Theravada Temples: Taking the Refuges and Culture
Content:
I think it would be worth your paying the wat a visit. I've never been there myself but I have a slight acquaintance with Ajahn Chali, the meditation teacher there, from many years back. He struck me as quite an expansive fellow who was serious about reaching out to western Buddhists, so I doubt he'll be running the wat as merely a Thai cultural centre (though that will no doubt be one of its functions).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 28, 2015 1:23 AM
Title: Re: When is it ok to lie?
Content:
No, I haven't yet offered any view on the OP's question. My post merely pointed out that the arguments you offered for your own view seemed poorly thought out and uncompelling.

Were I to offer a view of my own it would be on similar lines to that which I've posted in a number of past threads on moral dilemmas, such as http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=22244&p=317789#p317789, http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=23927&p=342767#p342767 and http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=23927&p=343111#p343037.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 28, 2015 12:24 AM
Title: Re: US & UK: Are we really developed?
Content:
I didn't look at the other pages, but the statistics on the one above are worthless:

• No source or date given.

• The title is a misnomer for the figures are not of the relative crime rates of different nations but merely of the number of crimes committed annually in each country, without any regard to its population size. It goes without saying that bigger countries are likely to have more crimes per annum than smaller ones.

• No statement as to whether the figures are for the crimes reported or for the successful criminal prosecutions. If it's the former then one would need to reckon with the national habits of reporting crimes; e.g., if your home gets burgled in Britain then you'll almost certainly call the police, but in rural Thailand people are more likely to just shrug their shoulders and say "aniccaṃ." But if the figures are for successful prosecutions, then one would need to factor in the relative efficiency and freedom from corruption of the police and judiciary in different countries.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 27, 2015 1:49 PM
Title: Re: When is it ok to lie?
Content:
With all due respect, Jordan, did you give even a half-moment's thought to the nonsense you've written here? Do you seriously suggest that lying to save someone's life will make us more likely to murder the persons whose murders we are hoping to prevent?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 27, 2015 1:13 PM
Title: Re: Does the bliss of Nibbana "arise"?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 27, 2015 11:52 AM
Title: Re: Does the bliss of Nibbana "arise"?
Content:
"Subject to..." is a common way of translating dhamma or dhammin when these are suffixed to certain nouns, such as:

jarādhammo: subject to old age.
maraṇadhammo: subject to death.
uppādavayadhammino: subject to arising and disappearance.
anuppādadhammo: not subject to arising.

Etc. Other translations that have been used are "under the law of...", "liable to...", "of the nature of/to... " and Ñāṇamoli's "inseparable from the idea of..."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 27, 2015 2:55 AM
Title: Re: God Jul
Content:
The Norwegian origin of "A partridge in a pear tree."


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: Sun Dec 27, 2015 2:30 AM
Title: Re: Give your 5 best links on Buddhism
Content:
1. http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/

2. http://dhammagarden.jimdo.com/texts/

3. http://www.wattamaoh.org/ (mostly Thai)

4. http://www.tipitaka.org

5. http://www.budsas.org/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 27, 2015 2:17 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism and fallacies of idol worship
Content:
To judge from the OP's article, this thread has to do with the Islamic (or at least one Muslim's) assessment of Buddhism and not with a Buddhist assessment of Islam. Please stay on topic.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 27, 2015 1:53 AM
Title: Re: Happy Birthday David N. Snyder!
Content:
መልከም ልደት


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 Dec 26, 2015 11:57 PM
Title: Re: euthanasia
Content:
The origin story tells of an unhappy bhikkhu who tried to kill himself by jumping off Vultures’ Peak, only to land on top of a basketmaker. The basketmaker was killed but the bhikkhu survived. The question then arose as to whether his action constituted a breach of the third pārājika rule against intentionally killing a human being. The Buddha ruled that the killing was no offence but then laid down the prohibition against jumping from a height. The interpretation of this rule is disputed. In the Milindapañha the phrase attānaṃ pātetabbaṃ is quoted in one of the dilemmas and appears to have been understood as a figurative expression for any method of committing suicide. This interpretation is later made explicit in the Samantapāsādikā, wherein all acts of suicide by bhikkhus are adjudged dukkaṭa offences.

Some Vinaya scholars, however, have argued that at its inception the rule had nothing at all to do with suicide but simply prohibited jumping from a height for any reason. For example, in Bangkok I once jumped down off a library stool after retrieving a book from a high shelf and was immediately scolded by the monk librarian (a Vinaya scholar who dissented from the suicide interpretation) for jumping rather than climbing down. In his scolding he cited this very rule.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 26, 2015 11:19 PM
Title: Re: euthanasia
Content:
In fact it has. In pre-modern Siam and Burma the laws were adapted in part from various brahminical Dharmaśāstras and in part from the Vinaya Piṭaka and its Atthakathā and Ṭīkās, while jurisprudential procedure was based almost wholly upon the forensics of the monastic Vinaya.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2015 10:07 PM
Title: Re: Ajahn Chah Memorial week 2016
Content:
You may have better luck posting your query to the Isaan section of the Thai Visa forum:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/forum/32-isaan-forum/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2015 12:33 PM
Title: Re: Usage of "lābha" in the suttas
Content:
There’s no question that this is an ancient problem, as evidenced, for example, by the various theras and therīs in the Suttas who are brought to the point of suicide by their failure to attain. But I just don’t think it very probable that this is what’s being addressed in the Lābhicchā Sutta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2015 3:27 AM
Title: Re: Usage of "lābha" in the suttas
Content:
Tasmā have jāgariyaṃ bhajetha,
Ātāpī bhikkhu nipako jhānalābhī.

Therefore be devoted to vigilance,
An ardent bhikkhu, a discerning jhāna-attainer.
(Iti 42)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 19, 2015 11:47 PM
Title: Re: Buddha had a specific way of defining "All"..what was it?
Content:
The commentaries to both texts understand it to be so, glossing "knower of all" (sabbavidū) as knowing all dhammas of the four planes.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 19, 2015 5:12 PM
Title: Re: Buddha had a specific way of defining "All"..what was it?
Content:
./download/file.php?id=2841
(143.82 KiB) Downloaded 50 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 19, 2015 4:37 PM
Title: Re: Dispensation of Buddha
Content:
If they say what they believe to be the case, but what they believe isn’t in fact the case, then it’s not false speech; it’s just a mistake.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 18, 2015 4:57 PM
Title: Re: Dispensation of Buddha
Content:
There is no evidence for this whatsoever, and much evidence to the contrary. Essentially it’s an unsupported faith claim, most likely generated by an excess of proselytical zeal, Burmese national chauvinism and wishful thinking. You will find analogous superiority claims in virtually all the modern Burmese and Thai meditation traditons.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 18, 2015 4:45 PM
Title: Re: Can anyone attain Nibbana?
Content:
Regarding the last sentence, I would add that although the padaparama puggala is not to be emancipated in the present life, nevertheless his task is exactly the same as that of the neyya puggala, i.e., “[Obtaining] instruction, questioning, careful attention, and reliance on good friends.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 18, 2015 7:18 AM
Title: Re: Can anyone attain Nibbana?
Content:
I wouldn't say that. In fact it's about as specific as you can get: it's a classification of people according to the speed and ease with which they may obtain penetration of the Dhamma.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 18, 2015 12:31 AM
Title: Re: What is Cetana?
Content:
Wanting what someone else has is not issā but abhijjhā ("covetousness"). This is reckoned to be the worst of the various modes of lobha, hence its alternative name, avisamalobha, "lawless greed".

As for issā, this is not wanting what someone else has, but rather resentment at the fact that they've got it and you haven't. In practice abhijjhā will often generate issā, and vice versa, but not always so. For example, when a pickpocket steals someone's wallet he certainly covets it but it's doubtful that he resents his victim's possession of it. In fact it's more likely that he'll be pleased at his possession of it, for otherwise it wouldn't be available for the pickpocket to steal.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 17, 2015 12:14 PM
Title: Re: Can anyone attain Nibbana?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 17, 2015 9:21 AM
Title: Re: Kingdom farewells late Supreme Patriarch of Thailand
Content:
Yes, I was one of them, way back when I was a Dhammayutt. Another was Ven. Panyavaro, the Aussie monk who runs the Buddhanet site. He and I ordained in the same ceremony before going up to Wat Pa Ban Tard.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 17, 2015 7:49 AM
Title: Re: Colours and Jhanas
Content:
Right, though outside of the present context the verb normally refers specifically to the wearing (or putting on) of garments on the upper part of one's body, in contrast with nivāseti which is used in connection with the lower garments.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 17, 2015 3:59 AM
Title: Re: The destruction of lust, the destruction of hatred, the destruction of delusion: this, friend, is called Nibbana.?
Content:
One view: the yogi develops insight, comes to see the danger in conditioned dhammas, becomes disenchanted and turns away from them. Conditioned by this turning away there at some point arises a consciousness (the ariyamaggacitta) which takes Nibbāna, the unconditioned dhamma, as its object. The arising of this maggacitta has the effect of destroying particular fetters, starting with sakkāyadiṭṭhi, vicikicchā and sīlabbataparāmāsa. With the fourth arising of a maggacitta one becomes an arahant and all of the ten fetters and three unwholesome roots are destroyed. The irreversible destruction of these defiling dhammas (and of the dukkha to which they give rise) may also be termed 'Nibbāna' but this is a figurative use of the term.

Another view: the yogi develops insight, comes to see the danger in conditioned dhammas, becomes disenchanted and turns away from them and the fetters and defilements are gradually destroyed. When all of them have been destroyed he is an arahant. The irreversible absence of kilesas in him is Nibbāna and Nibbāna is nothing else but this.

The first is the understanding of Theravādin ābhidhammikas and conceptions similar to it seem to have been shared by all the Indian Abhidharma-based schools. The second is the understanding of the Sautrāntikas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 17, 2015 12:26 AM
Title: Re: Buddha had a specific way of defining "All"..what was it?
Content:
It's the normal practice of the commentators that when some important technical term crops up for the first time in whatever Nikāya they are commenting on they will either refer the reader to the discussion of it in Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga (if there is one) or, if the term is not discussed in the Visuddhimagga, then they will give a more or less exhaustive list of all the senses of the term, with examples from the Suttas to illustrate each sense. Later, with any subsequent occurrences of the term, they will refer the reader back to their earlier discussion, stipulating which of the given definitions applies in the current context.

Now it just so happens that the Sabbasutta is the first discourse in the Saṃyutta Nikāya in which sabba ("all") is used in a technical fashion and so Buddhaghosa takes the opportunity to define its different senses.

Pace Thanissaro, the Commentary's treatment of this discourse is not "very peculiar". It's not even a little bit peculiar. It's simply Buddhaghosa doing what he (and other commentators) always do.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 16, 2015 1:48 PM
Title: Re: wholesome vs unwholesome
Content:
Attempting to surmount one's wrath and generate mettā in a fraught situation involving other people is unlikely to succeed unless one has already made very considerable progress practising mettā-bhāvanā in retreat conditions. For anyone else mindfulness and upekkhā will be a better resort in such situations. One arouses upekkhā by reminding oneself of ownership of kamma. For example: "All beings are the owners of their kamma, heirs of their kamma. That the other driver is making a wazzock of himself doesn't oblige me to do so too."

See also the https://suttacentral.net/en/sn11.4.
‘One who repays an angry man with anger
Thereby makes things worse for himself.
Not repaying an angry man with anger,
One wins a battle hard to win.

“‘He practises for the welfare of both,
His own and the other’s,
When, knowing that his foe is angry,
He mindfully maintains his peace.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 16, 2015 1:19 PM
Title: Re: Colours and Jhanas
Content:
"Wrapped" is used above to translate "pārupitvā ("having put on...", "having clothed oneself in..."). This is the absolutive form of paridahati, the standard Pali verb to denote a person's putting on or wearing his upper garment.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 16, 2015 12:26 PM
Title: Re: Colours and Jhanas
Content:
Probably not. In the Suttas "dressed in white cloth" (odātavatthavasanā) is functionally about the equivalent of "dressed in civvies". That is to say, it's a stock phrase for describing the clothes of just about anybody except homeless ascetics and soldiers.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 16, 2015 11:23 AM
Title: Re: Colours and Jhanas
Content:
Yes, though there are about a dozen Pali names for lotuses, in the Suttas the combination uppalāni vā padumāni vā puṇḍarīkāni vā is an especially common one, occurring time and time again. However, given that this combination is used in quite a variety of contexts and is never accompanied by any explanation as to why these ones in particular are being mentioned, I'm disinclined to think that there is any deep significance to it. Perhaps it's just a stock phrase reflecting the fact that these happened to be the most common kinds of lotus at that time.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 16, 2015 10:44 AM
Title: Re: Colours and Jhanas
Content:
Not really. In the English translation it might appear that the colours of the different lotuses are being highlighted, but one wouldn't get this impression when reading the sutta in Pali. It's simply that Pali lacks any word for lotuses in general and has only words for particular kinds of lotuses (kamala, uppala, paduma, puṇḍarīka, etc.), each recognisable principally by its colour. And so in Pali you simply cannot speak about lotuses without saying what colour they are.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 16, 2015 7:28 AM
Title: Re: The destruction of lust, the destruction of hatred, the destruction of delusion: this, friend, is called Nibbana.?
Content:
The Visuddhimagga's fuller discussion can be found in the attached file. See in particular Buddhaghosa's response to questions 4 and 5.



 ./download/file.php?id=2829
(114.71 KiB) Downloaded 146 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2015 8:35 PM
Title: Re: In the caves of withdrawal from the world
Content:
Okay, I get it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2015 8:24 PM
Title: Re: varadakkhiṇeyyo
Content:
I would take the vara in varadakkhiṇeyyo as the superlative adverb varaṃ and translate:

"The Saṅgha purified, most worthy of gifts."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2015 7:13 PM
Title: Re: Heavy Kamma
Content:
He wouldn't be sure whether he was defeated or not. If the victim is killed the bhikkhu is defeated, but not if he isn't. In cases like this, where a bhikkhu suspects he might be defeated but isn't sure, Buddhaghosa advises as follows:

1. Under no circumstances should the bhikkhu be told that he is defeated ("...for hard to obtain is the sight of Buddhas, but harder still to obtain is pabbajjā and upasampadā.").

2. He should be instructed to go to a solitary place and apply himself to his meditation subject. If he succeeds in attaining upacāra-samādhi then he should be informed that he is not defeated. (The assumption here is that a defeated bhikkhu would be incapable of doing this).

3. If he fails, then the sangha should recite the verses from the https://suttacentral.net/en/an3.40 and then leave him to judge for himself whether it's prudent to remain in the robes or not.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2015 4:23 PM
Title: Re: In the caves of withdrawal from the world
Content:
Hi Boris,

Though I've been a lifelong fan of Rudyard Kipling I'm a little mystified as to the connection between nekkhamma and the hanging of Danny Deever. What connection do you see?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2015 11:30 AM
Title: Re: Commentary Majjhima Nikaya
Content:
I didn't check carefully when I posted the link, but just assumed that it was since everything else on the website (at least everything that I'm familiar with) seems to be. However, having now investigated further I see that: (1) the book is presently being offered for sale by Pariyatti Press, and (2) that the owner of http://www.dhammatalks.net appears to be no respecter of intellectual property, (http://www.dhammatalks.net/copy_right_issues.htm). So, I'm going to remove the link now. Thanks for the notice.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2015 5:17 AM
Title: Re: Commentary Majjhima Nikaya
Content:
I don't think there are any books expounding all or most of the MN suttas from a classical Theravadin perspective (which is what this sub-forum is concerned with). On the other hand, plenty of ink has been expended on comparative studies of the Pali Majjhima Nikāya and the Chinese Madhyama Āgama, notably by the Vietnamese monk Thích Minh Châu and the German Ven. Anālayo.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2015 2:25 AM
Title: Re: Commentary Majjhima Nikaya
Content:
There are published translations of Buddhaghosa’s commentaries to the Mūlapariyaya Sutta (Bhikkhu Bodhi), the http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanamoli/wheel377.html (Ñāṇamoli), and the http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/wayof.html (Soma Thera).

There is also an unpublished translation of the entire Papañcasūdanī (Buddhaghosa’s MN commentary), but I don’t know whether it’s possible to obtain a copy. It was done for the PTS by the late Sayādaw U Ñāṇika, with some help from Maurice Walshe and Lance Cousins. But U Ñāṇika’s English was rather poor and as his translation didn’t meet the PTS’s standards it was rejected.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2015 12:56 AM
Title: Re: Bodhi Vandana
Content:
I don't think there is any such thing as an honorific singular in Pali. An honorific plural is when a word's form is plural even though its meaning is singular; as for example when Queen Elizabeth says "we" instead of "I" when giving a formal address, or when the Buddha says "mayaṃ" instead of "ahaṃ".

If the verse you quoted is preceded by the "seven trees" one, then ete would just be a normal plural referring back to those trees.

As for ime being an honorific plural, this is merely my conjecture as I can't see any other way to make sense of the first line. Though I should note that in standard Pali the honorific plural is normally limited to the first and second person pronouns (just as in Old Icelandic, Vulgate Latin, and many other classical Indo-European languages) — e.g, Buddhas and Kings may refer to themselves as mayaṃ instead of ahaṃ and their disciples/subjects are wont to address them as tumhe instead of tvaṃ.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2015 12:44 AM
Title: Re: How did you transition your diet?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 12, 2015 11:46 AM
Title: Re: Inspiring University President stands up against intellectual infantilization
Content:
Sure, but the linked article doesn't do that. It describes a particular context in which each of the questions would be boorish and insensitive. It doesn't say that each question is necessarily and invariably wrong to ask.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 12, 2015 11:38 AM
Title: Re: Why so gloomy?
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 12, 2015 11:10 AM
Title: Re: Yogacara Vijñapti-mātra
Content:
There is no reason to think that Vasubandhu was ever affiliated with the Theravāda. His main pre-Yogacāra work, the Abhidharmakośakārikā, is an exposition in brief of the main tenets of the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma (essentially a Sarvāstivadin equivalent of the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha), while his auto-commentary to the same (the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya) is in large part a critique of this Abhidharma system from a Sautrāntika point of view. In the latter text the Theravādins make an occasional appearance (under the name "Vibhajyavādins") but their views are either rejected or merely reported, with no suggestion that the author is sympathetic to them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 12, 2015 7:47 AM
Title: Re: Reality vs. Concepts
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 12, 2015 7:30 AM
Title: Re: Inspiring University President stands up against intellectual infantilization
Content:
For example:

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: Fri Dec 11, 2015 12:48 PM
Title: Re: Martial Law in Thailand
Content:
It gets sillier every day. This is almost worthy of Onion ...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/10/thai-man-arrested-facebook-like-photo-king
Thanakorn Siripaiboon, 27, a worker in a car-parts factory, was arrested in Samut Prakan, near Bangkok, and charged with sedition, lese-majeste and computer crimes, said Col Burin Thongprapai, a legal officer for the junta.

“On 2 December, he clicked ‘like’ on a doctored photo of the King and shared it with 608 friends,” Burin said, adding that he had confessed to the charges and faced up to 32 years in jail.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 11, 2015 12:50 AM
Title: Re: nikaya for lay people
Content:
In terms of the proportion of suttas that are either addressed to them or at least address their concerns, I would say the Majjhima Nikāya for brahmacārī householders and the Aṅguttara Nikāya for kāmabhogī householders.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 10, 2015 11:37 PM
Title: Re: Bodhi Vandana
Content:
There is a Northern Thai version in which the preceding verse praises seven trees under which past Buddhas awakened. So it might be that ete on the first line is a demonstrative pronoun referring back to those trees, while ime is an adjective qualifying the tree immediately in front of the worshipper. In that case the latter would have to be read as an honorific plural, though it really ought to be imā since bodhi is a feminine noun.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 10, 2015 1:12 PM
Title: Re: Joseph Goldstein's income
Content:
The teachers at IMS are not paid salaries (only donations from those attending their courses) but the maintenance and administrative staff are. So if Goldstein is salaried (and I don't know whether he is or not) it would presumably be recompense for his work as the centre's director rather than for the teachings he gives.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 10, 2015 10:08 AM
Title: Re: Martial Law in Thailand
Content:
Two ambassadors in hot water.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/09/thailand-police-investigate-us-ambassador-defamed-monarchy

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/12040849/Thai-junta-criticises-British-ambassador-for-supporting-law-breakers-over-student-detentions.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 9, 2015 5:28 PM
Title: Re: A poetry thread.
Content:
EUROPE - A PROPHECY

History repeats itself, Napoleon said:
The first time as tragedy,
The second time as farce. – As for the third?
Well I remember a book I read,
Decades ago, it must be,
If memory serves me well,
By a wry Italian guy – Barzini?
A sort of socio-philosophical commentary
On the nations of Europe.

Each one got a chapter,
And in the one on Germany
He illustrated the strange case
Of pre-war Berlin and the protean types 
That changed shape nightly
In crowded back-street revue bars:
All sexes mingled and commingled
And nobody knew or cared who was doing
What or where or when to who.

And that would’ve been fine on its own -
“Chacun à son gôut,” as they say.
Tradition was dead anyway, discredited 
By the horrific error of The Great War,
Society was rightly breaking down – and with it,
Man’s psyche seemed to be dissolving
Into its constituent drives and forces:
All and any notions of identity and justice
Were up for grabs, to say the least.

And then, as now, the world was run by bankers, 
The currency was more debauched
Than the politicians it bought in parliament,
A wheelbarrow of banknotes bought you a carrot
If you were lucky – and a mugging if you weren’t;
Since the streets outside were battlegrounds
Between lunatics of blood-soaked political persuasions
Who caved each others’ brain-boxes in with pipes
Presumably to try and fit ideas into each other’s heads.

Anyway, even this would’ve been fine, as I say;
But then the reactive revolution changed style,
A collective bout of bourgeois propriety
Spread like flu, and suddenly people in uniforms
Started to break down the doors to the clubs
And torch them and at the end of it all, 
Framed in the dim-lit doorway
Was a funny little man with a moustache
Whom nobody could take seriously.

— James Robert Matthew Murphy


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 8, 2015 1:14 AM
Title: Re: Ordination in Thailand
Content:
Well, not really. The last good state-instituted sangha reforms were in Thaksin’s day. The latest is actually a national security measure. It seems the Thai authorities have received an intelligence report that some Muslims have entered the Kingdom with the aim of carrying out terrorist attacks on Russian tourists in Pattaya. There’s a concern that they may try to disguise themselves as monks and the new regulation is the junta’s response to this.



Suspects.jpg (25.66 KiB) Viewed 29295 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 7, 2015 10:21 PM
Title: Re: Good resources in non-English languages
Content:
The http://www.budsas.org/uni/u-thanhtinh-dao/ttd-00.htm (Visuddhimagga) by Phật Âm (Buddhaghosa), translated into Vietnamese by Thích Nữ Trí Hải.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 5, 2015 10:45 AM
Title: Re: Ordination in Thailand
Content:
I've just received news of a new regulation for foreign nationals wishing to ordain in Thailand. They are now required to bring a copy of their police record in their native country and submit it to their upajjhāya before ordaining. As I haven't yet seen a copy of the regulation I don't know whether it requires that the candidate have a completely clean record or merely that it be free of serious crimes.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 4, 2015 6:12 PM
Title: Re: What can a layperson do? How far can a layperson go?
Content:
There have been self-declarations of arahantship by some individuals, but none that seem credible to me.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 3, 2015 4:40 PM
Title: Re: The Lost Factor in the Buddha's Path to Happiness
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 3, 2015 3:08 AM
Title: Re: How can one prevent oneself from perfoming any bad kamma or "mixed kamma"?
Content:
Indeed.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 3, 2015 1:25 AM
Title: Re: Bad Action
Content:
For example, a man successfully robs a bank and now he's rich and can live the life of Riley, which he will probably deem "a good result". But when that akusala kamma yields its vipāka, the result will be a painful one.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 3, 2015 12:13 AM
Title: Re: How can one prevent oneself from perfoming any bad kamma or "mixed kamma"?
Content:
* Presumably the writer means https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enkrateia.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 2, 2015 7:29 PM
Title: Re: Inspiring University President stands up against intellectual infantilization
Content:
http://www.amerika.org/science/safe-spaces-must-be-destroyed/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 2, 2015 6:25 PM
Title: Re: Bad Action
Content:
Yes. The word translated as "results" in the OP is vipāka.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 2, 2015 6:17 PM
Title: Re: Inspiring University President stands up against intellectual infantilization
Content:
http://www.intercollegiatereview.com/index.php/2015/11/18/how-safe-spaces-kill-human-dignity/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 26, 2015 5:05 PM
Title: Re: What can a layperson do? How far can a layperson go?
Content:
There are plenty of reports of householders attaining arahatta. What is not reported is any case of a householder attaining arahatta and then continuing to live as a householder. In post-canonical texts this is said to be impossible: after arahatta a householder either goes forth into the homeless life or passes away.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:38 AM
Title: Re: What Dhamma Book are you reading right now?
Content:
J.W. de Jong, A Brief History of Buddhist Studies in Europe and America.
First published in The Eastern Buddhist Vol. VII, 1974.


Fascinating history of the extraordinary bees that have buzzed in buddhologists’ bonnets over the years. For example:

After having retold the legend of the Buddha in great detail, Kern arrives at his interpretation. Like Senart he considers the Buddha to be a solar god. However, Kern is much more astronomical in his exegesis than Senart. The twelve nidāna are the twelve months of the year. The six heretical teachers are the planets. His first predication takes place in midsummer. For this reason the Middle Way is its theme. Kern never hesitates in his identifications with stars, planets and constellations. Senart’s system of interpretation is based upon a careful examination of the Vedic and Brahmanical literature but one finds nothing similar in Kern's book. One observes with some astonishment that his categorical statements have been able to carry away even such a sober-minded and cautious scholar as Barth, who was willing to consider the courtezans as mother-goddesses, the six heretical teachers as the six planets and the rebellion of Devadatta as the struggle of the moon with the sun (Oeuvres de Auguste Barth, I, Paris, 1914, p. 335). However, Barth believed that the legend of the Buddha contains historical elements which had been handed down since the time of the Buddha. Even Senart was willing to admit that historical elements had been connected secondarily with the mythical biography of the Buddha (op. cit., pp. 442-444) but for him the mythical and historical elements belonged to two entirely different traditions.
(pp. 26-7)

Luckily the magnificent Thomas Rhys Davids and Herman Oldenberg then came along to set everyone straight.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:19 AM
Title: Re: Buddhajayamaṅgala Gāthā
Content:
The terms don't apply to cetasikas but to the aggregate-continuum, which may be viewed as either staccato or legato, according to whether the ābhidhammika is engaged in analysis or synthesis.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 26, 2015 7:40 AM
Title: Re: Buddhajayamaṅgala Gāthā
Content:
By stating the tempo, how many tones you could discern, and whether the articulation was predominantly staccato or legato.

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 26, 2015 3:35 AM
Title: Re: Hello from Toronto
Content:
Welcome to Dhamma Wheel. There are no restrictions as to where you may post.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 26, 2015 2:15 AM
Title: Re: Questions on Abhidhamma (Bikkhu Bodhi)
Content:
It refers to the number of wholesome roots present in one's consciousness at the moment of rebirth. The rootless have none; the double-rooted have non-greed and non-hate; the triple-rooted have non-greed, non-hate and non-delusion. It is said that only triple-rooted beings are capable of making decisive progress in the Dhamma during their present life.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 25, 2015 10:34 PM
Title: Re: The etymology of "sutta"
Content:
Well, you’ve got one over me there. Though I’ve eaten the stuff virtually every day for the last eight years, I wouldn’t have a clue how to cook it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 25, 2015 6:31 PM
Title: Re: The etymology of "sutta"
Content:
No. Both śruti and its Pali cognate suti are formed with a suffix that creates a noun of state from the passive form of the verb (i.e. Sanskrit śrūyāte and Pali suyyati).

It’s true, of course, that in English we need to use a past participle to translate it, (“that which has been heard/listened to”), but this is only because like all modern languages in the Germanic family (excluding Icelandic and Faroese) English has lost the proto-Germanic feature of using bound morphemes to express valency-reduction.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 25, 2015 6:15 PM
Title: Re: Anumodana
Content:
Metri causa.

If both phrases were in prose and the writer wanted to use the same form for each, then they would be:

"Sukhī dīghāyuko bhava" and "Sukhī dīghāyuko bhavāmi".

Or:

"Sukhī dīghāyuko hohi" and "Sukhī dīghāyuko homi".

But they are in fact found in verse, and since the proto-form is "sukhī dīghāyuko bhava" using such forms as "sukhī dīghāyuko bhavāmi" or "sukhī dīghāyuko homi" for the first person wouldn't conform to the metre. And so although "sukhī dīghāyuko ahaṃ" would more naturally be taken to mean "I am happy and of long life", the listener is expected to take the implied copula ("to be") as being in the imperative mood: "May I be happy and of long life!"


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 25, 2015 2:51 PM
Title: Re: Anumodana
Content:
No. Bhava and bhavāhi are the second person singular of the verb bhavati in the imperative mood: "Be ... !" or "May you be ... !"

For the first person singular the imperative would be bhavāmi, but in practice it's more usual to use the form homi from the verb hoti.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 24, 2015 2:14 PM
Title: Re: Different agreement on conditions need to be fulfilled
Content:
It means that the two Vinaya rules against false speech (i.e. the fourth pārājika and first pācittiya) are slightly more easy to break than the corresponding fourth precept of a layperson, for a deliberate lie spoken by a bhikkhu will always be an offence, while the same spoken by a layperson will be an offence only if it's actually understood by somebody.

I don't see how one can draw any general conclusion from this about the consequences of transgression in the two case. Nor is it really clear what you mean by 'consequences'.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 24, 2015 12:54 AM
Title: Re: A Manual to Life - Enchiridion
Content:
That's what he was: Epictetus was born into slavery. Among their household slaves, many upper-class Romans would own philosopher-slaves, whose job was to do their masters' thinking for them. That's what Epictetus was for many years until he was released some time after Nero's death.

The Christian father Origen tells a famous story of how early in Epictetus's life some sadistic master was amusing himself by squeezing his slave's leg in a vice.
"If you tighten it any more, you'll break my leg," said Epictetus.
The master gleefully tightened it further and there was suddenly a loud crack.
"There, I told you so!" said Epictetus.

(It's reported that Epictetus walked with a limp for the rest of his life and in portraits he's often represented leaning on a crutch).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 23, 2015 6:17 PM
Title: Re: Different agreement on conditions need to be fulfilled
Content:
I think that the reason for the difference between the three-factored and four-factored formulation will either be that suggested above by Ven. Pesala (i.e. that a higher standard is incumbent upon monastics), or else that it's simply that the three-factored one is more practical in a legalistic framework like the Vinaya. It means that if a bhikkhu tells a lie and later feels remorseful, he doesn't need to go tracking down all the people who were listening to him to find out whether they understood him or not, in order to determine if he's obliged to confess an offence.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 23, 2015 7:32 AM
Title: Re: Different agreement on conditions need to be fulfilled
Content:
Number 1 is an overly free translation. The Pali is just musā. Musā without vāda would in this context mean a false fact (e.g., that something seen was not seen, something not seen was seen, etc.) rather than a false expression of that fact. A more literal translation of the four would be:

1. Musā hoti: “There is a falsehood”.

2. Taṃ vatthu visaṃvādanacittaṃ paccupaṭṭhitaṃ hoti: “There is manifested a citta aiming at deception with respect to that matter [i.e. the falsehood].

3. Tajjo vāyāmo: “There is an effort due to [that citta].”

4. Paravisaṃvādanaṃ viññāpayamānā viññatti pavattati: “There occurs a [bodily or verbal] communication causing another to understand that deceitful utterance.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 23, 2015 3:14 AM
Title: Re: A Manual to Life - Enchiridion
Content:
Lovely comparison of a wife to an onion at 6:49.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 22, 2015 11:58 PM
Title: Re: The etymology of "sutta"
Content:
Well, it could have been, but there is no reason at all to think that it was. Had the reciters wanted to refer to the Buddha's discourses as "what we heard" then they could simply have used the unmodified past participle suta as a noun.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 22, 2015 11:36 PM
Title: Re: Death or annihilation as the end point
Content:
But the absence of blokes in robes (or rather in togas and sporting long beards) is as much of a liability as an asset. In pre-Christian times the Stoics were organized into philosophical guilds, but with the extinction of the guilds there's no longer anything like a Stoic saṅgha to provide guidance.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 16, 2015 5:57 PM
Title: Re: Paris
Content:
Indeed they are. Or do you have some better label for, say, the kind of culturally unassimilable scum depicted in the video below?

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 16, 2015 5:41 PM
Title: Re: Paris
Content:
Take your pick.


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: Sun Nov 15, 2015 6:27 PM
Title: Re: Paris
Content:
.


http://www.unz.com/jderbyshire/the-ancient-enemy


“They have no faces ... only eyes.”

.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 15, 2015 11:57 AM
Title: Re: What does it mean by radiant consciousness?
Content:
Yes, that is indeed what the commentaries define it as.

Which means that several of the posts in this thread are not at all in line with the rules for the Abhidhamma and Classical Theravada forums. A quick reminder for anyone posting here:

The Abhidhamma and Classical Theravada sub-forums are specialized venues for the discussion of the Abhidhamma and the classical Mahavihara understanding of the Dhamma. Within these forums the Pali Tipitaka and its commentaries are for discussion purposes treated as authoritative. These forums are for the benefit of those members who wish to develop a deeper understanding of these texts and are not for the challenging of the Abhidhamma and/or Theravada commentarial literature.

Posts should also include support from a reference, a citation (Tipitaka, commentarial, or from a later work from an author representative of the Classical point-of-view). 

Posts that contain personal opinions and conjecture, points of view arrived at from meditative experiences, conversations with devas, blind faith in the supreme veracity of one's own teacher's point of view etc. are all regarded as off-topic, and as such, will be subject to moderator review and/or removal.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 15, 2015 9:31 AM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
You have done no more than re-phrase your earlier question. If you're too lazy to define your terms, then obviously there's no way for me to ascertain whether what you're asking of me is possible. The question you've asked me is a paṭipucchābyākaraṇīya pañha — a question that requires a counter-question as its answer. My counter-questions are:

1. What do you mean by "true"?

2. What would it mean to you if sabbe dhammā anattā were to be translated as "All truths are not self"?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 15, 2015 3:42 AM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
I'd first have to ask you what you mean by "true", and secondly what you would understand it to mean were sabbe dhammā anattā to be translated as "All truths are not self" (if this is in fact how you think it ought to be translated.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 14, 2015 11:12 PM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
I think it's actually your assumption that is wrong. You assume that the sutta permits a distinction to be made between (1) regarding something as self and (2) being able to perceive self, with the Buddha disapproving only of the former.

However, in assuming this you've simply been misled by a less than satisfactory translation. The word anekavihitaṃ in the phrase anekavihitaṃ attānaṃ ... samanupassanti doesn't mean "anything". It means "in diverse ways". As such, both the items in your imagined distinction would fall under that of which the Buddha is disapproving.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 14, 2015 3:17 PM
Title: Re: Rita Gross
Content:
Yes, that's Sally Gross. She too has passed on.

http://remembered.co.za/sally-gross-16882


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:55 AM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
There are few statements of the Buddha more categorical than the Alagaddūpama Sutta's: “Actually and in truth, bhikkhus, there obtains neither a self nor what pertains to a self” (attani ca, bhikkhave, attaniye ca saccato thetato anupalabbhamāne).

The context:
Attani vā, bhikkhave, sati attaniyaṃ me ti assā ti?
Evaṃ, bhante.

“Bhikkhus, if there were a self, would there for me be what pertains to a self?”

“Yes, bhante.”

Attaniye vā, bhikkhave, sati attā me ti assā ti?
Evaṃ, bhante.

Or, bhikkhus, if there were what pertains to a self, would there for me be a self?”

“Yes, bhante.”

Attani ca, bhikkhave, attaniye ca saccato thetato anupalabbhamāne, yampi taṃ diṭṭhiṭṭhānaṃ: ‘so loko so attā, so pecca bhavissāmi nicco dhuvo sassato avipariṇāmadhammo, sassatisamaṃ tatheva ṭhassāmī ti: nanāyaṃ, bhikkhave, kevalo paripūro bāladhammo ti?
Kiñhi no siyā, bhante, kevalo hi, bhante, paripūro bāladhammo ti.

But bhikkhus, since actually and in truth there obtains neither a self nor what pertains to a self, then this basis for views: ‘That which is the self is the world; after death I shall be permanent, stable, eternal, not of the nature to change; I shall persist for an eternity’—would this not be wholly and utterly a fool’s Dhamma?

“What else could it possibly be, bhante, but wholly and utterly a fool’s Dhamma!”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:52 AM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
You offer no argument for this but merely assume MN 2's natthi me attā to be synonymous with natth'attā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 14, 2015 10:48 AM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
See the Pārileyya Sutta.
“And how, bhikkhus, should one know, how should one see, for the immediate destruction of the taints to occur? Here, bhikkhus, the uninstructed worldling, who is not a seer of the noble ones and is unskilled and undisciplined in their Dhamma, who is not a seer of superior persons and is unskilled and undisciplined in their Dhamma, regards form as self. That regarding (samanupassanā), bhikkhus, is a formation (saṅkhāra). That formation—what is its source, what is its origin, from what is it born and produced? When the uninstructed worldling is contacted by a feeling (vedanā) born of ignorance-contact, craving arises: thence that formation is born.”
(SN iii. 94ff. Bodhi tr.).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 13, 2015 7:29 AM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
Actually I do. The "concrete basis" is the kind of contexts in which sabbe dhammā anattā appears. Some examples have been posted already. Here's a further one:
“This is how the Blessed One disciplines his disciples, Aggivessana, and this is how the Blessed One’s instruction is usually presented to his disciples: ‘Bhikkhus, material form is impermanent, feeling is impermanent, perception is impermanent, formations are impermanent, consciousness is impermanent. Bhikkhus, material form is not self, feeling is not self, perception is not self, formations are not self, consciousness is not self. All saṅkhāras are impermanent; all dhammas are not self.’ That is how the Blessed One disciplines his disciples, and that is how the Blessed One’s instruction is usually presented to his disciples.”
(MN. 35)
If you wish to propose that in a context like this dhammā is more reasonably taken to mean 'truths', then I submit this is a position that needs arguing, not just baldly asserting as you've been doing up to now. And to argue on the grounds that 'truth' is the primary meaning of dhamma just won't cut it, because the claim is false.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 13, 2015 1:57 AM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
It isn't. To have answered in a qualified way would have meant treating the question as one that requires an analytical answer (vibhajjabyākaraṇīya pañha) and replying with something along the lines of: "There is a sense in which self exists and a sense in which it doesn't..." or "I affirm a self of this kind, but not of that kind..."

From Bhikkhu Bodhi's endnote to the sutta:
We should carefully heed the two reasons the Buddha does not declare, “There is no self”: not because he recognizes a transcendent self of some kind (as some interpreters allege), or because he is concerned only with delineating “a strategy of perception” devoid of ontological implications (as others hold), but (i) because such a mode of expression was used by the annihilationists, and the Buddha wanted to avoid aligning his teaching with theirs; and (ii) because he wished to avoid causing confusion in those already attached to the idea of self. The Buddha declares that “all phenomena are nonself” (sabbe dhammā anattā), which means that if one seeks a self anywhere one will not find one. Since “all phenomena” includes both the conditioned and the unconditioned, this precludes an utterly transcendent, ineffable self.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 13, 2015 12:13 AM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
"Categorical" in the context of this thread means "without qualification" and derives from Ajahn Thanissaro's translation of pañha ekaṃsabyākaraṇīya as "question that should be answered categorically".

The question "Is there a self?" would be a pañha ekaṃsabyākaraṇīya if it were possible to truthfully answer it with either a straight yes or a straight no. Theravāda orthodoxy holds that it is indeed a question of this type and that the correct answer is no.

Thanissaro dissents from this orthodoxy and holds the question to be a pañha ṭhapanīya, or "question to be set aside".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 12, 2015 11:22 PM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
The word can have all of its various meanings in both the singular and plural, but in practice certain meanings more commonly apply when the word occurs in the singular and other meanings more commonly when it occurs in the plural. For example, dhamma in the sense of "teaching" is most often singular; it occurs in the plural only when referring to the doctrines of a plurality of teachers such as the six sectarians.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 12, 2015 10:37 PM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
The singular sense of dhamma, "doctrine", "truth", reality", etc. and the plural sense, "phenomena", "mental objects", "things", etc. are both very common in the Suttas.

In the phrase sabbe dhammā anattā, the letter 'ā' at the end of 'dhammā' shows it to be plural.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 12, 2015 10:31 PM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
You are not addressing my point. Let me give one oft-quoted specimen of Thanissaro's equivocation, from his article The Not-Self Strategy:
The evidence for this reading [i.e. of the anattā teaching] of the Canon centers around four points:

[...]

3. Views that there is no self are ranked with views that that there is a self as a "fetter of views" which a person aiming at release from suffering would do well to avoid.
http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma/strategy.html

But this is simply false. What is ranked among the fetter of views in the Sabbāsava Sutta is not: "There is no self" but rather the ucchedadiṭṭhi: "There is no self for me."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 12, 2015 2:46 PM
Title: Re: Mindfulness During Driving
Content:
Thanks!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 12, 2015 2:12 PM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
The phrase in the Sabbāsava Sutta (MN 2) is “There is no self for me” (natthi me attā).

The Ānanda Sutta’s phrase is “There is no self” (natth’attā).

Natthi me attā =/= natth’attā.

And so the common practice by fans of the Frauwallner/Thanissaro “anattā strategy” of citing the Buddha’s dismissal of natthi me attā as a “fetter of views” (in the Sabbāsava Sutta) as a way of explaining his silent response to natth’attā (in the Ānanda Sutta) is a blatant equivocation.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 12, 2015 1:42 PM
Title: Re: Collecting Eggs
Content:
The moral is about not nursing grudges. The story doesn't suggest that the girl was doing anything wrong in taking the eggs. Rather, the hen was wrong to resent it. But then in the story's subsequent unfolding they are both in the wrong, for neither will let go of her anger.


Burlingame's translation:
XXI. 2. “Not Hatred for Hatred...”
&nbsp;
291. Whoever by causing suffering to others...
&nbsp;
This religious instruction was given by the Teacher while he was in residence at Jetavana with reference to a certain woman who ate the eggs of a hen.
&nbsp;
The story goes that in a certain village named Paṇḍupura, not far from the city of Sāvatthi, there dwelt a certain fisherman. One day as he was on his way to Sāvatthi, he saw some tortoise’s eggs lying on the bank of the river Aciravatī. Taking these with him, he went to Sāvatthi, where he stopped at a certain house and had them cooked. As he was eating the eggs, he gave a single egg to a girl who lived in that house. The girl ate the egg and after she had done so, would have nothing more to do with hard food. So her mother took a single egg from the nest of a hen and gave it to her to eat. She ate the egg, and her liking for this kind of food became so strong that after that she would herself take hen’s eggs and eat them.
&nbsp;
The hen, observing that every time she laid eggs the girl would take them and eat them, took offense and conceived a grudge against her. And she made the following Earnest Wish, “When I have passed out of this state of existence, may I be reborn as an ogress able to devour your children.” So when the hen died, she was reborn in that very house as a cat. When the girl died, she was reborn in that very house as a hen. The hen laid eggs, and the cat came and ate them. Again the second time she ate them, and again the third.
&nbsp;
Then said the hen, “Three times you have eaten my eggs, and now you desire to eat me too. When I have passed out of this state of existence, may I be able to devour you and your children.” When she passed out of that state of existence, she was reborn as a leopardess. When her enemy died, she was reborn as a doe. When the doe brought forth young, the leopardess came and ate both the young and the doe.
&nbsp;
Thus in each of five hundred successive states of existence they devoured each other and brought suffering one upon another. Finally one of them was reborn as an ogress and the other as a young woman of family at Sāvatthi. (From this point on the story runs the same as that given in the Commentary on the Stanza beginning, “For it is not by hatred that hatreds are quenched.” Only in this case the Teacher, after pronouncing the words “Hatred is quenched by love, not by hatred,” expounded the Law for the benefit of both women by pronouncing the following Stanza,)
&nbsp;
291. Whoever by causing suffering to others seeks to win happiness for himself,
Becomes entangled in the bonds of hate; such a man is never freed from hatred.
&nbsp;
At the conclusion of the lesson, the ogress became established in the Refuges, took upon herself the Five Precepts, and was freed from hatred. Her enemy was established in the Fruit of Conversion. The assembled company also profited by the lesson.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 12, 2015 11:15 AM
Title: Re: Collecting Eggs
Content:
That’s getting off pretty lightly. Far worse fates are reported to have befallen egg thieves.

For example, the crow in the Dhammadhaja Jātaka story pretends to be a spiritually advanced yogi who can survive on air alone, but then he goes and eats other birds’ eggs when nobody’s looking. Eventually he gets caught and put to death.

Worse still is the fate of the young girl who steals a hen’s eggs in the background story to Dhammapada verse 291. This triggers off a vendetta cycle, in which the infuriated hen vows vengeance and she and the girl then spend the next five hundred lifetimes alternately killing each other’s offspring.  

He who seeks happiness for herself by causing suffering for another,
Being closely associated with hatred, he is not free from hatred.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 11, 2015 8:55 PM
Title: Re: Mindfulness During Driving
Content:
The link doesn't seem to be working — I just get a 403 page.

On another page at the same site there is a list of downloadable books by the above-mentioned thera, but they seem to be all in Sinhala.

http://www.savanatasisilasa.org/BooksByChandawimalaThero.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 11, 2015 4:22 PM
Title: Re: "Evil" unwholesome deeds.
Content:
Whoops! I do indeed. Thanks for the correction.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:14 AM
Title: Re: That's "rent," not "murder" :)
Content:
The dukkaṭa offence is to beat an animal or to engage in a non-penetrative sexual act with it. Taking its property is no offence. Unless of course the animal has an owner, but in that case the theft would be from him and not from the animal.
At one time a number of monks, descending from Mount Vultureʼs Peak and seeing the remains of a tigerʼs kill, had it cooked.

[...]

“Monks, there is no offence when it is the property of an animal.”
(Vin. iii. 58)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 11, 2015 7:13 AM
Title: Re: "Who is Buddhist?"
Content:
To the extent that an arahant is a social animal he will certainly identify himself in various ways for the sake of conflict-avoidance (araṇa) and conformity with mundane conventions. The difference is that he won't be inwardly deceived by these adopted identifications. Ven. Mahākassapa, for example, would travel long distances every Uposatha day in order to meet fellow bhikkhus and hear the Pātimokkha recital. He didn't say: "In the ultimate sense no 'bhikkhu' exists and no 'Mahākassapa' is to be found in the khandhas, so I don't need to show up."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:31 AM
Title: Re: "Who is Buddhist?"
Content:
I think he was.

Anyone who goes to the Dhamma for refuge is a ‘Buddhist’.* One of the ways of doing this (in fact it’s the highest way) is by attaining the ariyan path. And since every Buddha has attained the ariyan path, it follows that every Buddha has gone to the Dhamma for refuge and so every Buddha is a Buddhist.


* Or a Sakyaputta, a Sakyadhīta or whatever other designations were in use in bygone ages before the hybrid word ‘Buddhist’ was invented.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 10, 2015 11:55 PM
Title: Re: Monks and masturbation
Content:
In the origin story behind each Vinaya training rule the Buddha simply decrees that the transgressive act will be an offence of such and such class. He doesn't offer justifications for his decision as to which class it will be included in.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 10, 2015 10:44 PM
Title: Re: Etymology of saṇkhāra / saṃkhāra
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 10, 2015 11:11 AM
Title: Re: "Evil" unwholesome deeds.
Content:
'Wholesome' and 'unwholesome' are the standard translations of kusala and akusala. Though lexically different, the two sets of attributes apply to identical referents, so whatever is pāpa is akusala and whatever is puñña is kusala. 

The point of using them both together, as in the stock phrase "evil unwholesome things" (pāpakā akusalā dhammā) is most likely for emphasis.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 10, 2015 10:59 AM
Title: Re: "Who is Buddhist?"
Content:
I suspect this is just something they say to put non-Buddhist meditators at their ease. The fact is that in the Suttas to go for refuge is to become an upāsaka or upāsikā. (See the quotation posted earlier in this thread by Pilgrim). Buddhaghosa goes even further: merely approaching a Buddhist teacher and asking to be taught a meditation subject is in his view tantamount to going for refuge and therefore to converting.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 10, 2015 9:32 AM
Title: Re: Did Buddha categorically denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self?
Content:
But the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta is not really probative in this matter. Indeed followers of the Frauwallner/Thanissaro “strategic” interpretation, or of the various Vedantic or neo-Puggalavādin intepretations, are in the habit of citing this very same sutta in support of their heterodox views.

Better is the Alaggadūpama Sutta (MN. 22) and the passages cited above by Tilt.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 10, 2015 9:09 AM
Title: Re: "Evil" unwholesome deeds.
Content:
The words that 'evil' is used to translate are pāpa (a noun or adjective) and pāpaka (exclusively a noun). They are the opposite of puñña, usually translated as 'merit'.

Edit: the above paragraph should read: The words that 'evil' is used to translate are pāpa (a noun or adjective) and pāpaka (exclusively an adjective). They are the opposite of puñña, usually translated as 'merit'.

Unlike 'evil' —the usual English translation— pāpa encompasses moral badness of all degrees and not just extreme badness. Were it not for its unwieldiness, 'demeritorious' might arguably convey the sense better. Other than that, the word's semantic range fairly closely corresponds to that of 'evil', including even some of the more figurative uses of the latter. An 'evil rumour', for example, is a pāpasadda ('evil sound').

From the PTS's Pali English Dictionary:
Pāpa (adj. nt.) [Vedic pāpa, cp. Lat. patior≈E. passion etc.; Gr. ph_ma suffering, evil; talai/pwros suffering evil]
1. (adj.) evil, bad, wicked, sinful A ii.222 sq. (and compar. pāpatara); Sn 57; Dh 119 (opp. bhadra). Other compar./superl. forms are pāpiṭṭha S v.96; pāpiṭṭhatara Vin ii.5; pāpiyyasika D iii.254. See pāpiya.

2. unfertile (of soil) S iv.315.

3. (nt.) evil, wrong doing, sin Sn 23, 662; Dh 117 (opp. puñña) 183; Pv i.66; 112; iv.150; DhA ii.11. pp. pāpāni Sn 399, 452, 674; Dh 119, 265.

Compounds

Pāpiccha having bad wishes or intentions Vin i.97; D iii.246; S i.50; ii.156; A iii.119, 191, 219 sq.; iv.1, 22, 155; v.123 sq.; Sn 133, 280; It 85; Nd2 342; Vism 24 (def.); VbhA 476;
Pāpicchatā evil intention A iv.160, 165; DhA ii.77.
Pāpakamma evil doing, wickedness, sin, crime D iii.182; It 86; Sn 407; Dh 127; Vism 502; VbhA 440 sq.; PvA 11, 25, 32, 51, 84.
Pāpakammanta evil-doer, villain S i.97.
Pāpakammin id. M i.39 Dh 126.
Pāpakara id. Sn 674. 
Pāpakarin id. Dh 15, 17.
Pāpadassana sinful view Pv iv.355.
Pāpadhamma wickedness, evil habit Dh 248, 307; Pug 37; DhA iii.4; PvA 98; as adj. at PvA. 58.
Pāpadhammin one of evil character or habits Pv i.117.
Pāpaparikkhaya decay or destruction of demerit (opp. puñña°) Pv ii.615.
Pāpamitta an evil associate, a bad companion (opp. kalyāṇa°) M i.43, 470; D iii.182.
Pāpamittatā bad company, association with wicked people A i.13 sq., 83; iv.160, 165; D iii.212; Dhs 13, 27; Vbh 359, 369, 371.
Pāpasaṅkappa evil thought Sn 280.
Pāpasīla bad morals Sn 246.
Pāpasupina an evil dream (opp. bhaddaka) Vism 312; DhA iii.4.

Pāpaka (adj.) [fr. pāpa] bad, wicked, wretched, sinful Vin i.8; S i.149, 207; v.418 (p. akusala citta); Sn 127, 215, 664; Dh 66, 78, 211, 242; J i.128; Pv ii.716 (=lāmaka C.); ii.93; Pug 19; Dhs 30, 101; Miln 204 (opp. kalyāṇa); Vism 268 (=lāmaka), 312 (of dreams, opp. bhaddaka). —f. pāpikā Dh 164, 310;

Apāpaka without sin, innocent, of a young maiden (daharā) Th 2, 370; Vv 314; 326 (so expld by VvA, but ThA explns as faultless, i.e. beautiful).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 10, 2015 7:18 AM
Title: Re: Etymology of saṇkhāra / saṃkhāra
Content:
Since the ‘karo’ in ‘taṇhaṅkaro’ is not preceded by ‘pura’, ‘saṃ’, ‘upa’, or ‘pari’, your example is not an exception to aphorism 594 of Kaccāyana, which states:
Pura’sam’upa’parīhi karotissa kha kharā vā tappaccayesu ca.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 9, 2015 1:51 PM
Title: Re: Facts about Floaters
Content:
When I saw the title I thought it was about lumps of human excreta that rest on the water's surface and refuse to be flushed down the toilet, either because of aeration ("strong swimmers") or excess of fat ("toxic turtles").


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 9, 2015 11:59 AM
Title: Re: Physical action is more important than Intention
Content:
My understanding is that motive and intention are both cetanās, but the former arises earlier and is a partial condition for the arising of the latter. In order to further distinguish them, the commentators give the name 'pubba-cetanā', pre-intention, to the one that arises earlier and 'muñca-cetanā', 'undertaking-intention', to the one that arises after and directly produces some action of body or speech.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 9, 2015 11:18 AM
Title: Re: Etymology of saṇkhāra / saṃkhāra
Content:
Duroiselle describes the ka to kha change as occurring “not infrequently”. Personally I’ve never researched the texts with a view to ascertaining its frequency, though my impression is that it occurs more frequently with the prefixes ‘pura’, ‘upa’ and ‘pari’ than it does with ‘saṃ’.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 9, 2015 7:10 AM
Title: Re: Physical action is more important than Intention
Content:
This is typical of the caricaturing of one's opponent's position that was so common in Indian religious polemic of that period, though more so in canonical texts than in the commentarial ones. In the latter (dating from a later period) Indian debate became a more gentlemanly affair, with polemicists taking great care to represent their opponent's view accurately before taking a sledgehammer to it. 

I believe a correct statement of the Jains' and Buddhists' respective views on the baby and the gourd would be something like this...

Buddhist view: only intentional acts are kammas. Intentions (and not outcomes) determine whether a kamma is kusala or akusala.

Jain view: all acts are kammas. Outcomes (and not intentions) determine whether an act is kusala or akusala. Intentions affect only the degree of kusala or akusala.

And so when a man roasts a live baby thinking it’s a gourd, the Jains would say that his action is an akusala kamma because a baby gets killed, but the akusala is lessened by the fact that his intention was to roast a gourd and not to kill a baby.

The Buddhist view would be that since he had no intention of killing a baby, his act was not an akusala kamma at all.

And when a man roasts a gourd thinking it’s a live baby, the Jains would say that there is no akusala kamma for no baby is killed. The Buddhist view would be that he commits the akusala kammapatha of malice (byāpāda), by virtue of the fact that he intends to kill a baby, but not the akusala kammapatha of pāṇātipāta, since no baby gets killed.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 9, 2015 1:31 AM
Title: Re: Etymology of saṇkhāra / saṃkhāra
Content:
Both changes are of a common and entirely regular sort. See the the treatment of Sandhi, Assimilation and Strengthening in chapters 2-4 of Duroiselle's Pali grammar.

http://www.pratyeka.org/duroiselle/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 8, 2015 10:17 PM
Title: Re: Physical action is more important than Intention
Content:
These examples don't contradict ihrjordan's claim. If you think that they do, then you are probably muddling intention and motive.

http://www.differencebetween.net/language/words-language/difference-between-motive-and-intention/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 7, 2015 7:58 PM
Title: Re: Thai vs. Sri Lankan monks
Content:
But these are trifling differences in matters of ritual, not important differences in laymen's behaviour. The OP's query concerns the latter.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 7, 2015 7:46 PM
Title: Re: A poetry thread.
Content:
A sonnet declaring support for intellectual property and disdain for opponents of strong copyright protection.

A Plea for Authors, May 1838

Failing impartial measure to dispense
To every suitor, Equity is lame;
And social Justice, stript of reverence
For natural rights, a mockery and a shame;
Law but a servile dupe of false pretence,
If, guarding grossest things from common claim
Now and for ever, She, to works that came
From mind and spirit,* grudge a short-lived fence.

“What! lengthened privilege, a lineal tie,
For ‘Books’!” Yes, heartless Ones, or be it proved
That ’tis a fault in Us to have lived and loved
Like others, with like temporal hopes to die;
No public harm that Genius from her course
Be turned; and streams of truth dried up, even at their source!

— William Wordsworth

* Cf. An essentially similar argument in prose, that was advanced some decades later by Herbert Spencer: 
“By those who have legislated, as well as by those who have considered the question from an ethical point of view, the proper duration of copyright has been a problem not easily solved: should it be for the author and his descendants without limit, or for his life and a term of years after, or for his life only? There is no obvious reason why property of this kind should not be subject to the same laws of possession and bequest as other property. If it be said that the language, knowledge, and other products of past culture used by the author or artist, belong to society at large; the reply is that these mental products of civilization are open to all, and that an author or artist has not by using them diminished the ability of others to use them. Without abstracting anything from the common stock, he has simply combined with certain components of it something exclusively his own–his thoughts, his conclusions, his sentiments, his technical skill: things which more truly belong to him than do any visible and tangible things to their owners; since all of these contain raw material which has been removed from the potential use of others. So that in fact a production of mental labor may be regarded as property in a fuller sense than may a product of bodily labor; since that which constitutes its value is exclusively created by the worker. And if so, there seems no reason why the duration of possession in this case should not be at least as great as the duration of possession in other cases.”
— http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/spencer-the-principles-of-ethics-vol-2-lf-ed, vol. II, ch. xiii. The Right of Incorporeal Property.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 7, 2015 7:22 PM
Title: Re: Thai vs. Sri Lankan monks
Content:
No. The etiquette governing lay-monastic interactions is substantially similar throughout Theravadin Asia. Such differences as exist are mere punctilios, ignorance of which will be unlikely to be the cause of any serious gaffes.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 7, 2015 1:40 PM
Title: Re: AN 8.20 - Did Bouddha reject Bhikkhu Sangha ?
Content:
It isn't that there's any positive allowance to do so, but merely the absence of a prohibition against it. Though in expelling the miscreant, the sangha's actions would have to be limited to wrestling or judo moves like grabbing and pulling. Any kicking or punching of the monk would be a pācittiya offence.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 5, 2015 8:52 PM
Title: Re: Does illegal downloading violate the 2nd precept?
Content:
It is undoubtedly an imperfect yardstick but nonetheless a basically rational one. The second precept is broken only when what is taken is truly the property of another. To whom or what, then, should we turn for our definition of what qualifies something as being someone’s property? The laws of the state are prima facie the most obvious answer, given that the existence of a state (i.e. of a set of enforceable legal rights) is a precondition of property in any form.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 5, 2015 3:37 PM
Title: Re: Does illegal downloading violate the 2nd precept?
Content:
No, I don't think you could. As you may know from the http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.067.than.html a straightforward answer is just one of four ways to answer a question. Your question doesn't really lend itself to such an answer. Rather, it's a question that demands either a counter-question:
"What contractual obligations accompany the DVD? In what country?"
Or else an analytical treatment:
"It would be a breach of the precept if the DVD were accompanied by such and such terms and conditions and were borrowed in such and country, but not if it were accompanied by some other terms and conditions, or no terms and conditions at all, and not if the borrowing took place in some other country, etc., etc."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 5, 2015 9:25 AM
Title: Re: Maranasati (Mindfulness of Death/Charnel Ground Reflection)
Content:
The practice of maraṇānussati doesn't entail any risk if it's practised for just a short period each day in order to prevent a slide into complacency (e.g. as a part of the five subjects for frequent recollection).

The potential for danger comes when a meditator decides to make it his main preparatory subject, so that his mind is adverting to it continually (and ideally uninterruptedly) throughout his waking hours. For a beginner this is something that can only be safely undertaken in retreat conditions and under the close supervision of a good meditation technician who's familiar with all the ways that a meditator can go astray with this practice. Four of these are mentioned in the Visuddhimagga:

• Soka: When recollecting the inevitable future death of some loved one he feels sorrow.
• Pāmojja: When recollecting the inevitable future death of an enemy or disagreeable person he feels gladness.
• Asaṃvega: When recollecting the death of neutral persons he feels the same indifference felt by corpse-disposers and so there is no sense of urgency.
• Santāsa: When recollecting the inevitability of his own death he experiences anxiety.

Besides these there are also the pitfalls involved in any kind of bhāvanā, of which the commonest is that of mistaking an akusala state for a kusala one. With maraṇānussati it's particularly common for a meditator to get into a very highly strung and emotionally volatile state which he imagines to be saṃvega (because he does feel great urgency) but actually is not (it's an aversive state — as evidenced by the meditator's liability to explode if anyone interrupts him or if he's required to perform some pedestrian task in the monastery).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 5, 2015 8:24 AM
Title: Re: Sutta Nipata Commentary
Content:
There isn't any published translation of the Suttanipāta Atthakathā.

However, the Khuddakapāṭha shares three suttas with the Suttanipāta (the Maṅgalasutta, Ratanasutta and Karaṇīyamettasutta) and the commentary to this has been translated in Ñāṇamoli's Minor Readings and Illustrator.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 5, 2015 8:11 AM
Title: Re: Does illegal downloading violate the 2nd precept?
Content:
In their vagueness and paucity of stipulations, your questions in their present form are about on a par with asking: "If somebody were to say something to somebody, would he be breaking the fourth precept?"


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 5, 2015 1:02 AM
Title: Re: Does illegal downloading violate the 2nd precept?
Content:
The texts' definition of "the not-given" (e.g. Khp-a. 26) doesn't limit it to material things. Rather, it encompasses anything that's lawfully and blamelessly been taken possession of by another.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 5, 2015 12:05 AM
Title: Re: Does illegal downloading violate the 2nd precept?
Content:
In the present instance, what secular law can do is to furnish criteria as to when something does or doesn't count as "property". Without such criteria there will be no grounds for determining whether the second precept has been kept or broken. If the legislators should happen to be virtuous, non-frivolous, skilled in precedent, etc., then we can expect that their definitions will be good ones that ensure justice for all. If not, then their criteria must be disregarded and recourse be had instead to the judgment of the wise. But this wouldn't be a step to be taken lightly, given the difficulty of arriving at a consensus as to who counts as wise.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 4, 2015 10:41 PM
Title: Re: Breaking the precepts
Content:
No. Giving someone a gift of intoxicants, poisons, or weapons is a failing in a Bodhisatta's practice of the perfection of giving but not a breach of the fifth precept.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 4, 2015 5:04 PM
Title: Re: Does illegal downloading violate the 2nd precept?
Content:
Then I suspect you are falling into an excessive literalism.

Or, in the jargon of Bible translators, it may be that you're semantically acceding too much to form-equivalence and too little to dynamic-equivalence.

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 4, 2015 4:41 PM
Title: Re: Does illegal downloading violate the 2nd precept?
Content:
As Kim noted, you're overlooking a rather elementary distinction. It’s certainly possible to steal by making an unauthorised use of an original scholarly production in which a portion of the Dhamma happens to be preserved, but whose copyright has not yet expired. To take one example...

Back in 1993, that quaestuary syndicate of rogues that calls itself Wat Dhammakaya decided that the Dhamma could not be copyrighted. Since it couldn’t be copyrighted, they reasoned that they, being a Buddhist institution, were fully entitled to take all of the Pali Text Society’s English translations of Pali texts and put them onto a CD for free distribution. The PTS then threatened to sue for copyright breach and its then President sent the following e-mail to the members of an academic Indology LISTSERV:

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 08:46:08 EDT
From: mailto:xxxxxxx@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Subject: Pali Tipitaka on CD-ROM


From: K.R. Norman, President of the Pali Text Society

BUDDHISM AND INDIAN STUDIES

IMPORTANT - PLEASE NOTE VERY CAREFULLY

You may have received a communication from Professor Witzel of Harvard informing you that the Dhammakaya Foundation has completed the input of the whole of the Pali Tipitaka on CD-ROM, and will be distributing it free.

Please take note that the material which the Foundation proposes to distribute in this way is the property of the Pali Text Society, of which I am President. The Foundation has no right to copy the material on CD-Rom and distribute it in that or any other way. We have been negotiating with the Foundation for some time with a view to possible copying and distribution, but the negotiations have not been completed, and any copying, distribution and use are therefore in breach of our rights.

Please also take note that we reserve the right to take legal action to enforce our rights in this important material against those who disregard them.

The Pali Text Society is a non-profit-making organisation established for many years and dedicated to the advancement of the study of Pali texts and the Pali language. The material which the Dhammakaya Foundation has put on CD-ROM represents many years of work and original research by this Society's scholars. Any legal proceedings which we institute will be necessary to enable us to carry out the purposes for which this organisation was founded. The pursuance of academic studies everywhere becomes impossible if the rights of others are abused as is happening in this case.

Though for a time the Dhammakaya rogues tried to take the moral high ground by bleating about how the Dhamma “couldn’t be copyrighted”, in the end their lawyers warned them that they could expect to get their arses badly kicked in the courtroom and so they backed down.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 4, 2015 4:05 PM
Title: Re: Luang Por Prasit...getting to Wat Pah Moo Mai?
Content:
I don't know anything about the monastery, but this is the full address:

Wat Pa Moo Mai,
Ban Hua Pa Ha, Moo 2,
Tambon Mae Taeng,
Amphoe Mae Taeng,
Chiang Mai Province 50150.

วัดป่าหมู่ใหม่
บ. หัวป่าห้า หมู่ 2
ต. แม่แตง
อ. แม่แตง
จ. เชียงใหม่, 50150

If you show it to the staff at the hotel or guesthouse they'll be able to advise you on travel arrangements.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 4, 2015 9:42 AM
Title: Re: Does illegal downloading violate the 2nd precept?
Content:
Your personal magnanimity and largesse towards copyright-violators has no bearing whatever on the moral question. It's like saying: "Pickpocketing is morally blameless because if any pickpocket wanted to pick my pocket I'd cheerfully hand over whatever he wanted. It's only greedy possessive people who don't want their pockets picked."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 4, 2015 4:10 AM
Title: Re: Can a buddha get confused?
Content:
Certainly not. Read again Nāgasena's solution to Milinda's dilemma quoted above and consider its implications (with especial reference to the Buddha's omniscience).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 3, 2015 11:04 PM
Title: Re: Does illegal downloading violate the 2nd precept?
Content:
In the case of the second precept it is certainly determined in part by the secular powers, excepting only those cases where there is a conflict between what would be deemed punishable by Kings and what would be deemed blameworthy by the wise. In these cases obviously the judgment of the wise gets prioritised, in the same way that in the monastic Vinaya the requirement that bhikkhus "conform to the wishes of the King" is abrogated in cases where the King's wishes are unrighteous.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 3, 2015 7:47 PM
Title: Re: Does illegal downloading violate the 2nd precept?
Content:
With any contested moral issue, when things seem to be getting overly complicated, the ethic of reciprocity (aka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule) will usually suffice to cut through the sophistry and dictate a felicitous conclusion. In the present case I think we all know perfectly well that if our livelihood depended upon receipt of royalties for our creative work, then we would feel robbed if people were making use of our work in a way that bypassed paying us our due. How then can we treat others like that?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 3, 2015 7:26 PM
Title: Re: Can a buddha get confused?
Content:
Yes, in the traditional Theravadin understanding the Buddha's hesitation to teach is treated as merely a ploy to instigate an intervention by Brahmā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 3, 2015 5:53 PM
Title: Re: Can a buddha get confused?
Content:
What do mean by "verbal saṅkhāra"? Are you referring to Brahmā Sahampati's request?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 3, 2015 10:35 AM
Title: Re: Story of the man and the bear
Content:
Here’s another good story about a man and his bear, this time from 11th century Iceland. It’s a beautiful illustration of the themes of integrity, generosity, and the two http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an02/an02.119.than.html.

http://www.northvegr.org/misc%20primary%20sources/misc%20lore%20translations/002.html



And here’s William Miller’s lengthy analysis of the tale:

https://www.academia.edu/2281595/Audun_and_the_Polar_Bear.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 3, 2015 9:46 AM
Title: Re: Story of the man and the bear
Content:
Perhaps the ajahn believes the tale is true. It might be that he was told it by some plausible and persuasive bloke he met on a train who swore on his children’s eyes that it really happened.

Then again, it might even be the case that the ajahn is right. I mean one can’t exclude the possibility of such a thing happening both in life and in fiction (though it would be remarkably unbearlike behaviour).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 3, 2015 8:54 AM
Title: Re: Story of the man and the bear
Content:
Though Ajahn Amaro has changed the sex of the bear-owner and a number of other details, the essential narrative is from a fictional story by the Swedish psychiatrist Axel Munthe.

You'll find a translaton on page 52 of this online anthology:

https://tinyurl.com/nnmxqk7


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 3, 2015 8:28 AM
Title: Re: It's Paul Davy's Birthday!
Content:
Happy birthday, Paul.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 3, 2015 1:12 AM
Title: Re: Evidence of reincarnation
Content:
The cited sutta has to do with the chances of a human rebirth among beings who've fallen into the lower realms, and so is not particularly relevant to Lazy Eye's point. The relevant sutta (or rather a whole vagga of suttas), is in the Aṅguttara Nikāya's Ekanipāta (A. i. 35-8). In these it is stated that exceedingly few devas and humans get reborn as devas or humans: the overwhelming majority get reborn in the lower realms.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 3, 2015 1:03 AM
Title: Re: Evidence of reincarnation
Content:
Sir A. J. Ayer, the logical positivist guy, had a pretty good one. He argued that it would be sufficient for the truth of the belief that the man standing beside you is Julius Caesar reincarnated if that man had all the memories that one would ordinarily expect of Julius Caesar, and if he had some verified memories that appealed to facts that were not in any way items of public information. (See The Problem of Knowledge, ch. 5. Penguin Books 1962)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 2, 2015 11:14 AM
Title: Re: Can a buddha get confused?
Content:
This was also one of the problems that troubled King Milinda.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe36/sbe3603.htm

(Scroll down to the fiftieth dilemma: On the Buddha's After-Doubt)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 1, 2015 7:14 AM
Title: Re: Confused how to apply basic principles
Content:
is not really a virtue in the Buddha's teaching. Though he does say in the Dhammapada:
He who sees others' faults 
And is ever censorious- 
Defilements of such a one grow 
Far is he from destroying them. 
this doesn't completely preclude making moral judgments; it just means that it's our own faults that should be our primary concern. The Buddha also tells his followers to avoid fools and consort with the wise; obviously to do this one needs to make judgments about who's a fool and who's wise.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 30, 2015 9:14 PM
Title: Re: unwholesome formations
Content:
They are not opposite qualities. Sloth-&amp;-torpor are opposed by the jhāna factor of vitakka, and restlessness by the jhāna factor of sukha.

If you think that they are opposite qualities, I suspect it's because you are taking these words in their familiar English sense (which is at best conveys only a crude approximation of their meaning) rather than in their abhidhammic sense. Here is the fourfold description of them in terms of characteristic, function, manifestation and proximate cause:
Uddhacca: Restlessness (or agitation) has the characteristic of disquietude, like water whipped up by the wind. Its function is to make the mind unsteady, as wind makes a banner ripple. It is manifested as turmoil. Its proximate cause is unwise attention to mental disquiet.

Thīna: Sloth is sluggishness or dullness of mind. Its characteristic is lack of driving power. Its function is to dispel energy. It is manifested as the sinking of the mind. Its proximate cause is unwise attention to boredom, drowsiness, etc.

Middha: Torpor is the morbid state of the mental factors. Its characteristic is unwieldiness. Its function is to smother. It is manifested as drooping, or as nodding and sleepiness. Its proximate cause is the same as that of sloth.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 29, 2015 6:23 PM
Title: Re: A poetry thread.
Content:
THERMOPYLÆ

by Constantine P. Cavafy

Honour to those who in their life
Set out and guard Thermopylæ.
Never wavering from duty;
Just and forthright in all their actions,
Though yet with mercy and compassion;
Generous when rich, and when
Poor, still in small measure generous,
Helping again, as they can;
Always speaking forth the truth,
Yet without malice for the deceitful.

A higher honour indeed is due
When they foresee (as many do)
That Ephialtes* will in the end appear,
And the Medes will eventually break through.

(translated from the Greek by Evangelos Sachperoglou)

___________________________________

* Ephialtes: the treacherous goatherd who betrayed the Spartans by leading the Persians through an old trail which allowed the latter to encircle and outflank the defenders, leading to their ultimate defeat at the hands of the Persians' allies, the Medes.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 29, 2015 2:38 PM
Title: Re: unwholesome formations
Content:
Nyanatiloka is stating the Abhidhammic doctrine that restlessness is a mental factor common to all unwholesome consciousnesses, but sloth-&amp;-torpor are mental factors that arise only with some unwholesome consciousnesses.

This does not mean that one mental factor leads to the other. What it means is that whenever there is sloth and torpor there will ALWAYS be restlessness, but when there is restlessness, there will only SOMETIMES be sloth and torpor.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 28, 2015 12:52 PM
Title: Happy Birthday to Anagarika!
Content:
Āyu vaṇṇo sukhaṃ balaṃ!



flea-worm-tick.jpg (145.63 KiB) Viewed 981 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 28, 2015 7:25 AM
Title: Re: Evidence of reincarnation
Content:
Not necessarily, bhante, for the translation “Is not born again into this world” might well be alluding to the use of loka in the Suttas’ stock description of once-returning and non-returning.

The description for once-returning contains the phrase: “After coming back to this world only one more time, he will make an end to suffering,” while the one for non-returning has: “... due to attain Nibbāna there without returning from that world.”

In these two passages, the phrases “to this world” (imaṃ lokaṃ) and “from that world” (tasmā lokā) refer respectively to the Kāmaloka and to the Suddhavāsa heavens.

And so though the Amaravati rendering is a rather free one, the part you quoted doesn’t seem to me quite as bad as most translations from Pali into Amaravati-speak.

I did, however, spot a few errors in the earlier verses, notably the rendering of suvaco as “gentle in speech” instead of “easily spoken to”, “tractable”, and of subharo as “unburdened” instead of “an easy burden [for others]”, the over-vague rendering of santindriyo as “peaceful”, and the all-too-common misrepresentation of “the mother and her only child” simile.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 28, 2015 7:05 AM
Title: Re: Thai Language
Content:
พุทธวจนะในธรรมบท (Sathienpong Wannapok’s translation of the Dhammapada into non-Rajasap literary Thai). It also has a good English translation by him.
http://www.dhammajak.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=8869

คู่มืออุบาสก อุบาสิกา (The chanting book of Wat Suan Mokkh with Ajahn Buddhadāsa’s interlinear Thai translation. As well as the standard Thai morning and evening chanting it also contains a selection of passages from those Suttas that Ajahn Buddhadāsa was particularly fond of).
https://tinyurl.com/ox49vx5

Audio of the evening chanting (Pali and Thai translation) of the above book by the monks of Wat Suan Mokkh
http://www.buddhadasa.com/dhammasound3/watevening.html

Same for the morning chanting, together with the chanting book’s Sutta passages.
http://www.buddhadasa.com/dhammasound4/watmorning.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 27, 2015 5:22 PM
Title: Re: What Is A Monk's Curriculum ?
Content:
It depends what you mean by “devoted practitioners”.

I’d say that they tend to be devoted practitioners of some things but not of others.

For example, if I were to describe the typical strengths and weaknesses of Thai Buddhists in relation to the ten bases of merit (puññakiriyavatthu) my assessment would be something like this:

Formidably strong in dāna, apacāyana, pattidāna, and pattānumodanā.

Strong in veyyāvacca and dhammassavana.

Average in bhāvanā.

Weak in dhammadesanā and diṭṭhujukamma (largely on account of the poor standard of monastic education).

Extremely weak in sīla.

On the other hand, if you are using ‘practitioner’ as it’s often used in Western Buddhist circles, to denote a person who regularly practises formal meditation, then the answer would be the same for Thailand as for all the Theravada countries of Asia: a great many people do, but they amount to only a minority of the Buddhist population as a whole.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 27, 2015 4:11 PM
Title: Re: About Sotapanna
Content:
Although a sotāpanna can be reborn as a human, in Pali sources from the Canon to the Sub-commentaries, there are no accounts of this actually happening. Every single person who dies as a sotāpanna gets reborn as a deva. And so given the absence of any authoritative description of mental and behavioural development in infant congenital sotāpannas, nothing said in answer to your questions could amount to more than conjecture. Better become a sotāpanna yourself, then you'll have it all sussed.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 27, 2015 4:21 AM
Title: Re: moral dilemma flea control & no more program??
Content:
I didn't say that it was, only that humans are conditioned to treat it as such.

If in its future evolution the flea should succeed in establishing a symbiotic relationship with some brain parasite that can both neutralize the effects of Toxoplasma gondii and establish in humans a preference for itchiness over cuddliness, then our attitude towards the two animals could well undergo a reversal. Who knows, we might even end up keeping dogs and cats merely as food for our pet fleas, ticks and cestodes.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 26, 2015 7:27 AM
Title: Re: moral dilemma flea control & no more program??
Content:
Yes, I know. Intentional killing, it's said, is always caused by dosa. But that dosa may be mitigated or aggravated by the pre-volition (pubba-cetanā) that gives rise to it; or in modern parlance, the motive. If the pre-volition is to alleviate a cat's suffering then the akusala kamma of killing the fleas is less weighty than it would otherwise be.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 26, 2015 7:22 AM
Title: Re: moral dilemma flea control & no more program??
Content:
Evolution.

There is a brain parasite that causes 30-90% of humans (the figure varies from one country to another, with the French being most susceptible to it) to be attracted to cats and to not find the smell of their urine unpleasant. There is no parasite that causes any comparable effect with regard to fleas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii
http://elitedaily.com/women/cats-literally-suck/709388/

In short, our fondness for cats is simply delusional and were we to see them as they really are, then we would surely say with the Aussie poet Peter Porter: "Death to the Cats!"

 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 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!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 26, 2015 7:07 AM
Title: Re: moral dilemma flea control & no more program??
Content:
Yes, but it is mitigated by one's wish for the cat's welfare.

WHY FLEAS ARE BAD

There are over 1900 flea species in the world.&nbsp;We are concerned with only one: Ctenocephalides felis, the cat flea.&nbsp;This is the flea that we find on our pets (cats, dogs, rabbits, and other species) in 99.9% of cases and in order to understand how to control the damage caused by this tiny little animal, you should learn all you can about it.


WHAT KIND OF DAMAGE CAN FLEAS CAUSE?

It would be a grave mistake to think of the flea as simply a nuisance.&nbsp;A heavy flea burden is lethal, especially to smaller or younger animals. The cat flea is not at all selective about its host and has been known to kill dairy calves through heavy infestation.&nbsp;Conditions brought about via flea infestation include:

• Flea Allergic Dermatitis
(remember, fleas do not make animals itchy unless there a flea bite allergy)

• http://www.marvistavet.com/html/flea_anemia.html

• http://www.marvistavet.com/html/feline_infectious_anemia.html
(a life-threatening blood parasite carried by fleas)

• http://www.marvistavet.com/html/bartonella.html
(does not make the cat sick but the infected cat can make a person sick)

• http://www.marvistavet.com/html/tapeworm.html
(not harmful but cosmetically unappealing)


REMEMBER THAT MOST PET OWNERS HAVE NO IDEA THAT FLEAS CAN KILL

This is so important that we will say it again: Most pet owners have no idea that fleas can kill. On some level, it is obvious that fleas are blood-sucking insects but most people never put it together in their mind that enough fleas can cause a slow but still life-threatening blood loss. This is especially a problem for elderly cats allowed to go outside. These animals do not groom well and are often debilitated by other diseases. The last thing a geriatric pet needs to worry about is a lethal flea infestation and it is especially important that these animals be well protected.

Also consider that in about 90% of cases where the owner tells us the pet does not have fleas, we find obvious fleas when the animal is flea combed. Despite the TV commercials, the educational pamphlets, the very common nature of the parasite, there are still some very large awareness problems in the public and a multitude of misconceptions.


FLEA MYTHS WE HEAR NEARLY EVERY DAY:

Myth: My pet cannot have fleas because he lives entirely indoors.
Fact: Fleas thrive especially well in the well-regulated temperatures of the home.

Myth: My pet cannot have fleas because if there were any fleas they would be biting (insert name of someone in the family reportedly sensitive to flea bites). Since this person is not being bitten, there must not be any fleas.
Fact: Despite Ctenocephalides felis’ ability to feed of a wide variety of hosts, this flea definitely prefers not to feed on human blood unless absolutely necessary. A newly emerged adult flea is very hungry and may well take a blood meal from the first warm body it finds. An adult flea knocked off its normal host will also be very desperate to find a new host and may feed on the nearest warm body it can find. In general, adult fleas regard human blood as a last choice and humans tend not to be bitten unless flea population numbers are high.

Myth: We do not have fleas because we have only hard wood floors.
Fact: Fleas love to develop in the cracks between the boards of hard wood floors.)

Myth: My pet cannot have fleas because I would see them.
Fact: One cannot expect to see fleas as many animals are especially adept at licking them away. Sometimes all we see is the characteristic skin disease.

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/1_why_fleas_are_bad.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 25, 2015 5:14 PM
Title: Re: What is saṅghakammas ?
Content:
I haven't heard of a case in modern times where the monk had to be suspended because he persisted in his wrong view throughout the admonition and three remonstrations. The closest that I know of was in the 1970s when the Thai sangha threatened an action against Phra Kittivuḍḍho for espousing the view that there is no bad kamma in killing a Communist. But then he recanted his view —or at least tempered it a little— so the transaction didn't go ahead.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 25, 2015 3:55 PM
Title: Re: moral dilemma flea control & no more program??
Content:
Luckily I'm not faced with this dilemma. I live at the summit of a cold mountain where there aren't any fleas to speak of and the only bugs that afflict our cats and dogs are blood-sucking ticks and leeches. These are large enough that they can be manually removed without harming them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 25, 2015 11:31 AM
Title: Re: What is saṅghakammas ?
Content:
They are Vinaya-prescribed communal acts such as: ordination, confession, penance, probation, rehabilitation, uposatha, kaṭhina, pavāraṇā, establishing a sīmā, appointing robes-distributors, medicine-distributors and other saṅgha officers, resolving cases of dispute and accusation, declaring a monk insane or recovered from insanity, censure, demotion, banishment, reconciliation, suspension for not seeing an offence, suspension for not making amends for an offence, suspension for not giving up a wrong view, rescinding of a disciplinary act, overturning the almsbowl, etc., etc.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 25, 2015 10:47 AM
Title: Re: moral dilemma flea control & no more program??
Content:
Here's a useful chart showing all the flea-related products and what they do.

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_flea_product_comparison.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 25, 2015 10:40 AM
Title: Re: moral dilemma flea control & no more program??
Content:
I'm afraid there's no solution at present. If one is going to keep cats then one just has to bite the bullet and accept the necessity of compromising either on ahiṃsā or on one's pets' health. Even the product you've been using up to now isn't fully ahiṃsā-compatible: Lufenuron may not kill the adult fleas but it does kill their larvae.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 25, 2015 9:15 AM
Title: Re: Schism
Content:
I'm afraid I'm not at all well-informed about inter-Nikāya relations in Sri Lanka. I suspect, however, that when they're living in Sri Lanka they probably don't (especially not in the case of ordinations and the Pātimokkha recital) but when living elsewhere in the world (and especially in Western countries) they may choose to drop Nikāya sectarianism for reasons of diplomacy. For example, in Britain it's not uncommon for a Kaṭhina ceremony to be jointly carried out by monks from half a dozen different Nikāyas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 25, 2015 9:08 AM
Title: Re: Schism
Content:
Correction: It should read...

"...only when they're so much at odds with each other that they won't carry out the Uposatha observance together."

In practice of course, monks who won't carry out the Uposatha together probably won't carry out any other saṅghakammas either. Nevertheless, it is the willingness to listen to a Pātimokkha recital together that formally defines whether monks are in communion or not.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 25, 2015 7:07 AM
Title: Re: Schism
Content:
When two groups of monks are in dispute as to whether something is Dhamma or not-Dhamma, Vinaya or not-Vinaya, the Vinaya terms it a "conflict in the Order" (saṅgharuci). It becomes a "schism in the Order" (saṅghabheda) only when they're so much at odds with each other that they won't perform saṅghakammas together.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 25, 2015 6:38 AM
Title: Re: Little help needed
Content:
Ten Bases of Meritorious Action (puññakiriyavatthu)

(an expanded version of the more familiar threefold puññakiriyavatthu, comprising dāna, sīla, and bhāvanā)

1. Dāna, generosity.

2. Sīla, moral habit.

3. Bhāvanā, mental cultivation.

4. Apacāyana, reverence.

5. Veyyāvacca, service.

6. Pattidāna, sharing merit.

7. Pattānumodanā, rejoicing in the meritorious deeds of others.

8. Dhammassavana, hearing the Dhamma.

9. Dhammadesanā, teaching the Dhamma.

10. Diṭṭhujukamma, straightening one’s view.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 25, 2015 6:26 AM
Title: Re: What is the meaning of Asava ?
Content:
This should cut the mustard.

http://workupload.com/file/jDSj0zYX


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 23, 2015 7:11 PM
Title: Re: What is the meaning of Asava ?
Content:
I would rather not. As Dayal’s work is already a précis of a great many points derived from a great many sources, I think any further abridgement will fail to do it justice. It deserves to be studied just as it is.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 23, 2015 3:42 PM
Title: Re: What is the meaning of Asava ?
Content:
In the attached files.


 ./download/file.php?id=2784
(387.44 KiB) Downloaded 189 times




 ./download/file.php?id=2782
(334.42 KiB) Downloaded 126 times




 ./download/file.php?id=2783
(346.4 KiB) Downloaded 121 times




 ./download/file.php?id=2780
(156.6 KiB) Downloaded 119 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 23, 2015 1:51 PM
Title: Re: What is the meaning of Asava ?
Content:
See the discussion of the three (var. four) āsavas in Har Dayal’s The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature pp. 116-134. Though published 83 years ago, I believe it’s still the best and most thorough treatment of the term in English.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 23, 2015 5:40 AM
Title: Re: Why one meal a day?
Content:
The jury is out!.jpg (89.56 KiB) Viewed 25505 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 23, 2015 5:38 AM
Title: Re: Understanding cetasikas as fleeting dhammas
Content:
Each of the three conceits is threefold, according to whether one is in fact what one's conceit supposes one to be.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 22, 2015 6:22 PM
Title: Re: Understanding cetasikas as fleeting dhammas
Content:
Yes, I think that you’re right in the sense that there would need to be a complex narrative build-up in the cognitive processes that preceded the arising of the conceit.

In the case of the “I am better than him” conceit (seyyoham’asmī’ti māna), the Vibhaṅga classifies this as threefold according to whether it’s being entertained by someone who really is better than the other person with respect to the quality under consideration (i.e., a conceit with some basis in reality), or by someone who is actually equal to, or actually inferior to, the other person with respect to the said quality (i.e., two conceits grounded in delusion).

Where this conceit is of the reality-based kind, the Vibhaṅga describes it thus:
Therein, of one who is better, what is the conceit thus, “I am better”? Herein a certain one who is better by birth, or by clan, or by good family, or by beautiful body, or by property, or by study, or by sphere of work, or by sphere of craft, or by branch of science, or by learning, or by intelligence, or by one reason or another, places himself as better than others. He, depending thereon, causes conceit to arise ... This, of one who is better, is called the conceit thus, “I am better”.
(Vibh. 353-4; The Book of Analysis, para. 869. tr. U Thittila)
So, it seems to me that for such a conceit to occur, there would previously have needed to be cognitive processes in which the quality in question (birth, family, body, property, etc.) of oneself, and that of the other, was marked by saññā; and then processes involving a comparison of the two saññās, i.e., in which the two past saññās are placed in juxtaposition as the ārammaṇa of a single consciousness.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 22, 2015 12:20 PM
Title: Re: What Is A Monk's Curriculum ?
Content:
I think the typical response would be something like: "What does the translator think he's doing? Doesn't he have any เกรงใจ ["respectful consideration", "reticence", "prudence", etc.]? Can't he tell high from low?"

I can't imagine it winning much approval. In the Tipiṭaka it's the Buddha who's doing most of the talking and in Thai literary conventions a prince is supposed to talk like a prince. If you used ordinary literary Thai then you'd be representing the Buddha as if he were not a scion of royalty, which would be likely to offend the Thai sense of hierarchical propriety.

Ajahn Buddhadāsa, as I mentioned before, could get away with having the Buddha talk like a Bangkok wide boy, but that was a rather special case. The ajahn had carved a niche for himself as a sort of avant-garde religious showman and people expected him to go about saying and doing outrageous things. Likewise foreign monks in Thailand can get away with having the Buddha speak ordinary Thai when we're giving talks, because nobody expects us to know any better. But what is treated as excusable when we do it probably wouldn't be if it were done by anyone else.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 22, 2015 10:40 AM
Title: Re: Understanding cetasikas as fleeting dhammas
Content:
In the case of, say, the conceit "I am better than him", why do you find this readily conceivable as something that can last for a minute or so, but difficult to conceive of as lasting for only a few mind-moments? Why must it be ongoing for a longish period in order to be a plausible (or even an intelligible) conception?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 22, 2015 10:31 AM
Title: Re: Understanding cetasikas as fleeting dhammas
Content:
The Paṭisambhidāmagga is a pretty large text. Which part of it do you see as relevant to Phil's query?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 22, 2015 7:34 AM
Title: Re: Can anger be prevented from arising?
Content:
The object of the mental factor of aversion (dosa cetasika) in general may be either a living being or a saṅkhāra. But dosa arises in a variety of modes and not all modes are capable of taking both kind of object as their ārammaṇa. For example, malice (byāpāda) and cruelty (vihiṃsā) are directed only towards living beings. But anger (kodha) may take either as its ārammaṇa, even if you yourself only ever get angry with living beings.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 22, 2015 5:11 AM
Title: Re: Can anger be prevented from arising?
Content:
Yes, in the Abhidhamma it's called aṭṭhānakopa and is the tenth of the ten kinds of anger.
Getting angry:

1. Through thinking: “He acted for my harm.
2. Through thinking: “He is acting for my harm.”
3. Through thinking: “He will act for my harm.”
4. Through thinking: “He acted for the harm of one pleasing and agreeable to me.”
5. Through thinking: “He is acting for the harm of one pleasing and agreeable to me.”
6. Through thinking: “He will act for the harm of one pleasing and agreeable to me.”
7. Through thinking: “He acted for the benefit of one displeasing and disagreeable to me.”
8. Through thinking: “He is acting for the benefit of one displeasing and disagreeable to me.”
9. Through thinking: “He will act for the benefit of one displeasing and disagreeable to me.”
10. For no obvious reason.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 21, 2015 9:45 PM
Title: Re: Would it be too late to ordain at 60 years old?
Content:
The Vinaya doesn't set any upper age limit for when a man may ordain. Certain monasteries do set such a limit, but these are the exception, not the norm.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 21, 2015 9:25 PM
Title: Re: Can anger be prevented from arising?
Content:
The beautifully-written Āghātapaṭivinaya (“Removal of Resentment”) section of the Visuddhimagga’s chapter on the brahmavihāras (= ch. IX, paragraphs 14-39 in Ñāṇamoli’s translation) contains a rich panoply of methods for the removal of habitual anger towards a particular person. These methods are very effective. Anyone who experiments with them until he finds the one that works best for him, and then applies himself assiduously to it, can expect to become cooler, happier and less anger-prone.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 21, 2015 8:44 PM
Title: Re: The dhammas of papanca
Content:
I'm afraid I'm in the dark as to what you mean by the "dhamma of contemplation", so I can't say how it would be distinguished from the dhammas of proliferation.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 21, 2015 5:32 PM
Title: Re: What Is A Monk's Curriculum ?
Content:
I can’t imagine it being very well received. In Thailand a Rajasap-speaking Buddha is simply what everybody’s accustomed to. It’s not like in English-speaking Christendom where people are used to hearing the Bible quoted in multiple translations in a variety of linguistic registers. The Thais expect to hear/read the Buddha depicted as speaking Rajasap in much the way that certain marginal Christian groups (e.g., Ulster Calvinists and American fundamentalist Baptists) expect Jesus to be speaking the Jacobean English of the King James Bible. If they watch some Hollywood Biblical epic where the actors are all speaking from a trashy modern Bible translation — the Good News Bible or the New Identity Politics Bible (with Inclusive Language for Loony Feminists) — it just makes them cringe.

Buddhadāsa, as I mentioned above, did set a precedent for an alternative approach, but it doesn’t seem to have been taken up by any of his eminent disciples.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 21, 2015 7:28 AM
Title: Re: Ghitassara Sutta
Content:
If you mean of the Anguttara Nikāya (the collection containing the Ghitassara Sutta), then yes, Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation, Numerical Discourses, is available in paperback.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 21, 2015 7:01 AM
Title: Re: Ghitassara Sutta
Content:
Most of the Tipiṭaka isn't included in the ATI site. What is there is simply whatever is available in English, is not copyright-protected, and happens to appeal to the site-owner. For a more comprehensive collection it would now be better to go to https://suttacentral.net/.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 20, 2015 8:54 PM
Title: Re: What Is A Monk's Curriculum ?
Content:
Romanized Pali is widely used in Thailand by non-Thai autodidacts and then to a lesser extent in the monastic universities (e.g. if a Thai research scholar is writing an article for a foreign publication). The PTS Dictionary can be found in most university libraries, along with those of the Siam Society and the World Fellowship of Buddhists — not that it's really needed now that we have a digital edition.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 20, 2015 7:37 PM
Title: Re: What Is A Monk's Curriculum ?
Content:
In some chanting books you'll also meet with a special character called yamakkan which looks like this:

๎

It's inserted between two consonants that in Pali are supposed to be pronounced as one, but where Thais would naturally tend to insert a hiatus. For example 'hitvā' should be pronounced hi-tvā, but the Thais would naturally syllabify it hit-ta-vā. The yamakkan is inserted between the t and the v to remind them not to:

หิต๎วา

In practice, however, I've never known any Thai chanters to pay the yamakkan the darndest bit of notice.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 20, 2015 7:03 PM
Title: Re: What Is A Monk's Curriculum ?
Content:
Not really, apart from the point that you noted in your follow-up post.

I think the only Thai monks who have any idea of how Pali ought to be pronounced are those who've been to study in India or Sri Lanka. The 19th century educator Prince Vajirañāṇavarorasa made an effort to improve things in this regard, but it never came to anything. One of the books that a Thai monk will study when he takes the Parien course is Akkharavidhī, a work on Pali phonetics by the prince. In the book's preface Prince V. describes how to pronounce those Pali consonants that are not found in the Thai phonemic system, but as this part of the book isn't tested in the exams most teachers just skip it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 20, 2015 8:07 AM
Title: Re: What Is A Monk's Curriculum ?
Content:
My point was that it isn't actually that difficult.  

I mean Middle English is not a completely foreign language to a speaker of modern English, in the way that Old English is:
Aðweah mē of sennum, sāule fram wammum,
gāsta Sceppend, geltas geclānsa,
þā ðe ic on aldre æfre gefremede
ðurh līchaman lēðre geðōhtas.
Though you may not have understand much from the Grene Knyȝt passage that I posted, there will probably be some words from it that you immediately recognize, some that you can guess at, and some that you're quite clueless about. But as the grammar of the language is substantially similar to that of modern English, the learning process will consist in little more than looking up the meanings of the third class of words. Similarly, for a Thai to learn Rajasap will consist in little more than memorizing word lists.

I have to go out now, so I'll address the rest of your post later.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 19, 2015 10:04 PM
Title: Re: Can anger be prevented from arising?
Content:
Yes, that can happen and one will sometimes hear Theravada teachers who are either clumsy with language, or ignorant of conditional relations, or influenced by Mahayanists, refer to this as a "vipāka". But they are quite wrong to do so — it's a different causal condition that is responsible here.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 19, 2015 5:19 PM
Title: Re: The dhammas of papanca
Content:
As I understand it, what is called 'proliferation' simply IS these three mental factors. Their arising wouldn't necessarily be one at a time; it would be either taṇhā + diṭṭhi in the case of greed-rooted consciousness associated with wrong view, or taṇhā + māna in the case of greed-rooted consciousness dissociated from wrong view.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 19, 2015 3:07 PM
Title: Re: What Is A Monk's Curriculum ?
Content:
The books of Rajasap word-lists that are used in Thai schools are available at almost any local bookshop. I'm not aware of anything that's been published in English, but then I don't really keep up to date with this field. In my own case, apart from studying one of the word-list books (mostly to learn the Rajasap terms that a Bangkok monk in a royal wat needs to use in his daily interactions) I learned Rajasap mostly by reading a few volumes from the Thai Tipiṭaka before I started learning Pali.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 17, 2015 11:04 PM
Title: Re: Where is Ajahn Hāsapañño?
Content:
We are now in communication by e-mail. Thanks! 


DEAD LETTERS

The report was this: that Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in the administration. When I think over this rumor, hardly can I express the emotions which seize me. Dead letters! Does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the flames? For by the cart-load they are annually burned. Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring—the finger it was meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a banknote sent in swiftest charity—he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death.

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!

(Herman Melville, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11231.html.images)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 17, 2015 7:37 PM
Title: Re: What Is A Monk's Curriculum ?
Content:
That would in fact be true of most Western monks here.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 17, 2015 9:58 AM
Title: Where is Ajahn Hāsapañño?
Content:
Somebody has sent this Canadian monk a gigantic parcel, addressed to Wat Doi Mae Pang — the monastery of the late Luang Poo Waen, situated at the foot of the mountain where I'm spending the rains retreat. Though I've never actually met Hāsapañño, I understand that he does sometimes reside there. But the postman, failing to find him there, handed the package to a Thai monk. The monk, presumably acting on the principle that farang monks are all more or less fungible, passed it on to the headman of my village, who brought it up the mountain on his motorcycle and delivered it to Ayya Phalañāṇī, who then delivered it to me.

Can anyone help me bring this game of pass the parcel to a conclusion by telling me where Ven. Hāsapañño currently resides?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 16, 2015 4:06 PM
Title: Re: Which diet are you?
Content:
I should think that would be 'eleemosynatarian', from the Latin eleemosyna (alms), from the Greek ελεημοσύνης.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 16, 2015 2:17 PM
Title: Re: Do we have an astral body?
Content:
It means that they fly bodily through the air like birds, though relying upon the iddhipādas rather than wings.

As for astral travel, I’m not sure what people mean by it, but perhaps it corresponds to those Sutta passages that describe how a certain person disappears from Jeta’s Grove and then instantaneously reappears somewhere else.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 16, 2015 10:35 AM
Title: Re: Do we have an astral body?
Content:
This is just clumsy reading on Walshe’s part. The Suttas don’t say that we actually have such a body. What they say is:

1. Certain annihilationists believe that we have one and that it gets destroyed. (Brahmajāla Sutta)

2. Certain yogis who’ve mastered the fourth jhāna are capable of manufacturing one. (Ayoguḷa Sutta)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 14, 2015 6:38 PM
Title: Re: heinous crimes
Content:
The texts state that anyone who commits one of the five anantariyaka kammas is debarred from the possibility of penetrating to Dhamma during that lifetime, no matter how he subsequently feels and no matter what he subsequently does. And so though Ajātasattu was in fact remorseful, it wouldn't have made any difference even if he hadn't been.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 14, 2015 12:54 PM
Title: Re: What Is A Monk's Curriculum ?
Content:
They are not perceived negatively at all. In fact in the case of Bali Yai, any Thai scholar monk you talk to (even those trained in the native Parien system) will readily admit its superiority over Nak Tham &amp; Parien. One reason that so few Thai monks choose to enroll in it is because it’s perceived as too difficult. Bali Yai is a demanding course with a huge volume of material to be memorised each day. Moreover, the Burmese-trained monks who teach it tend to be very hard taskmasters who are quick to expel any monk who can’t keep up. Most Thai monks are just too lazy to put in the necessary effort, or else they don’t have the requisite study skills and attention span.

Then a second reason is that because of the foreignness and lack of official standing of the Bali Yai curriculum, a monk who opts for it over the Parien course will miss out on a number of worldly advantages. For example, he won’t get the title “Phra Mahā”, he won’t get any cash prizes for doing well in exams, he won’t get a royally-sponsored cremation when he dies, his scholarly success will not be likely to translate into any promotions in the sangha hierarchy. He won’t even be qualified to teach in a state-run Pali school, even though his grasp of Pali will be overwhelmingly superior to that of the monks who are thus qualified. 

In one way, however, all of this is quite a good thing. The absence of worldly advantages means that if you go along to an institution where Bali Yai or Abhidhammajotika is being taught, you’ll get to meet an inspiring bunch of monks who are really earnest in their study of the Dhamma. These are therefore great places for a newly-ordained western monk to go along to and meet good kalyānamittas. By contrast, if you go to institutions where Nak Tham and Parien are being taught, you’ll encounter a rather mixed bag of monks — a few good ones, no doubt, but with a deplorable admixture of mediocrities and rascals.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 13, 2015 10:59 PM
Title: Re: Mara
Content:
If that's the whole story, how would you square it with all the suttas that report Māra's visits to the Buddha and his arahant disciples? Has an arahant not abandoned the five hindrances?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 13, 2015 10:13 PM
Title: Re: What Is A Monk's Curriculum ?
Content:
It’s up to them. Generally the older a man is when he ordains the less likely it is that he’ll pursue a scholarly vocation. There are, however, exceptions, like a certain Thai man a few years ago who ordained in old age and completed the ninth grade of Parien in his late eighties.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 13, 2015 10:57 AM
Title: Re: The real meaning of Musavada
Content:
Ordinarily no, but one can conceive of scenarios in which he would be in breach of it. For example, the landlord asks him if he's damaged anything and he replies "no". Or suppose it's in the tenant's contract that he is obliged to disclose to the landlord any damage that occurs during his occupancy. If he remains silent out of a wish to deceive the landlord and avoid hassle and the landlord assumes from this silence that no damage has occurred, then the deceit is successful and the precept has been broken. That no words have been spoken doesn't make any difference. In effect the tenant finds himself in the same position as a bhikkhu when the Pāṭimokkha is being recited, who, when the reciter asks the bhikkhus: "Are you pure [with regard to the section of rules that I've just recited]?" remains silent even though he knows that he has broken one of them. The bhikkhu's silence in this context is adjudged to be an offence of false speech in full awareness.

However, if there is no contract imposing such an obligation, and if the landlord doesn't ask, then remaining silent is not blameworthy with respect to truth-telling.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 13, 2015 10:31 AM
Title: Re: Joke!!!
Content:
Pedants revolt.jpg (74.26 KiB) Viewed 3702 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 13, 2015 10:19 AM
Title: Re: What is the name of that Process that believe it is SELF?
Content:
My post had to do with the micro-scale of Abhidhammic momentarism, whereas you seem to be alluding to the macro-scale of the three-life exposition of dependent arising. It is in the context of the latter that saṅkhāras are treated as belonging to the past, and in the same context, bhava (not bhavaṅga), is treated as a future event.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 13, 2015 9:56 AM
Title: Re: What is the name of that Process that believe it is SELF?
Content:
The mental factors responsible for ‘I-making’ and ‘mine-making’ are the threefold papañca of taṇhā, diṭṭhi and māna. These three arise with lobhamūla akusala-cittas. The bhavaṅga, being merely a passive vipāka-citta, is not accompanied by these three and therefore cannot be held responsible for generating the illusion of self.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 13, 2015 1:45 AM
Title: Re: Teacher claims to receive teachings from Brahma god
Content:
Physician, heal thyself!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 12, 2015 9:11 PM
Title: Re: Good temples to stay at in Thailand as a lay guest
Content:
I think very few Thai monasteries require guests to shave their heads, unless they are embarking upon an ordination programme. The best choice will hinge on how long you intend to stay and how you wish to occupy your time.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 12, 2015 8:03 PM
Title: Re: Gun Violence and the Paradox of our Time
Content:
Posted last week on Steve Elliott's Facebook page:

I am a responsible gun owner.

I bought my first gun when I was 12. It was a Browning 12-gauge shotgun, and I saved money from my paper route and cleaning a drive-in restaurant to buy it in time for dove season. In the years before I could legally drive, I’d tie the Browning across the handlebars of my bike and ride to the fields outside town to hunt.

I’ve owned several guns since, and own a handgun now. I bought that gun to keep my family safe, and lock it up to keep them safe from it. Like I said, responsible.

And so while I’d like to believe I’m not part and party to the gun violence that stains America, I can’t. My grandmother shot and killed herself with a gun, and a few years ago my father shot and didn’t quite kill himself with one. My stepbrother died in a murder-suicide with a gun, and the husband of one of my sister’s co-workers was killed in a mass shooting.

None of that happened with my gun, of course, but after every new mass shooting, I’m reminded that I bear a portion of the responsibility for our nation’s gun violence. There are too many guns to do anything about it, the gun lobby says. Regulations are a slippery slope that only limit the rights of responsible gun owners, they say.

My gun is being used to argue against common-sense laws and policies that could reduce gun violence in America, arguments I find unconscionable. That’s what being a responsible gun owner means today – I’m responsible. I’ve been uneasy about that for a while now, and ashamed to admit it’s taken two more mass shootings for me to do anything about it.

That ended today. Today I disassembled my handgun, a 9mm Ruger, clamped the pieces in a vice and cut them in half with an angle grinder. I’m sending the proper paperwork into the state to report it destroyed.

None of us individually can stop gun violence in America, but as a responsible gun owner, I will no longer be used as a justification for doing nothing about it. Today I did what I could. Today there is ‪#‎ONELESSGUN‬.



11231103_10208144202231626_1545321832655355832_o.jpg (49.95 KiB) Viewed 1570 times


https://web.facebook.com/steve.elliott.792/posts/10208144209951819


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 7, 2015 6:04 AM
Title: Re: Right speech
Content:
That's how the Theragāthā commentary explains it, as well as the commentaries to parallel passages in the Saṃyutta Nikāya and Suttanipāta.
"Na tāpaye ti" vippaṭisārena na tāpeyya.

"Would not torment [oneself]" means "would not torment [oneself] with remorse".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 6, 2015 6:27 PM
Title: Re: Mahasi quote
Content:
It's from the sayadaw's talks on the Sallekha Sutta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 6, 2015 6:04 PM
Title: Re: American Buddhist Monk living in Thailand Needs Help!
Content:
Fine, thanks — enjoying a pleasant vassa on a northern Thai mountain. Hope all's well with you too.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 6, 2015 6:14 AM
Title: Re: American Buddhist Monk living in Thailand Needs Help!
Content:
You might also contact Hannah via her Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/hannah.zorn.7


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 5, 2015 11:12 AM
Title: Re: Beginning to notice family is also to be let go
Content:
What does the Bhaddekaratta Sutta have to do with it?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 3, 2015 8:01 AM
Title: Re: Lacking Samvega/motivation
Content:
Jasper Carrott on "How much time have I got left?"


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 2, 2015 6:12 AM
Title: Re: What is neutral feeling?
Content:
That upekkhā is the vedanā in a sense-door cognition and then somanassa, domanassa or upekkhā in the subsequent mind-door process, applies to eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness and tongue-consciousness.

Body-consciousness, as Dave has remarked, is the exception. Here it is sukha-vedanā or dukkha-vedanā in the sense-door process, followed by somanassa, domanassa or upekkhā in the subsequent mind-door process.

The reason for this difference is attributed to body-consciousness arising from a collision between primary rūpas, while with the other four sense-consciousnesses it's a collision between a primary-rūpa object but a derivative-rūpa sensorium. 

From the Manual of Abhidhamma:
It should be noted that while the four pairs of sense consciousness other than body-consciousness are accompanied by equanimous feeling, body-consciousness arises in connection with either pleasure or pain. The Atthasālinī explains that in the case of the four doors—eye, ear, nose, and tongue—the sense object, which is derived matter, impinges on the sense faculty, which is also derived matter. When this happens, the impact is not strong, as when four balls of cotton placed on anvils are struck by four other balls of cotton. Thus the resulting feeling is neutral. But in the case of the body, the object consists of three of the primary elements—earth, fire, and air. Thus when the object impinges on body-sensitivity, its impact is strong and is conveyed to the primary elements of the body. This is comparable to four balls of cotton being struck by hammers: the hammer breaks through the cotton and hits the anvil. In the case of a desirable object the body-consciousness is a wholesome-resultant and the concomitant bodily feeling is physical pleasure, in the case of an undesirable object the body-consciousness is an unwholesome-resultant and the concomitant bodily feeling is physical pain.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 1, 2015 7:36 PM
Title: Re: What is neutral feeling?
Content:
In short, because the Buddha's way is a way of analysis (vibhajjavāda).

In insight development it is important for overcoming the "perception of compactness" (ghanasaññā) that is one of the things fuelling the idea of a self. In the case of mental phenomena, misconceiving the cognizing of the unpleasant odour and the response to it as being a unitary experience would be one example of a perceived compactness that needs dismantling.

From the Visuddhimagga:
"... there are those people who, while teachable, have fallen into assuming a self among the five aggregates owing to failure to analyze them; and the Blessed One is desirous of releasing them from the assumption by getting them to see how the [seeming] compactness of mass [in the five aggregates] is resolved; and being desirous of their welfare, he first, for the purpose of their easy apprehension, taught the materiality aggregate, which is gross, being the objective field of the eye, etc.; and after that, feeling, which feels matter as desirable and undesirable; then perception, which apprehends the aspects of feeling’s objective field, since “What one feels, that one perceives” (M I 293); then formations, which form volitionally through the means of perception; and lastly, consciousness, which these things beginning with feeling have as their support, and which dominates them."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 1, 2015 6:41 PM
Title: Re: What is neutral feeling?
Content:
No. At the moment of cognizing an odour vedanā is always upekkhā. The pleasurable (somanassa) and unpleasurable (domanassa) vedanās that arise in response to desirable and undesirable odours do not arise in the sense-door process when the odour itself is cognized. Rather, they arise in a subsequent mind-door process.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 30, 2015 10:03 PM
Title: Re: What is neutral feeling?
Content:
Nose-consciousness arises only with upekkhā-vedanā, but the term refers to consciousness of odours. Consciousness of the tactile sensations in one's nose would come under body-consciousness, which can only be accompanied by pleasant or painful feeling.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 29, 2015 2:03 PM
Title: Re: POTUS 2016
Content:
Neither. Though I’m a little mystified as to why you and Tilt think that I might be trying to be funny.

If I were an American, then small-government Republicanism is what I should want to vote for. Among past US Presidents, who would be a better exemplar of this than Silent Cal? Among current Republican candidates, who better than Rand Paul?


http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21572176-americas-30th-president-has-been-much-misunderstood-when-less-led-more


http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323807004578282212160724672


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 29, 2015 1:54 PM
Title: Re: Greater Magadha
Content:
I don’t think you’ve really answered my question. If I may put it another way...

Would you consider sakkāya-diṭṭhi, attavāda and asmi-māna to be universal afflictions among the unenlightened, and for which the development of insight into the anattā-ness of dhammas is the remedy? Or do you conceive them as afflictions that only troubled Indian adherents of Upaniṣadic philosophy, making anattā effectively irrelevant for anyone who is not an adherent of this philosophy (or some other philosophy resembling it)?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 28, 2015 6:06 PM
Title: Re: Greater Magadha
Content:
Whereas you, presumably, think that it is a reaction to the Upaniṣadic idea? But if so, what exactly would you mean by that? Are you making the bold claim that there wouldn’t be any anattā teaching had there been no Upaniṣadic attā teaching? Or the more modest claim that the manner in which the anattā teaching is formulated would be different from what it presently is?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 6, 2015 6:11 PM
Title: Re: POTUS 2016
Content:
I generally favour the candidate who has most in common with Thomas Jefferson and Calvin Coolidge. This time it seems to be Rand Paul.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 6, 2015 5:39 PM
Title: Re: Wat Dhammakaya
Content:
For the average Thai Buddhist, to have learned about thīnamiddha at all would be as improbable as it would be for the average British Anglican to have learned about the deadly sin of accidie. That is to say, thīnamiddha is the sort of specialised term whose use would be largely confined to exceptional Thai Buddhists — scholar monks and those of the laity who frequent either Abhidhamma study groups or meditation centres.

In Abhidhamma study groups they will often use one or another of the four Thai translations of thīna, but the precision of abhidhammic description would militate against any confusion of it with, say, domanassa. Then in Thai meditation circles, thīnamiddha (along with the rest of the hindrances) is usually left untranslated and from listening to discussions and meditation interviews I sense that it has much the same semantic range for Thais that it does for English-speaking Buddhists.

There are, however, a number of other Pali terms that Thai-speaking and English-speaking Buddhists understand quite differently because of how they’re commonly translated into these two languages. Saṃvega is a good example of this. Since the 1950’s nearly all English translators have followed Ñāṇamoli in translating it as “sense of urgency”, which seems to be a faithful rendering of the Buddhist understanding. But the common Thai translation, “ความสลดใจ / khwaam salod jai” (“world-weariness”), seems more reflective of what saṃvega means in classical Indian dramatic theory. 

The American monk Tan Dick Sīlaratano in his translation of the “great saṃvega” episode in Acharn Mun’s biography translates it as “sense of sadness”, which is probably a faithful reflection of what the average Thai forest monk expects saṃvega to be like.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 3, 2015 6:26 PM
Title: Re: Are monks allowed to touch their mothers?
Content:
Touching one's mother without lust incurs only a dukkaṭa offence. Since dukkaṭas are classed as light offences (in fact the second lightest of all), not heavy ones, it's a minor NO.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 3, 2015 6:10 PM
Title: Re: Wat Dhammakaya
Content:
No, I don’t think so. Their mistake is one that’s quite common among Thais who either don’t know that there’s a well-established tradition of anglophone Pali scholarship, or who do know but are too lazy or conceited to consult it. When such people wish to find the English translation for a Pali Buddhist technical term, instead of looking it up in, say, a Pali-English dictionary, or in the Buddhist dictionaries of Phra Payutto or Nyanatiloka, or in English translations of Pali texts, they will look up the Thai translation of the Pali term in Thai-English dictionaries. The problem with this method is that a Thai-English dictionary, even if it be one of the better ones, will ordinarily confine itself to translating the more common senses of the Thai word. But the Buddhist sense of the word will as often as not be one of the less common ones, at least in everyday Thai usage. Consequently most Thai-English dictionaries will be unlikely to give the desired sense at all, while the senses that they do give will be either irrelevant or only tenuously related to the desired one.

Now in the case of thīna, the official Thai translations of this term consist of four kham-khao-khuu (คำเข้าคู่ — “alliterative paired words”), most likely imported from classical Khmer; these are: hot-hoo, seuang-seum, thor-thae and thod-thoi. And as you will see below, it’s only in the case of the word seuang-seum that the Thai-English dictionaries supply anything that comes close to the Buddhist meaning:


1. Hot-hoo (หดหู่)

• McFarland: curl up (like fresh leaves when held against a fire or like a millipede when touched).
• Haas: sad, depressed, dejected, downhearted, despondent, heartsick.
• Sethaputra: shrunken in spirit, downhearted, depressed.
• Thiengburanathum: low-spirited, dejected, sad, to droop, to curl up, to wither.


2. Seuang-seum (เซื่องซึม)

• McFarland: slow, drowsy, dilatory.
• Haas: slow, inactive, lifeless.
• Sethaputra: slow, sluggish, depressed.
• Thiengburanathum: inactive and drowsy.


3. Thor-thae (ท้อแท้)

• McFarland: weakened, exhausted, enfeebled, tottering.
• Haas: feel dejected, downcast, in low spirits.
• Sethaputra: lose heart, be discouraged, daunted.
• Thiengburanathum: disheartened, weakened, downcast, in low spirits.


4. Thod-thoi (ถดถอย)

• McFarland: retreat, move backwards.
• Haas: -
• Sethaputra: retreat, be disheartened, quail.
• Thiengburanathum: move back, withdraw.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 2, 2015 12:37 PM
Title: Re: King Ajatasattu
Content:
In the Vinaya Piṭaka’s Cūḷavagga (Vin. ii. 184-203, Book of the Discipline V. 259-285) you’ll find the full account of Ajātasattu both conspiring with Devadatta and being himself directly involved in the first of the three assassination attempts.

In the Sutta Piṭaka you’ll find only a few fragmentary details from the story and no mention of the conspiracy.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Aug 26, 2015 5:35 AM
Title: Re: Thai translation help
Content:
Yes, it's common. It's not one of the words that's specific to literary Thai, nor is it a PC word, nor is it simply interchangeable with ฝรั่ง. There are some contexts where you would use one word, some where you'd use the other, some where either can be used and both will have the same meaning, and some where either can be used but their meanings will be different. Hence my earlier statement: one has to learn on a case by case basis when to use each term.

In the case of นักท่องเที่ยวสากล, this would mean global or international tourists and wouldn't necessarily imply westerners.

If a Thai wants to say 'westerners' but doesn't want to use ฝรั่ง (e.g. if she doesn't want to limit the term to Caucasians from western countries) then she would say ชาว (or คน) ตะวันตก. In this context if one were to replace ตะวันตก with สากล it would no longer mean either 'Caucasian' or 'westerner', but rather a 'cosmopolitan person' [of any nationality].


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 25, 2015 10:11 PM
Title: Re: Thai translation help
Content:
It's very common, though one has to learn on a case by case basis when to use each term. Chewing gum, for example, is called หมากฝรั่ง ("white man's betel") and parsley is ผักชีฝรั่ง ("white man's cilantro"), but western-style boxing is called มวยสากล ("universal boxing") and the adjective or adverb แบบสากล ("universal-style") in practice means "western-style" or often simply "modern".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 25, 2015 8:14 PM
Title: Re: Devas Remembering Past Lives
Content:
If you're speaking of spontaneous recall of a former life in hell, then I don't know what it would be like for the person as I've never heard of it happening (at least not from any source that I would consider trustworthy).

On the other hand, if you mean recall of former lives by means of pubbenivāsānussati, then I don't think there would be any risk of mental damage. This attainment depends upon the fourth jhāna and so with his post-jhāna upekkhā a meditator is well steeled against any distress that an unpleasant memory might otherwise have provoked.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 25, 2015 3:38 PM
Title: Re: Thai translation help
Content:
I think Western music which has reached an international audience, or whose creator intends that it will do so, would be more naturally referred to as don-trii saakon than don-trii farang. Saakon is from the Sanskrit sākalya, meaning 'universal', but in Thai usage it tends to imply 'western'.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 25, 2015 7:37 AM
Title: Re: Who ordains? Introverts/Extroverts?
Content:
It seems to depend on whether they are convert monks or Asian monks who were raised in Buddhist families. The former I have observed to be predominantly introverted and the latter about equally divided.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 24, 2015 3:38 PM
Title: Re: One meal a day and gallstones
Content:
This is the website of the one in Bangkok. 

http://www.priest-hospital.go.th/

But as the site doesn't seem to host any papers on gallstones in either English or Thai, it will probably be best to send the owners an e-mail: mailto:prh@priest-hospital.go.th


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 23, 2015 7:58 AM
Title: Re: Lumbini, Kapilavastu, Kusinara sites now in doubt.
Content:
Nothing if one's motive is good and one does it well. But in your case, though I don't care to guess at what your motive might be, I can say with confidence that you're not doing it very well. Neither as a scholar, nor as a Socratic gadfly. In your thread about the Buddha's last meal you revealed yourself as a careless reader of texts, and in the present thread you show a complete lack of understanding as to what is important to Buddhists and what is not.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 23, 2015 7:36 AM
Title: Re: Deadly blast rocks Thailand capital
Content:
Buddhist monks in Thailand are expected to do all sorts of peculiar things.

When King Bhumibol Adulyadej dies, Buddhist priests will place nine sheets of gold leaf inscribed with sacred text on the nine principal parts of his body, according to the fifteenth-century palace law that governs royalty. Members of his family and the Royal Wardrobes Department will dress his corpse in silk clothes – including gloves, socks and a hat – as well as ‘heavy gold bracelets, anklets, and rings, and a golden mask … symbolic of the radiant visage of a god’. A gold ring will be placed in his mouth. After a pause, his body will be manoeuvred into a seated position:

The trunk is lifted, the palms joined opposite the face by means of an iron clamp, a sort of wedge is placed under the chin, and the knees are lifted to the level of the hands and tied in a sitting position. The corpse, thus seated, is placed on sixteen long strips of cotton material, the ends of which are raised and tied over the top of the head.
(Quaritch Wales, 1931)

Bhumibol’s personal crown will be placed on his head, and ‘a heavy gold chain studded with diamonds’ around his neck. Then ‘the dead king … arrayed in richer attire than he ever wore in his lifetime’ will be wedged inside an inner urn ‘of silver, with a lid that can be hermetically sealed’, which is in turn placed inside an octagonal outer urn ‘of great magnificence, being of gold ornamented with the nine gems and capped by a tapering pyramidal spire’. This will be taken to the Grand Palace and placed on a catafalque under a nine-tiered white umbrella. His body will remain inside the urn for months or years, as monks chant continuously day and night beside it and Bhumibol’s favourite dishes, prepared by palace chefs, are placed in front of the catafalque at mealtimes.

— Andrew MacGregor Marshall, A Kingdom in Crisis - Thailand’s Struggle for Democracy in the Twenty-first Century, pp. 208-9


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 23, 2015 7:21 AM
Title: Re: My guardian angel contacted me and my fiance
Content:
Though it doesn't actually contain the statement about one's parents being Brahmā, it's certainly a rhetorically ingenious way of praising saddhā, sīla, dāna and paññā. 

I recall that it was from a Tibetan teacher that I first heard the Sutta's simile about carrying one's parents on one's shoulders for a hundred years. I've heard it from many Tibetan teachers since, but they always seem to miss the point. I would guess that the Tibetans must learn the simile from some text that quotes only the beginning of the Sutta, but omits the middle and the end, for when a lama quotes it, it's not in order to eulogise saddhā, sīla, etc., but merely to deliver some mawkish homily on filial piety.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 23, 2015 7:05 AM
Title: Re: Lumbini, Kapilavastu, Kusinara sites now in doubt.
Content:
It will no doubt matter to historians specialising in that particular period, but there is no reason why it should matter to a person engaged in Buddhist practice. From the point of view of Dhamma it's a lot of fuss about nothing, to which the line from Christmas Humphreys quoted earlier by Kusala will suffice as a retort. Humphreys' line is in fact a modern restatement of a classical Buddhist response to questions about whether the Buddha ever existed and whether his life and character accurately match that of the protagonist of the Suttas. It's an approach to the question found in writers as diverse as Nāgasena and Dharmakīrti, and will serve as a fine riposte to all your jejune posts aimed at arousing doubt in Buddhists.
"We have an efficacious Dharma that leads to the end of suffering. If it didn't come from Gautama then it must have come from somebody else. From whomsoever it came, him we call 'the Buddha'."
— Dharmakīrti (sorry no source; I'm just paraphrasing from memory)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 23, 2015 6:36 AM
Title: Re: My guardian angel contacted me and my fiance
Content:
It’s from the Sabrahmakasutta, which is found in both the Aṅguttara Nikāya (in both a short and an expanded form) and the Itivuttaka:
Sabrahmaka Sutta (expanded version)

With Brahmā

(1) “Bhikkhus, those families dwell with Brahmā where at home the mother and father are revered by their children. (2) Those families dwell with the first teachers where at home the mother and father are revered by their children. (3) Those families dwell with the first deities where at home the mother and father are revered by their children. (4) Those families dwell with the gift-worthy where at home the mother and father are revered by their children.

“‘Brahmā,’ bhikkhus, is a designation for mother and father. ‘First teachers’ is a designation for mother and father. ‘First deities’ is a designation for mother and father. ‘Gift-worthy’ is a designation for mother and father. And why? Mother and father are very helpful to their children: they raise them, nurture them, and show them the world.”

Mother and father are called “Brahmā,”
and also “first teachers.”

They are worthy of gifts from their children,
for they have compassion for their offspring.
Therefore a wise person should revere them
and treat them with honor.

One should serve them with food and drink,
with clothes and bedding,
by massaging and bathing them,
and by washing their feet.

Because of that service
to mother and father,
the wise praise one in this world
and after death one rejoices in heaven.

(A. ii. 70. Bh. Bodhi tr.)


____________________


Sabrahmaka Sutta

With Brahmā

This was said by the Lord, said by the Arahant, so I heard:

“Living with Brahmā are those families where, within the home, mother and father are respected by their children. Living with the early devas are those families where, within the home, mother and father are respected by their children. Living with the early teachers are those families where, within the home, mother and father are respected by their children. Living with those worthy of adoration are those families where, within the home, mother and father are respected by their children. ‘Brahmā,’ bhikkhus, is a term for mother and father. ‘Early devas’ and ‘early teachers’ and ‘those worthy of veneration’ are terms for mother and father. For what reason? Because mother and father are very helpful to their children, they take care of them and bring them up and teach them about the world.”

Mother and father are called
“Brahmā,” “early teachers”
And “worthy of veneration,”
Being compassionate towards
Their family of children.

Thus the wise should venerate them,
Pay them due honour,
Provide them with food and drink,
Give them clothing and a bed,
Anoint and bathe them
And also wash their feet.

When he performs such service
For his mother and his father,
They praise that wise person even here
And hereafter he rejoices in heaven.

This too is the meaning of what was said by the Lord, so I heard.

(Itivuttaka 109-110. John Ireland tr.)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 22, 2015 1:01 PM
Title: Re: Deadly blast rocks Thailand capital
Content:
Zachary Abuza's analysis of the likely culprits

http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Matrix.pdf
International groups

Hezbollah: very low.
JI: very low.
IS: moderate-high.
Uighur: low.


Domestic groups

Red Shirts: moderate.
Southern Insurgents: moderate-high.

http://www.seasiaanalytics.com/SEAsiaanalytics.com/About.html

Zachary Abuza, PhD is Principal of Southeast Asia Analytics, an independent consultancy on Southeast Asian politics and security affairs. 

He served as Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Simmons College, Boston from 1996-2010; and 2012-2014. From 2010-2012 he served as Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. 

He received his B.A. from Trinity College (1991), and M.A.L.D. (1994) and Ph.D. (1998) from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. 

Dr. Abuza specializes in security issues and politics in Southeast Asia. He has written widely on the issues of insurgency and terrorism, political risk, governance and democratization, and political economy. He is the author of Conspiracy of Silence: The Insurgency in Southern Thailand (2008), Political Islam and Violence in Indonesia (2006), Militant Islam in Southeast Asia (2003), and Renovating Politics in Contemporary Vietnam (2001). He authored the Southeast Asian chapter in the acclaimed, study Leaving Terrorism Behind. In addition, he has authored four monographs on security issues in Southeast Asia.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:55 PM
Title: Re: Devas Remembering Past Lives
Content:
Yes, I did read it in a reliable source, but I'm afraid I've forgotten what it was.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:50 PM
Title: Re: Devas Remembering Past Lives
Content:
Yes. All beings of apparitional birth recall their former life.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:44 PM
Title: Re: Joke!!!
Content:
Dorothy &amp; Toto.jpg (29.66 KiB) Viewed 2879 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 21, 2015 11:51 AM
Title: Re: Melodic patterns in sutta recitations
Content:
My connection is too slow to watch your videos, but yes, there are logical explanations for all the regional styles of chanting, though discerning the patterns in the chants' melodies would be an easier task for a phonetician than for a musician or poet.

For example, in the most widely used method of chanting in Thailand, each Pali syllable is treated as if it were a Thai syllable and then pronounced according to the tonal rules of Thai. To a listener with no training in phonetics this will be most easily noticed in the following syllables, all of which have to be pronounced with a rising tone:

khā, khī, khū, khe, kho, khaṅ, khañ, khaṇ, khan, kham, khaṃ
chā, chī, chū, che, cho, chaṅ, chañ, chaṇ, chan, cham, chaṃ
ṭhā, ṭhī, ṭhū, ṭhe, ṭho, ṭhaṅ, ṭhañ, ṭhaṇ, ṭhan, ṭham, ṭhaṃ
thā, thī, thū, the, tho, thaṅ, thañ, thaṇ, than, tham, thaṃ
phā, phī, phū, phe, pho, phaṅ, phañ, phaṇ, phan, pham, phaṃ
sā, sī, sū, se, so, saṅ, sañ, saṇ, san, sam, saṃ
hā, hī, hū, he, ho, haṅ, hañ, haṇ, han, ham, haṃ

Why? Because in the Thai tonal system it's the rule that whenever one of the so-called "high-class consonants" (kha, cha, ṭha, tha, pha, sa, ha) is followed by a long vowel, or by a short vowel and then a nasal consonant, then that syllable will always require a rising tone. But this is just one tonal rule; there are about a dozen more one would need to learn to fully grasp the system. That being so, unless one is willing to learn the whole Thai tonal system, a would-be Thai-style chanter will found it far easier to just imitate chanters who do know it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 20, 2015 10:21 AM
Title: Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread
Content:
Interpreting "Dhamma-themed" rather liberally, here is Pashana Bedhi from the 1968 BBC children's serial The Herbs. When I was about three, Pashana was my very first exposure to Indian religiosity in general, and in particular to the celebrated simile of mistaking a rope for a snake.


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/ . 

“Suppose a timid man is pursued by a snake in a forest and flees from it as fast as he can, then if he sees a length of rope in the place he has fled to, he is fearful, anxious and will not even look at it.

“Here is the application of the simile. The time when the bhikkhu has the gross physical matter as his object is like the time when the man was threatened by the snake. The time when the bhikkhu surmounts the gross physical matter by means of the fourth jhāna of the fine-material sphere is like the man’s fleeing as fast as he can. The bhikkhu’s observing that even the matter of the kasiṇa is the counterpart of that gross physical matter and his wanting to surmount that also is like the man’s seeing the length of rope in the place he had fled to and his unwillingness to look owing to fear and anxiety.”
(Visuddhimagga, ch. 10)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:10 AM
Title: Re: Feedback on Site Update
Content:
On MacOS it works fine with the Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Tor and Camino browsers.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 18, 2015 7:58 PM
Title: Re: What has humanity actually achieved?
Content:
“rising above the apes”

“conquering and extirpating the dragons and monsters of the brine”

“evolving the moral theme”

“marching forward across the centuries to broad conceptions of compassion, of freedom, and of right”


And above all, the beautiful Ciceronian oratory that allowed Churchill to put all the above into a single paragraph...


“House of Many Mansions” Speech, 20 January 1940

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/ .

Transcript:
http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/Joybells.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 18, 2015 7:04 PM
Title: Re: Deadly blast rocks Thailand capital
Content:
It now looks as if both theories are wrong. The authorities are looking for the backpacker in the video below who was filmed leaving his backpack by the shrine. He doesn't look like a Thai at all.

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 Aug 18, 2015 4:52 PM
Title: Re: Deadly blast rocks Thailand capital
Content:
I'm aware of that, but it's irrelevant here, for the conflict in the south of Thailand is not one between rival sects of Muslims.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:19 AM
Title: Re: The bombing of Hiroshima was a war crime, why is there no apology?
Content:
Assuming of course that it was actually Burke who said it, which is a matter of doubt.

On my traditionalist conservatism forum we had a lengthy thread about this famous quotation a few years ago. Though it’s always attributed to Burke, none of us could actually find it in any of his extant works. The closest we got to it was this:

“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
(Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, 1770)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:10 AM
Title: Re: The bombing of Hiroshima was a war crime, why is there no apology?
Content:
Like Yeats a century and a half later, Burke was talking about the triumph of evil in a society, not in the minds of individuals.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 18, 2015 8:48 AM
Title: Re: Resources: Phenomenology
Content:
Edward S. Casey, Remembering Resumed: Pursuing Buddhism and Phenomenology in Practice.


 ./download/file.php?id=2702
(483.76 KiB) Downloaded 117 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Aug 18, 2015 7:56 AM
Title: Re: Deadly blast rocks Thailand capital
Content:
If it's southern Muslim terrorists, then planting a bomb in the vicinity of the Erawan shrine will reduce the likelihood of killing a fellow Muslim. If it's political terrorists, see Ven. Gavesako's links for the background.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 17, 2015 6:52 PM
Title: Re: What Dhamma Book are you reading right now?
Content:
Janet Gyatso (ed.)
In the Mirror of Memory - Reflections on Mindfulness and Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism


CONTENTS

Donald S. Lopez
Memories of the Buddha

Padmanabh S. Jaini
Smṛti in The Abhidharma Literature and the Development of Buddhist Accounts of Memory of the Past

Nyanaponika Thera
The Omission of Memory in the Theravadin List of Dhammas: On The Nature of Saññā

Collett Cox
Mindfulness and Memory: The Scope of Smṛti from Early Buddhism to the Sarvāstivādin Abhidharma

Paul J. Griffiths
Memory in Classical Indian Yogācāra

Alex Wayman
Buddhist Terms for Recollection and Other Types of Memory

Rupert Gethin
The Mātikās: Memorization, Mindfulness, and the List

Janet Gyatso
Letter Magic: A Peircean Perspective on the Semiotics of Rdo Grub-chen’s Dhāraṇī Memory

Paul Harrison
Commemoration and Identification in Buddhānusmṛti

Matthew Kapstein
The Amnesic Monarch and the Five Mnemic Men: “Memory” in Great Perfection (Rdzogs-chen) Thought

Edward S. Casey
Remembering Resumed: Pursuing Buddhism and Phenomenology in Practice


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 17, 2015 11:57 AM
Title: Re: What is the very first thing I should do?
Content:
Especially Ñāṇamoli's version of his life, now available in a free (and legal) download:

http://store.pariyatti.org/Life-of-the-Buddha--According-to-the-Pali-Canon--PDF-eBook_p_1412.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 17, 2015 11:26 AM
Title: Re: Looking for Sutta about who sees
Content:
Moḷiyaphagguna Sutta

https://suttacentral.net/en/sn12.12


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 17, 2015 11:14 AM
Title: Re: Romantic Love
Content:
Counting against such a possibility is the fact that the parallel sūtra in the Chinese Saṃyukta Āgama characterizes Migasālā in virtually identical terms. 

However, to anyone suspecting an interpolation by a misogynistic scribe I would note that the Pali word used for "woman" in the phrase "woman's intellect" is not one of the common words for a woman, but a rather rare and unflattering one. That being so, the passage cannot reasonably be construed as implying that weakness of intellect is characteristic of women in general.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 17, 2015 9:14 AM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
As I've said already:

1. In the early Buddhist texts there are sporadic mentions of a pre-Buddhist belief in plants as living, sentient beings.

2. These texts offer no conclusive evidence as to whether the Buddha and his disciples accepted these beliefs.

If you read the Vinaya Piṭaka you will find Prof. Schmitthausen has correctly represented matters. Reading it without the commentary there is no way of telling whether the Buddha himself held that plants possess the kāyindriya or was just ordering his monastic disciples to act in accordance with this widely held belief in order to avoid unnecessary social friction.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 17, 2015 9:00 AM
Title: Re: Romantic Love
Content:
The translation is by Sister Uppalavaṇṇā, who is extremely clumsy and careless. It might be less direct, but it's not a faithful translation of any of the passage's three variant readings.

Burmese: bālā abyattā ammakā ammakapaññā: foolish incompetent little nanny with a little nanny's intellect.

Sinhalese: bālā abyattā ambakā ambakapaññā: foolish incompetent mango-girl with a mango-girl's intellect. 

Thai: bālā abyattā andhakā andhakapaññā: foolish incompetent blind woman with a blind woman's intellect.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 17, 2015 8:25 AM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
In the Aṅguttara-ṭīkā, and in the Vajirabuddhi, the Sāratthadīpanī, and other Vinaya commentaries to the 11th Pācittiya rule and to the Vinaya Piṭaka's account of the origin of the vassa retreat, the belief that plants possess the body-faculty (kāyindriya) is described as "mere imagining" on the part of Jains and naked ascetics.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 17, 2015 8:04 AM
Title: Re: Romantic Love
Content:
The Suttas don't say.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 17, 2015 7:06 AM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
Not really. In fact Schmitthausen’s findings were that:

1. In the early Buddhist texts there are sporadic mentions of a pre-Buddhist belief in plants as living, sentient beings.

2. These texts offer no conclusive evidence as to whether the Buddha and his disciples accepted these beliefs.

3. In later texts the belief is explicitly rejected.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Aug 17, 2015 6:02 AM
Title: Re: Australia’s second-largest religion is being ‘ignored’
Content:
No, it isn’t necessary to publicly announce that one is a Buddhist if one is disinclined to do so. Unless one joins an outfit like Soka Gakkai, one won’t usually find among Buddhists that obsession with ‘witnessing’ that one finds so often among, say, evangelical Protestants and Muslims of a certain stripe. On the other hand, it is necessary to be truthful. When asked about one’s religious affiliation, the truthful answer, if one has gone for refuge, is “I am a Buddhist.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 16, 2015 11:20 PM
Title: Re: Romantic Love
Content:
Let me save you a few minutes...
Migasālā *

On one occasion the Blessed One was dwelling at Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park. Then, in the morning, the Venerable Ānanda dressed, took his bowl and robe, and went to the house of the female lay follower Migasālā, where he sat down on the seat prepared for him. Then the female lay disciple Migasālā approached the Venerable Ānanda, paid homage to him, sat down to one side, and said:

“Bhante Ānanda, just how should this teaching of the Blessed One be understood, where one who is celibate and one who is not celibate both have exactly the same destination in their future life? My father Purāṇa was celibate, living apart, abstaining from sexual intercourse, the common person’s practice. When he died, the Blessed One declared: ‘He attained to the state of a once-returner and has been reborn in the Tusita group [of devas].’ My paternal uncle Isidatta ** was not celibate but lived a contented married life. When he died, the Blessed One also declared: ‘He attained to the state of a once-returner and has been reborn in the Tusita group [of devas].’ Bhante Ānanda, just how should this teaching of the Blessed One be understood, where one who is celibate and one who is not celibate both have exactly the same destination in their future life?”

“It was just in this way, sister, that the Blessed One declared it.”

Then, when the Venerable Ānanda had received almsfood at Migasālā’s house, he rose from his seat and departed. After his meal, on returning from his alms round, he went to the Blessed One, paid homage to him, sat down to one side, and said: “Here, Bhante, in the morning, I dressed, took my bowl and robe, and went to the house of the female lay follower Migasālā…. [all as above, down to] … When she asked me this, I replied: ‘It was just in this way, sister, that the Blessed One declared it.’”

[The Blessed One said:] “Who, indeed, is the female lay follower Migasālā, a foolish, incompetent woman with a woman’s intellect? And who are those [who have] the knowledge of other persons as superior and inferior? ***

“There are, Ānanda, these ten types of persons found existing in the world. What ten?

(1) “Here, Ānanda, there is one person who is immoral and does not understand as it really is that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, where that immorality of his ceases without remainder.**** And he has not listened [to the teachings], become learned [in them], penetrated [them] by view, and he does not attain temporary liberation. With the breakup of the body, after death, he heads for deterioration, not for distinction; he is one going to deterioration, not to distinction.

(2) “Then, Ānanda, there is one person who is immoral yet understands as it really is that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, where that immorality of his ceases without remainder. And he has listened [to the teachings], become learned [in them], penetrated [them] by view, and he attains temporary liberation. With the breakup of the body, after death, he heads for distinction, not for deterioration; he is one going to distinction, not to deterioration.

“Ānanda, those who are judgmental will pass such judgment on them: ‘This one has the same qualities as the other. Why should one be inferior and the other superior?’ That [judgment] of theirs will indeed lead to their harm and suffering for a long time.

“Between them, Ānanda, the person who is immoral, and who understands as it really is that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, where that immorality of his ceases without remainder; who has listened [to the teachings], become learned [in them], penetrated [them] by view, and who attains temporary liberation, surpasses and excels the other person. For what reason? Because the Dhamma-stream carries him along. But who can know this difference except the Tathāgata?

“Therefore, Ānanda, do not be judgmental regarding people. Do not pass judgment on people. Those who pass judgment on people harm themselves. I alone, or one like me, may pass judgment on people.

(3) “Then, Ānanda, there is one person who is virtuous yet does not understand as it really is that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, where that virtuous behavior of his ceases without remainder. And he has not listened [to the teachings] … he does not attain temporary liberation. With the breakup of the body, after death, he heads for deterioration, not for distinction; he is one going to deterioration, not to distinction.

(4) “Then, Ānanda, there is one person who is virtuous and understands as it really is that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, where that virtuous behavior of his ceases without remainder. And he has listened [to the teachings] … and he attains temporary liberation. With the breakup of the body, after death, he heads for distinction, not for deterioration; he is one going to distinction, not to deterioration.

“Ānanda, those who are judgmental will pass such judgment on them … I alone, or one like me, may pass judgment on people.

(5) “Then, Ānanda, there is one person who is strongly prone to lust and does not understand as it really is that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, where that lust of his ceases without remainder. And he has not listened [to the teachings] … he does not attain temporary liberation. With the breakup of the body, after death, he heads for deterioration, not for distinction; he is one going to deterioration, not to distinction.

(6) “Then, Ānanda, there is one person who is strongly prone to lust yet understands as it really is that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, where that lust of his ceases without remainder. And he has listened [to the teachings] … and he attains temporary liberation. With the breakup of the body, after death, he heads for distinction, not for deterioration; he is one going to distinction, not to deterioration.

“Ānanda, those who are judgmental will pass such judgment on them…. I alone, or one like me, may pass judgment on people.

(7) “Then, Ānanda, there is one person who is prone to anger and does not understand as it really is that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, where that anger of his ceases without remainder. And he has not listened [to the teachings] … he does not attain temporary liberation. With the breakup of the body, after death, he heads for deterioration, not for distinction; he is one going to deterioration, not to distinction.

(8) “Then, Ānanda, there is one person who is prone to anger yet understands as it really is that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, where that anger of his ceases without remainder. And he has listened [to the teachings] … he attains temporary liberation. With the breakup of the body, after death, he heads for distinction, not for deterioration; he is one going to distinction, not to deterioration.

“Ānanda, those who are judgmental will pass such judgment on them…. I alone, or one like me, may pass judgment on people.

(9) “Then, Ānanda, there is one person who is restless and does not understand as it really is that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, where that restlessness of his ceases without remainder. And he has not listened [to the teachings] … he does not attain temporary liberation. With the breakup of the body, after death, he heads for deterioration, not for distinction; he is one going to deterioration, not to distinction.

(10) “Then, Ānanda, there is one person who is restless yet understands as it really is that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, where that restlessness of his ceases without remainder. And he has listened [to the teachings], become learned [in them], penetrated [them] by view, and he attains temporary liberation. With the breakup of the body, after death, he heads for distinction, not for deterioration; he is one going to distinction, not to deterioration.

“Ānanda, those who are judgmental will pass such judgment on them: ‘This one has the same qualities as the other. Why should one be inferior and the other superior?’ That [judgment] of theirs will indeed lead to their harm and suffering for a long time.

“Between them, Ānanda, the person who is restless, and who understands as it really is that liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, where that restlessness of his ceases without remainder; who has listened [to the teachings], become learned [in them], penetrated [them] by view, and who attains temporary liberation, surpasses and excels the other person. For what reason? Because the Dhamma-stream carries him along. But who can know this difference except the Tathāgata?

“Therefore, Ānanda, do not be judgmental regarding people. Do not pass judgment on people. Those who pass judgment on people harm themselves. I alone, or one like me, may pass judgment on people.

“Who, indeed, is the female lay follower Migasālā, a foolish, incompetent woman with a woman’s intellect? And who are those [who have] the knowledge of other persons as superior and inferior?

“These are the ten types of persons found existing in the world.

“Ānanda, if Isidatta had possessed the same kind of virtuous behavior that Purāṇa had, Purāṇa could not have even known his destination. And if Purāṇa had possessed the same kind of wisdom that Isidatta had, Isidatta could not have even known his destination. In this way, Ānanda, these two persons were each deficient in one respect.”

NOTES

* A part-parallel of 6:44, with similar setting but different contents.

** Ce pettā pi yo; Be pitāmaho, Ee pettā piyo. PED explains pitāmahā (under pitar) as “grandfather,” which seems unlikely here. PED, under pettāpiya (epic Skt pitṛvya), gives “father’s brother, paternal uncle,” which can thus support Ce and Ee if the spaces are eliminated. See too pp. 1758–59, note 1330.

*** I take Ce –ñāṇo here to be a misprint for –ñāṇe, which occurs in the repetition of the statement toward the end of the sutta. In 6:44, Ce has –ñāṇe in both places.

**** Dussīlyaṃ aparisesaṃ nirujjhati. Mp: “Here, the five kinds of immorality are abandoned by the path of stream-entry; the ten [courses of unwholesome kamma], by the path of arahantship. At the moment of fruition they are said to have been abandoned. By nirujjhati the text here refers to the moment of fruition. A worldling breaks virtuous behavior in five ways: by committing a pārājika offense, by giving up the training, by joining another sect, by reaching arahantship, and by death. The first three lead to the decline of development, the fourth to its growth, and the fifth neither to decline nor growth. But how is virtuous behavior broken by reaching arahantship? Because a worldling can have extremely wholesome virtuous behavior, but the path of arahantship leads to the destruction of wholesome and unwholesome kamma; thus it is broken in that way.” This, it should be pointed out, is explained from the Abhidhamma standpoint, according to which an arahant’s actions, being mere activities (kiriya) without kammic result, are not classified as either wholesome or unwholesome. In the language of the suttas, however, they would be described as extremely wholesome.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 16, 2015 11:05 PM
Title: Re: Ajahn Pannavaddho, Uncommon Wisdom, Thai?
Content:
See the Thai edition of the talks the ajahn gave at Hampstead Vihara in 1974. In particular his answer to the question that starts: "เรื่องจิตไม่ตาย อยู่ถาวร ที่ท่านอธิบายวานนี้ ..."

http://www.luangta.com/upload/ThammaBook/content/20040116161836.doc


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:13 PM
Title: Re: Australia’s second-largest religion is being ‘ignored’
Content:
Even when illusory identities are removed one may, and indeed must, still use the “names, expressions turns of speech, designations in common use in the world,” only without being led astray by them. See the Poṭṭhapāda and the Araṇavibhaṅga Suttas.

http://metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/1Digha-Nikaya/Digha1/09-potthapada-e.html

http://www.bps.lk/olib/wh/wh269-u.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Aug 16, 2015 10:46 AM
Title: Re: The bombing of Hiroshima was a war crime, why is there no apology?
Content:
I would suggest that it is "just your experience". If you spent more time conversing with ābhidhammikas you'd be reporting that: "Whenever Buddhist ethics are discussed, kamma is always presented in terms of the three kusala and three akusala roots that determine the moral quality of the conascent cetanās of wholesome and unwholesome consciousnesses."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 15, 2015 9:22 PM
Title: Re: Romantic Love
Content:
It may be beneficial or detrimental. It’s most likely to be beneficial when the decision to undertake it is prompted by saṃvega and the paññā that discerns the peril in sense-pleasures and the advantage of renouncing them. It’s less likely to be so when a person is weak in paññā, such that his decision is prompted by something else, such as aversion or sīlabbataparāmāsa.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 15, 2015 7:32 PM
Title: Re: Australia’s second-largest religion is being ‘ignored’
Content:
Because Buddhists were called "sons/daughters of the Sakyan" in those days.


