Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 9, 2009 2:26 PM
Title: Re: What's a gelatin, liquid crystal, or plasma?
Content:
They are an abhidhammic concern, but only as external ayatanas of our own eyes, ears etc.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 9, 2009 1:51 PM
Title: Re: What's a gelatin, liquid crystal, or plasma?
Content:
Yes, for satipatthana with respect to external dhammas means the dhammas belonging to another being.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 9, 2009 1:23 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
arses


Our faces to the ground
And arses to the sky...
Forever.
(from a Thai harvesting song)



harvest.jpg (170.33 KiB) Viewed 1510 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 9, 2009 9:32 AM
Title: Re: Question about etymology.
Content:
There are a great many words in the two languages that derive from common roots, but not as many as in the Slavic languages.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 9, 2009 9:09 AM
Title: Re: Happy birthday venerable Dhammanando!
Content:
Thai sawdust cakes of the more arabesque sort...



cakes.jpg (144.23 KiB) Viewed 2662 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 9, 2009 9:01 AM
Title: Re: Happy birthday venerable Dhammanando!
Content:
Cake-making is not really a strong point of Thai cuisine. Cakes are usually made out of rice flour and nearly always taste like sawdust. They are, however, nicely decorated.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 9, 2009 8:57 AM
Title: Re: Boxing and karma
Content:
As Ledi Sayadaw ordained very young and was reputedly strict in his Vinaya observance, I suspect he may not have had a very accurate idea about rugby etc.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 9, 2009 1:20 AM
Title: Re: What's a gelatin, liquid crystal, or plasma?
Content:
It isn't normally the rupa that serves as the basis for sakkaya-ditthi with respect to matter. At least not in the case of humans. (Tree devatas who deludedly believe themselves to be trees are another story).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 8, 2009 10:24 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
ebony


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 8, 2009 10:12 PM
Title: Re: What's a gelatin, liquid crystal, or plasma?
Content:
Ditto.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 6, 2009 10:52 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
ha


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 6, 2009 10:49 AM
Title: Re: Happy Birthday Bubbabuddhist!
Content:
Happy birthday, John!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 6, 2009 10:26 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Mictlantecuhtl


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 6, 2009 2:49 AM
Title: Re: Happy birthday venerable Dhammanando!
Content:
In the case of very senior or very famous monks the laity might arrange a birthday party. The rest mostly just follow the general Thai birthday practice of doing some kind of merit-making act such as freeing a captive fish or a turtle, or offering gifts to their fellow monks.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 6, 2009 2:41 AM
Title: Re: Happy birthday venerable Dhammanando!
Content:
The Thais have been calling me luang phor for years. Ever since the first grey hairs began appearing.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 6, 2009 2:38 AM
Title: Re: Happy birthday venerable Dhammanando!
Content:
Thanks everyone!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 6, 2009 2:38 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
pliskie


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 5, 2009 5:58 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Monkees


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 5, 2009 5:56 PM
Title: Re: Happy to say hello!
Content:
Hi Saschwartz,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 5, 2009 11:01 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
body odour


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 5, 2009 6:31 AM
Title: Re: Physical pain - nama or rupa?
Content:
Painful bodily feeling is the vedanā that accompanies the fifth of the seven types of unwholesome-resultant consciousness (akusala-vipāka citta), namely, unwholesome-resultant bodily consciousness accompanied by pain (dukkhasahagataṃ kāyaviññāṇaṃ). The basis (vatthu) of this citta is rūpa, but the citta itself and the vedanā are nāma.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 5, 2009 4:00 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Sgian dubh


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 5, 2009 3:50 AM
Title: Re: How to handle doubts (vicikicchā)?
Content:
One further remark:

What I wrote in my last post concerns Sutta usage. In the Abhidhamma, however, vicikicchā is never wholesome or neutral, but is always an unwholesome mental factor. The question sometimes arises as to how to reconcile the abhidhammic claim that vicikicchā is always bad with those sutta passages in which this seems not to be the case. One does so as follows:

1. When vicikicchā is being commended in the Suttas, it is to be understood as referring to the mental factor of understanding (paññā), with the Buddha using the word 'vicikicchā' merely to conform to common worldly usage.

2. Ethically indifferent doubt, such as wondering how to get to Rājagaha when one arrives at a crossroad, is referred to as a "counterfeit of a hindrance". Abhidhammically this is described not in terms of the presence of the mental factor of vicikicchā, but rather, in terms of the absence of the mental factor of decision (adhimokkha).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 5, 2009 3:37 AM
Title: Re: How to handle doubts (vicikicchā)?
Content:
It's true that there is an implicit distinction in the Suttas between (1) unwholesome doubt (e.g., scepticism regarding the qualities of the Triple Gem), (2) commendable doubt (e.g., when one doubts doubtworthy claims, as in the opening to the Kālāma Sutta), and (3) ethically indifferent doubt (e.g., wondering whether one should go left or right to get to Rājagaha).

However, these distinctions need to be determined contextually. They have nothing to do with which word for doubt the Buddha happens to use. In the Suttas the various words for doubt (kaṅkhā, vicikicchā, vimati, saṃsaya etc.), along with the verbs from which they derive, are all used synonymously and interchangeably.
Here, a monk is doubtful (kaṅkhati) and vacillates (vicikicchati) regarding the Teacher; he is dissatisfied and cannot settle in his mind. Thus his mind is not inclined towards ardour, devotion, persistence and effort.
(DN. iii. 278)

It is fitting for you, Kālāmas, to be sceptical (kaṅkhituṃ); it is fitting for you to doubt (vicikicchituṃ). Doubt (vicikicchā) has arisen in you in a doubtworthy (kaṅkhanīya) matter.
(AN. i. 189)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 5, 2009 1:28 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Éamon de Valera (founder of Fianna Fáil)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 5, 2009 1:16 AM
Title: Re: Commentary on...
Content:
Cześć, here's my translation...
The Blessed One is the source of them, thus they are "sourced in the Blessed One" (or: "with the Blessed One as their source"). This is said: "Bhante, these dhammas of ours were made manifest in the past by Kassapa, the Perfectly Awakened One. When he attained final Nibbana, for one Buddha-interval there was no other ascetic or brahmin who was capable of making these dhammas manifest. But [now] these dhammas have been made manifest for us by the Blessed One. Having indeed relied upon the Blessed One, we directly understand and penetrate these dhammas, thus [we say] "For us, bhante, dhammas have their source in the Blessed One."

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 3, 2009 9:15 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
David Niven


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 2, 2009 8:42 PM
Title: Re: Do we create karma every second
Content:
Well, actually there are, because not every ethically significant (i.e. wholesome or unwholesome) mental process will be adequate to generate a kamma. For example, in the case of unwholesome mental processes, if they are of too brief a duration or too weak an intensity to bring about any of the akusala kammapaṭha (killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, frivolous speeech, covetousness, ill will, or wrong view), then they won't create any unwholesome kamma.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 2, 2009 7:53 PM
Title: Re: Do we create karma every second
Content:
Right.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 2, 2009 7:42 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Esrom


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 2, 2009 12:50 PM
Title: Re: Disrobing
Content:
Possibly. Though there's no limit in theory, in practice if a man were to make a habit of ordaining and disrobing then it's likely that many abbots would end up rejecting his request once they came to know of his past history. In colloquial Thai there's an expression, "ordained five times," which is applied to men with a reputation for fickleness and unreliability.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 2, 2009 12:25 PM
Title: Re: Do we create karma every second
Content:
Not every moment. During sleep there is just an uninterrupted succession of existence-continuum consciousnesses (bhavanga-citta). These are resultant consciousnesses (vipāka-citta) that are identical to the resultant consciousness with which our present life began. A resultant consciousness does not create any new kamma.

While awake no kamma is created during sense-door processes such as seeing, hearing etc., for these too consist of resultant consciousnesses. It is during the mind-door processes that follow a sense-door process that kamma is created, either through the arising of one or another of the ten unwholesome courses of action (akusala kammapaṭha), or one or another of the eight great sense-sphere wholesome consciousnesses, or (in the case of samatha cultivators), one of the refined material sphere or immaterial sphere wholesome consciousnesses.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 2, 2009 9:50 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
veal


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 1, 2009 6:10 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
It means "Teaspoon Lady", though to English children she is better known as Mrs. Pepperpot. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alf_Fr%C3%B8ysen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Pepperpot" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 1, 2009 5:35 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Teskjekjerringa


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 1, 2009 11:55 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
from Dennis the Constitutional Peasant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOOTKA0aGI0


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 1, 2009 11:51 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
farcical aquatic ceremony


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 1, 2009 9:54 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Don Quixote


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 1, 2009 9:00 AM
Title: Re: Commentary on...
Content:
Don't forget the pronoun!

"Bhagava.mmuulakaa no, bhante, dhammaa"

"For us, bhante, doctrines have their source in the Blessed One," or, "Our doctrines, bhante, have their source in the Blessed One."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 1, 2009 6:28 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Mopsa


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 1, 2009 2:07 AM
Title: Re: New Sutta anthology
Content:
From Gethin’s translation of the Sigala Sutta:
‘A son of a good family should look after the direction above as ascetics and brahmans in five respects: with friendliness in acts of body, with friendliness in acts of speech, with friendliness in acts of thought, by keeping his doors open to them, by providing them with their material needs. When a son of a good family looks after the direction above as ascetics and brahmans in these five respects, then they show him sympathy in six respects: they keep him from what is bad; they encourage him in what is good; they show their sympathy with kind thoughts; they tell him what he hasn’t heard before; they clarify what he has heard before; they explain the path to heaven. When a son of a good family looks after the direction above as ascetics and brahmans in these five respects, then they show him sympathy in these six respects, and in this way the direction above is covered by him and kept safe from danger.’

So, when you read it for the first time you will be hearing what you haven’t heard before, and when you read it for the second time your understanding will be clarified.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 1, 2009 1:44 AM
Title: Re: Pronunciation nightmares: uposatha and upasaka make me cry
Content:
And what we know as a "subway", I expect David would know as a "pedestrian underpass".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 1, 2009 1:16 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
craven


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 31, 2009 9:59 PM
Title: New Sutta anthology
Content:
Greetings,

Just a note to announce the publication of a fine new anthology of Pali Suttas, collected and translated by the Pali Text Society president, Rupert Gethin.

Sayings of the Buddha: new translations from the Pali Nikāyas

http://www.wisdom-books.com/ProductDetail.asp?PID=18311

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


_______________________________

Contents....


Dīgha Nikāya

The Fruits of the Ascetic Life – Sāmaññaphala-sutta (D. i 47–86)

The Buddha’s Final Nibbāna – Mahāparinibbāna-sutta (D. ii 72–168)

King Mahāsudassana – Mahāsudassana-sutta (D. ii 169–199)

The Origin of Things – Aggañña-sutta (D. iii 80–98)

Advice to Sigāla – Sigālovāda-sutta (D. iii 180–193)


Majjhima Nikāya

Establishing Mindfulness – Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta (M. i 55–63)

The Stilling of Thoughts – Vitakkasaṇṭhāna-sutta (M. i 118–122)

The Simile of the Snake – Alagaddūpama-sutta (M. i 130 – 142)

The Short Dialogue with Māluṅkya – Cūḷa-māluṅkya-sutta (M. i 426–432)

The Dialogue with Prince Bodhi – Bodhirājakumāra-sutta (M. ii 91–97)

The Analysis of acts – Mahā-kammavibhaṅga-sutta (M. iii 207–215)


Samyutta Nikāya

(From the Chapter with Verses – Sagātha-vagga)

Rohitassa (S. i 61–62)

(From the Chapter on Causes – Nidāna-vagga)

Analysis (S. ii 2–4)

Specific Basis (S. ii 29–32)

(From the Chapter on the Aggregates – Khandha-vagga)

Nakulapitar (S. iii 1–5)

Foam (S. iii 140–143)

(From the Chapter on the Six Sense Spheres – Saḷāyatana-vagga)

Burning (S. iv 19–20)

Illness (S. iv 46–47)

(From the Great Chapter – Mahā-vagga)

[Grouped sayings on the path]
Ignorance (S. v 1–2)

The Ganges Repetition (S. v 38–41, etc.)

[Grouped sayings on the seven constituents of awakening]
Fire (S. v 112–115)

The Ganges Repetition (S. v 134, 137)

[Grouped sayings on the four ways of establishing mindfulness]
The Monkey (S. v 148–150)

The Ganges Repetition (S. v 189)

[Grouped sayings on the five faculties]
Sāketa (S. v 219–220)

The Ganges Repetition (S. v 239, 241)

[Grouped sayings on the four ways of right application]
The Ganges Repetition (S. v 244–245)

[Grouped sayings on the five powers]
The Ganges Repetition (S. v 249, 251)

[Grouped sayings on the four bases of accomplishment]
moggallāna (S. v 269–271)

The Ganges Repetition (S. v 290–1)

[Grouped sayings on the four absorptions]
The Ganges Repetition (S. v 307–308)

[Grouped sayings on the truths]
Turning the Wheel of Truth (S. v 420–424)


Aṅguttara Nikāya

From the Section of Ones
A Finger-snap (A. i 11)

From the Section of Twos
Mother and Father (A. i 61–62)

From the Section of Threes
Kesaputta (A. i 188–193)

From the Section of Fours
Jānussoni (A. ii 173–176)

From the Section of Fives
Excited by the Senses (A. iii 5–6)

From the Section of Sixes
Mahācunda (A. iii 355–356)

From the Section of Sevens
Araka (A. iv 136–139)

From the Section of Eights
Worldly Qualities (A. iv 157–160)

From the Section of Nines
Sutavat (A. iv 369–371)

From the Section of Tens
A Lion’s Roar (A. v 32–36)

From the Section of Elevens
Friendliness (A. v 342)

_______________________________
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 31, 2009 7:52 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
fifty ways


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 31, 2009 5:52 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Doctor Mac

http://www.bartleby.com/6/280.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 31, 2009 10:11 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
"Je m'en vais..."

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 26, 2009 3:21 PM
Title: Re: Disrobing
Content:
The Vinaya Piṭaka's Cullavagga (Vin. ii. 279)

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 26, 2009 2:43 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Amakusa Shirō


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 26, 2009 9:34 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
mercury poisoning


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 26, 2009 6:08 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Lawn


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 26, 2009 5:54 AM
Title: Re: Satipatthana: Internal and external contemplation
Content:
In the commentarial understanding it would depend on who "you" refers to. If it is someone who has mastered the jhanas and developed knowledge of the penetration of others minds (cetopariya-ñana), then he will contemplate external dhammas at those moments when he is penetrating others' minds, or just after having done so. If he hasn't developed this power then he will contemplate internal dhammas only, because these are the only dhammas that will be available to contemplate.

This commentarial view is supported by the Janavasabhasutta (DN. 18), in which the capacity for external satipatthana arises as a result of concentration developed by means of internal satipatthana:
This was the burden of Brahma Sanankumara’s speech. He went on: ‘What do my lords of the Thirty-Three think? How well has the Lord Buddha who knows and sees pointed out the four foundations of mindfulness for the attainment of that which is good! What are they? Here a monk abides contemplating the body as body, earnestly, clearly aware, mindful and having put away all hankering and fretting for the world. As he thus dwells contemplating his own body as body, he becomes perfectly concentrated and perfectly serene. Being thus calm and serene, he gains knowledge and vision externally of the bodies of others.

‘He abides contemplating his own feelings as feelings, ... he abides contemplating his own mind as mind,... he abides contemplating his own mind-objects as mind-objects, earnestly, clearly aware, mindful and having put away all hankering and fretting for the world. As he thus dwells contemplating his own mind-objects as mind-objects, he becomes perfectly concentrated and perfectly serene. Being thus calm and serene, he gains knowledge and vision externally of the mind-objects of others. These are the four foundations of mindfulness well pointed out by the Lord Buddha who knows and sees, for the attainment of that which is good.’
(DN. ii. 216, Walshe trans.)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 25, 2009 11:53 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Ephesians


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 25, 2009 1:28 PM
Title: Re: Offering almsfood to monks and nuns
Content:
Hi Guy,

This guide by Ven. Ariyesako covers most of the questions that laypeople might have concerning their dealings with bhikkhus:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/ariyesako/layguide.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 25, 2009 1:17 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
beret


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 25, 2009 12:03 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
albatross


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 25, 2009 12:53 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Bo Duddley


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 24, 2009 8:01 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Rāmprāsad Sen


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 24, 2009 11:40 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Ratatoskr


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 24, 2009 11:36 AM
Title: Re: Smilies...
Content:
They are just thumping each other with electric toasters. It's not a very sensible thing to do, but nor is it a breach of the fifth precept.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 24, 2009 10:49 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Freyja


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 24, 2009 10:21 AM
Title: Re: robe question
Content:
Hi JC,

It's called a saṅghāṭi and was originally prescribed for use in cold weather. It still serves this purpose for thudong monks and monks living in cooler climes, but for everyone else it is now merely decorative.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 23, 2009 11:17 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Douglas Bader


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 23, 2009 10:02 PM
Title: Re: Buddhism and Self Defence
Content:
The clause you’re referring to comes under the pācittiya rule prohibiting a bhikkhu from striking a fellow bhikkhu. The section of the Vinaya where this rule is laid down contains supplementary rulings covering other kinds of assault by a bhikkhu. One of the rulings is that it’s no offence if a bhikkhu is attacked and strikes the attacker only in order to effect his escape.
anāpatti kenaci viheṭhīyamāno mokkhādhippāyo pahāraṃ deti

“There is no offence if, being in some difficulty, he gives a blow desiring freedom.”
(Vin. iv. 146. I.B. Horner trans.)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 23, 2009 9:23 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
I don't know why I associate Woolworths with purity. Probably just brainwashed by adverts at an impressionable age.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 23, 2009 3:35 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Woolworths


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 23, 2009 9:39 AM
Title: Re: Merit
Content:
1. In addition to the mental factors that generate puñña, there are those that generate its opposite, pāpa, which ripens in pain.
2. Puñña can't be generated just because one wants it to be, or wants the fruits that it brings, for the conditions responsible for it are anattā, hence out of one's control.
3. Even if there were only puñña, and no pāpa, there would still be dukkha, for puñña ripens as pleasurable feeling, but even pleasurable feeling is included in the dukkha of formations.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri May 22, 2009 8:52 PM
Title: Re: Do bodhisattas have partners?
Content:
I don't know. I haven't heard much about Luang Phor Waen except that old story about how he would fly through the air and overtake aeroplanes.

The one whom I’ve heard most about is Ajahn Weun, a disciple of Ajahn Laa and one of the teachers of the veteran American forest monk Tan Dhammachando (Tan Chad). This was supposedly a case of husband and wife formerly vowing to attain Buddhahood and Buddha-wifehood, but Tan Weun changed his mind and then found himself being pestered by his wife-turned-nāga. He first tried to get rid of her using the saiyasaat that he’d studied before ordaining, but she was too powerful to be overcome in this way. In the end he developed fire kasina and then expanded the nimitta into a wall of fire surrounding himself. The she-nāga couldn’t get through the fire and Weun attained arahantship after she’d given up and gone away. So they say.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri May 22, 2009 6:31 PM
Title: Re: Do bodhisattas have partners?
Content:
In the Jātakas' depiction of the future Gotama Buddha, he and the future Rāhulamātā didn’t get to meet in every single life, but in those lives when they did meet they were always partners. But their partnership wasn’t always sexual — in some lives they were both ascetics.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri May 22, 2009 9:28 AM
Title: Re: Merit
Content:
Merit is a spiritual currency.

For example, for progress in Dhamma to be possible one needs to encounter a faithworthy object — the Buddha, Dhamma or Sangha, or something representing these. Each such encounter will consist in the arising of a sense-door process comprising wholesome resultant consciousnesses (kusala vipaka-cittas — eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness etc.) that have one of the three jewels as their object. These cittas don't arise from nothing, but rather, are paid for by past merit. ("There's no such thing as a free vipāka-citta," as Milton Friedman might say).

Where the currency of merit differs from ordinary currency is that one can't get it by being greedy for it. An act of giving, for example, is puñña only to the extent that it is motivated by a non-greed-rooted consciousness.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri May 22, 2009 8:57 AM
Title: Re: Do bodhisattas have partners?
Content:
No, it isn't.  

The north-east region of Thailand —where most of these monks come from— is a rather macho culture that prefers rugged tough guy heroes to romantic ones. For the latter one would need to read hagiographies of Bangkok monks like Somdet Toh.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri May 22, 2009 8:30 AM
Title: Re: Do bodhisattas have partners?
Content:
Like when the Buddha sent Mara packing.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 21, 2009 7:46 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
courteysie


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 21, 2009 3:56 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Ernie Wise


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 21, 2009 2:59 PM
Title: Re: Do bodhisattas have partners?
Content:
In the more usual "apadana" narrative in Thai monk hagiographies, when the monk changes his mind and starts striving for arahantship (rather than paccekabodhi or sammasambodhi), the wife who's been tagging along with him through countless lives does not remain on good terms with him. In the life in which the male changes his mind, the female will usually be born as a yakkhini or a female naga. Incensed at what she perceives as a betrayal of their joint vows she will do her utmost to spoil his meditation, until the heroic arahant-to-be finally vanquishes her with the power of his samadhi.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 21, 2009 2:49 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
telegraph


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 21, 2009 2:14 PM
Title: Re: 10fold path?
Content:
I would say so. The professor, it seems, wishes to rely on the suttas alone, but sammā-ñāṇa and sammā-vimutti are never defined in the Sutta Piṭaka (nor even in the Abhidhamma Piṭaka), and there are umpteen things that get denoted ‘ñāṇa’ or ‘vimutti’. So if one takes a suttas-only approach one will have no option here than to resort to guesswork.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 20, 2009 11:09 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Arimathea


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 20, 2009 7:21 PM
Title: Re: Music for Buddhists?
Content:
Horrible! They haven’t a clue. It's even worse than the Ambedkarite chanting that's been getting so popular in Thailand lately.
“Beat is not rhythm, but the last sad skeleton of rhythm, stripped bare of human life.”
– Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music, p. 502.

https://tinyurl.com/qnntns" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 20, 2009 6:11 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Full day behind the tamarisks –the sky is blue and staring–
As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke,
And they bear one o’er the field-path, who is past all hope or caring,
To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke.

http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/8426/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 19, 2009 7:33 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Poppies.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 19, 2009 3:51 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Sir Henry...


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 19, 2009 2:32 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
joiner


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 19, 2009 12:10 AM
Title: Re: Chakras and Buddhism
Content:
No.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 18, 2009 4:57 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Bacchus


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 18, 2009 4:56 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
That Eeyore's just too darn cheerful.


“The bright side of it,” said Puddleglum, “is that if we break our necks getting down the cliff, then we're safe from being drowned in the river.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 18, 2009 2:55 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Actually it was Rev. Robert Burton, author ofThe Anatomy of Melancholy, but never mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burton_%28scholar%29


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 18, 2009 10:35 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Burton


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 18, 2009 1:50 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
mummy


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 17, 2009 10:33 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Oyster

(A noisy noise annoys an oyster).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 17, 2009 10:26 PM
Title: Re: Bhikkhuni ordination...
Content:
Yes, though I would add that it wouldn't necessarily make the Vinaya account false, as is sometimes asserted by modernists. For the Buddha might have had the intention to eventually do it, but in the meantime feigned reluctance (as in the Brahmā Sahampati episode). He even lays down a Vinaya allowance for bhikkhus to behave like this in some circumstances.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 17, 2009 10:17 PM
Title: Re: Bhikkhuni ordination...
Content:
Right. All the suttas in which the earlier conversation is reported take place during the narrative leading up to the parinibbāna.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 17, 2009 9:43 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
divine ear


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 17, 2009 11:22 AM
Title: Re: Yikes! People are noticing the change in me.
Content:
Well, in fact there is a place for it. The Buddha commended the "divine abiding" of muditā —empathetic joy at the success or happiness of others— as a quality worth developing. And when muditā arises, the wholesome consciousness that it accompanies may well generate those mind-produced derivative materialities known as bodily intimation and verbal intimation, conventionally taking such forms as 'clapping', 'cheering' and suchlike.

However, not every sort of success or happiness is worthy of muditā. For example, a successful bank robber wouldn't be a suitable object for muditā, nor would a happy person whose happiness is delusional. For these persons the appropriate divine abiding is not muditā but compassion.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 17, 2009 11:03 AM
Title: Re: Sunim's Ranch
Content:
Hi David,

Thanks for posting these. I think I recognize the Sinhalese Korean-ordained Zen bhikshu. He (or someone who looked very like him) once spent a night here at Wat Benjama back in the late 80's. I think he's the most argumentative monk I've ever met. If you said almost any sentence containing the word "is" you'd be sure to get the Pythonesque reply, "No, it isn't!"

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 17, 2009 10:46 AM
Title: Re: Yikes! People are noticing the change in me.
Content:
In the Dhammapada commentary, to whom does the arahant Mahākappina exclaim, ‘aho sukhaṃ’?
In the Udāna and Vinaya, to whom does the arahant Bhaddiya exclaim, ‘aho sukhaṃ’?

In both cases it would appear that the elders are talking to themselves, unaware that there are other monks in the vicinity, and thus not intending to make any impression on anyone. This can be more clearly seen in the Bhaddiya narrative, which is explicit that the elder would make this exclamation while dwelling at tree roots or in empty places. That being so, their ‘aho sukhaṃ’ utterances are not ‘proclamations’.

Now if Mahākappina and Bhaddiya had gone into the midst of assemblies of bhikkhus, or into crowded marketplaces, and yelled out, ‘Woo hoo, look at me!’ then the comparison of yourself with them might be apt. But since they did nothing of the kind, there is simply no comparing their ‘aho sukhaṃ’ with yours.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 17, 2009 8:14 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Ovid


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 17, 2009 7:35 AM
Title: Re: Vinaya & sutta
Content:
I'm not sure what you mean by this. The Khuddakapatha is a tiny collection of suttas in the Khuddaka Nikāya. It has nothing to do with Vinaya. Are you perhaps thinking of the "lesser and minor rules of training" (khuddānukhuddaka-sikkhāpada)?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 16, 2009 8:59 PM
Title: Re: Pali Primer Study Group (Lily de Silva)
Content:
Except in grammatical exercises like this, I would probably translate it:

After collecting flowers and giving them to their uncle, the children laugh.
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 16, 2009 5:35 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Unamuno

"A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about."

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/miguel_de_unamuno.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 16, 2009 3:27 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Vole.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 16, 2009 10:08 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Chutney


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 16, 2009 10:06 AM
Title: Re: Nibbāna
Content:
The short answer is that some suttas do seem to suggest that, while others suggest that nibbana is something more than that. Since different suttas might be read as supporting different conceptions of nibbana, a major part of the interpretive task is to determine which utterances should be taken as requiring further elaboration or qualification and which should be treated as definitive. Disagreement on this question appears to have been a major cause of the controversies regarding nibbana among the Indian Buddhist schools.

I have to go out now, but I have more to write later in reply to your question. In the meantime you might find the attached article of interest. It's an excerpt from Noa Ronkin's recent book, Early Buddhist Metaphysics.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


 ./download/file.php?id=135
(261.34 KiB) Downloaded 143 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 16, 2009 9:25 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Brine.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 16, 2009 2:23 AM
Title: Re: Vinaya & sutta
Content:
Apart from the bhikkhuni-patimokkha I don't think there is very much that's not covered in the two volumes of Ven. Thanissaro's Buddhist Monastic Code. The first volume covers all of the bhikkhu-patimokkha, while the second covers the extra-patimokkha rules and descriptions of procedural matters preserved in the Khandhakas (i.e. the Mahavagga and Cullavagga). I'm not sure if it it covers all of the Khandhaka material, but I get the impression the author has at least covered everything that the average bhikkhu is ever likely to encounter in practice.

There is a homepage somewhere dedicated to collecting online materials on Vinaya. It's owned by the Malaysian monk Ven. Kumara, so you might be able to find it with Google. Also there's an online edition of Hermann Oldenburg's translation of the Vinaya Pitaka.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri May 15, 2009 10:09 AM
Title: Re: Silly question alert-kamma
Content:
Hi Drolma,

In the Abhidhamma the body is said to consist of mind-produced and temperature-produced rūpas as well as kamma-produced ones.

It is the six sense-bases that the Buddha taught as being "old kamma". The fifth of these bases is of course "body", but here the word doesn't mean the body as a whole, but only the bodily sensoria.
Kamma Sutta

"Monks, I will teach you new &amp; old kamma, the cessation of kamma, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma. Listen and pay close attention. I will speak.

"Now what, monks, is old kamma? The eye is to be seen as old kamma, fabricated &amp; willed, capable of being felt. The ear... The nose... The tongue... The body... The mind is to be seen as old kamma, fabricated &amp; willed, capable of being felt. This is called old kamma.

"And what is new kamma? Whatever kamma one does now with the body, with speech, or with the mind: This is called new kamma.

"And what is the cessation of kamma? Whoever touches the release that comes from the cessation of bodily kamma, verbal kamma, &amp; mental kamma: This is called the cessation of kamma.

"And what is the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma? Just this noble eightfold path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This is called the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma.

"So, monks, I have taught you new &amp; old kamma, the cessation of kamma, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma. Whatever a teacher should do — seeking the welfare of his disciples, out of sympathy for them — that have I done for you. Over there are the roots of trees; over there, empty dwellings. Meditate, monks. Don't be heedless. Don't later fall into regret. This is our message to you."
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 14, 2009 9:41 PM
Title: Re: Theravada's teaching on Bioethics
Content:
A good overview of the subject from Peter Harvey's Introduction to Buddhist Ethics.


 ./download/file.php?id=130
(574.68 KiB) Downloaded 258 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 14, 2009 9:23 PM
Title: Re: Theravada's teaching on Bioethics
Content:
No. Theravada teaching is that intentional killing is always an unwholesome act. No exceptions. There are, however, differences in the gravity of different acts of killing. These will depend chiefly upon what sort of being is killed (e.g. in the case of humans killing a virtuous person is worse than killing a vicious one; in the case of animals killing a big one is worse than killing a small one) and on the mental state of the killer.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 14, 2009 8:25 PM
Title: Re: Vinaya & sutta
Content:
No, they just happen to share the same names. The names mean, respectively, Greater Section and Lesser Section, so it’s no surprise that they crop up in different collections.

As well as the Vinaya and Suttanipata, there are also Cullavaggas in the Anguttara Nikaya, the Udana and the Petavatthu. There are Mahavaggas in all the first four Nikayas, and about half a dozen books from the Khuddaka Nikaya.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 14, 2009 7:53 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
laurel tree


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 14, 2009 7:48 PM
Title: Re: Another Buddha Misquote
Content:
No, quite the contrary.
“Therefore, Ananda, you should live as islands unto yourselves, being your own refuge, with no one else as your refuge, with the Dhamma as an island, with the Dhamma as your refuge, with no other refuge.”
Having yourself (and the Dhamma) as an island and refuge means developing the four satipatthanas. Since two of the conditions for the arising of satipatthana are hearing the Good Dhamma and discussing it with kalyanamittas, the Sutta implicitly affirms the necessity of “spiritual friends on the path.”

As for having “no one else as your refuge,” this is explained in the Digha Nikaya commentary in terms of not expecting others to do the work for you.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 14, 2009 7:39 PM
Title: Re: Theravada's teaching on Bioethics
Content:
It's in the Vinaya Pitaka's account of the third parajika rule – the prohibition against killing humans. It says that the term "human being" applies from the moment the first citta arises in a mother's womb.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 14, 2009 2:16 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Horsemen


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 14, 2009 2:12 PM
Title: Re: Nibbāna
Content:
Yes, that's why I inserted the qualifier "usually". Nirodha actually gets glossed in various ways by the commentators and there are some contexts where it is taken as identical to nibbana.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 14, 2009 2:07 PM
Title: Re: Nibbāna
Content:
Ven. Mahākaccāna on the two Nibbāna-dhātus:
Herein, living beings have two diseases: ignorance and craving-for-existence. Two medicines have been prescribed by the Blessed One for the curing of these two diseases: samatha and vipassanā. Using these two medicines one realizes two cures: deliverance-of-the-heart due to the fading of attachment and deliverance-by-wisdom due to the fading of ignorance.

Herein, samatha is the medicine for the disease of craving, whose cure is deliverance-of-the-heart due to the fading of attachment. Vipassanā is the medicine for the disease of ignorance, whose cure is the deliverance-by-wisdom due to the fading of ignorance.

For the Blessed One has said:

“Two dhammas must be fully known: nāma and rūpa.”
“Two dhammas must be abandoned: ignorance and craving-for-existence.”
“Two dhammas must be cultivated: samatha and vipassanā.”
“Two dhammas must be realized: knowledge and deliverance.”
(Dasuttara Sutta, DN. 34)

Herein, one cultivating samatha understands rūpa; understanding rūpa he abandons craving; abandoning craving he realizes deliverance-of-the-heart due to the fading of attachment. One cultivating vipassanā understands nāma; understanding nāma he abandons ignorance; abandoning ignorance he realizes deliverance-by-wisdom due to the fading of ignorance.

When a bhikkhu has fully known two dhammas: nāma and rūpa, then likewise has he abandoned two dhammas: ignorance and craving-for-existence. Two dhammas have been cultivated by him: samatha and vipassanā, and two dhammas have been realized: knowledge and deliverance.

At this point a bhikkhu becomes one who has completed his task. This is the extinction-element with stuff remaining (sa-upādisesā nibbānadhātu).

Upon the termination of his life-span and surcease of his life-faculty, this dukkha ceases and no further dukkha arises. Herein, the cessation, the subsiding, of these aggregates, elements and sense-bases, and the absence of rebirth-linking and absence of manifestation of any further aggregates, elements and sense-bases – this is the extinction-element with no stuff remaining (anupādisesā nibbānadhātu).
(Peṭakopadesa 123-4)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 14, 2009 6:49 AM
Title: Re: Nibbāna
Content:
The different terms are understood by abhidhammikas to be all related to Nibbāna, but focussing upon different aspects of it. And so Nibbāna is the unconditioned dhamma itself, while nirodha is (usually) the cognizing of Nibbāna at the moment of path consciousness. I guess there's no need to capitalize an experience that lasts only a moment.
Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 14, 2009 6:37 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Bouguereau




Difficult Lesson.jpg (100.27 KiB) Viewed 2330 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 14, 2009 6:02 AM
Title: Re: Monk Police in Thailand
Content:
Frankly, I don’t this “code of silence” has any existence outside of your imagination.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 13, 2009 11:06 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Ciñcā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 13, 2009 7:03 AM
Title: Re: what does "Phra" really mean in Pali language?
Content:
Also the names of a great many inanimate objects will be prefaced with 'phra' if they have any kind of connection with religion or royalty. Mary Haas' Thai dictionary has three pages of examples, and that's only a small selection.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 13, 2009 6:43 AM
Title: Re: the great rebirth debate
Content:
The orthodox understanding is that they have to be taught mundane right view in order to make them ready for ariyan right view. That is to say, there is no possibility of leaping from a state in which wrong view ("there is nothing given, nothing offered...etc.") is ever liable to arise to ariyan right view. Rather, wrong view must be dislodged and the only cause that can effect this is the arising of mundane right view ("there is what is given, there is what is offered...etc."). In effect this means that high attainment in Dhamma is out of the question for those who remain skeptical, agnostic or non-committal regarding the affirmations that constitute mundane right view.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 13, 2009 5:52 AM
Title: Re: Unfair Criticism?
Content:
He doesn't mention Buddhadasa at all. I think you may be confusing Buddhadasa (a 20th century Thai monk) with Buddhaghosa (the Pali commentator).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 12, 2009 3:14 PM
Title: Re: Unfair Criticism?
Content:
Upanisa Sutta:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.023.bodh.html

Bhikkhu Bodhi, Transcendental Dependent Arising:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/wheel277.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 12, 2009 2:19 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Burnham


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 12, 2009 2:10 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Clive.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 12, 2009 9:49 AM
Title: Re: The garden metaphor
Content:
"Therefore, bhikkhus, abandon what is unwholesome and devote yourselves to wholesome states, for that is how you will come to growth, increase, and fulfilment in this Dhamma and Discipline. Suppose there were a big sala-tree grove near a village or town, and it was choked with castor-oil weeds, and some man would appear desiring its good, welfare, and protection. He would cut down and throw out the crooked saplings that robbed the sap, and he would clean up the interior of the grove and tend the straight well-formed saplings, so that the sala-tree grove later on would come to growth, increase, and fulfilment. So too, bhikkhus, abandon what is unwholesome and devote yourselves to wholesome states, for that is how you will come to growth, increase, and fulfilment in this Dhamma and Discipline."
(MN. 21)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 12, 2009 8:03 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
talismanic


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 12, 2009 4:52 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Since at least the 15th century the collective noun for ravens has been an “unkindness.” But that seems an unjustified slur on ravens, so I’m redressing the balance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collective_nouns_for_birds" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 11, 2009 9:16 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Ravens


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 11, 2009 9:06 PM
Title: Re: Funny ads
Content:
My favourites as a boy were the Smash instant mashed potato ads...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SAbJjktk7E&feature=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrer4vEY-1w&feature=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gLCj9qXfp4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Some parodies from my teens....

Mel Smith &amp; Griff Rhys Jones parodying the s3 ad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTEEKyTESiU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

British parodies of tacky 1970's American Express ads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF-U9nL9Ios" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Deluxe home organ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbWukKe-drc&feature=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Batchelors' soup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUfDGaTs8sE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"There's a Man in Iran." Positive spin on Ayatollah Khomeini a year after the Iranian Revolution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGBfYoldZQ4&feature=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Another genuine ad – a most bizarre one for Mr. Kipling's Cakes. Withdrawn after complaints from Christians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tus8s2mKGME" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Apostles' Creed (updated Anglican version). Not an ad. Just something else that Christians complained about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUQcCvX2MKk&feature=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 11, 2009 5:29 AM
Title: Re: Happy Mother's Day
Content:
The claim that (it is certain) all beings have once been our mothers is just Tibetan hyperbole. The Buddha's teaching is: satto sulabharūpo yo namūtābhūtapubbo iminā dīghena addhunā — "It is not easy to find a being who in this long course has not formerly been one's mother." (Mātusutta, SN. ii. 189; Connected Discourses I. 659). In subsequent suttas the same is said also of fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters.

But let's not forget the application of this teaching. In contrast with some Tibetan presentations, the Buddha is not encouraging us to go all maudlin at the thought that so-&amp;-so was once our mum (or become vegetarians to avoid the risk of devouring our former daughters etc.), but rather:
"For what reason? Because, bhikkhus, this saṃsāra is without discoverable beginning. A first point is not discerned of beings roaming and wandering on, hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving. For such a long time, bhikkhus, you have experienced suffering, anguish, and disaster, and swelled the cemeteries. It is enough to experience revulsion towards all formations, enough to become dispassionate towards them, enough to be liberated from them."
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 10, 2009 9:41 AM
Title: Re: Happy birthday Ben!
Content:
Happy birthday Ben!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 10, 2009 3:19 AM
Title: Re: Can a Faith or Dhamma follower be a Padaparama??
Content:
Right. The DF and the FF have both arrived at sotāpatti-magga. They are of identical attainment and differ from each other only with regard to whether it is the faculty of understanding (paññindriya) or the faculty of faith (saddhindriya) that is dominant in them.

A padaparama may have faith in the Dhamma, but this does not make him a "faith-follower". He lacks the requisite accumulations of paññā for ariyan attainment in the present life.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri May 8, 2009 9:25 PM
Title: Re: Some clarification if possible?
Content:
In the Pali commentaries and chronicles the name 'Theravada' is used in two senses: narrowly as a name for the tradition preserved at the Mahavihara (as opposed to those at the rival viharas in Anuradhapura), and broadly, as a collective name for all the schools descended from the conservative monks at the second council (as opposed to the schools descended from the Mahasanghika faction). The latter sense of the term would include, for example, the Sarvastivada and its various offshoots.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri May 8, 2009 1:19 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Jerboa


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri May 8, 2009 12:47 PM
Title: Re: saying hello
Content:
Hi Sattva,

Nice to see you again.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 7, 2009 10:50 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
A slang term for Italians, derived from guappo.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 7, 2009 8:37 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Wops


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 7, 2009 4:55 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Kornfield


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 7, 2009 4:53 PM
Title: Re: A question about right view
Content:
As far as I know, all facets of right view would be subsumed under mundane and supramundane right view.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 6, 2009 11:04 PM
Title: Re: A question about right view
Content:
No, the Mahacattarisaka Sutta is unique.

I should note that the designations 'mundane' and 'supramundane' for these two right view are actually from the Petakopadesa and Nettipakarana, two early treatises on hermeneutics. At MN. 117 the distinction is expressed with the words 'sāsava' and 'anāsava', "accompanied by cankers" and "free of cankers" respectively.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 6, 2009 10:49 PM
Title: Re: A question about right view
Content:
This is too simplistic. The Buddha rejected certain views about the value of sacrifice, notably, that it can bring about purification:
"There are certain recluses and brahmins whose doctrine and view is this: ‘Purification comes about through sacrifice.’ But it is impossible to find a kind of sacrifice that has not already been offered up by me in this long journey, when I was either a head-anointed noble king or a well-to-do brahmin.

"There are certain recluses and brahmins whose doctrine and view is this: ‘Purification comes through fire-worship.’ But it is impossible to find a kind of fire that has not already been worshipped by me in this long journey, when I was either a head-anointed noble king or a well-to-do brahmin."
(Mahāsīhanāda Sutta, MN. 12)
But to reject this is not to deny that sacrifice may conduce to benefits of a lower order. The Buddha wasn't "a one-sided speaker" (ekaṃsavādin), but rather "one who speaks after analysing the matter" (vibhajjavādin). The terms 'yañña' and 'hutta' (Vedic: 'yajña' and 'hotra') covered a great variety of oblational practices, some meeting with the Buddha's approval and others not.

As related in the appropriately named "Discourse on Sacrifices" (Yañña Sutta):
The horse sacrifice, human sacrifice,
Sammāpāsa, vājapeyya, niraggala:
These great sacrifices, fraught with violence,
Do not bring great fruit.

The great seers of right conduct
Do not attend that sacrifice
Where goats, sheep, and cattle
Of various kinds are slain.

But when sacrifices free from violence
Are always offered by family custom,
Where no goats, sheep, or cattle
Of various kinds are slain:
The great seers of right conduct
Attend a sacrifice like this.

The wise person should offer this,
A sacrifice bringing great fruit.
For one who makes such a sacrifice
It is indeed better, never worse.
Such a sacrifice is truly vast
And the devatās too are pleased.
(SN. i. 75-6; CD. I. 171-2)
Note also that by the time of the Buddha's passing 'yañña' among his disciples had become modified to the point that its meaning was essentially the same as 'dāna'. From one of the post-parinibbāna suttas:
Kumārakassapa: "Prince, when a sacrifice is made at which oxen are slain, or goats, fowl or pigs, or various creatures are slaughtered, and the participants have wrong view, wrong thought, wrong speech, wrong action, wrong livelihood, wrong effort, wrong mindfulness and wrong concentration, then that sacrifice is of no great fruit or profit, it is not very brilliant and has no great radiance ... But when none of these creatures are put to death, and the participants have right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration, then that sacrifice is of great fruit and profit, it is brilliant and of great radiance."

Then Prince Payasi established a charity for ascetics and Brahmins, wayfarers, beggars and the needy. And there such food was given out as broken rice with sour gruel, and also rough clothing with ball-fringes. And a young Brahmin called Uttara was put in charge of the distribution.
(DN. 23)
See also the Kutadanta Sutta (DN. 5), with its account of inferior and superior sacrifices.

And for some cutting-edge modern scholarship on the subject: Maria Heim, Theories of the Gift in South Asia: Hindu, Buddhist and Jain Reflections on Dāna, (Routledge NY 2004.)

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 6, 2009 8:10 PM
Title: Re: A question about right view
Content:
All paññā (of which right view is one mode) arises in the here and now.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 6, 2009 5:28 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Shrews


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 6, 2009 5:07 PM
Title: Re: A question about right view
Content:
Firstly, we shouldn't in fact expect rebirth to be an especially prominent theme in discourses by Sariputta. The Buddha says of him in the Saccavibhanga Sutta:
"Cultivate the friendship of Sariputta and Moggallana, bhikkhus; associate with Sariputta and Moggallana. They are wise and helpful to their companions in the holy life. Sariputta is like a mother and Moggallana is like a wet-nurse. Sariputta trains others for the fruit of stream-entry, Moggallana for the supreme goal (arahantship). Sariputta, bhikkhus, is able to announce, teach, describe, establish, reveal, expound, and exhibit the Four Noble Truths."
(MN. 141)
Sariputta's speciality lay in his taking newly converted disciples of the Buddha (kalyāṇa puthujjanas already possessed of mundane right view) and giving them discourses of an abhidhammic sort (i.e. relating to aggregates, elements, sense-bases, dependent arising and the truths) to turn them into sotapannas. In discourses of an abhidhammic sort naturally the focus is upon impersonal phenomena. Such discourses are not concerned with persons and their stories – not even with their present life stories, let alone with their past saṃsāric narrative.

Nonetheless, rebirth is not absent in Sariputta's discourses, but the topic is usually covered allusively and implicatively rather than directly, and seldom in detail.

In the case of the Sammaditthi Sutta, the opening section concerns the ten wholesome and ten unwholesome courses of action (kusala/akusala kammapatha) and their respective roots:
"And what, friends, is the unwholesome, what is the root of the unwholesome, what is the wholesome, what is the root of the wholesome? Killing living beings is unwholesome; taking what is not given is unwholesome; misconduct in sensual pleasures is unwholesome; false speech is unwholesome; malicious speech is unwholesome; harsh speech is unwholesome; gossip is unwholesome; covetousness is unwholesome; ill will is unwholesome; wrong view is unwholesome."

[....]

And what is the wholesome? Abstention from killing living beings is wholesome; abstention from taking what is not given is wholesome; abstention from misconduct in sensual pleasures is wholesome; abstention from false speech is wholesome; abstention from malicious speech is wholesome; abstention from harsh speech is wholesome; abstention from gossip is wholesome; uncovetousness is wholesome; non-ill will is wholesome; right view is wholesome."
So, the tenth item in this pair of kammapatha is right view and wrong view respectively. And in all suttas where right view in the context of the kammapathas is defined, there is always an assertion of kammic efficacy, rebirth, and the existence of worlds beyond those normally visible to humans. In short, they all include affirmations of what you would term "the supernatural", while the definitions of wrong view in this context always entail a denial of the same. As the stock definition goes:
"He has wrong view, distorted vision, thus: ‘There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed; no fruit or result of good and bad actions; no this world, no other world; no mother, no father; no beings who are reborn spontaneously; no good and virtuous recluses and brahmins in the world who have themselves realised by direct knowledge and declare this world and the other world."

"He has right view, undistorted vision, thus: ‘There is what is given and what is offered and what is sacrificed; 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 who are reborn spontaneously; there are good and virtuous recluses and brahmins in the world who have themselves realised by direct knowledge and declare this world and the other world."
(MN. 41)
So that's one connection between the Sammaditthi Sutta and rebirth.

Moving on to the next section, where Sariputta expounds the four kinds of nutriment using the framework of the four noble truths. Here rebirth is alluded to in the statement that volition is the third type of nutriment and consciousness is the fourth. As the commentary explains:
The nutriment volitional thought when occurring as kamma leading to rebirth on the sensuous plane, feeds and conditions sensuous existence. When occurring as kamma leading to rebirth on the fine-material or immaterial plane, it feeds and conditions the corresponding existence. So does the nutriment volitional thought in all cases feed and condition the three states of existence.

The nutriment consciousness, at the moment of rebirth, feeds and conditions the three other mental groups (khandhā), conjoined with it; and by way of conascence-condition, etc., it feeds and conditions the thirty corporeal processes that arise in a triple continuity (ti-santati). So does the nutriment consciousness feed and condition mind-and-body at rebirth.
(translation from Nyanaponika's The Four Nutriments of Life)
So, that's two occurrences already, and we haven't even started yet on the twelvefold paṭiccasamuppāda.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 6, 2009 2:07 PM
Title: Re: A question about right view
Content:
What do you mean by "supernatural" ?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 6, 2009 1:24 PM
Title: Re: Is Mahayana perspective useful for Theravada practitioners?
Content:
The Chinese and Japanese had the Āgama sūtras, which roughly correspond to the first four Nikāyas of the Pali Sutta Piṭaka, and they had a Vinaya which resembles the Pali Vinaya quite closely (much more so than, say, the Mūlasarvastivāda Vinaya followed in Tibet). Dōgen seems to have been exceptionally well-read in these texts, for he is constantly quoting from them or making allusions to teachings contained in them.

The actual causes of the decline of celibate monasticism in Japanese Buddhism are a matter of public record. They are largely (though not entirely) of a political sort and have nothing to do with any supposed ignorance of early Buddhist teachings.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 6, 2009 1:13 PM
Title: Re: Human eusocial colony, or targeted "individual"?
Content:
Each continuum consists entirely of dhammas that are dependently arisen and marked by the three characteristics. Given that there is no constituent part that is self-existing, how could the continuum as a whole be?

As for "self-present", can you say what you mean by this?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed May 6, 2009 2:44 AM
Title: Re: the great rebirth debate
Content:
The Sutta is discussing embodiment (as I prefer to translate 'sakkāya'), which is a term for the five aggregates of grasping. The craving referred to is "the past craving that produced these [aggregates]" (tesaṃ nibbattikā purimataṇhā). That is to say, the aggregates of the present life were generated by the taṇhā ponobbhavikā of the past life. The taṇhā ponobbhavikā of the present life, if not extinguished, will generate the aggregates of a future life.

As evidence for the reasonableness of this reading I would draw your attention to the Sīhasutta (AN. ii. 32-4). This is likewise about the origination and cessation of embodiment, but with especial reference to the effect that this teaching has upon those long-lived devas who deludedly imagine themselves to be eternal. The said devas are shocked and stricken with terror upon hearing it, for hitherto they had believed that their existence was without beginning and without end. But after hearing it they came to understand that their present sakkāya was in fact impermanent — it was generated by past craving and so had a beginning in past time and would have an end in future time.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 5, 2009 11:30 PM
Title: Re: the great rebirth debate
Content:
The full form, "generation of renewal of being in the future" (āyatiṃ punabbhavābhinibbatti), certainly does.

As for punabbhava by itself, I can't say whether each and every occurrence of it means birth in a new existence as I haven't checked them all.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 5, 2009 11:15 PM
Title: Re: the great rebirth debate
Content:
I have told you before, citing the Pabbajita-abhiṇhasutta (AN. v. 87-8), the Abhiṇhapaccavekkhitabbaṭhānasutta (AN. iii. 71-5), the first of the two Āghātapaṭivinayasuttas (AN. iii. 185-6), and the dozen or so suttas in the Anamataggasaṃyutta of the SN's Nidānavagga (SN. ii. 177-193).

But a man hears what he wants to hear...


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 5, 2009 11:05 PM
Title: Re: the great rebirth debate
Content:
It is alluded to with the words “taṇhā ponobbhavikā”, rendered in your translation as “the craving that makes for further becoming.”

‘Ponobbhavika’ is the adjectival form of punabbhava, which is one of the commonest sutta terms for ‘rebirth’. As in the the Alagaddūpamasutta, for instance:
“Here the bhikkhu has abandoned the round of births (jāti-saṃsāra) that brings renewed being (ponobbhavika), has cut it off at the root...”
(MN. 22)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 5, 2009 3:06 PM
Title: Re: Human eusocial colony, or targeted "individual"?
Content:
They weren't.
“Then Lord Yama says: ‘Good man, through negligence you have failed to do good by body, speech, and mind ... But this evil action of yours was not done by your mother or your father, or by your brother or your sister, or by your friends and companions, or by your kinsmen and relatives, or by recluses and brahmins, or by gods: this evil action was done by you yourself, and you yourself will experience its result.’” 
(MN. 130)


By oneself is evil done, by oneself is one defiled;
By oneself is evil shunned, by oneself is one refined.

To polish or stain, on ourselves it depends,
For a person cannot by another be cleansed.
(Dhammapada 165)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 5, 2009 9:13 AM
Title: Re: How do monks in non-Buddhist countries obtain food, etc?
Content:
That's okay provided that (i) the monks don't instruct anyone to do this for them, (ii) the refrigerator isn't in their living quarters, and (iii) the food is freshly offered on the day it is eaten.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 4, 2009 8:13 PM
Title: Re: Can Killing a Living Being Ever Be an Act of Compassion?
Content:
Well, I've re-formatted the post, so you've no excuse now.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 4, 2009 7:47 PM
Title: Re: Translation please
Content:
yattha katthaci tvaṃ maṃ khipeyyāsi, tatth’āhaṃ tiṭṭheyyuṃ.


Or more poetically:


yena maṃ khipeyyāsi, tena ṭhassām’ahaṃ.


But I wonder, is it the Latin motto quocunque jeceris stabit that you have in mind? If so, then that would be simply:

yattha naṃ khipeyyāsi, tattha ṭhassati.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 4, 2009 1:12 PM
Title: Re: Kamma and child prostitution -- blaming the victim?
Content:
To me the examples you give and the conundra you raise regarding them merely highlight the limitations of expounding kamma and its ripening in conventional terms (i.e. in terms of conceptual realities such as "persons"). The conundra evaporate when the subject is expounded in terms of dhammas.
In Anurādhapura we had discussions about kamma and vipāka. Someone remarked that he found it unjust that a deed commited in a former life can cause suffering in this life. The person who suffers today is not the same person anymore as the being in the past who committed the bad deed which produces an unpleasant result. Why then do we have to suffer today because of deeds we have not done?

Kamma produces vipāka. Each cause produces its appropriate result. This is the law of cause and effect which operates, no matter we like it or not. When we suffer from pain it is the result of kamma. We may be inclined to think: “Why does this have to happen to me?” But why do we think of “me”? There was no being in a former life who committed deeds, neither is there a being in this life who experiences results. There are only realities, nāmas and rūpas, arising and falling away.

In the absolute sense there is not “my present lifespan”, because life exists only in one moment. There are different types of cittas which experience objects and each moment of citta falls away completely. Some cittas are cause: they can motivate good deeds and bad deeds which can produce their appropriate results. Some cittas are the results of good deeds and bad deeds, vipākacittas. Cittas which experience pleasant or unpleasant objects through the senses, such as seeing or hearing, are vipākacittas which arise throughout our life. Vipākacitta arises because of conditions and falls away immediately; there is no self who experiences a pleasant or unpleasant object. When there is pain, it is only a short moment of experiencing an unpleasant object through the body-sense. It is unavoidable, because it arises because of conditions. It falls away immediately. When we think of the pain with aversion, there is not only one citta with aversion, but seven cittas with aversion arising in succession. That is the order of the cittas arising in a process. Thus, when we have aversion about pain we make it seven times worse. Pain is unavoidable. Life is birth, old age, sickness and death.
Nina van Gorkom, Pilgrimage in Sri Lanka


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon May 4, 2009 12:29 PM
Title: Re: How do monks in non-Buddhist countries obtain food, etc?
Content:
How would there not be another option? If you're referring to a place in which nobody ever offers almsfood, then that would simply be an unsuitable place for a Vinaya-observant bhikkhu to live. And so there is in fact an option: move somewhere else.

On the other hand, if it’s a place where almsfood is hard to come by but at least some is obtainable, then the teaching given in the Vanapatthasutta (MN. 17) and the Sevanasutta (AN. iv. 365) is applicable.
from the Vanapatthasutta

“Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu lives in some jungle thicket. While he is living there his unestablished mindfulness does not become established, his unconcentrated mind does not become concentrated, his undestroyed taints do not come to destruction, he does not attain the unattained supreme security from bondage; and also the requisites of life that should be obtained by one gone forth —robes, almsfood, resting place, and medicinal requisites— are hard to come by. The bhikkhu should consider thus: ‘I am living in this jungle thicket. While I am living here my unestablished mindfulness does not become established, my unconcentrated mind does not become concentrated, my undestroyed taints do not come to destruction, I do not attain the unattained supreme security from bondage; and also the requisites of life that should be obtained by one gone forth —robes, almsfood, resting place, and medicinal requisites— are hard to come by.’ That bhikkhu should depart from that jungle thicket that very night or that very day; he should not continue living there.”
In short, if the place is both bad for obtaining requisites and bad for practice, then move on. The sutta then continues with the following permutations:

2. Good for requisites, bad for practice: leave at once.
3. Bad for requisites, good for practice: stay put for now.
4. Good for requisites, good for practice: stay put for as long as life lasts.

The same is then repeated for bhikkhus living in locations other than jungle thickets.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 3, 2009 11:26 PM
Title: Re: Fixed Views
Content:
In the commentarial understanding the first nine stanzas of the Mettā Sutta are concerned with the development of sīla and samādhi, and the tenth —the subject of this thread— with insight. The views referred to are those concerned with self.

This is Buddhaghosa's commentary on the tenth stanza of the sutta:

In this way [i.e., as described in verses 1-9] the Blessed One taught those bhikkhus mettābhāvanā in its various aspects. But now, since mettā is close to wrong view of self (attadiṭṭhi) due to its having living beings as its object, he therefore completed the teaching with the following stanza:

diṭṭhiñca anupaggamma, sīlavā dassanena sampanno.
kāmesu vineyya gedhaṃ, na hi jātuggabbhaseyya punaretīti.

"Not getting involved in wrong view, possessed of virtue, with perfected seeing, having become purged of greed for sensual pleasures, he assuredly does not come to lie again in a womb."

He did this as a preventative against the monks' straying into the thicket of views (see the Sabbāsava Sutta, MN. 2) by showing them how the plane of the nobles (ariyabhūmi) can be attained by making that same mettā-jhāna the basis for insight.

Its meaning is this: After emerging from the abiding in mettā-jhāna, which was specified with the words, "This is Divine Abiding here, they say," he discerns the immaterial dhammas that were there [while in that jhāna], starting with applied thought (vitakka) and examining (vicāra), which he defines as 'nāma'.

Then, following on the defining etc., of these jhāna factors as 'nāma', he discerns the material phenomena (rūpa-dhamma) that were there [while in that jhāna], which he defines as 'rūpa'.

By means of this delimitation of mentality-&amp;-materiality (nāmarūpa-pariccheda), he does not get involved in wrong view (diṭṭhiñca anupaggamma), for he avoids this by his discerning that there exists "a heap of mere formations (saṅkhāra); no living being can be found herein" (Vajirā Sutta, SN. i. 135), till he eventually becomes "possessed of virtue" with the kind of virtue that is supramundane (lokuttara-sīla) since he is now "perfected" (sampanno) in the right view belonging to the path of stream-entry, which is called "seeing" (dassana), and which is associated with that supramundane virtue.

After that, whatever "greed" (gedhaṃ) there is in him still remaining unabandoned in the guise of sensual desire as subjective defilement "for sensual pleasures" (kāmesu) as objects, of that he becomes "purged" (vineyya). That is, he becomes cured by the attenuation of certain defilements and by the abandoning of certain others without remainder (see the Ākaṅkheyya Sutta, MN. 6) by means of his attaining the paths of the once-returner and the non-returner.

"He assuredly does not come to lie again in a womb" (na hi jātuggabbhaseyya punareti): absolutely never again coming to any womb, he is reborn only in the Pure Abodes, where he reaches arahantship and is extinguished.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 3, 2009 10:06 AM
Title: New World Record
Content:
Yesterday, in the lobby of the Ramada Hotel, New Phetchburi Road, Bangkok, there took place what I believe is the largest ever gathering of Dhamma Wheel members. Assembled in the lobby were Dmytro, RobK, Nathan and myself — four persons in all, thus doubling the former world record, set when Ben met Retro and Chris met Ben. 

Photographic proof to follow shortly. As soon as Nathan can figure out the workings of his new camera....

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 3, 2009 9:42 AM
Title: Re: Articles on the Visuddhimagga
Content:
Not all of it. Parts of it have been translated by Nina van Gorkom and posted to http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/dhammastudygroup


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 3, 2009 9:39 AM
Title: Re: Tattoos in Buddhism, Acceptable or not???
Content:
These aren't given in the Vinaya as impediments to ordaining, nor are they nowadays treated as such.

I remember when I lived with Ajahn Maha Boowa there was a Thai monk in the community, Phra Sutchai, who had once done some serious done prison time for armed robbery. While in prison he had got one of the other prisoners to tattoo a naked woman on his back. This didn't stop him ordaining, though of course he came in for quite a bit of ribbing about it from the other monks.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun May 3, 2009 9:33 AM
Title: Re: 32 Marks of a Great Man
Content:
Taking into account the Suttas' teaching on the eight great assemblies, I would suppose that the Buddha exhibited a top-knot when visiting assemblies of people with top-knots, but not when visiting other kinds of assembly.

'Ananda, there are these eight kinds of assembly. What are they? They are an assembly of khattiyas, an assembly of brahmins, an assembly of householders, an assembly of ascetics, an assembly of devas of the Realm of the Four Great Kings, an assembly of the Thirty-Three Gods, an assembly of maras, an assembly of Brahmas.

'I remember well, Ananda, many hundreds of assemblies of Khattiyas that I have attended; and before I sat down with them, spoke to them or joined in their conversation, I adopted their appearance and speech, whatever it might be. And I instructed, inspired, fired and delighted them with a discourse on Dhamma. And as I spoke with them they did not know me and wondered: "Who is it that speaks like this? Is he a deva or is he a man?" And having thus instructed them, I vanished from there, and still they did not know: "He who has just vanished - was he a deva or was he a man?"

'I remember well, Ananda, many hundreds of assemblies of brahmins ... many hundreds of assemblies of householders ... many hundreds of assemblies of ascetics ... many hundreds of assemblies of devas of the Realm of the Four Great Kings ... many hundreds of assemblies of the Thirty-Three Gods, many hundreds of assemblies of maras ...

'I remember well, Ananda, many hundreds of assemblies of Brahmas that I have attended; and before I sat down with them, spoke to them or joined in their conversation, I adopted their appearance and speech, whatever it might be. And I instructed, inspired, fired and delighted them with a discourse on Dhamma. And as I spoke with them they did not know me and wondered: "Who is it that speaks like this? Is he a deva or is he a man?" And having thus instructed them, I vanished from there, and still they did not know: "He who has just vanished from here - was he a deva or was he a man?"
(Parisa Sutta, AN. iv. 307-8; Mahaparinibbana Sutta, DN. ii. 109-110)

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 2, 2009 10:47 PM
Title: Re: Tattoos in Buddhism, Acceptable or not???
Content:
Tattoos are only an impediment to receiving ordination if one was marked with them as a punishment for a crime.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 2, 2009 10:36 PM
Title: Re: 32 Marks of a Great Man
Content:
The Lakkhana Sutta, the locus classicus for this doctrine, describes each of the marks as being the outcome of a particular kind of wholesome conduct or quality of character developed by the Bodhisatta in former lives. The commentary to the sutta takes all of this quite literally.

It's noteworthy, however, that the commentator shows rather little interest in the marks themselves. The emphasis is chiefly upon the kusala kammas that generate them. A detailed exposition of these makes up about four fifths of the commentary. The remaining fifth is mainly about how the ripening of these kusala kammas aids the the Sammasambuddha as a teacher (or the Universal Monarch as a ruler). As for the marks themselves, most of these get no more than a laconic gloss of two or three words.

My impression is that most modern Theravada groups that take the classical Theravada pov seriously pay little attention to the thirty-two marks doctrine. An interesting exception is the UK-based Samatha Trust. The Trust's founder, Lance Cousins, is a big fan of the Digha Nikaya, including those Digha suttas that Buddhist modernists usually turn their noses up at: the Mahasamaya, Atanatiya, Lakkhana, Ambattha etc. and so much use is made of these in the Trust's exposition of the Dhamma.

As Robert Bluck describes:
The figure of the Buddha

Perhaps more than other traditions, the narrative element of Samatha Trust practice focuses almost exclusively on the historical Buddha. Even in a beginners meditation group, which has little emphasis on Buddhist narrative, the life story of the Buddha will be briefly described, perhaps in the middle of the course. Advanced groups will give considerable emphasis to the person of the Buddha, with stories from the Pali texts being used to illustrate the teachings. Interviewees confirmed that most long-term members would get to know the Buddha’s life story well, and that this was the most important narrative (Stanier, 2003; Voiels, 2003). While such information would initially come from talks at group meetings, committed members will also read the texts for themselves, drawing on suttas and commentaries for stories about the Buddha which ‘help to inform attitudes and practice’ (Harvey, 2003).

One example of how such narratives are used is the The Suttanta on the Marks, where a translation from the Digha Nikaya is presented as an opportunity to reflect on the Buddha’s qualities as ‘an important part of Buddhist meditative practice’, and one which can guard against ‘dogmatism or rigid views’ (McNab et al., 1996: 5). Similarly, in Thirty-Two Marks (1995: v), readers are invited to use the ‘thirty-two marks of a Great Man’ to observe and investigate the characteristics of their own body and mind. In a story told as if for a child, a sleepy prince leaves home on a spiritual quest for wakefulness and is gently introduced to teachings on morality, meditation and wisdom. The thirty-two marks are then linked more directly to this threefold path, to the four jhanas and finally to the Eightfold Path. Each of the Buddha’s marks is seen imaginatively as relating to spiritual progress, from the ‘well-planted feet’ which resemble ‘the first steps one takes towards the Dhamma’ to the ‘turban crown’ which symbolizes ‘insight into the real nature of things: anicca, dukkha, anatta’ (Thirty-Two Marks, 1995: 106–7).

(Robert Bluck, British Buddhism: teachings, practice and development, p. 57)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 2, 2009 8:36 PM
Title: Re: How do monks in non-Buddhist countries obtain food, etc?
Content:
It's one of several special food allowances that apply in times of famine. They are all from the Mahavagga of the Vinaya Pitaka. Translations of the relevant passages can be found in Book II ch. 4 of Ven. Thanissaro's Monastic Code.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 2, 2009 9:41 AM
Title: Re: What does Phra mean?
Content:
It's the Thai pronunciation of the Sanskrit or Pali bara, which is an alternative spelling of the more common vara. Vara can be either an adjective meaning excellent or a noun meaning a boon or blessing.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:08 PM
Title: Re: Stupid curiosity...
Content:
na bhikkhave massu vaḍḍhāpetabbaṃ

“Bhikkhus, the beard is not to be allowed to flourish.”
(Vin. ii. 134)

In the Vinayalankāra vaḍḍhāpetabbaṃ is glossed as dīghaṃ kārenti – “to cause to be long.”

But as no particular length is specified the application of the rule varies according to local custom. The Burmese are the strictest, permitting no facial hair at all. The Thais are slightly less strict. Having dry skin I prefer not to shave too often and can usually get away with about a week’s growth before the other monks start murmuring about it. The Sinhalese seem to be the most liberal. I’ve seen photos of some of them sporting fairly substantial beards.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Apr 29, 2009 10:05 AM
Title: Re: Help finding sutta Ajahn Chah quotes/paraphrases here?
Content:
Probably the Mahaparinibbana Sutta. On uposatha days in Thai wats, after the Patimokkha has been recited monks will chant various sutta passages, of which the following is very common:
“As long as the monks hold regular and frequent assemblies, they may be expected to prosper and not to decline.

“As long as they meet in harmony, break up in harmony, and carry on their business in harmony, they may be expected to prosper and not to decline.

“As long as they do not authorise what has not been authorised already, and do not abolish what has been authorised, but proceed according to what has been authorised by the rules of training, they may be expected to prosper and not to decline.

“As long as they honour, respect, revere and salute the elders of long standing who are long-ordained, fathers and leaders of the order, they may be expected to prosper and not to decline.

“As long as they do not fall prey to desires which arise in them and lead to rebirth, they may be expected to prosper and not to decline.

“As long as they are devoted to forest-lodgings, they may be expected to prosper and not to decline.

“As long as they preserve their personal mindfulness, so that in future the good among their companions will come to them, and those who have already come will feel at ease with them, they may be expected to prosper and not to decline.

“As long as the monks hold to these seven things and are seen to do so, they may be expected to prosper and not to decline.”
(from Mahaparinibbana Sutta, DN. 16. Walshe trans.)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:59 PM
Title: Re: Monasticim and parental permission
Content:
A further point that occurs to me is that the saydaw's implied equation of "holders of wrong view" (micchādiṭṭhiko) with "non-Buddhists" is to say the least problematic. In the Pali commentaries followers of non-Buddhist doctrines who hold to kammavāda are not classed as micchādiṭṭhiko.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:33 PM
Title: Re: Monasticim and parental permission
Content:
Hi Oleksandr,

Thanks for investigating the matter, but I don't agree that the passage supports the sayadaw's view. Since Sāriputta's brother, Revata, is only seven years old, the Dhp-a narrative concerns his going forth as a sāmaṇera, not his full acceptance as a bhikkhu. As such it has no bearing on the Vinaya issue of obtaining parental permission if one wishes to obtain upasampadā.

When Sāriputta says, mama mātāpitaro micchādiṭṭhikā, kiṃ tehi āpucchitehi ("my mother and father are holders of wrong view, so why bother taking leave of them?"), as I see it he is not abbrogating the Vinaya obligation to obtain parental permission (for it doesn't apply here), nor introducing any amendment to the Vinaya (something that he as a disciple would have no authority to do), but merely announcing his intention to dispense with conventional courtesies.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Apr 26, 2009 10:06 PM
Title: Re: Pali Primer Study Group (Lily de Silva)
Content:
Except when it doesn't.  

In fact in the Kaccāyana grammar pasīdati is cited as an example of a verb whose object may take either the tatiyā ("instrumental") or the sattamī ("locative"):
maṇḍitu’ ssukkesu tatiyā.

maṇḍitaussukka iccetesvatthesu tatiyāvibhatti hoti, sattamī ca.

ñāṇena pasīdito, ñāṇasmiṃ vā pasīdito,
ñāṇena ussukko, ñāṇasmiṃ vā ussukko,
tathāgato vā tathāgatagotto vā.
(Kacc. aphorism #315)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Apr 25, 2009 2:09 AM
Title: Re: Quibble on Buddhadasa's teachings
Content:
It isn’t all about if, for the passage continues:
“Since there actually is another world, one who holds the view ‘there is another world’ has right view. Since there actually is another world, one who intends ‘there is another world’ has right intention. Since there actually is another world, one who makes the statement ‘there is another world’ has right speech. Since there actually is another world, one who says ‘there is another world’ is not opposed to those arahants who know the other world. Since there actually is another world, one who convinces another ‘there is another world’ convinces him to accept true Dhamma; and because he convinces another to accept true Dhamma, he does not praise himself and disparage others. Thus any corrupt conduct that he formerly had is abandoned and pure virtue is substituted. And this right view, right intention, right speech, non-opposition to noble ones, convincing another to accept true Dhamma, and avoidance of self-praise and disparagement of others - these several wholesome states thus come into being with right view as their condition.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:22 AM
Title: Re: Monasticim and parental permission
Content:
It's the first I've heard of this. Whenever I've helped westerners to get ordained in Thailand, all the abbots required evidence of parental consent even though the parents were Christians or Jews. The religion of one's parents isn't a relevant factor in any of the scenarios described and adjudicated in the Vinaya Piṭaka and the Samantapāsādikā.

Below I append my translation of the relevant passages.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu

_____________________________________

The Vinaya Piṭaka's Mahāvagga states:
na, bhikkhave, ananuññāto mātāpitūhi putto pabbājetabbo. Yo pabbājeyya, āpatti dukkaṭassa.

"Monks, a son must not be given the going forth without permission from his mother and father. Should one do so, it is an offence of wrong-doing." — Vin. i. 83
The Atthakathā comments:
sace dve atthi, dvepi āpucchitabbā.

"If both exist [i.e. are alive], then leave must be obtained from both." — VinA. v. 1011
But there are also quite a number of exceptions given in the Vinaya Atthakathā (Samantapāsādikā. v. 1011-12)
(1) Here, the phrase "from his mother and father" was said in regard to the man and woman who conceived him. If both are living, then leave must be obtained from both of them.

If the father or mother is deceased, then leave must be obtained from [the parent] who is still living.

Even if they have themselves gone forth, leave must still be obtained from them.

* * * *

(2) When obtaining leave, he may either go and obtain it himself, or may send another person, saying to him, "Go to my mother and father and having obtained their leave come back."

* * * *

(3) If he says, "I am one who has obtained permission," he may be given the going forth if it is believable.

* * * *

(4) A father has himself gone forth and wishes his son to go forth; having obtained leave of the mother, let him go forth; or, a mother wishes her daughter to go forth; having obtained leave of the father, let her go forth.

* * * *

(5) A father, not concerned for the welfare of his wife and son, runs away. The mother gives her son to some monks, saying, "Let him go forth." When asked, "Where has his father gone?" she replies, "He has run away to disport himself." — It is suitable for him [the son] to be given the going forth.

A mother has run away with some man or other. The father gives [his son to some monks, saying], "Let him go forth." The principle in this case is just the same as above.

The Kurundī* states: 'A father is absent. The mother gives her son permission, saying, "Let him go forth." When asked, "Where has his father gone?" she replies, "I shall be responsible for whatever is due to you from the father." — It is suitable for him [the son] to be given the going forth.'

[* Kurundī: one of the Sinhalese commentaries most frequently cited by Buddhaghosa as the source of his Vinaya exegesis.]

* * * *

(6) The mother and father are deceased. Their boy has grown up in the company of [relatives] such as his maternal aunt. When he is being given the going forth, his relatives start a quarrel or criticize it. Therefore, in order to stop the quarrel, he should obtain their leave before being given the going forth. But if given the going forth without having obtained their leave there is no offence.

They who undertook to feed him in his childhood are called "mother" and "father", and with respect to these the principle is just the same as above. The son [is reckoned as] one living dependent on himself, not on a mother and father.

* * * *

(7) Even if he be a king, he must still obtain leave before being given the going forth.

* * * *

(8) Being permitted by his mother and father, he goes forth, but [later] reverts [to being a householder]. Even if he goes forth and reverts seven times, on each occasion that he comes [to go forth] again he must obtain leave [from his mother and father] before he may be given the going forth.

* * * *

(9) If [his mother and father] say: "This [son of ours], having reverted and come home, does not do any work for us; having gone forth he will not fulfil his duty to you; there is no point in him obtaining leave; whenever he comes to you, just give him the going forth." When [a son] has been disowned in this way, it is suitable for him to be given the going forth again without even obtaining leave.

* * * *

(10) He who when only in his childhood had been given away [by his mother and father, saying], "This is a gift for you; give him the going forth whenever you want," may be given the going forth whenever he comes [to ask for it], without even obtaining leave.

But [a mother and father], having given permission [to their son] when he was only in his childhood, afterwards, when he has reached maturity, withdraw their permission; he must not be given the going forth without obtaining leave.

* * * *

(11) An only son, after quarrelling with his mother and father, comes [to the sangha, saying], "Let me go forth." Upon being told, "Come back after you have obtained leave," he says, "I'm not going! If you don't let me go forth, I shall burn down your monastery, or stab you with a sword, or cause loss to your relatives and supporters by cutting down the plants in their gardens, or kill myself by jumping from a tree, or join a gang of robbers, or go to another country!"

It is suitable to let him go forth in order to safeguard life. If his mother and father then come and say, "Why did you let our son go forth?" they should be informed of the reason for it, saying, "We let him go forth in order to safeguard life. You may confirm this with your son."

* * * *

(12) Then, [one saying] "I shall jump from a tree," has climbed up and is about to let go with his hands and feet. It is suitable to let him go forth.

* * * *

(13) An only son, having gone to another country, requests the going forth. If he had obtained leave before departing, he may be given the going forth.

If he had not obtained leave, having sent a young monk to get [the parents] to give their leave, he may be given the going forth. If it is a very distant country, it is suitable to just give him the going forth and then send him with other bhikkhus to inform [the parents].

But the Kurundī states: 'if [the country] is far away and the way to it is [across] a great wilderness (or desert), it is suitable to give him the going forth, [thinking], "having gone there [later] we shall obtain leave [of the parents]."'

* * * *

(14) If a mother and father have many sons and speak thus: "Venerable sir, may you give the going forth to whichever [one] of these boys you choose," then having examined the boys, he may give the going forth to the one he chooses.

If an entire [extended] family or an entire village is given permission [by someone, saying], "Venerable sir, may you give the going forth to whichever [one] of the boys in this family or this village you choose," he may give the going forth to the one he chooses.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:53 AM
Title: Re: V or W?
Content:
The classical Pali grammars classify the consonant as dento-labial (i.e. requiring the upper front teeth to be in contact with the lower lip). So, v is more likely the correct pronunciation, since w is a bilabial consonant. But in practice SE Asian Buddhists will pronounce it as a w because their native tongues (Thai, Lao, Khmer etc.) don't have a v sound.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 6, 2009 5:54 PM
Title: Re: New search engine website
Content:
Hi Chris,

It's the same website that I told you about last week in the Dhammasangani thread:

http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1046

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 6, 2009 5:35 PM
Title: Re: Question for monks -blessing chant - Yathā vārivahā pūrā
Content:
You will be able to memorize things very fast using the attached memorizing tool.


 ./download/file.php?id=46
(125.16 KiB) Downloaded 147 times


Instructions

1. Download the zip file and extract its contents.
2. Open the file named "Memorizing Tool" in your web browser.
3. When the page opens you will see two boxes. Type or paste the text you wish to memorize into the upper box.
4. Click on the button labelled "Convert".
5. The text will now appear in the lower box, but with each word truncated to just its first letter. For example, the contents of this post will look like this:
Y w b a t m t v f u t a m t.

I

1. D t z f a e i c.
2. O t f n "M T" i y w b.
3. W t p o y w s t b. T o p t t y w t m i t u b.
4. C o t b l "C".
5. T t w n a i t l b, b w e w t t j i f l. F e, t c o t p w l l t:
6. Read aloud the text you wish to memorize three or four times, then delete it.
7. Then try to recite the text just relying on the first letters in the lower box.
8. When you can do so successfully, then try to recite the text without looking at either box.

That's all there is to it.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 6, 2009 9:58 AM
Title: Re: Is the result of Parinibbana Annihilation?
Content:
I think you have it the wrong way round.

The sankharakkhandha makes up 50 of the Abhidhamma's 52 cetasikas. Vedanakkhandha and saññakkhandha make up the remaining two.

Vedana and saññå are included in sankhara in any context where sankhara means conditioned thing, but not in contexts where it means sankharakkhandha.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 6, 2009 6:34 AM
Title: Re: other Buddhist traditions on DW?
Content:
No, Dharma Wheel is a new forum, launched by David, Dhamma Wheel's owner, a few hours ago. It is modelled on Dhamma Wheel but is intended for discussion of the Mahayana and Vajrayana schools.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 6, 2009 6:18 AM
Title: Re: Question for monks -blessing chant - Yathā vārivahā pūrā
Content:
Probably. The verses that are chanted regularly are largely the same in both nikayas. The difference is that the Dhammayuttika Nikaya has one style of chanting that is used in all their monasteries, whereas the Mahanikaya has a variety of styles depending on the region and/or the preferences of the particular abbot. Also the Mahanikaya has a lot of additional chants that are not used in the Dhammayuttika Nikaya. The latter tends not to innovate and rarely uses any suttas or parittas except the ones selected by King Mongkut and Prince Vajirañāṇavarorasa.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Apr 6, 2009 6:00 AM
Title: Re: Ariyan aspirations and the lay follower
Content:
The only certainty is that he was born triple-rooted.

It's possible that he is a neyya, but this is not certain, for some triple-rooted persons have the capacity for jhanic cultivation but not for ariyan attainment.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Apr 5, 2009 10:55 PM
Title: Re: Pali Primer Study Group (Lily de Silva)
Content:
Like yaacati, the verb pucchati usually takes a double accusative:

upaasako sama.na.m dhamma.m pucchati

upaasakaa pa.n.dita.m pa~nhe pucchanti

Alternatively, the thing asked about may be expressed in the locative case.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Apr 4, 2009 10:54 PM
Title: Re: Question for monks -blessing chant - Yathā vārivahā pūrā
Content:
It was a practice that was certainly well-established by the time of Buddhaghosa and was held by the commentators to go back to the Buddha's time. I think there's also mention of it in the Milindapañha. The gathas you cited, that are used in this connection, are a combination of some passages from the Tirokudda Sutta and some others preserved in the Pali commentaries.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Apr 4, 2009 10:15 PM
Title: Re: Ariyan aspirations and the lay follower
Content:
Well, all beings have the potential for eventually awakening. Even padaparamas are not like the so-called 'icchantika' described in some Mahayana Yogacarin texts, who is eternally cut off from the possibility of awakening. So the question is whether a person has the potential for awakening in the present life. This will depend upon whether he or she is a neyya or a padaparama (ugghaṭitaññūs and vipañcitaññūs are generally held not to exist any more), but this isn't easily known. One can know that certain individuals are padaparamas (e.g. those who've commited certain kinds of very weighty akusala kamma), but there isn't any outward sign by which one can discern if a person is a neyya.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Apr 4, 2009 12:03 PM
Title: Re: Happy Birthday Fede!
Content:
Même si il y en a pour plus cher en bougies qu’en gâteau....





BON ANNIVERSAIRE, FÉDÉ!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Apr 3, 2009 5:16 PM
Title: Re: Cittas and Cetasikas: relational significance
Content:
No, it's not on the wrong track. In fact I believe it's one of several classical similes for the citta/cetasika relationship.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Apr 3, 2009 1:35 PM
Title: Re: Cittas and Cetasikas: relational significance
Content:
In the Abhidhamma cetasikas are conceived as being just as short-lived as cittas. The opening verse of the Abhidhammatthasangaha's chapter on cetasikas states:
ekuppādanirodhā ca
ekālambaṇavatthukā
cetoyuttā dvipaññāsa
dhammā cetasikā matā

Translations:

“Arising and ceasing together with it, having the same object and base, are fifty-two dhammas associated with mind known as mentalities.”
(Rupert Gethin, Summary of the Topics of Abhidhamma, p. 54)

“The fifty-two states associated with consciousness that arise and cease together (with consciousness), that have the same object and base (as consciousness), are known as mental factors.”
(Bhikkhu Bodhi, A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, p. 76)
So, each cetasika arises simultaneously with the citta that it accompanies, passes away simultaneously with the passing of that citta, takes the same object as that citta, and depends upon the same material base.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Apr 3, 2009 12:53 PM
Title: Re: Ariyan aspirations and the lay follower
Content:
There is a commentarial telling of the story in which Sāriputta does investigate as best he can, but unfortunately his best isn't good enough. I can't locate it at the moment, but it goes something like this: Sāriputta surveys the previous hundred thousand lives of the brahmin and in none of them can he detect any past action that could be a cause for awakening in the present life. And so he teaches him the way to Brahmā instead. But the Buddha —whose psychic powers can go further back than Sāriputta's— sees that in the brahmin's hundred thouand and first previous life he had heard the Dhamma taught by some past Buddha and in that hearing there was a sufficient cause for stream-entry in the present life. Except that it was too late.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Apr 2, 2009 6:45 AM
Title: Re: transfer of merit
Content:
Okay, then these are the two main Pali sources:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/khp/khp.1-9.than.html#khp-7

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe36/sbe3606.htm
(Scroll down to "Offerings to the Dead")

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:20 PM
Title: Re: transfer of merit
Content:
In popular Buddhist practice in Asia it can be on any occasion when one has just done something that is likely to be meritorious (that is, assuming that it was done with the right state of mind). The most common occasions will be after giving a gift, undertaking the five or eight precepts, listening to a sermon or completing a session of meditation.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Apr 1, 2009 11:06 AM
Title: Re: Greetings & Salutations
Content:
Hi Joshua,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel. I hope someone here will be able to find a suitable interviewee for you. If not, then you might also try writing to the Oz-based BSWA forum: bswa.org

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:49 PM
Title: Re: Again and Again ....
Content:
Hi Chris,
punappunañceva vapanti bījaṃ,
punappunaṃ vassati devarājā.
punappunaṃ khettaṃ kasanti kassakā,
punappunaṃ dhaññamupeti raṭṭhaṃ.

punappunaṃ yācakā yācayanti,
punappunaṃ dānapatī dadanti.
punappunaṃ dānapatī daditvā,
punappunaṃ saggamupenti ṭhānaṃ.

punappunaṃ khīranikā duhanti,
punappunaṃ vaccho upeti mātaraṃ.
punappunaṃ kilamati phandati ca,
punappunaṃ gabbhamupeti mando.

punappunaṃ jāyati mīyati ca,
punappunaṃ sīvathikaṃ haranti.
maggañca laddhā apunabbhavāya,
na punappunaṃ jāyati bhūripañño ti.
The four verses are spoken by the Buddha in the Udaya Sutta (SN. i. 173-4; Connected Discourses I. 268-9) and by the arahant Kāḷudāyī in the Theragatha.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:30 PM
Title: Re: Buddhagosa Arahanthood
Content:
I didn't say that. I said that the aspiration to meet Metteyya is expressed by some Sinhalese scribe or editor, not by Buddhaghosa himself. That's why the Metteyya aspiration isn't found in the Burmese edition and why in the concluding verses the text switches from the first person to the third person.

Buddhaghosa's aspiration is:
What store of merit has been gained by me
Desiring establishment in this Good Dhamma
In doing this, accepting the suggestion
Of the venerable Sanghapāla,
One born into the line of famous elders
Dwelling within the Mahāvihāra,
A true Vibhajjavādin, who is wise,
And lives in pure simplicity, devoted
To discipline's observance and to practice,
Whose mind the virtuous qualities of patience,
Mildness, lovingkindness, and so on, grace —
By the power of that store of merit
May every being prosper happily.
And now just as the Path of Purification,
With eight and fifty recitation sections
In the text, has herewith been completed
Without impediment, so may all those
Who in the world depend on what is good
Glad-hearted soon succeed without delay!
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:40 AM
Title: Re: Everyone seeking Enlightenment
Content:
Hi Rob, David,

The Upali Sutta (MN. 56) reports that hot blood gushed from the mouth of Nigantha Nataputta after he had heard his former leading disciple Upali (now a disciple of the Buddha) praising the Buddha's virtues.

The commentary to the same says that "a heavy sorrow arose in him because of the loss of his lay supporter, and this produced a bodily disorder that resulted in his vomiting hot blood. After vomiting hot blood, few beings can continue to live. Thus they brought him to Pava on a litter, and shortly thereafter he passed away."

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:33 PM
Title: Re: sutta reference
Content:
Hi Bazzaman,

The teaching is from the Milindapañha.
'Venerable Nāgasena, these givers when they bestow their offerings, devote them specifically to former (relatives) now departed, saying: "May this gift benefit such and such." Now do they (the dead) derive any benefit therefrom?'

'Some do, O king, and some do not.'

'Which then are they that do, and which do not?'

'Those who have been reborn in purgatory, O king, do not; nor those reborn in heaven; nor those reborn as animals. And of those reborn as Pretas three kinds do not: the Vantāsikā (who feed on vomit), the Khuppipāsino (who hunger and thirst.), the Nijjhāmatañhikā (who are consumed by thirst). But the Paradattūpajīvino (who live on the gifts of others) they do derive profit, and those who bear them in remembrance do so too.'

'Then, Nāgasena, offerings given by the givers have run to waste, and are fruitless, since those for whose benefit they are given derive no profit therefrom.'

'No, O king. They run not to waste, neither are fruitless. The givers themselves derive profit from them.'
(Mil. 294-7, Th. Rhys Davids trans.)

For the full dialogue:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe36/sbe3606.htm

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 30, 2009 6:19 PM
Title: Re: Pali Primer Study Group (Lily de Silva)
Content:
Nominative: Who?
Accusative: Whom?
Instrumental: By/with/through whom?
Dative: To/for the sake of whom?
Ablative: From/because of whom?
Genitive: Whose?
Locative: In/on/near whom?
Vocative: O who?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 30, 2009 2:15 PM
Title: Re: Non-Buddhist writing that reminds you of the dhamma
Content:
Examination at the Womb-Door

Who owns those scrawny little feet? Death.
Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death.
Who owns these still-working lungs? Death.
Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death.
Who owns these unspeakable guts? Death.
Who owns these questionable brains? Death.
All this messy blood? Death.
These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death.
This wicked little tongue? Death.
This occasional wakefulness? Death.

Given, stolen, or held pending trial?
Held.

Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth? Death.
Who owns all of space? Death.

Who is stronger than hope? Death.
Who is stronger than the will? Death.
Stronger than love? Death.
Stronger than life? Death.

But who is stronger than Death?
Me, evidently.
Pass, Crow.

— Ted Hughes


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:24 PM
Title: Re: Differences in the Different Recensions of the Tripitaka?
Content:
It is always tathāgata and never satta in Pali sources. And if you read the Khemā Sutta (SN. iv. 373-80; = Connected Discourses II 1380-3) you will see that this is not arbitrary — there is a logic as to why it is always tathāgata and never satta.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 30, 2009 10:27 AM
Title: Re: "Ananda, the gathering isn't pure."
Content:
No, but it seems very likely that he had committed a defeating offence. Either that or he had been subjected to an act of banishment by the sangha for general misconduct. Either of these would make it impermissible for him to sit with the bhikkhus listening to the Patimokkha recital. But a defeating offence is more likely, for throughout the sutta the man is referred to as an "individual" (puggala), not as a bhikkhu. Also, if he had been banished one would expect the monks to know about it, so Moggallana wouldn't have needed to detect him with his supernormal powers.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:38 PM
Title: Re: Everyone seeking Enlightenment
Content:
I wouldn't agree with this. Many of the philosophers of ancient Greece were arguably engaged in an analogous pursuit, notably the Cynics, Stoics, Epicureans and (earlier) the Pythagoreans.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:21 PM
Title: Re: Practitioners view of psychotherapy
Content:
Rational emotive behaviour therapy.

https://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REBT


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 29, 2009 4:17 PM
Title: Re: Practitioners view of psychotherapy
Content:
Haven't you also been trained in REBT? If so, didn't you consider that a good fit?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 29, 2009 4:01 PM
Title: Re: Dhammasangani
Content:
Alternatively you can go here: http://www.archive.org/details/ABuddhistManualOfPhychologicalEthicsOfTheFourthCenturyBC and download it as an 11 MB DjVu file or a 5 MB text file.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 29, 2009 3:53 PM
Title: Re: Dhammasangani
Content:
There are two English translations. The more recent is U Kyaw Khine's 1996 rendering, which is published by Sri Satguru Publications in India, so will probably be fairly cheap. I haven't seen a copy myself, but I've heard it commended by Abhidhamma enthusiasts.

A 27 MB scanned copy of C.A.F. Rhys Davids' PTS translation (A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics) is available online: http://openlibrary.org/b/OL13997429M/Buddhist-manual-of-psychological-ethics-of-the-fourth-century-B.C.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 29, 2009 3:24 PM
Title: Re: Dhammawheel RSS?
Content:
I don't know, but it sounds like rather a good idea.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 29, 2009 3:03 PM
Title: Re: Pali Primer Study Group (Lily de Silva)
Content:
"To..." is normally indicated with the dative case. An exception is when the sentence contains a verb of motion; here the object of the verb will be in the accusative case (as in Latin and Greek).

"Run on the mountain" would require the locative case.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:45 PM
Title: Re: Ahu Sutta - It Was
Content:
Greetings,
ahu pubbe tadā nāhu
nāhu pubbe tadā ahu
na cāhu na ca bhavissati
na cetarahi vijjati

Formerly it was; then it was not.
Formerly it was not; then it was.
It was not, it will not be,
And now it is not to be found.
Here's a translation of Dhammapāla's commentary (except the last paragraph, which is only a paraphrase):
Therein, the phrase formerly it was (ahu pubbe) means “before the arising of knowledge of the path of arahantship the whole set of defilements, starting with lust, was present in my continuum. Within this set of defilements there was no defilement whatsoever that was not present in me.”

Then it was not (tadā nāhu) means “then, at the time of the noble path-moment, this set of defilements was not; it did not exist at all. Within this set of defilements there was not even the least significant of defilements that had not been abandoned by me the moment of the highest path [i.e. the arahantship path-moment].”

But certain bhāṇakas recite this line as subsequently it was not (tato nāhu). The meaning in this case is that from the arahantship path-moment onwards the set of defilements did not exist at all.

Formerly it was not (nāhu pubbe) means “prior to the noble path-moment, whatever immeasurable, faultless dhamma is now mine, attained through my perfection of cultivation, was not; it did not exist at all.”

Then it was means “when the highest path-knowledge arose in me, then the whole of the faultless dhamma was mine.” For in the case of Buddhas, attainment of the highest path means that all the qualities associated with omniscience come into their hands.

It was not, it will not be, and now is not to be found means “just as the faultless dhamma, the noble path, which arose in me at the place of enlightenment and by which the entire set of defilements was abandoned without remainder, was not and did not exist in me before the path-moment, even so, it will not exist, it will not arise again in the future. Since there are no more defilements to be abandoned by me, there is no further duty to be done and so no arising of the path [for the abandoning of the defilements] in the present or future.”

As it is said [in the Nālaka Sutta]: “They go not twice to the Farther Shore.”
So, an expansive translation according to the commentarial understanding would be something like this:
Formerly there were defilements; later there were none.
Formerly there was no faultless dhamma; later there was.
Just as the noble path moment formerly did not arise in me,
Even so, it will not arise again in the future and does not arise now.
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:47 PM
Title: Re: More Commentaries
Content:
The earliest commentary-like works would be the commentarial content in the Tipiṭaka itself. For example:

• The definitions of terms in the Vinaya Piṭaka.
• The various suttas in which disciples like Sāriputta and Mahākaccāyana expound at length what the Buddha had expounded in brief.
• The Niddesa of the Khuddaka Nikāya (a commentary to two sections of the Suttanipāta). And perhaps also the Paṭisambhidāmagga.

On the other hand, taking "commentary" in the narrow sense of atthakathā, the oldest extant ones are those of Buddhaghosa, closely followed by those of Dhammapāla. The oldest we know of, but which are no longer extant are the Sinhalese texts from which Buddhaghosa was working — the Mahā-atthakathā, the Mahāpaccarī, and the Kuruṇḍī.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 21, 2009 6:52 PM
Title: Re: requesting help from devas
Content:
The word 'yakkha' can be used as an honorific for devas, gandhabbas, nagas etc. The ones named in the sutta belong to several different classes of amanussa.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 21, 2009 4:59 PM
Title: Re: requesting help from devas
Content:
In the Atanatiya Sutta (DN. 32) the Buddha gives the names of those devas who have vowed to render assistance to those who have gone for refuge. So, learn their names and when you're in dire straits just give them a yell.

"Learn by heart, monks, the Atanata protection, constantly make use of it, bear it in mind. This Atanata protection, monks, pertains to your welfare, and by virtue of it, monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen may live at ease, guarded, protected, and unharmed."

— Atanatiya Sutta: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.32.0.piya.html
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 21, 2009 1:04 PM
Title: Re: "in the commentaries"... where?
Content:
I posted it here too:

http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=914

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 21, 2009 12:53 PM
Title: Re: Moin
Content:
Hi Christian,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:17 PM
Title: Re: Alm Bowls
Content:
They may if the monk lets them, but many monks prefer not to since few laypeople will know all the rules about the proper treatment of an almsbowl.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:12 PM
Title: Re: What does this Sutta mean?
Content:
Not bad but I would leave out the phrase by discernment, for in the four mahapadesas themselves nothing at all is stipulated as to the means by which one is to judge whether something fits or doesn't fit.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:25 PM
Title: Re: Commentary Quotation Search
Content:
Hi Ed,
vadhake devadattamhi
core aṅgulimālake. 
dhanapāle rāhule ca
sabbattha samako munī ti.

To the murderer Devadatta,
To the robber Aṅgulimāla,
To Dhanapāla [the elephant], and to Rāhula too —
The Sage is neutral to them all.
(Ap.i.47; Mil.410; DhA.i.146)
The Apadāna and the Theragāthā Atthakathā attribute the verse to Ven. Upāli. The Milindapañha attributes it to Ven. Sāriputta. In the Dhammapada Atthakathā it is spoken by the Buddha, but with samako ("neutral") replaced with samamānaso ("neutral in mind").

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 20, 2009 9:14 AM
Title: Re: What does this Sutta mean?
Content:
Not really. I think you're missing the main point, which is that when a bhikkhu finds himself in vinayaic uncharted territory he is supposed to determine the appropriate course of action by looking for resemblances between that and the territory that is charted.

If he's offered an expensive, custom-made Persian carpet, for instance, then there's no rule prohibited him from accepting it, but he might decide to reject the offering on the grounds that the Buddha prohibited bhikkhus from having rugs made out of of pure black goat's wool (apparently a luxury item back then).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 20, 2009 1:23 AM
Title: Re: What does this Sutta mean?
Content:
Suppose we change the wording to, "Any item (or mode of conduct) that I haven't vetoed with the words, 'This is not allowable,', if it resembles something that is not allowable, and conflicts with the things that are allowable, then it is not allowable for you."

Is this intelligible to you?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:06 PM
Title: Re: hello
Content:
Hi Nadi,

Welcome, and thanks for introducing yourself.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:01 PM
Title: Re: Further explanation of 'thitibhutam', the primal mind
Content:
It's a Pali compound, but it's not found in the Tipitaka or Atthakatha. It is found in a Vinaya sub-commentary, where it refers to the stability of the marking stones (nimitta) used to indicate a consecrated sima, and in the Majjhima sub-commentary, where it refers to the firmness of someone's wrong view. Neither usage seems to have any connection with that of the Thai ajahns.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:15 AM
Title: Re: Font troubles
Content:
Not necessarily. You will either need to adjust your browser settings to display all pages in Unicode-8, or, when you happen to be on a page that contains Pali in Unicode you can try selecting VIEW in your browser menu, then scroll down to TEXT (or CHARACTER) ENCODING, and select UNICODE-8 from the available options.

The text I posted the other day should look like this:



Niddesa.jpg (49.55 KiB) Viewed 2666 times


Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:06 AM
Title: Re: Further explanation of 'thitibhutam', the primal mind
Content:
"... the mental space in which all the conditioning starting with avijja happens."

To what (if anything) would this mental space correspond in the Buddha's teaching?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:42 AM
Title: Re: Luminous mind
Content:
Generally we prefer to respect the choice of the original poster as to where his or her thread should be located. You are of course welcome to start a thread on this question in a forum of your own choosing.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 17, 2009 9:18 PM
Title: Re: "Ceased aggregates of dead or alive are alike"
Content:
Hi Phil,

Here's the Pali of the three verses quoted by Buddhaghosa, with Olendzki's translation.
jīvitaṃ attabhāvo ca, sukhadukkhā ca kevalā.
ekacittasamāyuttā, lahu so vattate khaṇo.

Life, personhood, pleasure and pain
— This is all that's bound together
In a single mental event
— A moment that quickly takes place.


ye niruddhā marantassa, tiṭṭhamānassa vā idha.
sabbepi sadisā khandhā, gatā appaṭisandhikā.

What ceases for one who is dead,
Or for one who's still standing here,
Are all just the same aggregates
— Gone, never to connect again.


anibbattena na jāto, paccuppannena jīvati. 
cittabhaṅgā mato loko, paññatti paramatthiyā ti.

With no production there's no birth;
With becoming present, one lives.
When grasped with the highest meaning,
The world is dead when the mind stops.
(Mahāniddesa 42, Olendzki trans.)
Translations of some more verses from the same text here:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/nm/nm.2.04.olen.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 17, 2009 9:02 PM
Title: Re: Namaskaram n Hello
Content:
Hi Suriya,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 17, 2009 8:02 PM
Title: Re: MN Session 8 - MN 41. Sāleyyaka Sutta: The Brahmins of Sālā
Content:
The term "fetters of householdership" (gihisaṃyojana) is used only once in the Suttas:
The wanderer Vacchagotta asked the Blessed One: “Master Gotama, is there any householder who, without abandoning the fetter of householdership, on the dissolution of the body has made an end of suffering?”

“Vaccha, there is no householder who, without abandoning the fetter of householdership, on the dissolution of the body has made an end of suffering.”

— Tevijjavacchagotta Sutta (MN. 71)
The Theravadin commentators understand "gihisaṃyojana" to refer to mental attachment to the goods of the household life, not to the goods themselves. If it applied to the goods themselves, then there would be no possibility of a householder attaining arahatta, but some householders (e.g. Yasa and his companions) have in fact done so.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 17, 2009 6:52 PM
Title: Re: "Ceased aggregates of dead or alive are alike"
Content:
It's from the Niddesa of the Khuddaka Nikaya, but you will probably have read it in the Visuddhimagga's chapter on the recollection of death.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 17, 2009 9:45 AM
Title: Re: Pali Resources
Content:
The list below was compiled by our member Chris.

Edit (June 13th 2021) - Some of the links were found dead on this day. I've marked them with red asterisks. If you know of an updated version of them, please post it. Thanks.

Dhammānando


Pali Pronunciation Sound Files
http://www.aimwell.org/pali.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pali Canon Online Database: Advanced Search 
http://www.chaf.lib.latrobe.edu.au/dcd/pali-search.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; 
***

Pali Resources available on the web, thanks to John Bullit of ATI.org
https://web.archive.org/web/20131107010717/http://www.accesstoinsight.org/outsources/pali.html

The PTS Pali-English Dictionary
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/pali/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; 

A very useful tool by Venerable Yuttadhammo
http://www.library.websangha.org/earlybuddhism/convertpad.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; 
***

Sourceforge
A cross-platform Pali-English reader. Allows intermediate Pali students to read the Pali Canon. Automatically recognizes pali words and gives definitions from the CPED and PED, as well as DPPN if available. Includes text search and dictionary lookup. 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/digitalpali/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; 

Pali fonts
http://www.aimwell.org/Fonts/fonts.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
***
http://www.softerviews.org/Fonts.html

Introduction to Pali - Materials for A. K. Warder's book 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pali/files/Introduction%20to%20Pali/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; 
***

Narada's Elementary Pali Course 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pali/files/Narada%27s%20Elementary%20Pali%20Course/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; 
***

Pali Learning Files 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pali/files/Pali%20Learning%20Files/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; 
***

Pali keyboard
Windows Keyboards for Typing with Unicode Latin-script Pali Fonts 
http://fsnow.com/pali/keyboard/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; 

A Pali Word a Day - a selection of Pali words for Daily Reflection
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/paliwordday.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tipitaka Network :: Pāḷi Synthesis
http://www.tipitaka.net/pali/synthesis/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; 

Bhavana Vandana - Book of Devotion — Compiled by Ven. Gunaratana. 
The purpose of this book is manifold. One is to teach the users of this Vandana book how to pronounce Pali words correctly. .
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/vandana.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; 

Pali Canon Online Database - Peter Friedlander 
http://www.bodhgayanews.net/pali.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Files from the Defunct Yahoo Pali Group
http://wrdingham.co.uk/pali/

Sādhu Pali Resources
https://www.dhamma.ru/sadhu/65-pali


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 17, 2009 9:45 AM
Title: Pali Resources
Content:
A pinned thread for posting links and files related to the Pali language.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 17, 2009 7:45 AM
Title: Re: Alm Bowls
Content:
Me neither. It betrays our age.  

When I was a boy we still had itinerant bodgers in Yorkshire, but I believe they've all gone, with only hobbyists now preserving the craft.

http://www.ukcraftfairs.com/guide-to-bodging.asp

http://www.stuartking.co.uk/index.php/chair-bodgers-of-buckinghamshire/

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



Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 17, 2009 7:23 AM
Title: Re: Alm Bowls
Content:
When laying down the prohibition against wooden almsbowls the Buddha didn't give any reason, but issues of hygiene do seem a likely explanation.

Later, prohibitions were laid down against almsbowls made of gold, silver, mother-of-pearl, beryl, crystal, bronze, glass, tin, lead, and copper (as well as a requirement that bowls be made of either clay or iron). These were in response to householders complaining that the monks, in using such bowls, were acting like householders (a stock phrase in Vinaya origin stories).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 17, 2009 7:10 AM
Title: Re: Favourites from Sutta Nipata
Content:
It's a fairly free rendering, and not a very good one, imo. I remember at E-sangha expressing surprise upon hearing that Bhikkhu Bodhi had chosen to use this translation rather than Norman's. But it turned out that the focus of his talks was chiefly suttas of a moralistic or devotional sort, whose contents can survive even in a poorish translation. Also, I was told by one of the posters that Bodhi often gives up on Saddhatissa's translation and supplies his own during the talks.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:23 PM
Title: Re: Alm Bowls
Content:
No, a turner would be working with wood, which is a prohibited material for almsbowls. Also, I should think the turners of the Buddha's day are more likely to have been engaged in bodging than bowl-making.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:05 PM
Title: Re: MN Session 8 - MN 41. Sāleyyaka Sutta: The Brahmins of Sālā
Content:
In the Suttas there are no reports of any householder attaining arahatta and then remaining a householder. All householder arahants either go forth at once or die. However, the earliest explicit statement that an arahant cannot remain a householder comes from the Kathāvatthu, the Abhidhamma Piṭaka's record of the controversies debated at the Third Council. It's notable that even the opponents of the Theravādin debater don't really hold a contrary view on this question. Rather, their disagreement arises from the semantic issue of whether the phrase "fetters of a householder" means a householder's mental fetters or his material possessions.

Later still, in the Milindapañha, we get the claim that a householder attaining arahatta must go forth the very same day or else pass away (I've no idea why so many people say that it's "seven days"). The statement is made in two dialogues. Firstly in Book IV chapter 3 (Mil. 161-4):

'And moreover, O king, you may know by this fact the greatness and the peerless glory of the bhikkhu state—that if a layman, a disciple of the faith, who has entered upon the Excellent Way, should attain to the realisation of arahatship, one of two results must happen to him, and there is no other—he must either die away on that very day, or take upon himself the condition of a bhikkhu. For immovable, O king, is that state of renunciation, glorious, and most exalted—I mean the condition of being a member of the Order!'


Then in Book IV chapter 7 (Mil. 264-6):

'Venerable Nāgasena, your people say:

"Whosoever has attained, as a layman, to arahatship, one of two conditions are possible to him, and no other—either that very day he enters the Order, or he dies away, for beyond that day he cannot last."

'Now if, Nāgasena, he could not, on that day, procure a teacher or preceptor, or a bowl and set of robes, would he then, being an arahat, ordain himself, or would he live over the day, or would some other arahat suddenly appear by supernormal power and ordain him, or would he die away?'

'He could not, O king, because he is an arahat, ordain himself. For any one ordaining himself into the Order is guilty of communion by theft. And he could not last beyond that day. Whether another arahat should happen, or not, to arrive, on that very day would he die away.'

'Then, Nāgasena, by whatever means attained, the holy condition of arahatship is thereby also lost, for destruction of life is involved in it.'

'It is the condition of laymanship which is at fault, O king. In that faulty condition, and by reason of the weakness of the condition itself, the layman who, as such, has attained to arahatship must either, that very day, enter the Order or die away. That is not the fault of arahatship, O king. It is laymanship that is at fault, through not being strong enough.

'Just, O king, as food, that guards the growth and protects the life of all beings, will, through indigestion, take away the life of one whose stomach is unequal to it, whose internal fire is low and weak—just so if a layman attains arahatship when in that condition unequal to it, then by reason of the weakness of the condition he must, that very day, either enter the Order or die away.

'Or just, O king, as a tiny blade of grass when a heavy rock is placed upon it will, through its weakness, break off and give way—just so when a layman attains arahatship, then, unable to support arahatship in that condition, he must, that very day, either enter the Order or die away.

'Or just, O king, as a poor weak fellow of low birth and little ability, if he came into possession of a great and mighty kingdom, would be unable to support the dignity of it—just so if a layman attains to arahatship, then is he unable, in that condition, to support it. And that is the reason why he must, on that very day, either enter the Order or die away.'

'Very good, Nāgasena! That is so, and I accept it as you say.'
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:43 PM
Title: Re: are six sense-bases kamma-vipaka or not?
Content:
As I read it, the point of dispute reported in the Kathāvatthu is one of several in that text that are disagreements over the phrasing rather than the meaning. That is to say, some non-Theravādins had apparently adopted the convention of using the term 'vipāka' to cover everything that results from a morally significant action, rather than limiting it to certain mental phenomena. By contrast, the Theravādin convention was to use other terms (e.g. kammanibbatti, kammasamuṭṭhāna — kammic production, kammic origination) when speaking of kamma-generated rūpadhammas. As such, I would view this particular dispute on kamma as belonging to a different class than those which are genuinely on points of doctrine (e.g. the controversy over whether merit increases with utility).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:34 AM
Title: Re: MN Session 8 - MN 41. Sāleyyaka Sutta: The Brahmins of Sālā
Content:
The latter. There are many suttas about this in the Anguttara Nikaya. The gist of them is that exceedingly few humans and devas get reborn as humans or devas; most are headed for the lower realms.

I hope that doesn't spoil your day.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 15, 2009 11:08 AM
Title: Re: are six sense-bases kamma-vipaka or not?
Content:
I have to go out now, but I'll post the Kathāvatthu passage when I get back. The wrong view in question is attributed to the Mahasanghikas; essentially it consisted in taking 'kammavipāka' to refer to every sort of kammic production, rather than limiting it (correctly) to events in the mental continuum.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 15, 2009 10:50 AM
Title: Re: Is Rebirth Speculation?
Content:
Ven. Sumedho makes too sweeping a statement. If one who accepts rebirth has arrived at his view through speculation, then for him it’s speculative. If he’s arrived at his view out of confidence in the Buddha’s teaching, then for him it’s an object of faith. If he’s arrived at his view through recall of former lives (whether spontaneously or by jhānic cultivation) then it’s an object of knowledge and there’s nothing speculative about it.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 15, 2009 10:40 AM
Title: Re: Materialism and Physicalism
Content:
Ajita's view is that beings consists of the four elements and nothing else. It's a view that denies mind.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 15, 2009 10:25 AM
Title: Re: Titles of Mara (in Pali & English)
Content:
Here's a searchable edition of the Abhidhānappadīpikā and its ṭīkā (from the CSCD). It doesn't, however, have an English translation of the words. For that you'll need the one Sherubtse linked to.


 ./download/file.php?id=36
(343.91 KiB) Downloaded 121 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 15, 2009 9:27 AM
Title: Re: Materialism and Physicalism
Content:
Every single clause in Ajita's view contradicts the Dhamma and moral nihilism (natthikavāda) is only one of the three wrongnesses it embodies. The others are acausalism (ahetukavāda), and the inefficacy of action (akiriyavāda). These are the niyati-micchādiṭṭhi (views that lead to rebirth in hell) in his teaching.

In addition to this, Ajita's view is incompatible with the Dhamma in that it asserts beings comprise just one aggregate. According to the Dhamma this would be true only of the impercipient beings. All other beings comprise four or five aggregates. And so Ajita not only undermines morality, but also the possibility of developing paññā.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:40 PM
Title: Re: Hello
Content:
Hi Sergey,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:01 PM
Title: Re: Stem-cells
Content:
I suggest you look up "inanimate" in a dictionary.

And I repeat my advice that you make a careful study of what is taught about kamma and its ripening in the Suttas and Abhidhamma, for you appear at the moment to be rather clueless about these things.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 14, 2009 5:36 PM
Title: Re: Materialism and Physicalism
Content:
I think the OP is referring to ontological materialism and cognitive physicalism, not to materialism in the sense of treating physical possessions as the most desirable kind of good.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 14, 2009 5:32 PM
Title: Re: Materialism and Physicalism
Content:
Materialism is the wrong wrong view taught by Ajita of the Hairy Blanket. It's absolutely incompatible with the Buddha's Dhamma, being the first of the four wrong views that negate the very possibility of the brahmcariya.
“But, Master Ananda, what are those four ways that negate the living of the holy life that have been declared by the Blessed One who knows and sees, accomplished and fully enlightened, wherein a wise man certainly would not live the holy life, or if he should live it, would not attain the true way, the Dhamma that is wholesome?”

“Here, Sandaka, some teacher holds such a doctrine and view as this: ‘There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed; no fruit or result of good and bad actions; no this world, no other world; no mother, no father; no beings who are reborn spontaneously; no good and virtuous recluses and brahmins in the world who have themselves realised by direct knowledge and declare this world and the other world. A person consists of the four great elements. When he dies, earth returns and goes back to the body of earth, water returns and goes back to the body of water, fire returns and goes back to the body of fire, air returns and goes back to the body of air; the faculties are transferred to space. [Four] men with the bier as fifth carry away the corpse. The funeral orations last as far as the charnel ground; the bones whiten; burnt offerings end with ashes. Giving is a doctrine of fools. When anyone asserts the doctrine that there is [giving and the like], it is empty, false prattle. Fools and the wise are alike cut off and annihilated with the dissolution of the body; after death they do not exist.’

“About this a wise man considers thus: ‘This good teacher holds this doctrine and view: “There is nothing given … after death they do not exist.” If this good teacher’s words are true, then here [in this teaching] I have done [my duty] by not doing [it], here I have lived [the holy life] by not living [it]. Both of us are exactly equal here [in this teaching], both have arrived at equality, yet I do not say that both of us are cut off and annihilated with the dissolution of the body, that after death we shall not exist. But it is superfluous for this good teacher to go about naked, to be shaven, to exert himself in the squatting posture, and to pull out his hair and beard, since I, who live in a house crowded with children, who use Benares sandalwood, who wear garlands, scents, and unguents, and accept gold and silver, shall reap exactly the same destination, the same future course, as this good teacher. What do I know and see that I should lead the holy life under this teacher?’ So when he finds that this way negates the living of the holy life, he turns away from it and leaves it.

“This is the first way that negates the living of the holy life that has been declared by the Blessed One who knows and sees, accomplished and fully enlightened, wherein a wise man certainly would not live the holy life, or if he should live it, would not attain the true way, the Dhamma that is wholesome.
(Sandaka Sutta, MN. 76)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 14, 2009 4:18 PM
Title: Re: Apostasy: A Buddhist View and Response
Content:
I think there's a bit more to it than that. First of all, for the kamma in question to have full force four factors are needed:
"Sāriputta, when I know and see thus, (1) should anyone say of me: 'The recluse Gotama does not have any superhuman states, any distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones. The recluse Gotama teaches a Dhamma [merely] hammered out by reasoning, following his own line of inquiry as it occurs to him’ - (2) unless he abandons that assertion and (3) that state of mind and (4) relinquishes that view, then as [surely as if he had been] carried off and put there he will wind up in hell."
So, we have:

1. Akusalā vācā — a speech denying the the Buddha's attainment.
2. Taṃ vācaṃ na pajahati — the non-retracting of that speech.
3. Taṃ cittaṃ na pajahati — the non-abandoning of the unwholesome citta that prompted the speech.
4. Taṃ diṭṭhiṃ na paṭinissajjeti — the non-relinquishing of the wrong view expressed in the speech.


What sort of akusala speech would it be? The commentary sees it as an instance of reviling noble ones (ariyānaṃ upavāda), and the sub-commentary compares it to the case of Kokālika, who was reborn in hell for denying the attainments of Sāriputta and Moggallāna, despite the Buddha remonstrating with him.

Now in all the commentarial definitions of "reviling ariyans" one of the necessary factors is anatthakāma, meaning a desire for the harm (lit. "non-welfare") of the person reviled.

In the Visuddhimagga Buddhaghosa defines “revilers of ariyans” thus:

Revilers of noble ones: being desirous of harm (anatthakāmā) for noble ones consisting of Buddhas, Paccekabuddhas, and disciples, and also of householders who are stream-enterers, they revile them with the worst accusations or with denial of their special qualities; they abuse and upbraid them, is what is meant.

Herein, it should be understood that when they say, 'They have no asceticism, they are not ascetics', they revile them with the worst accusation; and when they say, 'They have no jhāna or liberation or path or fruition etc.', they revile them with denial of their special qualities. And whether done knowingly or unknowingly it is in either case reviling of noble ones. It is weighty kamma resembling that of immediate result [meaning parricide, matricide etc.], and it is an obstacle both to heaven and to the path.

[...]

Reviling noble ones is greatly reprehensible because of its resemblance to kamma with immediate result. For this is said, 'Sāriputta, just as a bhikkhu possessing virtuous conduct, concentration and understanding could here and now attain final knowledge, so it is in this case, I say; if he does not abandon such talk and such thoughts and renounce such views, he will find himself in hell as surely as if he had been carried off and put there' [Mahāsīhanāda Sutta MN 12]. And there is nothing more reprehensible than wrong view, according as it is said, 'Bhikkhus, I do not see any one thing so reprehensible as wrong view' [AN. i. 33].
(Path of Purification XIII 82-88; 90)
So, I think reading the Mahāsīhanāda Sutta in the light of the Pali commentaries will save us from the Lotus Sutra brand of bigotry and fanaticism.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 14, 2009 11:18 AM
Title: Re: Apostasy: A Buddhist View and Response
Content:
One might compare the above with the teaching on the five anantariya-kamma. The kamma of killing an arahant, for example, is accrued regardless of whether the murderer knows his victim to be an arahant. The mere wish to kill a human who happens to be an arahant (even though one doesn't know it) is sufficient to fulfil the factor of volition for this anantariya-kamma.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:49 AM
Title: Re: Stem-cells
Content:
No. Kamma accumulates in the mental continua of living beings, not in external matter.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 14, 2009 9:45 AM
Title: Re: Apostasy: A Buddhist View and Response
Content:
Bhikkhu Bodhi’s rendering is correct. The passage reads:

yo kho maṃ ... evaṃ jānantaṃ evaṃ passantaṃ evaṃ vadeyya

The participles "jānantaṃ" and "passantaṃ" are both in the accusative case and so the actions they denote —knowing and seeing— cannot belong to the nominative 'yo', but must belong to the only other word in the accusative case, which is the pronoun 'maṃ' (i.e. the Buddha).

For a rendering like Horner's we should expect a "yo ... jānaṃ ... passaṃ" construction, like in the fourth pārājika rule (Vin. iii. 90-1) or the Abyākata Sutta (AN. iv. 67-70).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 14, 2009 6:45 AM
Title: Re: Pali Primer Study Group (Lily de Silva)
Content:
It sounds fine to me.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 14, 2009 12:14 AM
Title: Re: Titles of Mara (in Pali & English)
Content:
In some places Maccuraja can be an epithet of Mara too, as in the Suttanipata's Mogharaja Sutta.

Best wisehs,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 13, 2009 4:44 PM
Title: Re: Prayer request forum.
Content:
It's part of the anumodanā chant from the Mahājayamaṅgalagāthā:
bhavatu sabbamaṅgalaṃ
rakkhantu sabbadevatā
sabba-buddhānubhāvena
sadā sotthī bhavantu te.


bhavatu sabbamaṅgalaṃ
rakkhantu sabbadevatā
sabba-dhammānubhāvena
sadā sotthī bhavantu te.

bhavatu sabbamaṅgalaṃ
rakkhantu sabbadevatā
sabba-saṅghānubhāvena
sadā sotthī bhavantu te.


May all good fortune come your way,
May all the devas protect you,
By all the power of the Buddha
May you always enjoy well-being.

May all good fortune come your way,
May all the devas protect you,
By all the power of the Dhamma
May you always enjoy well-being.

May all good fortune come your way,
May all the devas protect you,
By all the power of the Saṅgha
May you always enjoy well-being
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:41 PM
Title: Re: Stem-cells
Content:
No, I'm saying that you are extending the scope of kamma beyond that which was taught by the Buddha. To get a proper idea of its scope I would suggest you read the suttas on kamma at Access to Insight and chapter 5 of the Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:58 PM
Title: Re: metta as my main practice
Content:
Sorry, but I think I'll have to bow out of this thread now. I don't see any way to make my point any clearer than I already have.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:37 AM
Title: Re: Buddhanussati in Visuddhimagga: Nava Guna or Dasa?
Content:
The word "canonical" is used by most people to refer to the "root texts" (mūla-pāḷi), meaning the Tipiṭaka. The Narasīhagāthā are from an atthakathā and so would be termed "commentarial". In the classical Theravāda classification atthakathā is the third of the four sources of the Dhamma:

1. Sutta: the three baskets of the Tipiṭaka.
2. Suttānuloma: a direct inference from the Tipiṭaka.
3. Atthakathā: a commentary.
4. Attanomati: the personal opinions of later generations of teachers.

In this scheme sutta is viewed as the most reliable source of authority and attanomati the least so.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:47 AM
Title: Re: Controversial Theravada traditions?
Content:
Thanks for the notice about this site, which I wasn't previously aware of.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


P.S.,

 

I'm delighted to see the site offers Alan Cole's book Text as Father: Paternal Seductions in Early Mahayana Buddhist Literature for free download:

https://buddhisttorrents.blogspot.com/2009/03/text-as-father-paternal-seductions-in.html
This beautifully written work sheds new light on the origins and nature of Mahayana Buddhism with close readings of four well-known texts--the Lotus Sutra, Diamond Sutra, Tathagatagarbha Sutra, and Vimalakirtinirdesa. Treating these sutras as literary works rather than as straightforward philosophic or doctrinal treatises, Alan Cole argues that these writings were carefully sculpted to undermine traditional monastic Buddhism and to gain legitimacy and authority for Mahayana Buddhism as it was veering away from Buddhism's older oral and institutional forms.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:37 AM
Title: Re: Stem-cells
Content:
This sounds more like a Hua Yen take on dependent arising (such as that popularized by Thich Nhat Hanh) than a Theravadin one.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:25 AM
Title: Re: Buddhanussati in Visuddhimagga: Nava Guna or Dasa?
Content:
It consists of verses taken from the Nidānakathā, the introductory section to the Jātaka Atthakathā.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 13, 2009 7:33 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism and Abortion.
Content:
I think it depends what you mean by 'inaction'. If you mean no action of body, speech or mind, then no, there's no kamma of any sort.

If you mean without doing anything with one's body or speech, then yes, one can accumulate akusala mind-door kamma by thoughts of covetousness, ill will, wrong view etc..

Furthermore, there are circumstances in which one can perform akusala body-door kamma without the body moving (e.g., by commanding someone to kill) or akusala speech-door kamma without saying anything (e.g., when a bhikkhu who knows himself to be guilty of a Vinaya offence remains silent when asked if he is pure during a Patimokkha recital. The bhikkhu's silence in this context will be taken as a statement of his being free of any offence, and so he commits the akusala kamma of false speech).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 12, 2009 8:16 PM
Title: Re: Prayer request forum.
Content:
I wouldn't read it as meaning that it would necessarily be pointless for a layperson to aspire to be more like Sāriputta, but rather as naming the most fitting exemplars for each of the four classes of follower.

This is how it is phrased in the sutta:
"Bhikkhus, a bhikkhu of faith, praying rightly, should pray thus: 'May I be like Sāriputta and Moggallāna!' These, bhikkhus, are the measure, these are the standard for my bhikkhu disciples, namely, Sāriputta and Moggallāna."
The same phrasing is repeated for the other three aspirations, replacing "bhikkhu" with "bhikkhuni" etc.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 12, 2009 8:12 PM
Title: Re: Greetings and Namasakarn
Content:
Hi SeerObserver,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 12, 2009 12:52 PM
Title: Re: MN Session 8 - MN 41. Sāleyyaka Sutta: The Brahmins of Sālā
Content:
But the Theravadin maxim is not that a householder can't attain arahatta, but that he can't attain it and thereafter remain a householder.

The Subha Sutta is relevant in this connection, though here the Buddha is responding to the brahminical view that the household life is the true way:
The brahmin student Subha, Todeyya’s son, went to the Blessed One and exchanged greetings with him. When this courteous and amiable talk was finished, he sat down at one side and asked the Blessed One:

“Master Gotama, the brahmins say this: ‘The householder is accomplishing the true way, the Dhamma that is wholesome. The one gone forth [into homelessness] is not accomplishing the true way, the Dhamma that is wholesome.’ What does Master Gotama say about this?”

“Here, student, I am one who speaks after making an analysis (vibhajjavāda); I do not speak one-sidedly (ekaṃsavāda). I do not praise the wrong way of practice on the part either of a householder or one gone forth; for whether it be a householder or one gone forth, one who has entered on the wrong way of practice, by reason of his wrong way of practice, is not accomplishing the true way, the Dhamma that is wholesome. I praise the right way of practice on the part either of a householder or one gone forth; for whether it be a householder or one gone forth, one who has entered on the right way of practice, by reason of his right way of practice, is accomplishing the true way, the Dhamma that is wholesome.”
(MN. 99)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 12, 2009 12:38 PM
Title: Re: Buddhanussati in Visuddhimagga: Nava Guna or Dasa?
Content:
Hi Green,

I don’t know anything about the origin of the gāthā that you quote. But in any case, that anuttaro purisadammasārathi is a single quality (as stated in the Visuddhimagga), with the first word qualifying the second, can be plainly seen in the Suttas. For example:
“Among the teachers of training it is he that is called ‘the incomparable leader of persons to be tamed.’ So it was said. And with reference to what was this said?

“Guided by the elephant tamer, bhikkhus, the elephant to be tamed goes in one direction - east, west, north, or south. Guided by the horse tamer, bhikkhus, the horse to be tamed goes in one direction – east, west, north, or south. Guided by the ox tamer, bhikkhus, the ox to be tamed goes in one direction – east, west, north, or south.

“Bhikkhus, guided by the Tathāgata, accomplished and fully enlightened, the person to be tamed goes in eight directions.

“Possessed of material form, he sees forms: this is the first direction.

“Not perceiving forms internally, he sees forms externally: this is the second direction.

“He is resolved only upon the beautiful: this is the third direction.

“With the complete surmounting of perceptions of form, with the disappearance of perceptions of sensory impact, with non-attention to perceptions of diversity, aware that ‘space is infinite,’ he enters upon and abides in the base of infinite space: this is the fourth direction.

“By completely surmounting the base of infinite space, aware that ‘consciousness is infinite,’ he enters upon and abides in the base of infinite consciousness: this is the fifth direction.

“By completely surmounting the base of infinite consciousness, aware that ‘there is nothing,’ he enters upon and abides in the base of nothingness: this is the sixth direction.

“By completely surmounting the base of nothingness, he enters upon and abides in the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception: this is the seventh direction.

“By completely surmounting the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, he enters upon and abides in the cessation of perception and feeling: this is the eighth direction.

“Bhikkhus, guided by the Tathāgata, accomplished and fully enlightened, the person to be tamed goes in these eight directions.

“So it was with reference to this that it was said: ‘Among the teachers of training it is he that is called the incomparable leader of persons to be tamed.’”
(Saḷāyatanavibhanga Sutta, MN. 137)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:41 AM
Title: Re: Prayer request forum.
Content:
In the Suttas (AN. ii. 164) "right praying" (sammā āyācamānā) for a monk means praying: "May I be like the venerables Sāriputta and Moggallāna!" For a nun it means: "May I be like the therīs Khemā and Uppalavaṇṇā!" For a layman it means: "May I be like the householders Citta and Hatthaka Āḷavaka!" For a laywoman it means, "May I be like Khujjuttarā and Veḷukaṇḍakī!"

The commentary to this sutta says that praying for anything other than the above is merely "wrong wishing" (micchā patthanā).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:36 AM
Title: Re: Lotus position
Content:
How to Grow a Lotus: http://zenmontpellier.site.voila.fr/eng/lotus/lotuseng.html

The Zennists are very good if you need advice on sitting posture.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:26 AM
Title: Re: Titles of Mara (in Pali & English)
Content:
The Abhidhānappadīpikā gives eight. Translated according to the tika's explanation:

Antaka – “The Endmaker”
Vasavattī – “The Wielder of Power”
Pāpimā – “The Malign”
Pajāpati – “Lord of the Generation”
Pamattabandhu – “The Kinsman of the Heedless”
Kaṇha – “The Black One”
Māra – “The Killer”
Namuci – “The Unfreed”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:22 AM
Title: Re: Buddhanussati in Visuddhimagga: Nava Guna or Dasa?
Content:
Into nine. Anuttaro shouldn't be separated from purisadammasarathi.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:09 AM
Title: Re: Ordination in Thailand Info & Advice
Content:
Probably just putting on a brave face. Kevin disrobed in February.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:09 AM
Title: Re: Zen Moments
Content:
Hi Alan,

Thanks for joining us.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:38 PM
Title: Re: Ordination in Thailand Info & Advice
Content:
I see. Thanks for clarifying.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 11, 2009 8:42 PM
Title: Re: G'day!
Content:
Hi Dan,

Welcome, and thanks for the introduction.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 11, 2009 8:32 PM
Title: Re: Ordination in Thailand Info & Advice
Content:
Really? Do you happen to know the reason for this policy?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 11, 2009 8:27 PM
Title: Re: Ordination in Thailand Info & Advice
Content:
In the five years since I returned to Thailand I haven't felt any interest in travelling around to check out new monasteries or teachers, but have been content to stay in one place, with just occasional trips to the north for meditation retreats. Consequently, as far as monasteries go I don't have any new recommendations to add to those I posted to E-sangha.

Likewise with Thai language studies, I'm completely out of the loop now and have no idea what's available. The forums at http://www.thaivisa.com would be the place to ask about this.

For Pali study I don't know of any better place than Wat Tha Ma O, Sayadaw Dhammananda's monastery in Lampang, though Buddhaghosa College in Nakhorn Pathom will probably be just as good (the ajahns there are all former students of the sayadaw).

For Abhidhamma study, all of the schools that I've visited had pretty impressive and capable teachers, with a high level of faith, energy and enthusiasm prevailing. So there's no particular Abhidhamma school that I would recommend more than the others. My reason for choosing Wat Rakhang is chiefly that the classrooms are air-conditioned.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 11, 2009 1:58 PM
Title: Re: Pali Primer Study Group (Lily de Silva)
Content:
Greetings,

As Dhamma Wheel's settings have just been tweaked to permit the uploading of zip and rtf files I am uploading a file containing the html pages of de Silva's Primer, converted to Unicode. Should you find the diacritics not displaying correctly on your browser, go to VIEW in your browser menu, select CHARACTER ENCODING, and then select Unicode-8.


 ./download/file.php?id=35
(103.57 KiB) Downloaded 326 times


Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:15 AM
Title: Re: Howdy from ZFI
Content:
Hi Keith,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:16 PM
Title: Re: Metta request
Content:
Wishing you a speedy recovery.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:11 PM
Title: Re: Word search
Content:
Hi Phil,

The PED entry reads:
Apadāna (nt.)

1. [= Sk. apadāna] removing, breaking off, D iii.88.

2. [= Sk. avadāna cp. ovāda] advice, admonition, instruction, morals Vin ii.4 (an° not taking advice), 7 (id.) M i.96; A v.337 sq. (saddhā°) Th 1, 47.

3. legend, life history. In the title Mahāpadāna suttanta it refers to the 7 Buddhas. In the title Apadānaṃ, that is "the stories", it refers almost exclusively to Arahants. The other, (older), connotation seems to have afterwards died out. See Dialogues ii.3. -- Cp. also pariyāpadāna.
Apadāna in the sense of "deed" or "behaviour" is missing from the PED but is given in the older (and often better) dictionary of R.C. Childers and in my Pali-Thai dictionary. The translation of the phrase in the Thai Tipiṭaka expresses the same meaning as Bhikkhu Bodhi's.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:13 AM
Title: Re: Hello
Content:
Hi Glenn,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:12 AM
Title: Re: Titles of the Buddha (in Pali & English)
Content:
If you download the Buddhaguṇagāthāvalī you will find hundreds of them, arranged thematically as in a thesaurus. For example, if you look up "tathāgata" you will get:
yathāvādī tathākārī, tathavādī tathāgato. 
yathākārī tathāvādī, buddhaṃ taṃ paṇamāmyahaṃ.

and:

maggagavesī maggagū, maggakkhāto tathāgato. 
amatamaggaṃ dassāvī, buddhaṃ taṃ paṇamāmyahaṃ.
http://nt.med.ncku.edu.tw/biochem/lsn/newrain/canon/pali-tipitaka-f1/Anna/Buddhavandana/Buddhagunagatha.doc

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 10, 2009 10:55 AM
Title: Re: Memory Loss
Content:
If by "insights" you mean vipassana knowledges attained, then no. These accumulate in the mental continuum and are never lost, even if one has to wait for some future life for them to be "reactivated".

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 9, 2009 3:48 PM
Title: Re: Pali Primer Study Group (Lily de Silva)
Content:
As the vri fonts don't work well for Macintosh users I thought it would be best to download the study files, convert them to rtf files with unicode formatting and then e-mail them to anyone interested. I'll do the work this evening, so pm me with your e-mail address for a copy of the files.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 9, 2009 2:48 PM
Title: Re: Greetings
Content:
Hi Ed, 

Welcome. I'm glad you found us.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 9, 2009 2:47 PM
Title: Re: some very specific vegetarian questions
Content:
Yes.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 9, 2009 2:41 PM
Title: Re: Complete Buddhist Pilgrimage Sites - Video Documentry
Content:
You can if you want. Go to http://keepvid.com/, paste in the youtube url and the video will be downloaded to your computer.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 9, 2009 10:33 AM
Title: Re: some very specific vegetarian questions
Content:
The first two verbs are hanati and ghāteti, meaning to kill and to have another kill. These are the same verbs as in the Dhammapada verses I referred to earlier in this thread. And yes, the latter does mean the same as paraṃ pāṇātipāte samādapeti.

The third verb, hanataṃ paresaṃ anujānāti, would be literally translated as "permit killing on the part of others". It corresponds to approving/condoning (samanuñño) in the sutta quoted by Ven. Pesala. In practice, however, the meaning is rather narrower than this. It generally has to do with conspiracy scenarios in which two or more persons jointly agree to kill someone. When the killing takes place, although perhaps only one person does the actual deed, all those who plotted towards this end incur the akusala body-door kamma of intentional killing. So the verb hanati applies to the fellow who stabs or shoots, while samanuñño or anujānāti apply to the rest of the plotters.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 9, 2009 10:32 AM
Title: Re: MN Session 7 - MN 135. Cūḷakammavibhanga Sutta
Content:
Sādhu! That's exactly what this teaching is for. Reflecting backwards would be grasping the wrong end of the snake. It seems to me that Dark Dream's objections to this sutta are premised on the unwarranted assumption that grasping the wrong end of the snake is what everyone will in fact do.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 9, 2009 9:31 AM
Title: Re: some very specific vegetarian questions
Content:
1. A person's purchase of chicken flesh does not amount to the akusala kamma of having someone kill chickens.

2. A person's knowledge that purchasing chicken flesh will be a contributory factor to more chickens being killed, or his ignorance of this, will not alter the fact that his purchase of chicken flesh does not amount to the akusala kamma of having someone kill chickens.

(The Vinaya principle that applies here is that the mere knowing about the probable outcome of an action does not in itself constitute the willing of that outcome. For example, in a forest monastery one of the bhikkhus' daily duties is to sweep the leaves on the forest paths. This sweeping will most probably, indeed almost inevitably, lead to the accidental injury or deaths of some ants and other small insects. But even though a bhikkhu knows that this is likely to happen, he does not incur any offence for the deaths that his sweeping causes, except in the unlikely event that his decision to sweep leaves is prompted by a desire that insects will be killed).

3. Whether the chickens were raised in battery farms, or in free range farms, or in sumptious palaces waited upon by liveried footmen, has no bearing on the question of whether a person's purchasing their dead flesh would amount to the akusala kamma of having someone kill chickens.

4. A person who resolves not to purchase the flesh of chickens, doing so out of compassion for chickens and in the hope that this will reduce the demand for chicken flesh and lead to fewer chickens being killed, performs wholesome mind-door kamma on account of his compassionate volition.

5. But if this same person is the sort of militant vegetarian who alleges that those who don't do as he does are committing the unwholesome body-door kamma of having someone kill chickens, then he goes too far. He is disregarding the most elementary teaching on kamma, namely, that kamma is volition. In permitting such a view to persist within himself he commits the unwholesome mind-door kamma of nurturing a wrong view regarding the wholesome and the unwholesome. In propounding this view to others he commits the unwholesome speech-door kamma of misrepresenting the Tathāgata.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 9, 2009 9:23 AM
Title: Re: Pali Canon - can it be attributed back to the Buddha?
Content:
Carbon-dating doesn't really have any application here. The life-span of ola leaves in a tropical climate is very short indeed and so manuscripts had to be regularly recopied.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 9, 2009 3:17 AM
Title: Re: some very specific vegetarian questions
Content:
Changing the question to: "Does purchasing meat at a meat store constitute having another kill?" the answer is no.

The unwholesome kamma of having someone kill a living being entails exactly the same five factors as the unwholesome kamma of killing a living being oneself (i.e., a living being, a perception of a living being, a volition bent on killing, an effort towards that end, and the death of a being as a result). The only difference lies in the form that the effort takes.

Since people don't ordinarily purchase meat with the wish that by so doing more animals will be killed, their purchase does not amount to "having another kill something". The factors of killing volition, effort and the death of a being as a result of that effort will all be absent.

One should not give the verb "to have another kill something" a causal scope that stretches way beyond that which it is given in the Pali texts.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 8, 2009 8:49 PM
Title: Re: Venerable Dhammanando away for a few days, unwell (update 3)
Content:
Hi Thundreams,

Thank you, and welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 8, 2009 8:48 PM
Title: Re: metta as my main practice
Content:
If by "systematic practice" you mean the use of the brahmavihāra attainments as a basis for insight and liberation, then of course I would agree with you. This isn't to be found outside the Buddha's teaching, for the reason I mentioned in my last post: outside teachers cannot teach full comprehension of attachment to self doctrines (attavādupādāna).

But in your earlier post your claims that "[non-Buddhists] won't be able to succeed in practicing real metta" and that they "only pretend to practice metta -- only say the words, but do not know metta" seem rather more sweeping claim than your present one. There is nothing "unreal" about the mettā that a non-Buddhist might cultivate in meditation and practice in his dealings with others. It's just that it won't be adequate for the highest goal if it is unaccompanied by the development of right view. (But nor will the mettā cultivated by a Buddhist if s/he neglects right view development).

Regarding the two sutta passages that you quote, one should note that the vital distinction is between the practice of a noble disciple (i.e. stream-enterers, once-returners etc.) and that of a wordling. This is not the same as the distinction between the practice of one who has gone for refuge and one who has not. The class of those who have gone for refuge will include both noble disciples and worldlings.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 8, 2009 8:14 PM
Title: Re: Venerable Dhammanando away for a few days, unwell (update 3)
Content:
Some months ago I reverted to using my old Icelandic e-mail account as it has better spam control than the Thai one:

robedd
at
islandia
dot
is

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 8, 2009 7:57 PM
Title: Re: Complete Buddhist Pilgrimage Sites - Video Documentry
Content:
Hi Ishara,

Thanks for this, and welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 8, 2009 7:38 PM
Title: Re: Looking for sariputta sutta
Content:
Now that you've quoted it, I recall there was a discussion of this Ajahn Chah quote at E-sangha. The ajahn has simply given an inaccurate paraphrase of Sariputta's reply.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 7, 2009 12:05 PM
Title: Re: Dhamma book written by arahat?
Content:
In the developed form of the ideas regarding Bodhisattas, a Bodhisatta's career started with his making a resolution before a Buddha (abhinīhārakarana or mūlapanidhāna) to become a Buddha for the welfare and liberation of all creatures. In later literature, the abhinīhāra is preceded by a period during which the Bodhisatta practises manopanidhi, when he resolves in his mind to desire to become a Buddha without declaring this intention to others.

For the abhinīhāra to be effective, eight conditions should be fulfilled (Bu.ii.59; explained at BuA.75f. and SNA.i.48f): the aspirant should be

* (1) a human being,
* (2) a male,
* (3) sufficiently developed to become an arahant in that very birth,
* (4) a recluse at the time of the declaration,
* (5) he should declare his resolve before a Buddha,
* (6) should be possessed of attainments such as the jhānas,
* (7) be prepared to sacrifice all, even life, and
* (8) his resolution should be absolutely firm and unwavering.

(from the Dictionary of Pali Proper Names, entry for Bodhisatta
http://www.palikanon.com/english/pali_names/b/bodhisatta.htm)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 7, 2009 11:45 AM
Title: Re: Looking for sariputta sutta
Content:
I can't think of one. In fact the only one that comes to mind says almost exactly the opposite of this.  
Bhikkhus, for a faithful disciple who is intent on fathoming the Teacher’s dispensation, it is fitting that he conduct himself thus: “The Blessed One is the Teacher; I am his disciple. The Blessed One knows; I do not know.”
(Kīṭāgiri Sutta, MN. 70)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 7, 2009 11:36 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma book written by arahat?
Content:
I guess they weren't qualified for the task. That is to say, on the occasion when they encountered a Buddha they had the necessary qualities to undertake the path of discipleship, but lacked the requisite qualities that would have made them fit for undertake the Bodhisatta career.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 7, 2009 11:31 AM
Title: Re: metta as my main practice
Content:
Fair enough, but you over-generalize when you claim that your experience will be true for everyone.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 7, 2009 10:09 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma book written by arahat?
Content:
I think it's attributed to arahant disciples not having developed the perfections for as long a time or to the same degree as a Sammāsambuddha.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 7, 2009 9:59 AM
Title: Re: Looking for sariputta sutta
Content:
You're probably thinking of the Pubbakoṭṭhaka Sutta (SN. v. 220-2), though your paraphrase is not an accurate one.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn48/sn48.044.than.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 7, 2009 9:38 AM
Title: Re: Controversial Theravada traditions?
Content:
No. "Clothed in white" (odātavasana) is an idiom that means being dressed in householders' clothes.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 7, 2009 6:12 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma book written by arahat?
Content:
In the case of arahants one speaks of a sāvakavisaya ("disciple's range"), not a buddhavisaya. The sāvakavisaya, even in the case of the most accomplished arahants, will not include all of the ten Tathāgata powers (though some of these are attainable), nor knowledge of omniscience, nor unimpeded knowledge.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 7, 2009 5:07 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma book written by arahat?
Content:
To be fair, what Ingram repudiates is the Sutta teaching that arahants are incapable of transgressing certain precepts. As far as I know, he doesn't repudiate the precepts themselves. The exposition of sīla in his book is pretty much like that which one would get from Kornfield or any of the fluffier sort of North American vipassanā teachers. Which is to say, it's a bit woolly and lacking in clearcut descriptions of what each precept entails, but nonetheless not actually misleading.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 7, 2009 2:09 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma book written by arahat?
Content:
The imponderable is "the Buddha-range of Buddhas" (buddhānaṃ buddhavisaya), which is understood to refer to that of Sammāsambuddhas, not their arahant disciples.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 7, 2009 12:53 AM
Title: Re: hej hej hola
Content:
Hi David,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 4:21 PM
Title: Re: Dhamma book written by arahat?
Content:
And an Ingramist assessment of the Arahant Chapter of the Dhammapada:

Arahantavagga

1. The fever of passion exists not for him who has completed the journey, who is sorrowless and wholly set free, and has broken all ties.
No passions!? No sorrows!? Limited Emotional Range Model.
2. The mindful ones exert themselves. They are not attached to any home; like swans that abandon the lake, they leave home after home behind.
Don’t stay in one place!? Limited Possible Action Model.
3. Those who do not accumulate and are wise regarding food, whose object is the Void, the Unconditioned Freedom — their track cannot be traced, like that of birds in the air.
Don’t accumulate!? Limited Possible Action Model
4. He whose cankers are destroyed and who is not attached to food, whose object is the Void, the Unconditioned Freedom — his path cannot be traced, like that of birds in the air.
Cankers destroyed!? Limited Emotional Range Model.
5. Even the gods hold dear the wise one, whose senses are subdued like horses well trained by a charioteer, whose pride is destroyed and who is free from the cankers.
Senses subdued!? Pride destroyed!? Limited Possible Thought Model.
Free from the cankers!? Limited Emotional Range Model.
6. There is no more worldly existence for the wise one who, like the earth, resents nothing, who is firm as a high pillar and as pure as a deep pool free from mud.
Resents nothing!? Limited Emotional Range Model.
7. Calm is his thought, calm his speech, and calm his deed, who, truly knowing, is wholly freed, perfectly tranquil and wise.
Calm thought, speech and deeds!? Perfectly tranquil!? Aagh, this one’s a real bummer. Limited Possible Action Model and Limited Emotional Range Model and Limited Possible Thought Model.
8. The man who is without blind faith, who knows the Uncreated, who has severed all links, destroyed all causes (for karma, good and evil), and thrown out all desires — he, truly, is the most excellent of men.
Thrown out all desires!? Limited Emotional Range Model.
9. Inspiring, indeed, is that place where Arahants dwell, be it a village, a forest, a vale, or a hill.
Ah, now that’s a cool verse!
10. Inspiring are the forests in which worldlings find no pleasure. There the passionless will rejoice, for they seek no sensual pleasures.
Passionless!? Seeking no sensual pleasures!? Bah, we’re back again with the Limited Emotional Range Model.

All in all not a very reliable text: nine obviously apocryphal verses and just one that might have come from the Buddha.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 4:18 PM
Title: Re: Dhamma book written by arahat?
Content:
From Ingram's book, Mastering the Core Teachings, an account of the Limited Possible Action Model:

The Action Models tend to involve certain actions that enlightened beings cannot commit or certain actions they must commit. Both types of models are completely ridiculous, and so we come now to the first of the models that simply has no basis in reality. The traditional Theravada models contain numerous statements about what enlightened being cannot do or will do that are simply wrong. My favorite examples of this insanity include statements that arahats cannot break the precepts (including killing, lying, stealing, having sex, doing drugs or drinking), cannot have erections, cannot have jobs, cannot be married, and cannot say they are arahats.

[...]

There is also another more subtle and seductive view, and this is that enlightened being somehow will act in a way that is better or higher, though they won’t define what those actions might be or what actions they might avoid. I consider this view very dangerous. While I wish to promote the shift in perception that I call awakening and other names, I don’t want to make out that somehow this will save anyone from stupid actions or make them somehow always know how to do the right thing or avoid screwing up. Such views are a setup for massive badness and huge shadow sides, as anyone who has spent enough time in a spiritual community knows all too well. As Zen says, “The bigger the front, the bigger the back.”

The list of highly enlightened individuals who have bitten the proverbial dust by putting themselves up on high, screwing up and then being exposed as actually being human is remarkably long, and the list of spiritual aspirants who have failed to draw the proper conclusions about reality from the failures of the enlightened is even longer. There are many schools of thought on this issue, and I will give them formal names here, though in reality they don’t think of themselves this way.

The Halfway Up the Mountain School essentially believes, “Those who screwed up and caused a scandal were only part way up the mountain, only partially enlightened, as anyone who was really enlightened couldn’t possibly have done those terrible things.” While clearly some were only partially enlightened, or perhaps not enlightened at all in the technical sense, a number of those who screwed up clearly knew ultimate reality inside and out, and so this model misses many important points.

There is the Crazy Wisdom School that believes, “Enlightened beings transcend ordinary reality and with it ordinary morality, so that they are the natural manifestation of a Wisdom that seems crazy to us foolish mortals but is really a higher teaching in disguise!” While not entirely absurd, as there are many cultural aspects and societal rules that can seem a bit childish, artificial, unnecessary, unhelpful or naive in the face of realization, the Crazy Wisdom School provides too easy an excuse for plenty of behavior that has been and is just plain bad, irresponsible, stupid and needlessly destructive.

Then there is my school, for which I don’t have a catchy name, and it promotes the view that, “Enlightened beings are human, and unfortunately humans, enlightened or otherwise, all screw up sometimes. There is nothing special or profound about this.” In short, my school categorically rejects the specific lists and dogmas of the traditional Action Models in all forms, from the preposterous lists of the Theravada to the subtle sense that enlightened beings somehow are guaranteed to perpetually act in “enlightened” ways, whatever those are.


And on the Limited Emotional Range Model:
The Emotional Models are so fundamental to the standard ideals of awakening as to be nearly universal in their tyranny. You can’t swing a dead cat in the Great Spiritual Marketplace without hitting them. Almost every tradition seems to have gone out of its way to promote them in the most absurd and life-denying terms available, though there have been attempts at reform also. I must give thanks for the attempts, however ineffective, bizarre, mythologized, cryptic, and vague, that the Tibetan and Zen traditions have occasionally made in this regard, and morn their nearly perpetual failure to make these issues clear. At least they tried, whereas the Theravada basically has really not tried in any significant way in 2,500 years so far as I can tell. If I am wrong, please let me know.

These emotional models basically claim that enlightenment involves some sort of emotional perfection, either gradually or suddenly, and usually make these dreams the primary criteria for their models of awakening and often ignoring or sidelining issues relating to clear perception of the true nature of phenomena. Usually these fantasies involves elimination of the “negative” emotions, particularly greed, hatred, anger, frustration, lust, jealousy, and sadness. At a more fundamental level, they promise the elimination of all forms of attraction and aversion.

As I am sure you can already tell, I am no fan of these models of enlightenment.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 3:59 PM
Title: Re: Buddhist cosmology
Content:
For another PTS scholar's view (and a more careful and sensitive reader of texts than Gombrich) see Rupert Gethin's Cosmology and Meditation:

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/rupert.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 10:31 AM
Title: Re: Feeling
Content:
Yes, in samatha-bhavana the development of any brahmavihara as an immeasurable is preceded by its development with a limited range, with the range being gradually increased.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 9:42 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma book written by arahat?
Content:
Could you point to an example or two of these contradictions in the suttas?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 9:24 AM
Title: Re: Feeling
Content:
The brahmaviharas are termed immeasurables when they are developed with an object of unlimited range, as opposed to when one specifies particular individuals or groups.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 9:14 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma book written by arahat?
Content:
This may have more to do with Ingram's tendentious choice of terms to characterize the models than with the models themselves.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 8:48 AM
Title: Re: Controversial Theravada traditions?
Content:
I wouldn't call it new (except for the vegetarianism). In the Mahavacchagotta Sutta (MN. 73) the Buddha's householder followers are divided into (1) "male and female lay followers, clothed in white, enjoying sensual pleasures" and (2) "male and female lay followers, clothed in white, leading lives of celibacy."

I think the most one could say is that it's unusual for monks to promote the brahmacariya among householders to the extent that the Santi Asoke monks do.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 8:19 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma book written by arahat?
Content:
In which Ingram states:
In short, the Limted Emotional Range Model, the Limited Possible Action Model, and the Limited Possible Thought Model of enlightenment are all completely off the mark and have nothing to do with actual perception of the Truth of Things.
Since the three "models" dismissed by Ingram constitute most of what the suttas have to say about the character of arahants, the "arahantship" of which he speaks cannot be that taught by the Buddha.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 6, 2009 8:03 AM
Title: Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?
Content:
Except in Scotland.

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 5, 2009 2:41 PM
Title: Re: MN 135. Cūḷakammavibhanga Sutta
Content:
Well, it can be both, and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. Nonetheless, given the repeated phrase "...on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears..." it would seem that this sutta's focus is on the outcomes that present actions will have on the next life, and (given Subha's original question to the Buddha) the way that humans are differentiated in the present life on account of actions performed in their past life.

And so a reading of the sutta that sees the Buddha as referring only to present life outcomes of present life actions seems to me to be missing the point.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 5, 2009 1:28 PM
Title: Re: MN 135. Cūḷakammavibhanga Sutta
Content:
Had the Buddha wished to give a discourse describing the present life benefits of wholesome action and the present-life perils of unwholesome action, I think he would have made it clear that it was the present life he had in mind. As he does, for example, in the Sihasenapati Sutta: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.034.than.html when asked, "Is it possible, lord, to point out a fruit of generosity visible in the here &amp; now?".

But in the Cūḷakammavibhanga Sutta paragraphs 5-18 each pointedly state that the consequences referred to occur "on the dissolution of the body, after death." So how can your proposed interpretation possibly be faithful to the Buddha's intent?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Mar 5, 2009 6:16 AM
Title: Re: Hello
Content:
Hi Ravana,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 4, 2009 9:15 PM
Title: Re: what is meant by nothing felt?
Content:
“Felt happiness” (vedayita sukha) means the vedanā that arises dependent on either the five cords of sense pleasure (kāmaguṇa) or the eight attainments (samāpatti). But this happiness is not unqualifiedly happy for it is still subject to saṅkhāara-dukkha. (“Whatsoever is felt, all that is included in dukkha” — MN. iii. 207).

“Non-felt happiness” (avedayita sukha) is not any kind of vedanā, but rather is a term for nirodha. Being free even of saṅkhāra-dukkha this is an unqualifiedly happy state.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 4, 2009 11:05 AM
Title: Re: Tantric Theravadins?
Content:
The Burma specialist Dr. Patrick Pranke of the University of Michigan's Center for Southeast Asian Studies would be the one to ask about this. For his doctoral thesis Pranke did extensive fieldwork in Burma on the weikza-lam — a cult of semi-Theravadin Buddhist wizards whose practice (a blend of Abhidhamma study, alchemy, mantra chanting and consuming poisonous substances) is aimed at prolonging their present life until the coming of Metteyya Buddha and then awakening as his disciples. If there is any living tradition of tantric Buddhism in Burma I'm sure Patrick will know about it. I don't have his e-mail address but you should be able to find it through google. He's a very approachable guy and if you contact him you can mention my name (he'll probably remember me as "Phra Robert").

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Mar 4, 2009 1:26 AM
Title: Re: across the lines - wrong understanding
Content:
In the case of Pilindavaccha, his offensiveness wasn't like that of Marpa (i.e., some kind of deliberate teaching device targeted at a particular audience). It was just the way he was. When monks complained to the Buddha about it they were told that Pilindavaccha's behaviour wasn't due to any inner fault; he just couldn't help appearing haughty because he'd been a brahmin for the previous five hundred lives.  

And so what I was getting at in my post is that nothing can be reliably inferred about someone's understanding of the Dhamma on the basis of his good manners or lack of them, nor on the basis of how inspiring he is.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 3, 2009 11:06 PM
Title: Re: Hi from Mudra
Content:
Hi Mudra,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 3, 2009 10:53 PM
Title: Re: across the lines - wrong understanding
Content:
I don't think this necessarily follows. An arahant could hardly be charged with lacking in understanding of his tradition, yet the Buddha's arahant disciples included people who were not polite and whom not even all of the Buddha's disciples found inspiring. The arahant Pilindavaccha, for example, was in the habit of addressing junior monks as 'menials', much to their chagrin. If the man couldn't make himself universally appealing even to the Theravada community then there is no reason to think he would have been inspiring to Mahayanists (had any been around in the Buddha's time) who despise arahants.

To take another example, the members of those Nichirenist sects that stress aggressive proselytizing are not people whom I would describe as "polite and even somewhat inspiring." Rather, I would describe them as boorish and even somewhat appalling. But I wouldn't conclude from this that they haven't properly understood their tradition, for in fact they are behaving pretty much like Nichiren himself.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 3, 2009 10:04 PM
Title: Re: Tantra
Content:
You are welcome to start a thread on that topic. But in this thread I believe the OP's question is concerned with whether there is any tantra in Theravada Buddhist teachings, which is a separate issue from whether there is (or ever has ever been) a tantric presence in the Asian Theravadin cultural milieux.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 3, 2009 5:05 PM
Title: Re: Hi from Phil
Content:
Hi Phil,

Thanks for joining us.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 3, 2009 10:09 AM
Title: Re: Hi
Content:
Hi Gotamist,

Good to see you around. I was wondering what had become of you.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Mar 3, 2009 7:06 AM
Title: Re: Hello Hola Ciao Salut
Content:
Hi Paul,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 2, 2009 10:16 PM
Title: Re: Tantra
Content:
Why not wonder?

Any newcomer to Buddhism who frequents Buddhist forums is sure to meet with claims (1) that the Pali Canon contains the earliest record of the Buddha's teaching and (2) that the Buddha taught the Mahayana sutras and tantras. So when s/he discovers that the latter are not to be found in the former, and indeed are frequently at odds with the former, it's natural that doubt will arise regarding the veracity of the second claim.

And as the Kalama Sutta states, it's proper to doubt in doubtful matters.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 2, 2009 8:49 PM
Title: Re: Asaññasattaa
Content:
No, not that big. If they are born in the standing posture they are said to be 12 yojanas (192 km) in height. But that only applies to Brahmas reborn as Asaññasattas. Humans reborn there will be in the sitting posture and so will look rather shorter.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 2, 2009 7:08 PM
Title: Re: Tantra
Content:
I've never heard of a Theravada teacher advising anyone to do this. If any were to do so it would be blatantly at odds with the Buddha's teaching that stealing is an unwholesome act. There is simply no Pali text to which the teacher might appeal to give his advice any legitimacy. At the conclusion of a bhikkhu's ordination ceremony he will be exhorted not to steal even a blade of grass, let alone a prostitute's underwear.

By contrast, in the Mahayana (and a fortiori the Vajrayana) there is an elaborately developed ideology for the legitimizing of unwholesome conduct of almost every sort, to which any unscrupulous or perverted teacher might appeal. Its chief form is the doctrine of expedient means.

To get some idea of how radically the Mahayanists departed from the sīla of the Buddha's Buddhism you might be interested in the chapter on Mahayana ethics in Peter Harvey's An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics.

A couple of pages from Harvey's book:



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Also of interest is Dza Patrul Rinpoche's Nine Considerations and Criteria for Benefiting Beings, wherein it is maintained that a (Mahayana) Bodhisattva may, and in some circumstances must, commit any of the ten akusala dhammas.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 2, 2009 7:01 PM
Title: Re: Asaññasattaa
Content:
They have no mentality of any kind. They are just gigantic lumps of rūpa lounging about in the Brahma world. They differ from statues in that they are kammically generated material continua (rūpa-santati). When the kamma that generated this rebirth is exhausted then they break up and a new citta-santati gets kickstarted by a past citta from the life before they became impercipient beings.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Mar 2, 2009 11:37 AM
Title: Re: Feeling
Content:
No. Vipassanā knowledge, even at the lowest level, has dhammas as its object.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 6:32 PM
Title: Re: Classical Theravada Theology
Content:
I haven't time to write anything now, but the Buddha's teaching on the three adhipateyyas (self, world and the Dhamma) is a good place to start:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.040.than.html

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 6:18 PM
Title: Re: Why can there be only one Buddha at at time?
Content:
Buddhaghosa:
Buddha-fields (buddhakkhetta) are of three kinds: the field of birth (jātikhetta), the field of authority (āṇākhetta), and the field of scope (visayakhetta).

Herein, the field of birth is limited by the ten-thousandfold world-spheres that quaked on the Tathāgata’s taking rebirth-linking, and so on.

The field of authority is limited by the hundred thousand million world-spheres within which the following protections (paritta) are efficacious: the Ratana Sutta, the Khandha Paritta, the Dhajagga Paritta, the Āṭānāṭiya Paritta and the Mora Paritta.

The field of scope is boundless, immeasurable: ‘As far as he wishes’ it is said (AN. i. 228).
(Path of Purification xiii. 31)
The commentaries to the suttas which say that it is impossible for two Sammāsambuddhas to appear in a single world-sphere (lokadhātu) identify world-sphere with the field of birth, hence a ten-thousandfold world-sphere.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 6:15 PM
Title: Re: who is phra sanghajai?
Content:
I don't know anything about its origin.

I suppose it might be a real fellow; there is a Hindu-like ascetic practice that some of the most austere Thai monks used to undertake (though not any more as far as I know), which consisted in blindfolding oneself or making an adhiṭṭhāna to keep one's eyes closed for a certain period. My teacher's teacher, Khrubar Brahmajak, did this for four years in his early days as a dhutanga monk. For the first two years his fellow monks would lead him by the hand on almsround each day. Then he abandoned all companionship and just relied on his sense of touch and hearing to navigate his way out of the forest and into the village.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 4:08 PM
Title: Re: who is phra sanghajai?
Content:
From Wikipedia:
Phra Sangkadchai/ Phra Sangkachai

In Thailand Budai is sometimes confused with another similar monk widely respected in Thailand, Phra Sangkadchai or Sangkachai (Thai: พระสังกัจจายน์). Phra Sangkadchai, a Thai spelling of Mahakaccayanathera (Thai: มหากัจจายนเถระ), was a Buddhist Arhat (in Sanskrit) or Arahant (in Pali) during the time of the Lord Buddha. Lord Buddha praised Phra Sangkadchai for his excellence in explaining sophisticated dharma (or dhamma) in an easily and correctly understandable manner. Phra Sangkadchai also composed the Madhupinadika Sutra.

One tale relates that he was so handsome that once even a man wanted him for a wife. To avoid a similar situation, Phra Sangkadchai decided to transform himself into a fat monk. Another tale says he was so attractive that angels and men often compared him with the Buddha. He considered this inappropriate, so disguised himself in an unpleasantly fat body.

Although both Budai and Phra Sangkadchai may be found in both Thai and Chinese temples, Phra Sangkadchai is found more often in Thai temples, and Budai in Chinese temples. Two points to distinguish them from one another are:

1. Phra Sangkadchai has a trace of hair on his head (looking similar to the Buddha's) while Budai is clearly bald.
2. Phra Sangkadchai wears the robes in Theravadin Buddhist fashion with the robes folded across one shoulder, leaving the other uncovered. Budai wears the robes in Chinese style, covering both arms but leaving the front part of the upper body uncovered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budai
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 3:51 PM
Title: Re: who is phra sanghajai?
Content:
It's the Thai depiction of the Buddha's disciple Mahākaccāyana in the form of a very fat monk rather similar to Hotei.

You will find plenty about him online if you use the Rajapundit transliteration "sangkachai".

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 1:50 PM
Title: Re: Bhikku Forum
Content:
Though not opposed to the idea, I can't imagine very much happening in such a forum. There aren't many bhikkhus here and if I wanted to discuss something with one of them I'd rather do it privately. There is already a Yahoo e-mail group for Buddhist monks and nuns; it has 49 members, but there've only been five posts in the last six months. Online monastics just don't seem to have much inclination to talk with each other.  

Even on Facebook, where I have a couple of dozen bhikkhus in my network, I hardly ever talk with any of them. When I log in I seem to spend most of the time answering questions on Dhamma from Malaysian and Indonesian laypeople. Also, I notice that the other bhikkhus on Facebook appear to be interacting far more with laypeople than with each other.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 1:27 PM
Title: Re: Ola
Content:
Hi Yanick,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 10:37 AM
Title: Re: Buddhist Rebirth Refuted?
Content:
Sorry. I've now unmangled them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 9:59 AM
Title: Re: Feeling
Content:
Quite a number of the cetasikas will be present at the moment of animitta-cetovimutti. Which ones in particular will depend on which of the five rūpajjhānas is present at the time of the arising of the supramundane consciousness.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 9:35 AM
Title: Re: Buddhist Rebirth Refuted?
Content:
I don't think that's correct. There is no repeatable experiment that will yield public knowledge of devas. Devas can be seen by humans in two circumstances: (1) a human masters the jhanas and develops the requisite supernormal knowledge; (2) a deva chooses to make himself visible to a human.

The former wouldn’t count as scientific for the knowledge of devas gained thereby would be essentially private:
Just then the Venerable Upavana was standing in front of the Lord, fanning him. And the Lord told him to move ‘Move aside, monk, do not stand in front of me.’ And the Venerable Ananda thought: ‘This Venerable Upavana has for long been the Lord’s attendant, keeping close at hand, at his beck and call. And now in his last hour the Lord tells him to stand aside and not stand in front of him. Why ever does he do that?’ And he asked the Lord about this.

‘Ananda, the devas from ten world-spheres have gathered to see the Tathagata. For a distance of twelve yojanas around the Mallas’ sal-grove near Kusinara there is not a space you could touch with the point of a hair that is not filled with mighty devas, and they are grumbling: “We have come a long way to see the Tathagata. It is rare for a Tathagata, a fully-enlightened Buddha, to arise in the world, and tonight in the last watch the Tathagata will attain final Nibbana, and this mighty monk is standing in front of the Lord, preventing us from getting a last glimpse of the Tathagata!”’

‘But, Lord, what kind of devas can the Lord perceive?’

‘Ananda, there are sky-devas whose minds are earth-bound, they are weeping and tearing their hair, raising their arms, throwing themselves down and twisting and turning, crying: “All too soon the Blessed Lord is passing away, all too soon the Well-Farer is passing away, all too soon the Eye of the World is disappearing!” And there are earth-devas whose minds are earth-bound, who do likewise. But those devas who are free from craving endure patiently, saying: “All compounded things are impermanent - what is the use of this?”
(Mahaparibibbana Sutta, Walshe trans.)

And the latter case, where a deva makes himself visible, would be an impossible thing to engineer for it’s entirely in the hands of the devas. As devas can’t stand the smell of humans they normally have no wish to appear to us at all and will do so only in rather unusual circumstances.And so the apprehension of devas may be by jhana-based powers or by saddha, but not by the scientific method.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 6:58 AM
Title: Re: Tathāgata
Content:
In the Classical Forum please limit discussion to Theravadin terms and sources.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 6:52 AM
Title: Re: Why can there be only one Buddha at at time?
Content:
This is the most important sense of 'world' as far as the development of paññā is concerned, but it isn't the only way the Buddha uses the word, nor is it the sense that applies in the context of this thread.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Mar 1, 2009 6:40 AM
Title: Re: Hi 8=]
Content:
Hi Branko,

Dobrodošli u Dhamma Wheel. Hvala Vam što ste nam se pridružili.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:46 PM
Title: Re: Question About Awareness-release
Content:
I can't recall encountering any other uses of cetovimutti but these.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 28, 2009 8:28 PM
Title: Re: "I am" in Pali?
Content:
In Pali the English simple present ("I cook"), the continuous present ("I am cooking"), and the emphatic present ("I do cook") would all be conveyed by the single form ahaṃ pacāmi.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 28, 2009 8:21 PM
Title: Re: Feeling
Content:
'Sensation' is a reasonable translation of vedanā.

I think that everything that we term an 'emotion' in English would be encompassed by the saṅkhārakkhandha or the 50 cetasikas (i.e. the 52 cetasikas minus vedanā and saññā). Though I should add that not all of these cetasikas would be called emotions.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:36 AM
Title: Re: Question About Awareness-release
Content:
Akuppa-cetovimutti — usually translated "unshakable deliverance of mind" — is synonymous with arahatta-phala-cetovimutti, "the deliverance of mind that is the arahatta fruition." It is arrived at directly by vimuttis 3 and 4, but only indirectly (and not inevitably) by vimuttis 1 and 2, as these are only temporary samatha-style deliverances.


Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:41 AM
Title: Re: Yoga? The deep kind, not the trendy new stuff.
Content:
There are some overlaps. For example, the four brahmaviharas are mentioned in Patañjali's Yoga Sutras, with detailed instructions for practising them given in commentaries to this work. Nonetheless, I think it would be better for Buddhists to learn such things from Pali Buddhist sources. In Hindu sources they will always be mixed up with wrong views of one sort or another, so one will have to waste time separating the wheat from the chaff.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2009 7:09 PM
Title: Re: Buddhist Rebirth Refuted?
Content:
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2009 7:04 PM
Title: Re: Buddhist Rebirth Refuted?
Content:
In the post to which you were earlier replying Dark Dream had used the term 'divine eye' (incorrectly, I think) to refer to knowledge of one's former lives.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2009 6:29 PM
Title: Re: Buddhist Rebirth Refuted?
Content:
I would say that rebirth is either implicit or presupposed in all three of these sermons.

The Buddha sometimes taught the Dhamma in brief and sometimes in detail. In the earliest phase of his teaching career he deliberately sought out those whose faculties were ripe for speedy awakening and for whom Dhamma teachings in brief were all that was needed for the arising of the Dhamma eye.

In the first sermon, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, part of the definition of the first noble truth is:
yampicchaṃ na labhati tampi dukkhaṃ

“Not to obtain what one wants is dukkha.”
This is an example of a statement of Dhamma in brief and was sufficient for the arising of the Dhamma eye in Koṇḍañña. In later teachings, however, the Buddha states the same in detail:
“And what, bhikkhus, is ‘not to obtain what one wants is dukkha? To beings subject to birth there comes the wish: ‘Oh, that we were not subject to birth! That birth would not come to us!’ But this is not to be obtained by wishing, and not to obtain what one wants is dukkha.”
[repeat for aging, sickness, death, sorrow etc.]
(DN. 22; MN. 141)
And don’t try telling me that ‘subject to birth’, ‘subject to aging’ etc. really means subject to the momentary birth and death of the ego, for the same sutta defines these things in graphic physical terms (‘greying’, ‘wrinkling’ etc.).


In the second and third sermons rebirth is presupposed by the statement:
khīṇā jāti, vusitaṃ brahmacariyaṃ, kataṃ karaṇīyaṃ, nāparaṃ itthattāyā ti pajānātī ti.

“He knows: ‘destroyed is birth, the holy life has been lived, what needed to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of existence’”.
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2009 6:23 PM
Title: Re: Buddhist Rebirth Refuted?
Content:
That's not correct. I would guess you are thinking of the Udāna passage where Sāriputta admits that he was unable to see mud sprites. However, he did possess the three vijjās and these are one of the things Mahāmoggallāna praises in his Theragāthā eulogy to Sāriputta. He would therefore have been able to recall his former lives.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2009 8:18 AM
Title: Re: What Dhamma Book are you reading right now?
Content:
I'm currently reading the articles I downloaded from the latest edition of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, nearly all of which contain material that will be of interest to Theravadins:

http://www.buddhistethics.org/current.html

Ven. Anālayo — The Sixfold Purity of an Arahant according to hte Chabbisodhana Sutta.

Jayarava Michael Attwood — Did King Ajātasattu Confess to the Buddha, and did the Buddha Forgive Him?

Christopher Ives — Deploying the Dharma: Reflections on the Methodology of Constructive Buddhist Ethics

Michael Parnwell &amp; Martin Seeger — The Relocalization of Buddhism in Thailand

Charles S. Prebish — Cooking the Buddhist Books: The Implications of the New Dating of the Buddha for the History of Early Indian Buddhism

Nirmala S. Salgado — Eight Revered Conditions: Ideological Complicity, Contemporary Reflections and Practical Realities

Colette Sciberras — Buddhism and Speciesism: on the Misapplication of Western Concepts to Buddhist Beliefs

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2009 7:26 AM
Title: Re: Happy birthday, bodom_bad_boy!!!
Content:
Hi Bodom,

Many happy returns.

 

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2009 5:33 AM
Title: Re: MN Session 6 - MN 57. Kukkuravatika Sutta
Content:
Yes, the wrong view that what is not a path leading to the deva world is in fact a path leading to the deva world (adevalokagāmimagga-devalokagāmimagga micchādiṭṭhi) is a species of niyati-micchādiṭṭhi — wrong views that lead to hell.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 27, 2009 4:30 AM
Title: Re: MN Session 6 - MN 57. Kukkuravatika Sutta
Content:
The distinction is between merely being dedicated to an akusala habit and being dedicated to an akusala habit with the wrong view that it is kusala. One might, for example, be a bank robber who accepts that stealing is wrong but does it anyway out of greed for money, or one might rob banks thinking that this is ethically justified (like Lenin and his associates or the Baader-Meinhof gang, who robbed banks to finance their revolutionary activities). In the latter case the akusala kamma is weightier.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2009 9:37 PM
Title: Re: Feeling
Content:
Vedanā has no connection at all with the words ve and dāna.

Most Pali words are formed by taking verbal roots (dhātu), adding various prefixes and/or suffixes to them, and then making phonetic modifications according to rules specified in the classical grammars. Consequently, the final forms of several words derived from the same verbal root may be very dissimilar. For example, akkhara ('letter') and nakkhatta ('star'), despite their dissimilar appearance, are both derived from the verbal root khar, "to end, spoil, or become empty."

Conversely, several words that look very similar may be derived from entirely different verbal roots. For example, quite a few of the words in the list you posted have no connection with vedanā at all.

So, trying to identify words related to vedanā by searching Pali dictionaries for similar-looking words is not the proper procedure. (It's actually the sort of pseudo-scholarship that one gets from people like Jhanananda and Shakya Aryanatta). Rather, one must begin by finding what the word's root is (this will often be given in the PTS Pali-English Dictionary) and then looking up the root in a dictionary of verbal roots such as the Saddanīti Dhātumālā or the Dhātuppadīpikā.

In the case of vedanā the root is vid. Some related words from the Dhātuppadīpikā's entry for vid:

vidati, vedo, vidū, vedī, vijjā, vedeti, vedayati, vindati, govindo, vitti, vedikā, nibbindati, nibbindaṃ, nibbiṇṇo, vittaṃ, vijjati, saṃvijjati, vedayitaṃ, vedayamāno, paṭivedeti, paṭivedayati.

On a final note, it should be remarked that the fact that two Pali words are derived from the same root doesn't necessarily mean that either of them will shed any semantic light on the other, for their meanings will in many cases have nothing to do with each other (as we saw with the words akkhara and nakkhatta).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:52 PM
Title: Re: Hi =)
Content:
Hi Mauricio,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:38 PM
Title: Re: Why can there be only one Buddha at at time?
Content:
It's not the whole universe, but rather the portion or extent of the universe that gets shaken when a Buddha first sets the Dhamma Wheel turning.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2009 1:32 PM
Title: Re: Why can there be only one Buddha at at time?
Content:
I should think so, for if I remember right, 'lokadhātu' refers to just one ten thousandfold world-system, not to the whole universe.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:50 AM
Title: Re: Why can there be only one Buddha at at time?
Content:
Bahudhātukasutta (MN. 115), Mahāgovindasutta (DN. 19), Sampasādanīyasutta (DN. 28), and a few others:
"He [i.e., the bhikkhu who understands the possible and the impossible] understands: ‘It is impossible, it cannot happen that two Arahants who are Sammāsambuddhas could arise contemporaneously in one world-system — there is no such possibility.’"


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2009 7:11 AM
Title: Re: Online Pali Canon?
Content:
Yes, it depicts him lying in the lion's posture at the time of his parinibbāna.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2009 6:43 AM
Title: Re: "Bhikkhu", before or after Dhamma name?
Content:
Just regional conventions. 'Bhikkhu' before the name is the norm in Sri Lanka and Burma; 'bhikkhu' after the name is the norm in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. That's assuming the word bhikkhu is used at all, which isn't always the case; in Asia one more often finds 'thera' or some regional title such as 'chao khun' or 'sayadaw' used instead.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 25, 2009 6:29 AM
Title: Re: Greetings to friends in the Dhamma
Content:
Hello Sally,

Welcome, and thanks for joining us.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2009 1:33 PM
Title: Re: Buddhism has been in Thailand far longer than thought?
Content:
The writer means that Buddhism was present in what is now Thailand before the arrival of Sri Lankan monks here, not before Buddhism arrived in Sri Lanka.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:37 AM
Title: Re: Online Pali Canon?
Content:
I don't know of any online interlinear translation of the Satipatthana Sutta.

The Thai translation of the Tipitaka and its commentaries is available here: http://www.84000.org

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:29 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma and Happiness
Content:
In the Buddha's teaching (e.g., AN. ii. 149) correct practice may be any of the following four:

1. dukkha and leading rapidly to awakening.
2. dukkha and leading only slowly to awakening.
3. sukha and leading rapidly to awakening.
4. sukha and leading only slowly awakening.

So it would seem that your quoted statement is a non-Vibhajjavādin over-generalization. If the statement were true then it would mean that only #2 would count as correct practice, but the Buddha didn't teach that.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2009 8:42 AM
Title: Pali Website Recommendation
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 24, 2009 7:01 AM
Title: Re: Monks and Family
Content:
Yes, though since this is a matter that is not covered in the Vinaya, in practice the frequency and length of visits will vary according to the in-house rules of a particular community or the views of a particular abbot.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:52 AM
Title: Re: The Danger of Rebirth
Content:
So where does he discuss greying and wrinkling?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:33 AM
Title: Re: English Translation of Upekkhā
Content:
This is seldom the case. Sometimes an analysis of a Pali word's etymology and construction will give one a general sense of what the word denotes, but without conveying much about its connotations or its context-related meanings. Sometimes such an analysis will convey nothing useful at all or may even seriously mislead.

I think you would be better off starting with the treatment of upekkhā in the Saḷāyatanavibhaṅgasutta (MN. 137), the Nirāmisasutta (SN. iv. 235-7) and the Book of Analysis (U Thitila's translation of the Vibhanga). Then check the indexes of MLD and CD.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:25 AM
Title: Re: Venerable Dhammanando away for a few days, unwell (update 3)
Content:
Yes, I'm limping but living. I hope your recovery is proceeding well too.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:23 AM
Title: Re: Venerable Dhammanando away for a few days, unwell (update 3)
Content:
Thanks for the offer, but I don't think I'm in need of anything at the moment. (At least not unless you want to carry me about on your shoulders).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:21 AM
Title: Re: Venerable Dhammanando away for a few days, unwell (update 3)
Content:
Sure, if I'm invited.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 23, 2009 9:44 AM
Title: Re: The Danger of Rebirth
Content:
It would seem so. Buddhadāsa's critique of the three-life interpretation seems to have been formulated in disregard of (or ignorance of) discourses like the Paṭiccasamuppāda-vibhaṅga Sutta, the Paccaya Sutta, the Ñāṇavatthu Sutta, etc., in which the Buddha clearly defines the factors of dependent arising. And so disregarding the Buddha's definitions he then substitutes his own.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 23, 2009 1:24 AM
Title: Re: Online Pali Canon?
Content:
Two complete Thai translations of the Tipitaka (those of Mahachula and Mahamakut) and one of the Atthakatha are already available on many websites.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 22, 2009 1:57 PM
Title: Re: "Dogs do it better"
Content:
Hi Individual,

The only thing that comes to mind is the Soṇa Sutta (AN. iii. 221-2), where the Buddha describes the five ways in which dogs are better than brahmins, owing to the latter's discarding of their ancient customs. It's one of a series of suttas where the Buddha decries how the brahmins of his day had degenerated. To paraphrase:

1. Dogs only have sex with other dogs, whereas brahmins, though formerly having sex only with other brahmins, nowadays will do it with women from any caste.
2. Dogs only have sex when the bitch is in season, whereas brahmins will do it at any time.
3. Dogs don't buy and sell bitches, but rather, will mate according to mutual affection. Brahmins do buy and sell lady brahmins.
4. Dogs don't hoard silver, gold, grain etc., but brahmins do.
5. Dogs go looking for their evening meal in the evening and their morning meal in the morning. Brahmins stuff themselves silly and then keep the leftovers for the next meal.

"Verily, bhikkhus, these are the five ancient brahmin dhammas that are nowadays practised by dogs but not by brahmins."

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 22, 2009 1:26 PM
Title: Re: Greetings
Content:
Hi Sevaka,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 22, 2009 11:33 AM
Title: Re: The Danger of Rebirth
Content:
No, Nibbana during this life is the complete extinguishing of the kilesas, not the khandhas.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 22, 2009 11:01 AM
Title: Re: The Danger of Rebirth
Content:
I haven't time to listen to the talk, but if you are stating T's view accurately then it is utter nonsense. None of the schools which taught the 3-life interpretation held that the result of eliminating ignorance is only experienced after another couple of lives.

If you eliminate ignorance there won't be any more lives. The result in the present life will be the pulling out of the first arrow (mental distress etc.) by Nibbana with remainder. The result in the future will be the pulling out of the second arrow (the dukkha inherent in the aggregates) by Nibbana without remainder. 

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 22, 2009 10:42 AM
Title: Re: Military destiny (to Retrofuturist, Appicchato, and others)
Content:
Yes, that's true. Ex-soldiers usually make very fine monks, as military training tends to imbue a man with the self-knowledge that enables him to avoid many of the more elementary errors that new monks are wont to make. If I were you I'd go for it (though don't kid yourself that's it's anything to do with destiny, caste etc. It's nothing of the kind; it's a choice you're making).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 22, 2009 10:16 AM
Title: Re: Hi!
Content:
Hi Green, 

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 22, 2009 10:15 AM
Title: Re: Hello
Content:
Hi Danny, 

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:32 AM
Title: Re: Venerable Dhammanando away for a few days, unwell (update 3)
Content:
Hi all,

Thanks again for your good wishes. Today I shall be going to another hospital for minor surgery and hope to be back here early next week.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:11 AM
Title: Re: Hello friends!
Content:
Hi Lotus,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

I think I remember you from E-sangha. Is your thesis the one on C.A.F. Rhys Davids, or am I confusing you with someone else?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:57 AM
Title: Re: well wishes
Content:
Hi Charlie,

Welcome. Good to see you around again.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:56 AM
Title: Re: Greetings
Content:
Hi Karma Gedun,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel!  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:54 AM
Title: Re: Retrofuturist in hospital
Content:
Wishing you a swift recovery.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 17, 2009 2:09 PM
Title: Re: Venerable Dhammanando away for a few days, unwell (update 3)
Content:
It's not difficult to avoid it and merely requires that one stay away from malarial regions (i.e. most of the Cambodian border districts and certain of the less inhabited Burmese and Laotian border districts). This is what I did for the first 13 years, but then a couple of years ago I went to spend the rains retreat on a private island that was close enough to Cambodia to be visited by malarial mosquitoes from there. It hits you very hard when you get it for the first time, but if properly treated subsequent occurrences will get milder and milder and less and less frequent.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 17, 2009 6:36 AM
Title: Re: An Uposatha Question
Content:
Hi Justin,

A day is reckoned as being from dawn to dawn, rather than midnight to midnight, so one would begin the avoidance of high or large seats and beds at dawn on the Uposatha day and continue it until the dawn of the day after.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:35 AM
Title: Re: The Danger of Rebirth
Content:
Most certainly wrong. See the dozen or so suttas in the Anamataggasaṃyutta of the SN's Nidānavagga (SN. ii. 177-193; = Connected Discourses I. 651-661). Note the key phrase:
"This is enough to experience revulsion towards all formations (sabbasaṅkhāresu nibbidā), enough to become dispassionate (virāga) towards them, enough to be liberated (vimutti) from them."
The "this" here, depending on the sutta, stands for the recollection of such things as how long one has wandered in the past saṃsāra, how many oceans of tears one has shed, how many oceans of past mothers' milk one has drunk, how many mountains of bones one has left behind, etc. etc.

This is what the "danger of rebirth" is all about in the Buddha's teaching.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 17, 2009 3:43 AM
Title: Re: Venerable Dhammanando away for a few days, unwell (update 3)
Content:
Greetings,

Thank you all for your kind wishes. As my friend Martin reported via Retro, the malaria was quickly cured but the cellulitis proved a little more refractory and I’m still not free of it. I can now walk again, but the antibiotics haven’t stopped the infection and so the right foot and calf are still in constant pain. I’ve been discharged from the Sangha Hospital and tomorrow will take up a kind offer from Khun Salil, one of my Abhidhamma teachers, to be tested and treated at a much better equipped private hospital. I regret that it may be a few more days yet before I return to full participation in this forum.

Still, things could be a lot worse: in the bed opposite mine at the Sangha Hospital there was a Belgian monk who was likewise admitted for cellulitis; unfortunately his case was complicated by diabetes, which resulted in his having his right leg amputated.
“Householder, who would claim even a moment’s health, while yet carrying this body about, what else is he but a fool?”
(Nakulapitasutta)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 17, 2009 3:21 AM
Title: Re: The Danger of Rebirth
Content:
Nothing leads to Nibbāna if held to.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 5, 2009 8:22 PM
Title: Re: Anattā
Content:
I would recommend that you read chapter viii of Narada's Manual of Abhidhamma:
http://buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/abhisgho/abhis08.htm

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 5, 2009 7:11 PM
Title: Re: Nibbana
Content:
It is the fruit of the abandoning of craving. The abandoning of craving partly yields its effect at the time of the attainment of arahatta-phala, for example, by cutting off a variety of afflictive mental factors for the remainder of the arahant's life. It wholly yields its effect at the time of nibbāna without remainder. To assert otherwise is to ignore the fact that the first truth includes aging, sickness and death, to which an arahant is still subject. The first noble truth doesn't say "Aging, sickness and death are only dukkha if you're a puthujjana."

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 5, 2009 6:54 PM
Title: Re: Dharma names
Content:
Lance Cousins' Thai meditation teacher uses his old monk's name, Puññadhiro, as his surname, and he's a pretty conservative guy. In Thailand it's not common to do this, but when ex-monks do I doubt anyone takes it amiss.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 5, 2009 10:17 AM
Title: Re: MN Session 3 - MN 47. Vimaṃsaka Sutta
Content:
Since some kinds of abstention from indulgence come under the heading of Dhamma rather than Vinaya, it's quite possible for a bhikkhu to be keeping all the Vinaya rules very strictly and yet still be living devoted to sensual indulgence. For example, a bhikkhu who eats like a hog, slumbers most of the day, likes to stand about ogling at the female visitors to his monastery, and is miserly about sharing the monk's requisites, will not in fact be breaking any Vinaya rules. Hence Buddhaghosa's warning that a bhikkhu shouldn't suppose that his sila is perfect just because his Vinaya is perfect.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 5, 2009 10:03 AM
Title: Re: MN 135 - help me clear some things up!
Content:
When posting to the Classical Theravada forum citations from Pali textual sources are required. Readers of this sub-forum are not interested in half-misremembered quotes.

In fact there is nothing in the Pali suttas about giving money to temples or monks. I suspect the text that you are referring to (but which you have both misunderstood and misremembered) will be either the Dakkhiṇavibhanga Sutta (MN. 142) or the Velāma Sutta (AN. iv. 392-5). The main message of the former concerns the threefold purity of giving (i.e. of the giver, the recipient and the gift) and that an offering made to the sangha as a whole is more meritorious than one made to an individual monk or nun. In other words, it's a teaching aimed at encouraging laypeople not to discriminate between monks they like or dislike when making offerings to the sangha.

As for the Velāma Sutta, here we are presented with a graduated list of increasingly meritorious deeds. As summarized by Lily de Silva:
The Anguttara Nikāya (A.iv,392-95) records a fabulous alms-giving conducted by the Bodhisatta when he was born as a brahmin named Velāma. Lavish gifts of silver, gold, elephants, cows, carriages, etc., not to mention food, drink and clothing, were distributed among everybody who came forward to receive them. But this open-handed munificence was not very valuable as far as merit was concerned because there were no worthy recipients. It is said to be more meritorious to feed one person with right view, a stream-enterer (sotāpanna), than to give great alms such as that given by Velāma. It is more meritorious to feed one once-returner than a hundred stream-enterers. Next in order come non-returners, Arahants, Paccekabuddhas and Sammasambuddhas. Feeding the Buddha and the Sangha is more meritorious than feeding the Buddha alone. It is even more meritorious to construct a monastery for the general use of the Sangha of the four quarters of all times. Taking refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha is better still. Abiding by the Five Precepts is even more valuable. But better still is the cultivation of mettā, loving-kindness, and best of all, the insight into impermanence, which leads to Nibbāna.
So the highest kind of merit taught in this sutta is developing insight into impermanence:
"Though a person might develop a thought of loving-kindness, greater still would be the fruit if he would develop the perception of impermanence for the duration of just one snap of the fingers." 
Thus the chief point of this sutta is not to promote gifts to the sangha —meritorious though they be— but rather to highlight how superior to everything else is the development of understanding (paññā).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 5, 2009 9:15 AM
Title: Re: Hi!
Content:
Hello Termite,

Good to see you around.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 5, 2009 9:06 AM
Title: Re: Theravada and Zen - a comparative analysis
Content:
That is in fact the outcome of a very similar story from the Christian desert fathers. As Thomas Merton tells it, when the miscreant monk is discovered the abbot wants the community to forgive him, but the brothers won't have any of it: "He's a sinner, he must go!"

To which the abbot replies: "I'm a sinner, I must go."

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 5, 2009 8:57 AM
Title: Re: Dharma names
Content:
What I was told by the Aussie monk Ñāṇadhammo was that at one time the monk responsible for choosing the names for Ajahn Chah's western disciples was a bit of a joker and several of the names he chose were non-standard ones. For example, there was an Aussie whose lay name was Bruce, which Thais pronounce as Baroot. Baroot is also how Thais pronounce the Sanskrit word puruṣa ("man"). So when Bruce was ordained the joker gave him the name Puriso (the Pali cognate of puruṣa). This is not a proper Pali name, but he kept it till he disrobed. Then there was a New Zealand monk who was given the name Upanno ("the arisen one"), also a non-standard name. He was still Upanno when I met him in 1982, but now he goes by the name of Munindo.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 5, 2009 1:09 AM
Title: Re: Mahavamsa (The Great Chronicle of Sri Lanka)
Content:
Rickmers' translation of the Cullavamsa, which supercedes that of Geiger, is also available online:

http://lakdiva.org/culavamsa/

This takes the history up to 1815.

Unfortunately it's been OCR'd but not proofread yet, and so is in too messy a state to be used for serious research.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 4, 2009 7:20 PM
Title: Re: Nibbana
Content:
Certainly it applies to arahants.

From the Nettipakarana:
"Dukkha is [the world's] greatest fear."
(Ajita Sutta, Sn. 1033)

"Dukkha is [the world's] greatest fear" is the Blessed One's reply to [Ajita's question] "and what will be its greatest fear?"

Dukkha is of two kinds: bodily and mental. The bodily kind is pain, while the mental kind is grief. All beings are sensitive to dukkha. Since there is no fear that is even equal to dukkha, how could there be one that is greater?

There are three kinds of unsatisfactoriness (dukkhatā): unsatisfactoriness consisting in [bodily] pain (dukkha-dukkhatā), unsatisfactoriness consisting in change (vipariṇāma-dukkhatā), and the unsatisfactoriness of formations (saṅkhāra-dukkhatā).

Herein, the world enjoys limited freedom from unsatisfactoriness consisting in [bodily] pain, and likewise from unsatisfactoriness consisting in change. Why is that? Because there are those in the world who have little sickness and are long-lived.

However, in the case of the unsatisfactoriness of formations, the world is freed only by the Nibbāna element without remainder (anupādisesa nibbānadhātu).

That is why "Dukkha is [the world's] greatest fear", taking it that the unsatisfactoriness of formations is the world's inherent liability to dukkha.
(Nettipakaraṇa 12)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 4, 2009 7:06 PM
Title: Re: Nibbana
Content:
And that's all there is to it, eh?

The four noble truths are one application of the principle of dependent arising — a teaching that is "profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise." Do you really think your take on the noble truths could be characterized in such terms?

I do agree, btw, that there is "no problem" for one who has abandoned the three akusala roots. But "no problem" doesn't mean no dukkha of any sort. More to the point, there will be no abandoning of the three akusala roots without the development of insight into the danger in conditioned dhammas; there will be no development of insight into the danger in conditioned dhammas so long as one adheres to the wrong view that there might be some such dhammas that don't have dukkha-lakkhaṇa as an inherent and inalienable feature.

Now a question in return: what do you understand the Buddha to mean by "the dukkha of formations" (saṅkhāra-dukkha)? For example, when he says regarding vedanā: "Whatsoever is felt, that is included in dukkha" (yaṃ kiñci vedayitaṃ taṃ dukkhasmiṃ — Rahogatasutta, SN. iv. 216; Kaḷāra Sutta, SN. ii. 53)?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 4, 2009 10:08 AM
Title: Re: Hello Friends
Content:
Hello Mountain,

Thanks for joining us.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 4, 2009 10:00 AM
Title: Re: taking refuge????
Content:
So long as there's ignorance there'll be kammic formations; so long as there are kammic formations there'll be consciousness etc. etc. Ignorance can cease, but the dhammatā of kammic formations arising wherever there is ignorance does not cease.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 4, 2009 8:51 AM
Title: Re: Nibbana
Content:
Yes, I'm very sorry. It's the second time this week I've done this.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 4, 2009 7:21 AM
Title: Re: taking refuge????
Content:
The teaching of anicca is that all conditioned phenomena are impermanent. But "conditioned phenomena" doesn't include Nibbana, nor does it include dhammatās ("laws", "regularities of nature") such as dependent arising.

That being so, the OP's statement "everything changes" is at best a crude approximation of what the Buddha taught on anicca, and at worst seriously misleading.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 4, 2009 5:22 AM
Title: Re: What's your favorite Buddha's quote?
Content:
When you've finished your porridge, don't forget the Dantakaṭṭha Sutta's teaching on the five dangers of not using a toothbrush (AN. iii. 250).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 4, 2009 5:13 AM
Title: Re: Kamma and its Ripening in the Abhidhamma
Content:
You're welcome to your opinion, but this sub-forum is concerned with classical Theravada teaching. In the present matter, a sense-door ārammaṇa is desirable or undesirable before it is processed by any javana cittas.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 4, 2009 5:06 AM
Title: Re: Help finding a specific sutta!
Content:
Hi Individual,

If you mean this passage:
Suppose a monk were to say: "Friends, I heard and received this from the Lord's own lips: this is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Master's teaching", then, monks, you should neither approve nor disapprove his words. Then, without approving or disapproving, his words and expressions should be carefully noted and compared with the Suttas and reviewed in the light of the Vinaya. If they, on such comparison and review, are found not to conform to the Suttas or the Vinaya, the conclusion must be: "Assuredly this is not the word of the Buddha, it has been wrongly understood by this monk", and the matter is to be rejected. But where on such comparison and review they are found to conform to the Suttas or the Vinaya, the conclusion must be: "Assuredly this is the word of the Buddha, it has been rightly understood by this monk." This is the first criterion.
it's from the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (DN. 16).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 4, 2009 4:52 AM
Title: Re: Introduction
Content:
Hi Khalil,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 3, 2009 9:20 PM
Title: Re: Newbie inviting you to Spain
Content:
You can put the website into your signature if you like:

http://dhammawheel.com/ucp.php?i=profile&mode=signature

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 3, 2009 3:29 PM
Title: Re: Mahayana
Content:
I recommend Karunadasa's article, Dhamma Theory

http://www.zeh-verlag.de/download/dhammatheory.pdf

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 3, 2009 11:51 AM
Title: Re: Past lives
Content:
Yes, they use kabbalistic means to track you down. You can run but you can't hide.  

Though the project's scope wasn't limited to occult detective work; in fact much of it consisted in counselling Christians who for some reason felt themselves to be Jews.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 3, 2009 10:21 AM
Title: Re: Past lives
Content:
I have encountered one person who claims to have done so. On the very first Buddhist e-mail list that I joined (the now defunct Buddhist-L), one of our more colourful characters was an American rabbi who belonged to some Jewish group which subscribed to reincarnation. The rabbi was also the founder of an organization whose mission was to track down Jewish holocaust victims who had reincarnated as American Christians, and then convert them back to Judaism.

In his posts the rabbi would speak quite unabashedly about his time as an animal of one sort or another, being particularly fond of recounting his former lives as a polar bear and a rabbit.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 3, 2009 10:04 AM
Title: Re: Taking Refuge and Precepts
Content:
Hi Craig,

An efficacious going for refuge entails approaching the Three Jewels both by way of objective field (visaya) and by way of appropriate duty or task (kicca). An action by way of the mind-door alone will fulfil these two conditions only in one case, namely, when a Noble Person goes for refuge by cutting off his defilements (saraṇagamanupakkilesasamucchedanaṃ). For a worlding, a merely mental act would fulfil visaya, but a supplementary act by way of the speech-door or body-door is necessary to fulfil kicca. It's not necessary to go to any special place or to visit a bhikkhu to do this, though traditionally visiting a bhikkhu to request the refuges is the most common way of fulfilling kicca.

From Buddhaghosa’s account of refuge-going (saraṇa-gamanaṃ) in the Paramatthajotikā:
Now regarding the ‘going’ etc.: “It counters”, therefore it is a refuge; the meaning is that when people have gone for refuge, then by that very act of going, the refuge counters, dispels, carries off, and causes to cease, their fear, anguish, suffering, defilement, and risk of rebirth in the lower realms.

Or alternatively:
He combats the fears of living beings by promoting their welfare and preventing their harm, thus he is called the Buddha.
It provides a way of crossing over the desert of existence and gives comfort, thus it is called the Dhamma.
It causes the obtaining of abundant fruitfulness from small actions, thus it is called the Sangha.
So in this way the refuge is also that threefold Jewel.

The going for refuge consists in the arising of a citta:

* from which defilements have been removed and eliminated;
* which is possessed of confidence in the threefold Jewel and veneration for it;
* which inclines to acceptance of the threefold Jewel as its highest value;

Whether in the immediate presence of one of the Jewels, or without any external prompting, a being in whom the above factors arise is said to go for refuge when, prompted by that citta, he avows: “This is my refuge; this is my highest value [or “my going to the further shore”],” (esa me saraṇaṃ, esa me parāyaṇaṃ).
Buddhaghosa then continues by describing sundry acts that are each reckoned as tantamount to going for refuge, provided that they are prompted by the kind of citta described above:
* An undertaking (samādānaṃ), as in cases like that of the two merchants, Tapussa and Bhallika, thus: “Venerable sir, we go for refuge to the Blessed One and to the Dhamma; let the Blessed One remember us as upāsakas,” (ete mayaṃ, bhante, bhagavantaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāma, dhammañca, upāsake no bhagavā dhāretu).

* An assuming of the status of a pupil (sissabhāvūpagamanaṃ), as in the case of Mahākassapa etc., thus: “Venerable sir, the Blessed One is my teacher, I am his disciple,” (satthā me, bhante, bhagavā, sāvako’ham’asmi).

* An inclination towards it (tappoṇattaṃ), as in the case of the brāhmaṇa Brahmāyu, thus: ‘When this was said, the brāhmaṇa Brahmāyu rose from his seat, and arranging his upper robe on one shoulder, he raised his hands palms together towards where the Blessed One was staying, and uttered this udāna three times: “Homage to that Blessed One, the Arahant and Perfectly Awakened One!” (namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammāsambuddhassa).

* A self-dedication (attasanniyyātanaṃ), as in the case of meditators devoting themselves to a meditation subject.

* Going for refuge by cutting off one’s defilements (saraṇagamanupakkilesasamucchedanaṃ), as in the case of Noble Persons.
(KhpA. 16-17. This is my own rather free, explanatory translation, since the more literal rendering by Ñāṇamoli in Minor Readings &amp; Illustrator is rather difficult to understand)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 3, 2009 9:44 AM
Title: Re: Newbie inviting you to Spain
Content:
Hi Viriya Karuna,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

That's a nice website you have; I'm impressed to see how much has been translated into Spanish. Is there any Spanish equivalent of the Pali Text Society, or are the translations all independent projects?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 3, 2009 2:25 AM
Title: Re: Nibbana
Content:
Well, that's a little ironic. This sutta is most often cited by those who seek to refute the ābhidhammikas' conception of momentariness!

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 3, 2009 1:08 AM
Title: Re: Past lives
Content:
He doesn't, but the Pali commentators blame it on the prolonged dullness of mind during gestation. Beings of immediate arising (opapatika) such as devas and pretas all have a native ability to recall their former life, whereas most humans and animals do not.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 3, 2009 12:55 AM
Title: Re: Nibbana
Content:
I don't think we can.
Saṅkhata-lakkhaṇa Sutta

tīṇimāni, bhikkhave, saṅkhatassa saṅkhatalakkhaṇāni. katamāni tīṇi? uppādo paññāyati, vayo paññāyati, ṭhitassa aññathattaṃ paññāyati. imāni kho, bhikkhave, tīṇi saṅkhatassa saṅkhatalakkhaṇānī ti.

"There are, bhikkhus, these three conditioned characteristics of the conditioned. Which three? Arising is manifest. Disappearance is manifest. The changing of what persists is manifest. These, bhikkhus, are the three conditioned characteristics of the conditioned."
(AN. i. 152)

Asaṅkhata-lakkhaṇa Sutta

tīṇimāni, bhikkhave, asaṅkhatassa asaṅkhatalakkhaṇāni. katamāni tīṇi? na uppādo paññāyati, na vayo paññāyati, na ṭhitassa aññathattaṃ paññāyati. imāni kho, bhikkhave, tīṇi asaṅkhatassa asaṅkhatalakkhaṇānī ti.

"There are, bhikkhus, these three unconditioned characteristics of the unconditioned. Which three? No arising is manifest. No disappearance is manifest. No changing of what persists is manifest. These, bhikkhus, are the three unconditioned characteristics of the unconditioned."
(ibid)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 2, 2009 9:19 PM
Title: Re: Nibbana
Content:
Would you care to expand on this? With no accompanying clarification it just looks like a rather unhelpful insult.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 2, 2009 12:18 PM
Title: Re: Super Bowl!!!
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 2, 2009 11:50 AM
Title: Re: Store consciousness in Theravada
Content:
It's one kind of mind-consciousness.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 2, 2009 11:31 AM
Title: Re: Store consciousness in Theravada
Content:
It is bhavanga. The identification of Yogacarin alayavijnana with Theravadin bhavanga actually originates not with W. Rahula, but in some Yogacarin text (I've forgotten which one, but I think it's either one of Asanga's or else the Samdhirnamocana Sutra).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 2, 2009 11:10 AM
Title: Re: Retreats and Money
Content:
My impression is that the real divide here is between Buddhist groups that are content with whatever size they happen to be vs. groups with strong expansionist ambitions. Since the former's priority in holding a retreat will be to teach the Dhamma, they will typically offer the retreat free of charge or at least at minimal charge. The latter, on the hand, will tend to view retreats as partly, or even primarily, an opportunity to make a profit, which will then be used to expand the scope of their activities.

This divide is not really the same as the Theravada/Mahayana one, for one will find some Theravada groups offering very pricey retreats (especially in the North American vipassana scene) and some Mahayana groups (e.g. that of the late Master Hsuan Hua) offering almost everything free of charge.

Another factor is whether the teacher leading the retreat is a high- or low-maintenance one. For example, if he happens to be one of these playboy Tibetan tulkus who travels everywhere with a large entourage and expects to be provided with first-class air tickets and a whopping great "donation" at the end of the retreat, then any group hosting him will have to charge an arm and a leg just to cover its expenses. But if it's a teacher who lives frugally and travels alone, then one should be able to safely finance the retreat just by relying on donations.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 2, 2009 9:51 AM
Title: Re: Super Bowl!!!
Content:
Quite so. NFL is the USA's most unexportable commodity. The only way anyone can find it entertaining is if they've been brainwashed into believing so at a very young age (reminiscent of that supposed Jesuit saying: "If we get them by the age of six, they're ours for life"). Anyone not thus brainwashed (i.e. anyone born outside of the US) will find the game either laughable (with its refrigerator-fetish costumes etc.) or else boring to tears (chiefly due to the lack of fluid play and continual breaks).

By contrast, with rugby —and especially rugby union— no childhood exposure is needed. The sport is so intrinsically thrilling that even middle-aged or elderly people, upon seeing a game for the first time become immediate addicts (with the one sad exception of those whose sense of discrimination has been perverted by childhood exposure to NFL).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 1, 2009 4:11 PM
Title: Re: Anattā
Content:
Could you expand on this?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 1, 2009 3:56 PM
Title: Re: Anattā
Content:
It's quite a disputed point, and one that seems to have a number of heavyweight scholars lined up on both sides. My own view is that the ontological reading is rather better supported in Theravādin Abhidhamma texts.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 1, 2009 3:17 PM
Title: Re: Awakening and Cessation
Content:
One couldn't have final cessation of suffering without attainment of the path of arahantship, which is the fourth of the four bodhis.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 1, 2009 2:44 PM
Title: Re: Anattā
Content:
When expounding the Dhamma by way of paramattha-desanā it is perfectly correct to say that there is no self. This is not a speculative view.

When we speak of 'self' we are speaking either about a reality (dhamma) or a concept (paññatti). Examples of the former would be talk about the "I am conceit" (which would have to do with the mental factor of māna) or about personality view (which would have to do with the mental factor of diṭṭhi).

Examples of the latter would be (1) innocuous usages, such as when an arahant says "I will go to Rājagaha" or "I've hurt myself", but does not misapprehend his words, since he knows that there are really only dhammas; or (2) non-innocuous usages such as: "The self and the world are eternal, barren like a mountain-peak, set firmly as a post. These beings rush round, circulate, pass away and re-arise, but this remains eternally," and all the other erroneous views given in the Brahmajāla Sutta and elsewhere.

The arahant and the person of wrong view both resort to the term 'self', but whereas the one is misled by his concept, the other knows that dhammas are real but paññattis are not, and so is not misled.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 1, 2009 2:22 PM
Title: Re: Anattā
Content:
From the Manorathapūraṇī:
duve saccāni akkhāsi
sambuddho vadataṃ varo
sammutiṃ paramatthañca
tatiyaṃ nupalabbhati

The Awakened One, best of speakers,
Spoke two kinds of truths:
The conventional and the ultimate.
A third truth does not obtain.

tattha:
saṅketavacanaṃ saccaṃ
lokasammutikāraṇaṃ
paramatthavacanaṃ saccaṃ
dhammānaṃ tathalakkhaṇan ti

Therein:
The speech wherewith the world converses is true
On account of its being agreed upon by the world.
The speech which describes what is ultimate is also true,
Through characterizing dhammas as they really are.

tasmā vohārakusalassa
lokanāthassa satthuno
sammutiṃ voharantassa
musāvādo na jāyatī ti

Therefore, being skilled in common usage,
False speech does not arise in the Teacher,
Who is Lord of the World,
When he speaks according to conventions.
(Mn. i. 95)


Conventional truth (sammuti-sacca):

1. Treats of concepts (paññatti), i.e., things which are mere speech, such as 'self', 'person', 'life', 'butter-jar' etc.
2. Is used to expound teachings whose meaning warrants interpretation (neyyattha).
3. Is chiefly, though not exclusively, the province of the Sutta and Vinaya Piṭakas.

Ultimate truth (paramattha-sacca):

1. Treats of real existents (dhammā), such as the earth element, eye-consciousness, greed, Nibbāna, etc.
2. Is used to expound teachings whose meaning is definitive (nītattha).
3. Is chiefly, though not exclusively, the province of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka.


From Nyanatiloka's Dictionary of Buddhist Terms"
Paramattha (-sacca, -vacana, -desanā): ‘truth (or term, exposition) that is true in the highest (or ultimate) sense’, as contrasted with the ‘conventional truth’ (vohāra-sacca), which is also called ‘commonly accepted truth’ (sammuti-sacca; in Skr: saṃvṛti-satya). The Buddha, in explaining his doctrine, sometimes used conventional language and sometimes the philosophical mode of expression which is in accordance whith undeluded insight into reality. In that ultimate sense, existence is a mere process of physical and mental phenomena within which, or beyond which, no real ego-entity nor any abiding substance can ever be found. Thus, whenever the suttas speak of man, woman or person, or of the rebirth of a being, this must not be taken as being valid in the ultimate sense, but as a mere conventional mode of speech (vohāra-vacana).

It is one of the main characteristics of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, in distinction from most of the Sutta Piṭaka, that it does not employ conventional language, but deals only with ultimates, or realities in the highest sense (paramattha-dhammā). But also in the Sutta Piṭaka there are many expositions in terms of ultimate language (paramattha-desanā), namely, wherever these texts deal with the groups (khandhā), elements (dhātu) or sense-bases (āyatana), and their components; and wherever the 3 characteristics (ti-lakkhaṇa, q.v.) are applied. The majority of Sutta texts, however, use the conventional language, as appropriate in a practical or ethical context, because it “would not be right to say that ‘the groups’ (khandhā) feel shame, etc.”

It should be noted, however, that also statements of the Buddha couched in conventional language, are called ‘truth’ (vohāra-sacca), being correct on their own level, which does not contradict the fact that such statements ultimately refer to impermanent and impersonal processes.

The two truths - ultimate and conventional - appear in that form only in the commentaries, but are implied in a sutta-distinction of ‘explicit (or direct) meaning’ (nītattha, q.v.) and ‘implicit meaning (to be inferred)’ (neyyattha). Further, the Buddha repeatedly mentioned his reservations when using conventional speech, e.g. in D. 9: “These are merely names, expressions, turns of speech, designations in common use in the world, which the Perfect One (Tathāgata) uses without misapprehending them.” See also S. I. 25.

The term paramattha, in the sense here used, occurs in the first para. of the Kathāvatthu, a work of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka (s. Guide, p. 62). (App: vohāra). The commentarial discussions on these truths (Com. to D. 9 and M. 5) have not yet been translated in full. On these see K N. Jayatilleke, Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge (London, 1963).

Sammuti-sacca: ‘conventional truth’, is identical with vohāra-sacca (s. paramattha-sacca).

Vohāra-desanā: ‘conventional exposition’, as distinguished from an explanation true in the highest sense (paramattha-desanā, q.v.). It is also called sammuti-sacca (in Sanskrit saṃvṛti). (App.).
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 1, 2009 12:11 PM
Title: Re: Anattā
Content:
It's not consistent with the classical viewpoint. The classical viewpoint was accurately stated in the passage from Nyanatiloka's Dictionary quoted by Chris in her opening post. Those interpretations which conceive of anattā as a strategic way of regarding things, or which assert that it's a speculative view to hold that there is no self, are misreadings of the Suttas from the classical Theravada point of view. A good rule of thumb when reading modern attempts to explain anattā is that if the writer makes no reference (implicit or explicit) to the doctrine of the two truths then the chances are he's got it all wrong.

The commentator Mahānāma, concluding his commentary on the Paṭisambhidāmagga's Treatise on Emptiness, offers a neat series of epigrams summarizing the Mahāvihāra understanding of anattā:
sabbe dhammā samāsena
tidhā dvedhā tathekadhā
suññāti suññatthavidū
vaṇṇayantīdha sāsane

In short, whether classed in triplets, couplets or units, all dhammas are empty. Thus is it explained by those in this religion who know the meaning of emptiness.

kathaṃ? sabbe tāva lokiyā dhammā dhuva-subha-sukha-atta-virahitattā dhuva-subha-sukha-atta-suññā

How so? Firstly, all mundane dhammas, through being bereft with respect to permanence, beauty, pleasure and self, are empty of permanence, beauty, pleasure and self.

magga-phala-dhammā dhuva-sukha-atta-virahitattā dhuva-sukha-atta-suññā

The [noble] path and fruition dhammas, through being bereft with respect to permanence, pleasure and self, are empty of permanence, pleasure and self.

aniccattāyeva sukhena suññā

But only on account of their impermanence are they empty with respect to pleasure;

anāsavattā na subhena suññā

and being free of the taints they are not empty with respect to beauty.

nibbānadhammo attasseva abhāvato attasuñño

The dhamma called 'Nibbāna' is empty of self only on account of the non-existence of self.

[i.e., not on account of impermanence etc. — Dhammanando]

lokiyalokuttarā pana sabbepi saṅkhatā dhammā sattassa kassaci abhāvato sattasuññā

Secondly, conditioned dhammas, both mundane and supramundane, are all empty of a living being on account of the non-existence of a living being of any sort whatever.

asaṅkhato nibbānadhammo tesaṃ saṅkhārānampi abhāvato saṅkhārasuñño

The unconditioned, the dhamma called 'Nibbāna', is empty of formations on account of the absence [there] of formations.

saṅkhatāsaṅkhatā pana sabbepi dhammā attasaṅkhātassa puggalassa abhāvato attasuññāti

Lastly, all dhammas, conditioned and unconditioned, are empty of self on account of the non-existence of any person who could be classed as 'a self'.
(PaṭiA. iii. 638-9)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 1, 2009 9:38 AM
Title: Re: Safe Journey and Happy Landings Ben!
Content:
Hi Ben,

I hope you're all settling in nicely.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 31, 2009 8:26 PM
Title: Re: Anattā
Content:
I think their position —that the puggala is indescribable and its relationship to the aggregates is indescribable— would be included in eel-wriggling.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 31, 2009 5:50 PM
Title: Re: Anattā
Content:
Why "speculative"? Surely it's just straightforward logical entailment.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 31, 2009 5:36 PM
Title: Re: Different football codes - who are the toughest?
Content:
Rugby union "not so good"?! Pfft. You wouldn't say that if you were old enough to remember Gareth Edwards. Watch him score the greatest try in the history of the universe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwCbG4I0QyA&feature=related





See also Jonah Lomu bulldozing through the Lion's defence at the 1995 world cup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvR8CsGcwyQ





And go wash your mouth out with soap.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 31, 2009 4:12 PM
Title: Re: Why there is no re-linking consciousness
Content:
Mental objects (dhammā) arises from a variety of causes, but are not "concocted" by the consciousness that cognizes them any more than visual objects are concocted by eye-consciousness, sounds by ear consciousness etc.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 31, 2009 3:42 PM
Title: Re: Why there is no re-linking consciousness
Content:
Citta is never defined as the aggregate of formations. It is in fact a synonym of viññāṇa.
"But, bhikkhus, as to that which is called 'mind' (citta), that which is called 'mentality' (mano), that which is called 'consciousness' (viññāṇa), — the uninstructed worldling is unable to experience revulsion towards it, unable to become dispassionate towards it and be liberated from it.

"It would be better, bhikkhus, for the uninstructed worldling to take as self this body composed of the four great elements rather than the mind (citta). For what reason? Because this body composed of the four great elements is seen standing for one year, for two years, for three, four, five, or ten years, for twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years, for a hundred years, or even longer. But that which is called 'mind' (citta), that which is called 'mentality' (mano), that which is called 'consciousness' (viññāṇa) arises as one thing and ceases as another by day and by night."
(Assutavā Sutta, SN.ii.94. Bodhi trans.)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 31, 2009 1:10 PM
Title: Re: Why there is no re-linking consciousness
Content:
You are indulging in your usual penchant for moving the goalposts. What you asked Piotr to supply was not a sutta explaining relinking consciousness, but rather, one supporting his claim that "viññāṇa is a cognition but I don't think that it is correct to say that it's "merely cognition", since it's also described as a seed with other kammic factors that nourish it."

This is what we have both done.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:52 AM
Title: Re: Anybody know the "Insightforum" Yahoo Group?
Content:
1. Midpeninsula Insight Discussion Forum: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/insightforum

— I don't know anything about this one.

2. Insight Forum: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/insight_forum

— Inactive since 2007

3. Insight Practice Forum: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InsightPractice

— Very active group moderated by Jinavamsa/Mitchell Ginsburg, an American student of the Thai teacher Dhiravamsa. Its threads are pretty wide-ranging, but the focus is chiefly North American vipassanā, and especially the more eclectic and psychotherapy-oriented wing of this movement. I've been a member almost since it started, but haven't read it for ages as it's not really my cup of tea.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 31, 2009 10:57 AM
Title: Re: What is puthujjano?
Content:
No, the saddhānusārī and dhammānusārī have both arrived at the path of stream-entry (sotāpatti-magga).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 31, 2009 12:03 AM
Title: Re: MN Session 2 - MN 60. Apannaka Sutta
Content:
Here is Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation:
(IV. THERE ARE NO IMMATERIAL REALMS)

“Householders, there are some recluses and brahmins whose doctrine and view is this: ‘There are definitely no immaterial realms.’ [1]

“Now there are some recluses and brahmins whose doctrine is directly opposed to that of those recluses and brahmins, and they say thus: ‘There definitely are immaterial realms.’ What do you think, householders? Don’t these recluses and brahmins hold doctrines directly opposed to each other?” - “Yes, venerable sir.”

“About this a wise man considers thus: ‘These good recluses and brahmins hold the doctrine and view “there are definitely no immaterial realms,” but that has not been seen by me. And these other good recluses and brahmins hold the doctrine and view “there definitely are immaterial realms,” but that has not been known by me. If, without knowing and seeing, I were to take one side and declare: “Only this is true, anything else is wrong,” that would not be fitting for me. Now as to the recluses and brahmins who hold the doctrine and view “there definitely are no immaterial realms,” if their word is true then it is certainly still possible that I might reappear [after death] among the gods of the fine-material realms who consist of mind. [2]

“But as to the recluses and brahmins who hold the doctrine and view “there definitely are immaterial realms,” if their word is true then it is certainly possible that I might reappear [after death] among the gods of the immaterial realms who consist of perception. The taking up of rods and weapons, quarrels, brawls, disputes, recrimination, malice, and false speech are seen to occur based on material form, but this does not exist at all in the immaterial realms.’ After reflecting thus, he practises the way to dispassion towards material forms, to the fading away and cessation of material forms.” [3]
Notes:

[1] This is a denial of the four immaterial planes of existence, the objective counterparts of the four immaterial meditative attainments.

[2] These are the gods of the planes corresponding to the four jhanas. They possess bodies of subtle matter, unlike the gods of the immaterial planes who consist entirely of mind without any admixture of matter.

[3] Majjhima Commentary: Even though the wise man discussed here has doubts about the existence of the immaterial planes, he attains the fourth jhana, and on the basis of that he attempts to attain the immaterial absorptions. If he fails he is certain of rebirth in the fine-material planes, but if he succeeds he will be reborn in the immaterial planes. Thus for him this wager is an “incontrovertible teaching.”


Does this make things clearer?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:56 PM
Title: Re: Option to see created threads?
Content:
Hi Bodom,

At present there isn't any simple one-click way of doing this, but it can be done using the advanced search function.

1. Go to the http://dhammawheel.com/search.php page.

2. Type the author's name in Search for author.

3. Select the forums in which you wish to search.

4. Click the button First post of topics only.

5. Click Search.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 30, 2009 4:30 PM
Title: Re: Zen Forum International: Coming soon!
Content:
Pfft, you can't propose a toast with baggies.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 30, 2009 4:26 PM
Title: Re: Greetings!
Content:
Hi hrtbeat7,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 30, 2009 3:57 PM
Title: Re: The Wisdom of Ariyan Women
Content:
That's true, but the use of "women's wisdom" in the opening sentence of Piotr's initial post (I would like to start new thread with examples of women's wisdom &amp; discrimination portrayed in the Pāli Canon) needn't be taken as implying the wisdom of women in general. On the other hand, there's no doubt that it does carry this undesired meaning when isolated from its context, as in Element's reply. To avoid this ambiguity perhaps it would be better to speak of the wisdom of ariyan women. I'll change the thread title to make the topic clearer.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 30, 2009 12:13 PM
Title: Re: Zen Forum International: Coming soon!
Content:
Congratulations! I hope it will be of benefit to many.

 (that's apple juice, btw, not beer)

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 30, 2009 11:39 AM
Title: Re: Theravadins' thoughts on the origin of the Mahayana sutras?
Content:
I think you've misunderstood what modern scholars are saying. As there's nothing in the supposedly oldest stratum of the Mahāsaṃghika Vinaya that isn't matched in other Vinaya recensions it's nonsensical to say that scholars regard this Vinaya (rather than the others) as representing the earliest stratum.

In fact the question that modern scholars are chiefly concerned with is which recension of the Vinaya was closed (i.e. stopped adding new material) the earliest. And in this matter the only point on which there is any consensus is that the Mūlasarvastivāda Vinaya was closed the latest. But as to which was closed the earliest, the Theravāda, Dharmagupta and Mahāsaṃghika Vinayas are each treated as the likeliest candidate by one scholar or another.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 30, 2009 11:11 AM
Title: Re: Watching movies if you are a monk
Content:
Years ago I met an Italian Theravadin monk called Mahinda or Milinda or something like that, who told me about his stay at a certain Tibetan monastery in Italy. While he was there one of the resident monks informed him one day that they would be holding the Vajra Cup later that week and asked him if he'd be interested in taking part.
"Sure," replied Mahinda, thinking that the Vajra Cup must be the name of some Tibetan ritual.
"Great, our team's one player short. Which position would you prefer?"

The Vajra Cup, it turned out, was an annual soccer match between the Tibetan-ordained monks in Italy and those in Germany. Mahinda then explained that it was out of the question — in the Pali Vinaya, balls and other playthings aren't even to be touched by a bhikkhu, let alone played with. His hosts were okay about this, but later one of them approached Mahinda and said: "We understand that your vows prohibit playing football, but would you mind being the referee?"

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 30, 2009 11:08 AM
Title: Re: Greetings
Content:
Welcome Jin  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 30, 2009 11:01 AM
Title: Re: Hi Dhamma Friends
Content:
Hi Siaophengyou,

Nice to see you around.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:50 AM
Title: Re: Why there is no re-linking consciousness
Content:
I have in fact quoted the Sutta to you twice already. Once again:

Bhava Sutta

"It is said, lord, 'becoming, becoming.' In what way, lord, is there becoming?"
"If, Ānanda, there were no kamma ripening in the sense realm, would sense-sphere becoming be discerned?"
"No, lord."
"Thus, Ānanda, kamma is the field, consciousness is the seed (viññāṇaṃ bījaṃ), craving the moisture; for beings obstructed by ignorance and fettered to craving, consciousness becomes grounded in a low realm. Thus, Ānanda, there is the production of re-becoming in the future. It is thus, Ānanda, that there is becoming.
"If, Ānanda, there were no kamma ripening in the fine-material realm, would fine-material becoming be discerned?"
"No, lord."
"Thus, Ānanda, kamma is the field, consciousness is the seed, craving the moisture; for beings obstructed by ignorance and fettered to craving, consciousness becomes grounded in a middling realm. Thus, Ānanda, there is the production of re-becoming in the future. It is thus, Ānanda, that there is becoming.
"If, Ānanda, there were no kamma ripening in the immaterial realm, would immaterial becoming be discerned?"
"No, lord."
"Thus, Ānanda, kamma is the field, consciousness is the seed, craving the moisture; for beings obstructed by ignorance and fettered to craving, consciousness becomes grounded in a superior realm. Thus, Ānanda, there is the production of re-becoming in the future. It is thus, Ānanda, that there is becoming."
(AN.i. 223-24)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jan 30, 2009 10:11 AM
Title: Re: The Wisdom of Ariyan Women
Content:
Inasmuch as the wisdom happens to have arisen in the cittasantati whose accompanying rūpasantati is distinguished by the femininity controlling faculty, speaking conventionally, in accordance with the world's usage, one might correctly refer to it as "women's wisdom".

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:50 PM
Title: Re: Theravadins' thoughts on the origin of the sutras?
Content:
In the pre-modern age slaves were employed in the larger monasteries of every Theravada country too. That being so, an argument like yours would rather tend to recoil upon him who advances it.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:37 PM
Title: Re: hi ya
Content:
Hello Ippaefans,

Thanks for joining us.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:22 PM
Title: Re: Greetings kalyanamittas
Content:
Hi Gregory,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 29, 2009 1:04 PM
Title: Re: No record of Women Buddhas
Content:
Then I can only repeat that the possibilities of what a few monks could have been influenced by, and what they could have done as a result of being influenced are limitless.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:48 PM
Title: Re: Women can't be enlightened?
Content:
In the Mahāsamaya Sutta an ariyan deva from the Pure Abodes says:
yekeci buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gatāse,
na te gamissanti apāyabhūmiṃ
pahāya mānusaṃ dehaṃ,
devakāyaṃ paripūressanti

"Whoever have gone to the Buddha for refuge
Will not go to the lower realms,
Having abandoned the human body
They will swell the company of devas."
(DN.ii.255; SN.i.27)
But this principle cannot be universally applicable, for the likes of Devadatta and Sunakkhatta went for refuge and yet ended up in hell. The commentaries take the verse as referring to the supramundane going for refuge, which consists in the attainment of stream-entry. An ordinary person's going for refuge is a wholesome kamma, but it will save him from the lower realms only if it happens to be the kamma that ripens at the time of death. There is no guarantee that this will be the case, for it could be counteracted by some unwholesome kamma.

In some Buddhist circles one will find people voicing rather exaggerated opinions on the benefits of refuge-going that were never taught by the Buddha. In the Suttas (e.g., DN. 5) the benefits of refuge-going rank higher than those of giving gifts to the Sangha, but lower than those of an unbroken observance of the five precepts.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 29, 2009 10:56 AM
Title: Re: No record of Women Buddhas
Content:
Yes, it’s possible that the Buddha delivered a plethora of teachings on female Sammasambuddhas and sexist monks engaged in a conspiracy to suppress them all. 

And perhaps there were speciesist monks too, guilty of suppressing the Buddha’s many discourses on kangaroo Sammāsambuddhas, chimpanzee Paccekabuddhas etc.

Once we start down the hermeneutics-of-suspicion road, the possibilities are limitless.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 29, 2009 10:42 AM
Title: Re: Women can't be enlightened?
Content:
I downplay it because I think a preoccupation with it indicates a seriously misplaced sense of priorities and a lack of awareness of just how perilous our present lot is.

For example, did you know that according to the Suttas the great majority of humans will be reborn after death in the lower realms? Hardly any of us will even manage to be human beings in the next life, let alone Sammāsambuddhas billions of lives from now.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 29, 2009 8:54 AM
Title: Re: Women can't be enlightened?
Content:
Almost everybody is declared inadequate. In Theravāda teaching the vow can be made effectively only when there is a concurrence of eight conditions:

1. Manussatta: the human state. The resolve to become a Sammāsambuddha can be made only during a life in which one is a human being.
2. Liṅgasampatti: possession of the right sex. One must be a man, not a woman, a congenital eunuch, or a hermaphrodite.
3. Hetu: cause. Possessing the supporting conditions for attaining arahantship in that same life, if he were to exert himself towards this end.
4. Satthāradassana: the sight of the Teacher. This means an encounter with a Sammāsambuddha, as when Sumedha met the Buddha Dīpaṅkara and declared his resolve in his presence.
5. Pabbajjā: going forth into the homeless life. One must have left the household life and be an ascetic who holds to the doctrine of the efficacy of kamma, like the ascetic Sumedha when he made his resolve.
6. Guṇasampatti: attainment of special qualities. One must have attained special or distinctive qualities, beginning with the jhānas, like Sumedha, who had attained the five mundane higher knowledges (abhiññā) and the eight attainments (samāpatti) when he made his resolve before the Buddha Dīpaṅkara.
7. Adhikāra: extreme dedication. At the time of making one's resolve to become a Sammāsambuddha one must be prepared to sacrifice everything, even one's life.
5. Chandatā: strong desire. Having a strong desire to become a Sammāsambuddha, no matter how great the difficulties and obstacles one may encounter. For example, if he were told that to attain sammāsambodhi it would be necessary to tread his way across an entire world-system filled with flameless hot coals, or tread his way across an entire world-system whose ground was bespread with spears and sharp-pointed bamboo sticks, or wade across an entire world-system filled with water, or cut his way through an entire world-system choked with thorny bamboo plants, — he would reply: "I can do that."

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:56 AM
Title: Re: The enlightenment of Vakkali
Content:
When you say "The Theragatha suggests he attained Arahantship before killing himself" I take it you mean some time before putting the knife to his throat (as opposed to after putting the knife to his throat but before expiring). But what is there in the dictionary entry you've cited that leads you to think that this is what the Theragatha commentary is suggesting?

You quoted:
According to the Theragáthá, Commentary (ThagA.i.420), when Vakkali was dismissed by the Buddha he lived on Gijjhakúta, practising meditation, but could not attain insight because of his emotional nature (saddhá). The Buddha then gave him a special exercise, but neither could he achieve this, and, from lack of food, he suffered from cramp. The Buddha visited him and uttered a verse to encourage him. Vakkali spoke four verses (Thag.350 4) in reply, and, conjuring up insight, won arahantship. Later, in the assembly of the monks, the Buddha declared him foremost among those of implicit faith (saddhádhimuttánam) (cp. A.i.25; also Dvy.49 and VibhA.276; Vsm.i.129). In the Páráyanavagga (SN. vs. 1146) the Buddha is represented as holding Vakkali up to Pingiya as an example of one who won emancipation through faith.
Are you taking the words "Vakkali spoke four verses (Thag.350 4) in reply, and, conjuring up insight, won arahantship" to mean that all of this happened there and then in the Buddha's presence? Malalasekera's words might suggest this, but the commentary itself gives only the sequence of events, not the duration in which they elapsed. (In general when reading the Theragatha and Therigatha verses one needs to keep in mind that in many cases the verses of a particular arahant or arahantī were not spoken all at once, but rather at intervals over a long duration, with each verse encapsulating some pivotal experience in the disciple's career).

Or are you perhaps assuming that Vakkali must have been alive at the time when the Buddha praised his special quality in the assembly of monks? If so, this would be a mistake, for Bahiya is also praised in this same chapter of the Anguttara Nikaya, though he would almost certainly have been deceased at the time.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:09 AM
Title: Re: Women can't be enlightened?
Content:
Maybe. One of the eight conditions for a vow made before a Buddha to be effective is that one must be a male human at the time of making it. Having made it and received a prediction, from then on there are eighteen states he can never fall into. One of these eighteen is to change one's sex, but does this mean the Bodhisatta can never be born female or that he will never undergo a change of sex in the course of a life? I'm not sure about this.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:47 PM
Title: Re: perfections
Content:
In the Sutta Pitaka they are all listed in the Buddhavamsa and (I think) about eight of them in the Cariyapitaka.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:41 PM
Title: Re: Women can't be enlightened?
Content:
But as I mentioned earlier in the thread, the commentators do not draw any connection between the Abhidhamma teaching on kamma-originated materiality and the Sutta teaching on the impossibility of a Sammāsambuddha being female.

In fact the latter teaching is accounted for with reference to another Sutta doctrine: that of the Great Man (mahāpurisa) and his thirty-two marks.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 28, 2009 4:13 AM
Title: Re: AN 11.13: Mahanama Sutta (six recollections)
Content:
A cetiya (Sanskrit caitya) is about the same as a stupa.

Relinking (paṭisandhi) is the abhidhammic term for the moment of rebirth.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 8:43 PM
Title: Re: your top three Buddhist assumptions
Content:
As Element has reminded us many times, dukkha is the supporting condition for the arising of faith in the Dhamma. Now in some cases it happens that the dukkha that motivates a person to the quest that leads her to the Dhamma will be dukkha resulting from her own folly, wrong view or suchlike. But that doesn't make folly, wrong view etc. in any way commendable. Much oftener, one with wrong view will simply continue to wallow in it.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 6:03 PM
Title: Re: Chat room
Content:
Hi Mawkish,

Thanks for this. It does sound like something worth considering.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 5:51 PM
Title: Re: Kamma and its Ripening in the Abhidhamma
Content:
As Robert mentioned, in the commentary it is said that the various projectiles were not deliberately aimed at Angulimala. As for the ripening, this consisted in the unwholesome resultant bodily consciousnesses accompanied by painful feeling.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:59 PM
Title: Re: Samaya
Content:
"Harsh speech" is usually used to translate pharusā vācā, which is one of the four kinds of wrong speech. It means speech prompted by an unwholesome mind state and spoken merely with the aim of hurting someone:
"He speaks harshly; he utters such words as are rough, hard, hurtful to others, offensive to others, bordering on anger, unconducive to concentration."
(MN. 114)
Probably you mean speech that is disagreeable to others, but is also true and beneficial. To a listener this may at times appear indistinguishable from pharusā vācā but it is inwardly distinguished by the different motivation that prompts it.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:26 PM
Title: Re: Entering the stream
Content:
I was actually going from memory, but it's lucky you asked because after checking with Gethin's Summary of the Topics of Abhidhamma I now think I've made some mistakes. I'll post a corrected version this evening.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:25 AM
Title: Re: A Manual of the Excellent Man
Content:
If the citta that cognizes Nibbāna were Nibbāna itself, then Nibbāna would be just another dependently arisen phenomenon. As it is, Nibbāna is conceived in classical Theravāda as the unconditioned object (ārammaṇa) of a conditioned citta. The effect of this cognition, at the moment of path consciousness, is the cutting off of the defilements particular to that level (e.g., the first three fetters in the case of stream entry).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:13 AM
Title: Re: Great site guys.
Content:
Hi Adeh,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:44 AM
Title: Re: Women can't be enlightened?
Content:
I was making an analogy.

Other things being equal, a human is better advantaged by being a biped than a uniped; nonetheless, some human unipeds can turn their less-than-optimal state to good use.

Other things being equal, a human is better advantaged by being a man than a woman; nonetheless, some women can turn their less-than-optimal state to good use. As you put it yourself:

"Women can and do well pretend to be weaker than they are in order to attract mates, for this is what usually pleases the male ego."

In practice, of course, other things are rarely equal. Better, for example, to have the feminine rūpadhammas of a Mahāpajāpati or a Khemā than the male ones of a Devadatta or an Ariṭṭha the vulture-trainer.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 9:35 AM
Title: Re: A Manual of the Excellent Man
Content:
Aññā is synonymous with arahantship (arahatta), the liberation of arahantship (arahatta-vimokkha), and the noble fruition consciousness of arahantship (arahatta-ariyaphala-citta).

The first of these can be used in place of 'Nibbāna' when speaking conventionally (i.e. when talking about the ongoing state of cooledness or extinguishedness in those persons called arahants).

The last two refer to the citta that cognizes Nibbāna, but not to Nibbāna itself.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 9:18 AM
Title: Re: Cula Sotapanna
Content:
No, you're correct. The cullasotāpanna knows what's magga and what's not, but hasn't yet attained magga.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:53 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma Stories recounted by Mahasi Sayadaw
Content:
Another source of stories from Mahasi Sayadaw is his wonderful book on the Sallekha Sutta:

http://aimwell.org/Books/Mahasi/Sallekha/sallekha.html

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:32 AM
Title: Re: Hello
Content:
Hi Jesse,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:23 AM
Title: Re: AN 11.13: Mahanama Sutta (six recollections)
Content:
Even better than that...
"Here, if a certain person, while giving a gift, or undertaking the precepts, or observing the uposatha, or setting out drinks and refreshments for the use of passing travellers, or beautifying the area around his home, or worshipping a cetiya, or adorning a cetiya with perfumes and garlands, or circumambulating a cetiya, or engaging in any wholesome kamma belonging to the three planes, does not do so for the sake of a fortunate destiny, or birth, or relinking, or becoming, or wandering in saṃsāra, or continuing in the cycle, then all of these actions tend to the sundering of bonds, and are inclining, tending and sloping towards Nibbāna."
(Nidd.ii.424)

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 3:44 AM
Title: Re: Women can't be enlightened?
Content:
In the Mahāsīhanāda Sutta (MN. 12) the first of the ten Tathāgata powers is called "knowledge of the possible and the impossible" (ṭhānaṭṭhāna-ñāṇa):
“Here, the Tathāgata understands as it actually is the possible as possible and the impossible as impossible. And that is a Tathāgata’s power that the Tathāgata has, by virtue of which he claims the herd-leader’s place, roars his lion’s roar in the assemblies, and sets rolling the Wheel of Brahma.
And in the Vibhanga the Buddha's knowledge of the impossibility of a woman being a Sammāsambuddha, a universal monarch, Māra, Brahmā etc. is classed as part of this Tathāgata power.

So perhaps his statements are simply a demonstration of this power, aimed at reinforcing his disciples' faith.
ye bhikkhave buddhe pasannā, agge te pasannā
agge kho pana pasannānaṃ aggo vipāko hoti.

“Those, bhikkhus, who have faith in the Buddha, have faith in the best;
And those who have faith in the best, theirs is the best result.”
(AN.ii.35)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:00 AM
Title: Re: Entering the stream
Content:
I don't recall seeing any discussion of why path and fruition consciousnesses are always at the level of rūpa and not arūpa jhāna. My guess would be that it's because the arūpa cittas are not capable of taking any object but the conceptual ones of infinite space, infinite consciousness etc.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:56 AM
Title: Re: hello folks
Content:
Hello Dumb Bonbu,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel!  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:52 AM
Title: Re: Beginners questions
Content:
No, I didn't mean to say that.

However, looking at the discussion of this matter in the Milindapañha I'm not now sure that the locution "choosing his rebirth" is really correct. The text speaks of the Bodhisatta performing "eight great investigations" (mahāvilokana), i.e., regarding the time of conception, the continent, the region, the family, the mother, the life-span his mother would have after giving birth, the month he would be born, and the time of his renunciation, but it doesn't say anything about him exercising choice regarding the first five items. It might be that rather than "the Bodhisatta chooses to be reborn in the highest caste, either brahmin or kshatriya" it would be more accurate to say "his merit causes him to be reborn in the highest caste, and while in Tusita he foresees what that caste will be." But I would need to look into this further.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:20 AM
Title: Re: Entering the stream
Content:
1. As with all the ariyan paths and fruits, the supramundane jhāna at the moment of attaining the path and fruit of non-returning may be at the level of any of the five jhānas.
2. The fact that non-returners are reborn in the Suddhāvāsas is due to their eradication of all the causes for rebirth in the Kāmaloka, but their non-eradication of attachment to the refined material and immaterial spheres.
3. The level of Suddhāvāsa in which a non-returner is reborn is conditioned by his/her development of mundane jhāna in the case of those who have done this.
4. In the case of those who haven't (the bare insight workers), the level will be the lowest, i.e., the Avihā Suddhāvāsa.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:04 AM
Title: Re: Women can't be enlightened?
Content:
This may be the case, but it goes beyond the issue that my reply to Jason was addressing, which was male and female physical features considered in themselves.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2009 8:08 PM
Title: Re: unravelling the mysteries of mind & body through abhidhamma
Content:
If it's not too much trouble. Thank you.  

Kalāpas are cool.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2009 6:06 PM
Title: Re: Entering the stream
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:45 PM
Title: Re: Howdy
Content:
Hi Davcuts,

Thanks for joining us.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2009 4:56 PM
Title: Re: Women can't be enlightened?
Content:
I don’t know if this is ever spelt out in the texts, but I doubt it, for the abhidhammikas’ priority is to describe the dhammas themselves, rather than their conventional consequences. I would suggest, however, that the sexual differences produced by the gender-controlling faculties are indeed of a sort that tend to make a male body something more to be wished for than a female one, all other things being equal. If one considers those features of men's and women's bodies that are differentiated by the gender-controlling faculties, it seems that in every case the male features are stronger, less susceptible to injury, and more versatile for nearly every end save that of attracting mates and child-rearing.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2009 1:45 PM
Title: Re: What is the "life-principle"? (Jivitindriya)
Content:
I'm pretty sceptical about it. There is no mention in the Suttas of the Buddha's remains looking any different to those of anyone else, nor of the relics of his arahant disciples. Also, this sort of thing would be dead easy to fake, and among the less scrupulous followers of a teacher there are strong worldly incentives to do so. For example, someone on the lay committee which manages a wat might have hopes that the wat will become a future pilgrimage site; so he hides some crystals in the coffin before the cremation, knowing that gullible folk will take their later "discovery" as a sign that the monk was an arahant.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2009 1:37 PM
Title: Re: Greetings!
Content:
Hi Justin,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2009 1:27 PM
Title: Re: Beginners questions
Content:
It's a decision and all decisions belong to the aggregate of formations. In fact everything that's mental but isn't a feeling, perception or cognition, belongs to this aggregate.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2009 1:16 PM
Title: Re: Theravada and Zen - a comparative analysis
Content:
Since allegations about this teacher aren't really relevant to the topic, discussion of them would be better continued by pm. Incidentally, the subject has been discussed at considerable length in a thread at E-sangha.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2009 1:00 PM
Title: Re: Entering the stream
Content:
Well, I really don't know whether it's likely or unlikely. It's just that I've never come across any accounts of it happening in the Pali texts, and nor have any of the more learned monks whom I've asked about it. But we shouldn't read too much into that, for even in the case of the sotapannas reborn as devas, the accounts are rather few in number and in most cases they only get their names in the books because they came back to visit the Buddha after death, or because they had been unusually close to him in their human life, or because their progress happens to make an unusually edifying (or unusually entertaining) story.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:04 PM
Title: Re: What is the "life-principle"? (Jivitindriya)
Content:
No, the Sutta isn't talking about the normal condition of a living arahant. It's talking about a rare samadhi state that certain arahants and non-returners can enter for a limited period of time. While in this state breathing stops, as do all mental processes.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2009 10:07 AM
Title: Re: Women can't be enlightened?
Content:
The Expositor passage is on page 421 and you have misquoted it. It says: "The masculine state is superior, the feminine is inferior."

Taken in context, this passage is not about 'men' and 'women'. Rather, as one would expect from an Abhidhamma treatise, it's about the derivative rūpa dhammas called masculinity faculty and femininity faculty. These are kammically produced rūpas that are present in certain material octads spread throughout the body, and which lead to the conventionally observable marks of sexual distinction, such as breasts, rounded hips, beards, moustaches etc. Here 'inferiority' and 'superiority' are attributes of the kinds of kamma that generate these rūpa dhammas, not of the conventional realities called 'men' and 'women'.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:30 AM
Title: Re: Hindrance
Content:
No, you should just swallow it, unless you want to drown or have the saliva dribbling down your chin.  

Dogen's advice to keep the tongue against the palate, with the tip of the tongue resting against the back of the top teeth, will both reduce the quantity of saliva and make the swallowing of it fairly effortless.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 25, 2009 7:47 PM
Title: Re: Greetings from Ballarat
Content:
Hello Carl,

Thanks for joining us.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


