Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 25, 2014 10:51 PM
Title: Re: Stoicism and Buddhism
Content:
Yes, that for me is what makes them so intriguing. They start out from the most appallingly rotten premises (theism AND materialism AND fatalism — one can scarcely imagine a worse combination of wrong views!), yet in spite of this they get it exactly right about eudaemonia (i.e. there is nothing in the http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an08/an08.053.than.html that a Stoic would deem an unworthy aim) and almost exactly right about the nature of the sage (the Stoic sage differs from the Buddhist arahant only in that the former is expected to busy himself with public affairs, while the latter is expected to be a bhikkhu, and thus more like the uninvolved sage pictured by the Stoics' great rival, Epicurus).

But the fact that the Stoics sought apatheia on the basis of radically wrong views may also go some way to explaining why (on the Stoic writers’ own admission) none of their number actually achieved it — that is, nobody is regarded as having graduated from a prokopton to a proficiens, not even such worthies as Heraclitus and Socrates whom the Stoics held as their patriarchs. In effect, therefore, Stoic sagehood appears to be a merely theoretical ideal.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 25, 2014 8:37 AM
Title: Re: Stoicism and Buddhism
Content:
The Stoic writers had quite a panoply of exercises for cultivating apatheia, and not all were past-the-post. For example, one of the most elementary ones is that the prokopton (Stoic sage-in-training) should begin each day by recollecting the most terrible things that could happen to him in the course of the day. This would enable him to be mentally prepared if any of these terrible things should actually happen, indifferent to any milder annoyances that might arise, and in for a pleasant surprise if the day should pass with no adverse events of any sort.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 25, 2014 8:18 AM
Title: Re: Long Breath/Short Breath: Control Breath or Natural Breath?
Content:
I think it's more likely the latter. The ancient Mahavihara Theravadin texts contain no explicit statement supporting either opinion, no matter how they're translated. The one text that does take sides is the Vimuttimagga, thought to be a composition of the Abhayagiri Vihara, wherein there is an explicit prescription for natural breathing.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 24, 2014 11:15 AM
Title: Re: Pursuing an American Buddhism.
Content:
The term “sangha of the four quarters” (or more literally “four directions” — cātuddisa-saṅgha) never meant “monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen”. Originally it was a term for the bhikkhusaṅgha in the the North, East, South and West. Later it came to include the bhikkhunīsaṅgha in the four cardinal directions. Laymen and laywomen were never included in the term. Even when the Mahāyānists began to include lay bodhisattvas in the term “saṅgha” it was the ariya-saṅgha that they had in mind, not the cātuddisa-saṅgha.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 23, 2014 3:05 PM
Title: Re: Phra Malai
Content:
This is the "Meeting with Maitreya" chapter in Bonnie Brereton's translation, taken from Donald Lopez's Penguin anthology Buddhist Scriptures:


 ./download/file.php?id=2447
(8.36 KiB) Downloaded 63 times


But if you want the whole thing, I'm afraid it's sixty dollars:

https://www.amazon.com/Thai-Tellings-Phra-Malai-Concerning/dp/1881044076


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 22, 2014 10:59 PM
Title: Re: Vivartasthāyikalpa
Content:
In Pali the word is vivaṭṭaṭṭhāyīkappa.

See the account of recollection of former lives in the Path of Purification, where Ñāṇamoli translates it as “what supersedes the expansion.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 20, 2014 3:32 PM
Title: Re: Forum back up and running again
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 18, 2014 7:38 AM
Title: Re: Trying to ordain at Wat Boonyawad -- Looking for some ad
Content:
Never having been medically insured I don't know which of these would be better. But once you are ordained you won't need to worry about insurance. Treatment is free of charge for monks in Thai state hospitals and at the sangha hospital in Bangkok.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:57 PM
Title: Re: Is breath meditation bad for me?
Content:
Buddhaghosa does state that some hold this view (later writers attribute it to the author of the Vimuttimagga), but he himself does not. In fact he rejects it on the grounds that it's empirically false. That is, there's no necessary or invariable correlation between a person's temperament and his medically diagnosed humour.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 16, 2014 12:05 PM
Title: Re: the story of thera Tissa
Content:
Akkocchi maṃ avadhi maṃ, ajini maṃ ahāsi me,
ye ca taṃ upanayhanti, veraṃ tesaṃ na sammati.

Akkocchi maṃ avadhi maṃ, ajini maṃ ahāsi me,
ye ca taṃ nupanayhanti, veraṃ tesūpasammatī ti.

"He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me." Those who harbor such thoughts do not still their hatred.
"He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me." Those who do not harbor such thoughts still their hatred.
(Dhp. 3-4)

As far as I can see neither the verses nor their background story have anything at all to do with affection being poison.

And by the way, Kao, unless you yourself happen to be Daw Mya Tin of the Burma Tipitaka Association, please cite your source in future posts.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 15, 2014 8:45 AM
Title: Re: What I should take with me to stay at a monastery?
Content:
Burmese food can be exceedingly oily — so much so that after a meal one often spends an hour or two expectorating just to get rid of all the grease that's coating the inside of one's throat. Burmese monks solve this problem by swallowing some kind of medicinal powder after every meal. The powder soaks up the grease and carries it safely down the oesophagus in no time at all. I can't remember what the powder is called, but you should find out and get some, else your after-meal meditation sessions are liable to be ruined by endless coughing.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 15, 2014 2:50 AM
Title: Re: Sautrāntika momentariness
Content:
I don't really know what the best book is. That of Williams just happens to be the only relevant one in my rather small collection. I should think that the more scholarly types on Dharma Wheel —especially those who've studied Tibetan Buddhism's "four tenet systems" in a traditional setting— would be in a better position to answer you, at least as regards the Sarvastivāda and Sautrāntika.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 14, 2014 6:58 PM
Title: Re: Where do you guys fall along the MBTI scale?
Content:
According to the test on your link:

PERSONALITY: INFP
VARIANT: TURBULENT
ROLE: DIPLOMAT

You are one of the Diplomats - an empathic and idealistic individual who enjoys exploring interesting ideas and prizes morality. You are known for your poetic nature, intuitive skills and pure, childlike enthusiasm.




Famous INFPs: William Shakespeare, J.R.R. Tolkien, Björk, Johnny Depp, Julia Roberts, Lisa Kudrow, Tom Hiddleston, Homer, Virgil.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:57 PM
Title: Re: Sautrāntika momentariness
Content:
Paul Williams:
Followers of Sautrāntika rejected the existence of dharmas in the three times, which they saw as necessarily implying the permanence of dharmas. Actually only the present dharma exists. The past dharma did exist, and the future dharma (assuming the appropriate conditions come together) will exist. But only the present dharma actually exists (see Abhidharmakosa 5:25 ff.). The Sautrāntika took from the Sarvastivāda, however, the idea that the present stage of a dharma lies in the dharma’s exerting its characteristic activity. Thus exerting activity now becomes the mark not of the present stage of the dharma as such, but its very existence. To be in fact is to exert activity. But it follows from this that a dharma cannot be something that remains for some time and then exerts its activity. If hypothetically it existed for some time before acting then in the moments during which the dharma is not acting it actually could not exist, since to be is to act. Likewise if the dharma hypothetically existed for some time after exerting its activity then during those moments too it could not actually exist. Thus the dharma must exist only in the moment (kṣana) in which it exerts its activity. And that moment cannot itself have any time span, since if the moment had a time span then there would be the first moment of a moment, the second moment of a moment, and so on. If that were the case, then there would be the question of whether the dharma exerted its activity in the first moment of the moment, or in a subsequent moment of the moment. Whatever the answer, it would follow that the dharma actually existed in only one moment of the moment. And this process could be traced to infinity, unless one adopted the position that the temporal moment is not itself divisible into further moments. Thus the moment in which a dharma acts, in which existence occurs, has no time span beyond itself. It is absolutely instantaneous, so short that it can only be said to mark the infinitely short time-difference between the non-existence before its existence, and the non-existence after its existence. To be is to cease. Cessation is the very nature of being, and is said to occur to a dharma through its very nature as existing. We are here stretching the bounds of language. The existence of a dharma is so short in time that we can no longer speak of it in terms of ‘being’ at all. Life can best be viewed as an ever-flowing process, and all talk of things, of beings, is merely practical convenience that can easily mislead and engender attachment and consequential suffering.
(Buddhist Thought - A Complete Introduction to the India Tradition 119-120)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 14, 2014 8:29 AM
Title: Re: Sautrāntika momentariness
Content:
I don't know. The sources with which I'm familiar merely state their view without describing how they arrived at it. If no one here knows the answer there might be someone on Dharmawheel who will.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 14, 2014 8:11 AM
Title: Re: Where can I get a hard copy chanting book (UK)?
Content:
Two free-distribution books compiled by Ven. Ānandajoti.

http://records.photodharma.net/texts/two-chanting-books-now-in-hard-copy-for-free-distribution


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 14, 2014 6:54 AM
Title: Re: Sautrāntika momentariness
Content:
The Sautrāntikas posited just two sub-moments (arising and disappearance) to every mind-moment, as opposed to the Theravāda's three: arising, stasis and disappearance.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 13, 2014 7:02 PM
Title: Re: the story of thera Tissa
Content:
What has the story to do with affection?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 13, 2014 7:03 AM
Title: Re: Is this a fair critique of goenka?
Content:
It's actually a longstanding habit among those Dalit Buddhists who have a limited command of English. In their native tongues they refer to our teacher as Śrī Buddha (Hindi: श्री बुद्ध), which is respectful enough, as śrī in a religious context is about the equivalent of 'lord'. But in everyday usage śrī and śrīmatī mean Mr. and Mrs.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 12, 2014 1:27 PM
Title: Re: devas and nagas are real entities?
Content:
There is a better clue at the end of the http://www.pitakataw.net/download/Tipitaka/BuddhistTexts/mn/mn_e_23.htm.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 12, 2014 10:04 AM
Title: Re: Why has annihilationism proliferated Theravada so profus
Content:
I think the application of ‘oblivion’ in this thread is incorrect. None of the dictionary senses would correspond to uccheda (annihilation, cutting off). What ‘oblivion’ annihilates is memory, not a being or a person. As Bartholomew Yong has it:

Minds change from that they wont to bee,
Obliuions doe reuiue againe.
(from his translation of Jorge de Montemayor’s Diana. 1598)


A correct example of ‘oblivion’ (albeit temporary) in the Buddhist texts would be rebirth among the impercipient devas.
From the Oxford English Dictionary:

oblivion, n. (əˈblɪvɪən) 

[a. OF. oblivion (c 1245 in Godef.), ad. L. oblīviōn-em forgetfulness, state of being forgotten, f. vb.-stem oblīv-, found in inceptive deponent oblīv-iscī to forget; f. ob- (ob- 1 b) + *līv-: cf. līvēre to be black and blue, līvid-us black and blue, dark.]

1. a.1.a The state or fact of forgetting or having forgotten; forgetfulness. 

b.1.b Forgetfulness as resulting from inattention or carelessness; heedlessness, disregard. 

c.1.c Intentional overlooking, esp. of political offences. Act or Bill of Oblivion, an act or bill granting a general pardon for political offences.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In Eng. Hist. the term is specifically applied to the Acts of 1660 and 1690, exempting those who had taken arms or acted against Charles II and William III respectively from the penal consequences of their former deeds. 

2. a.2.a The state or condition of being forgotten. (Hence many phrases and fig. expressions.) 

†b.2.b transf. A thing forgotten. Obs. 

3.3 attrib., as oblivion point, oblivion power. 

Hence †oˈblivion v. Obs., to put into oblivion; oˈblivionist, one who holds a theory of, or favours, oblivion.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 12, 2014 7:46 AM
Title: Re: Anagarika Ordination Questions
Content:
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/ordination.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 12, 2014 12:37 AM
Title: Re: Hello from a new Buddhist
Content:
If your German is as good as, or better than, your English, then there is a better introduction to meditation by Nyanaponika: “Geistestraining durch Achtsamkeit: Die buddhistische Satipatthana-Methode”.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 11, 2014 10:58 PM
Title: Re: Hello from a new Buddhist
Content:
Hello Ahura,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel and thanks for the touching introduction. I hope your apostasy from Islam won't put you in any danger.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 11, 2014 10:24 PM
Title: Re: Anagarika Ordination Questions
Content:
If you have a friend in Bangkok who'll introduce you to the abbot and vouch for your character, then you could be ordained as a sāmaṇera within a week or two, or however long it takes you to memorize the Pali formulas. If you don't know anyone in Bangkok, then the best course would be to get to know the monks in your local Thai wat, let them know your intentions, and after a few visits ask the friendliest one if he'll furnish you with a letter of introduction.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 11, 2014 5:01 PM
Title: Re: What's does the "anta" in Suttanta mean?
Content:
It doesn't display on my computer. Is it his article "How the Mahayana Began" ?

If so, there's a pdf of it here:

http://www.shin-ibs.edu/documents/bForum/v1/02Gombrich.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 11, 2014 4:45 PM
Title: Re: Torturers go to Hell
Content:
If it's intended as a statement of the Buddha's teaching, then I think it's an over-generalization.
“Here, Ānanda, by means of ardor, endeavor, devotion, diligence, and right attention, some recluse or brahmin attains such concentration of mind that, when his mind is concentrated, with the divine eye, which is purified and surpasses the human, he sees that person here who kills living beings [or commits any of the other ten akuslala kammapatha], and he sees that on the dissolution of the body, after death, he has reappeared in a state of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, even in hell. He says thus: ‘Indeed, there are evil actions, there is result of misconduct; for I saw a person here who killed living beings [and the rest of the ten akusala kammapatha], and I see that on the dissolution of the body, after death, he has reappeared in a state of deprivation…even in hell.’ He says thus: ‘On the dissolution of the body, after death, everyone who kills living beings [and the rest of the ten akusala kammapatha] reappears in a state of deprivation…even in hell. Those who know thus know rightly; those who think otherwise are mistaken.’ Thus he obstinately adheres to what he himself has known, seen, and discovered, insisting: ‘Only this is true, anything else is wrong.’

http://www.yellowrobe.com/component/content/article/120-majjhima-nikaya/278-mahkammavibhanga-sutta-the-greater-exposition-of-action.html
There is no telling if the kamma of torturing somebody will be the particular kamma that determines one's next birth. It might be, but then again its vipāka might appear before one's death in this life or it might appear during the course of some subsequent life.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 11, 2014 8:42 AM
Title: Re: Anagarika Ordination Questions
Content:
A sāmaṇera is classed as "not fully accepted" (anupasampanna), which in practice means that he does not participate in any of the formal transactions of the sangha (ordinations, pāṭimokkha recitals, confession, kaṭhina, etc.) and is not someone to whom bhikkhus or bhikkhunīs can declare any jhānic or ariyan attainments that they may have. As far as training rules go, a sāmaṇera is required to observe the ten precepts that he takes at his ordination, together with the Pāṭimokkha's seventy-five sekhiya rules. A bhikkhu is required to observe the full 227-rule Pāṭimokkha, together with all the supporting rules from the Khandhakas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 11, 2014 7:10 AM
Title: Re: Anagarika Ordination Questions
Content:
Would your medical condition prevent you from ordaining as a 10-precept sāmaṇera?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 10, 2014 7:28 AM
Title: Re: mahasi vipassana vs goenka vipassana
Content:
I know from several stays at the Ambedkarite temple in Wolverhampton, England, that there are some Dalit Buddhists who are enamoured with Goenka and some who are not. If you name just about any prominent figure in the Indian Buddhist world, you’ll find Dalits similarly divided over him or her. I don’t think the majority view of these people can be reliably determined from Google. Presumably your knowledge of the majority view is derived from some carefully-conducted opinon poll, right? If so, it would help if you'd post a link to it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 10, 2014 7:11 AM
Title: Re: mahasi vipassana vs goenka vipassana
Content:
I got 58,000 hits for "Goenka funeral", but I'm not sure what conclusion you would have us draw from them. If you mean to imply that if Goenka didn’t have a Buddhist funeral —i.e. one conducted by the bhikkhusangha— then he couldn’t have been a Buddhist, then I believe the premise is faulty. This can be seen from the fact that the Buddha himself wasn’t interested in having a “Buddhist funeral”. When Ānanda asked him what “we” (i.e. the bhikkhusangha) should do with the Tathāgata’s remains, the reply was that the bhikkhus should stay out of it and leave funeral arrangements to brahmin and kshatriya householders.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 10, 2014 5:03 AM
Title: Re: Anagarika Ordination Questions
Content:
Ditto.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 8, 2014 11:24 PM
Title: Re: Why has annihilationism proliferated Theravada so profus
Content:
The word ‘anamata’ (‘not to be discovered’) is glossed in the commentaries as ‘avidita’ (‘not to be found’), which most commonly is a way of asserting the non-existence of something.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 7, 2014 12:52 PM
Title: Re: Teach What You Know: Sutta reference?
Content:
I believe its scope is broader than just that. Macchariya in general is just the mental reluctance to give or to share one's goods or skills. Even outside of a teaching relationship macchariya may arise. Moreover, it may arise just subjectively, leading to inner rigidity of mind but without prompting any particular outward behaviour.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 7, 2014 10:05 AM
Title: Re: Teach What You Know: Sutta reference?
Content:
As a layman when I found myself in this situation I wouldn't say anything. What I would do was to decline to engage in any act that might be construed as approving the killing. For example, if the fly-killing co-worker grinned, I wouldn't grin back. I wouldn't scowl at him either, but would just keep my face impassive. The co-worker would then be slightly ill at ease because he couldn't figure me out. His unease would then compel him to review what he'd just done.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 7, 2014 6:54 AM
Title: Re: Teach What You Know: Sutta reference?
Content:
The Maccharinīsutta (AN.iii.139) and the two Macchariyasuttas (AN.iii.266-7).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 7, 2014 5:52 AM
Title: Re: Teach What You Know: Sutta reference?
Content:
The story’s underlying assumption —that stinginess in teaching the Dhamma (dhamma-macchariya) leads to rebirth as a deaf mute— is a little too optimistic from a Theravādin point of view. According to the Suttas this kind of stinginess leads to hell (specifically, the Hell of Hot Ashes, Kukkuḷa-niraya, according to the Commentaries) .


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 6, 2014 3:10 PM
Title: Re: What's does the "anta" in Suttanta mean?
Content:
Right, though I wasn't aware that it was Walleser's suggestion. I think I first learned of it in my correspondence with either A.K. Warder or K.R. Norman, though I don't remember what the arguments were that convinced me.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 5, 2014 11:17 PM
Title: Re: Sujātā Sabrina
Content:
Anagarika,

Thanks for your query. Happily it appears Sujātā is on the mend and has now been released from hospital.

Five days ago:
The pain is getting lower, but when I have to wake up the pain in the left leg is almost unbeatable. Yesterday I started pills but I still need subcutaneous medicines.
When i leave the hospital I will be in recovery during 2 or 3 months. I will need therapy to recover movement and force in my legs, and I will have to take anticoagulants during at least 6 months.

Today I started to walk. It will be a long process but the pain is minimum now.
It's a kindly gesture from you to start that thread. Thanks everyone for their prayings. The doctors did think that i could not walk before next monday, but i did my first steps today
Yesterday:
De regreso a casa ... ¡Y a mi cama!
Back to home... ¡my bed!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 5, 2014 10:05 PM
Title: Re: The sect/school of thinkers that believed in person/bein
Content:
I suppose it would make it a more digestible doctrine to those with a predisposition to believe in souls and an inability to conceive of the afterlife in any other terms. In practice that probably means most people, which may go some way to account for the extraordinary popularity of the Pudgalavādin schools in India.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 5, 2014 9:40 PM
Title: Re: The sect/school of thinkers that believed in person/bein
Content:
While it may be that such a view is attributed to them by their doctrinal opponents (though not in any Theravādin text, as far as I know), what is asserted in the pudgalavādins' own extant texts is something like this: “If the pudgala were identical with the aggregates, then it would be perishable, and to hold that would be the extreme of ucchedavāda. If it were distinct from the aggregates, then it would be eternal, and to hold that would be the extreme of sassatavāda. Avoiding these extremes, we pudgalavādins assert the pudgala to be indescribable (avācya) and its relationship to the aggregates to be likewise indescribable.”

To that extent the pudgalavādins are saying about the pudgala pretty much what ābhidharmikas say about paññattis/prajñaptis of any sort. Where the pudgalavādins differ from ābhidharmikas is in their insistence that the pudgala actually and ultimately (though very mysteriously) exists. An ābhidharmika would say of the pudgala that it is a product of thought-construction (cittaparikappana) and has no existence outside of linguistic convention.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 5, 2014 5:04 PM
Title: Re: Who is the Buddha in Three refuges?
Content:
The Paramatthajotikā’s account of the Three Refuges (Khp-a. 14-22), translated by Ñāṇamoli in Minor Readings and Illustrator.



 ./download/file.php?id=2433
(334.08 KiB) Downloaded 264 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 5, 2014 9:33 AM
Title: Re: The Buddhist Path to Awakening by Rupert Gethin
Content:
An interesting anthology and well-translated. And with Gethin's inclusion of the Dīgha's Aggañña and Mahāsudassana Suttas in the very opening section, it's an anthology that certainly cocks a snook at western protestant Buddhism.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 5, 2014 9:21 AM
Title: Re: Hawking: Artificial Intelligence Could End Human Race
Content:
if (typeof bbmedia == 'undefined') { bbmedia = true; var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = 'bbmedia.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(e, s); }https://phpbbex.com/ .


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 5, 2014 5:25 AM
Title: Re: A female has taken a liking to me
Content:
It's the Dhammika Sutta, not the Ratana. And it's one of the four verses in the sutta which describe the sīla proper for a householder on lunar observance days, not that which is expected of them at all times.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 4, 2014 7:38 PM
Title: Re: The Buddhist Path to Awakening by Rupert Gethin
Content:
The first is a general introduction to Buddhism, thoughtful, well-written, and pitched at about the level of university undergrads in comparative religious studies.

The second is a much more specialised and technical work: a scholarly study of the thirty-seven bodhipakkhiya-dhammas as they are expounded in Pali sources, canonical and commentarial. Of the three principal English-language works on this topic (i.e. those of Gethin, Ajahn Thanissaro, and Ledi Sayadaw), I would rate Gethin's as the most demanding, but also the most rewarding.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 4, 2014 12:53 PM
Title: Re: the great rebirth debate
Content:
Possibly, depending on what sense of 'worry' you have in mind. The sotāpanna is free of fearful apprehensions about rebirth in the lower realms, for this possibility is now cut off.

He is, however, still subject to worry in a weaker sense of the word, namely, that rebirth is still a subject of concern for him, just as anything that we are fettered to is a subject of concern. Indeed we might even say that rebirth is now more of a concern than it was when he was a puthujjana, for now he entertains no doubts about it. As such, the sotāpanna no longer has access to the sort of fool's equanimity that comes from willing oneself to disbelieve in an afterlife and then thinking such thoughts as:
“Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.”
— Epicurus


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 4, 2014 12:36 PM
Title: Re: The Social Expectations that Stifle Ordination
Content:
Yes, I was 18 when I ordained for the first time and 38 the second time. On neither occasion was there very much thought behind the decision. There was just nothing else that I wanted to do.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 4, 2014 11:51 AM
Title: Re: Going Forth and Visas
Content:
For the most up-to-date info it would probably be best to enquire at the Thai Visa forum. Regulations are constantly changing.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 4, 2014 11:23 AM
Title: Re: Using Thai-Style Altar Table Sets
Content:
It was a government publication from Krom Silpakorn (Department of Fine Arts), though it doesn't seem to be among the e-texts currently available at the Krom's website. The sources would probably be Bangkok aristocrats, arts laureates and senior military.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 4, 2014 11:09 AM
Title: Re: Origins of the Jayamangala Gāthā
Content:
This is Rev. Sorata's revised version:



Sorata.jpg (653.21 KiB) Viewed 3029 times



I have also met with a less radically revised one in some Thai chanting books. In this one the ungrammatical refrain 'jayamaṅgalāni' is replaced with 'jayamaṅgalaggaṃ'. However, I don't recall ever hearing it chanted this way.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 4, 2014 9:51 AM
Title: Re: Origins of the Jayamangala Gāthā
Content:
In later replies Ven. Ānandajoti remarked:
I now think I was mistaken about this, and was maybe thinking of the aggabhikkhunīgāthā, which was composed in Lanna in the lkate 18th century.
and drew my attention to the opinion of Mahinda Deegalle:



10325640_10205216051186073_5096272462646761345_n.jpg (136.96 KiB) Viewed 3041 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 4, 2014 9:32 AM
Title: Re: Origins of the Jayamangala Gāthā
Content:
Bhante,

I asked Ven. Ānandajoti, who's exceptionally erudite in matters relating to Pali verse. He replied:
Hi Ven., as far as I know its provenance is around the 18th century in Lanna. How I know this for the moment escapes me, but it is firmly there in my mind.

By the way, as you will have seen, it is full of grammatical errors, like:
taṁ tejasā bhavatu te jayamaṅgalāni!

which should be:

taṁ tejasā bhavantu te jayamaṅgalāni!

The reason is because of a poor writer trying to fit the metre. It was rewritten in proper Pali by one learned Sri Lankan monk in the mid 20th century. Maybe that is where I know it's provenance from.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 4, 2014 9:23 AM
Title: Re: Using Thai-Style Altar Table Sets
Content:
Many years ago I was commissioned to translate a Thai instruction booklet about how to "ตั้งโต๊ะหมู่บูชา" or "set up a nest of pūjā tables". Unfortunately it's long since out of print (it was only published in a limited edition to be given away to guests at somebody's funeral) and I've forgotten most of the rules (there were about twelve pages of them).

They included stipulations about the permissible number of tables, where the emblems of the king and queen should go, whether or not to have fluffy artificial bushes, special rules to be followed according to the year of the home-owner's birth in the Chinese 12-year cycle, etc. etc.

As I don't know of any other work on this in English, I suggest you google "ตั้งโต๊ะหมู่บูชา" and then use an online translation service to translate the page into English.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 4, 2014 9:03 AM
Title: Re: The sect/school of thinkers that believed in person/bein
Content:
That the person (puggala) exists in the ultimate sense, as opposed to being merely a paññatti generated by thought-construction. They didn't claim, however, that it was permanent.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 4, 2014 8:04 AM
Title: Re: Differences between Theravada and Early Buddhism
Content:
I think you may be confusing Ven. Kumāra with another poster, Kusala. It's the latter who likes to post Ian Stevenson-type stuff.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 4, 2014 7:40 AM
Title: Re: What's does the "anta" in Suttanta mean?
Content:
Like bhavaṃ and bhavanta, or arahaṃ and arahanta, suttaṃ and suttanta are alternative forms of a single participle meaning "well-said". The meaning "thread" doesn't apply here at all and the Buddhist sanskritizers' rendering of sutta as sūtra was simply a mistake.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 1, 2014 10:55 AM
Title: Re: Similes for hindrances
Content:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.039.than.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 30, 2014 6:37 PM
Title: Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainmen
Content:
Why do you suppose that he might not drink it? It's not deemed a violation of the fifth precept, or the corresponding pācittiya rule for bhikkhus, to take alcohol-based medicine when sick. And in the eyes of most Vinaya scholars, application of the Great References would lead to the conclusion that the same applies to Xanax. And so a bhikkhu, whether arahant or non-arahant, if afflicted with, say, muscle spasms, might take Xanax as a muscle relaxant without later needing to confess any offence.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 30, 2014 6:30 PM
Title: Re: Ingram, et al - "Hard Core Dharma" & claims of attainmen
Content:
Most animals do it instinctively, but there are several species for whom the procedures of foreplay and intercourse appear to be at least as much learned behaviours as instinctive ones. There's the incredibly sexually versatile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo, for example.

And then there's the celebrated Dudley Moore:

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 30, 2014 5:42 PM
Title: Re: The Social Expectations that Stifle Ordination
Content:
Yes, it makes sense. I didn't have any such problems with my own parents, but in those cases where western monastics are afflicted with parental badgering it's usually a short-term problem, with the parents fairly soon becoming reconciled to their child's choice.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 30, 2014 10:42 AM
Title: Re: Bhante Vimalaramsi
Content:
The links of dependent origination appear as blinks of light? Do you mean literally blinks of light, or do you mean that they resemble blinks of light in certain respects?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 30, 2014 8:47 AM
Title: Re: The Social Expectations that Stifle Ordination
Content:
Do you mean that you are struggling in your conscience because you think your family may have a point? Or do you mean that it’s a struggle to put up with your family badgering you about it?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 29, 2014 3:12 PM
Title: Re: What's this chant?
Content:
It's a widely used formula for requesting a Dhamma talk, with words derived from Brahmā's request to the Buddha.

Brahmā ca lokādhipatī sahampati, katañjalī anadhivaraṃ ayācatha
Santīdha sattāpparajakkhajātikā, desetu dhammaṃ anukampimaṃ pajaṃ.

Then Brahma Sahampati, Lord of the world,
With palms joined in reverence, requested a favour:
“Beings are here with but little dust in their eyes,
Pray, teach the Dhamma out of compassion for them.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 27, 2014 9:14 AM
Title: Re: Abhidhamma Resources
Content:
Namgyal: "The text talks about there being 12 bases but the phrase ‘ayatana-vibhanga’ gives no mention to a number, which leaves it wide open. It could be that there are vast numbers of ayatana-vibhanga; that to realize the full nature of the decorative refinements or adornments we call the senses you must go beyond 12."

http://www.aucklandsphere.org/abhidhamma-sixteenth-lecture/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 26, 2014 1:27 PM
Title: Re: Chocolate is an exception to the No-eating-after-noon ru
Content:
But was that their precise wording?

I know it's very common for Asian Theravadin monks to say, "It's okay for a monk to eat food in the evening if he's seriously ill," but in saying this they don't mean to imply that there is any Vinaya exemption to this effect, for there simply isn't one. What they mean by "okay" is that breaking the rule in these circumstances is deemed socially acceptable by most of the laity, and so the monks who do it won't be scandalizing anyone by their conduct.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 25, 2014 7:59 PM
Title: Re: The Most Generous Country In The World
Content:
Indeed.  

It also entails a more elementary practical difficulty, namely, that social science researchers would need to possess mind-reading powers to be able to properly identify which of their interviewees had really performed a charitable act.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 25, 2014 7:39 PM
Title: Re: Brand New Monk... my first year in robes
Content:
Anumodanā.


Dhanaṃ caje yo pana aṅgahetu, aṅgaṃ caje jīvitaṃ rakkhamāno.
Aṅgaṃ dhanaṃ jīvitañcāpi sabbaṃ, caje naro dhammamanussaranto.

“He who would give up wealth for limbs,
Would give up his limbs for his life;
But a man who guards the Dhamma,
Will give up limbs, wealth, life and all.”
(Mahāsutasoma Jātaka. Ānandajoti tr.)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 25, 2014 3:47 PM
Title: Re: The Most Generous Country In The World
Content:
I think you are right to exclude what passes for 'charity' (zakat) in Islam, as this is indeed obligatory, with the collection of it organized by the state (at least in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) and with non-payment being a serious criminal offence.

Buddhist dāna, however, is wholly voluntary. A Buddhist might never give a gift in his life without ceasing to be a Buddhist or incurring any penalty beyond the obvious ones of getting a reputation as a niggard and missing many opportunities for meritorious action.

I believe the same applies also to the charity of Hindus and Sikhs.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 25, 2014 1:12 PM
Title: Re: The Most Generous Country In The World
Content:
1. Myanmar, USA
2. Canada, Ireland
3. New Zealand
5. Australia
6. Malaysia, UK
7. Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago

Curious that they should all be British colonies or former ones. Seven out of the ten remain Commonwealth nations.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 25, 2014 11:27 AM
Title: Re: Arahant for the welfare and happiness of devas and human
Content:
By virtue of the fact that he's an incomparable field of merit for the world, and in the practice of dāna the degree of merit is determined in part by the nature of the recipient. And so a withdrawn and eremitical arahant may benefit the manyfolk simply by accepting their offerings, thereby enabling them to accumulate more merit than would be possible with any —or almost any— other kind of recipient.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2014 7:34 AM
Title: Re: disrobing procedure
Content:
Hi Yogipark,

I don't think there's any need for you to feel uncomfortable. The manner in which you left the training may not have been traditional but it sounds to have been lawful. But if you don't feel properly disrobed yet, you can always go to a temple and ask to recite one of the traditional disrobing formulas in a monk's presence.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 23, 2014 7:08 AM
Title: Re: Sujātā Sabrina
Content:
The third link is dead. It's now http://www.aimwell.org/bojjhanga.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 22, 2014 9:21 PM
Title: Sujātā Sabrina
Content:
My friend Sujātā Sabrina, a young Colombian Buddhist whom some of you may recall for her occasional contributions to E-Sangha, has just been taken seriously ill. Less than a week ago she was found to be with deep vein thrombosis. Now today her doctors discover the thrombosis to have already generated one its worst complications, a pulmonary embolism.

May I call upon those of you in the habit of practising merit-transference and/or the divine abidings to include Sujātā in your thoughts. Thank you.



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Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 19, 2014 9:34 AM
Title: Re: Monk misconduct
Content:
How it would be considered would vary from region to region. Generally it would be more acceptable in places where temporary one-vassa ordination is practised, for the men temporarily ordained will normally attend daily Vinaya classes during their time in robes. Consequently a knowledge of Vinaya is quite widely diffused among the laity, and so people can criticize bhikkhus from a position of knowledge rather than ignorance.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 19, 2014 12:21 AM
Title: Re: Is jhana possible?
Content:
Indeed. I don't know what this fellow is talking about — the presence of cittekaggatā is stipulated in dozens of Suttas.
“Friend, how many factors does the first jhāna have?”

“Friend, the first jhāna has five factors. Here, when a bhikkhu has entered upon the first jhāna, there occur applied thought, sustained thought, rapture, pleasure, and unification of mind. That is how the first jhāna has five factors.”

“Friend, how many factors are abandoned in the first jhāna and how many factors are possessed?”

“Friend, in the first jhāna five factors are abandoned and five factors are possessed. Here, when a bhikkhu has entered upon the first jhāna, sensual desire is abandoned, ill will is abandoned, sloth and torpor are abandoned, restlessness and remorse are abandoned, and doubt is abandoned; and there occur applied thought, sustained thought, rapture, pleasure, and unification of mind. That is how in the first jhāna five factors are abandoned and five factors are possessed.”
(Mahāvedalla Sutta)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 18, 2014 11:10 PM
Title: Re: Nikaya to read after MN?
Content:
For me two differences stand out. Firstly the footnotes in Rhys Davids' rendering are more interesting and informative than those in Walshe's. Secondly Rhys Davids maintained a high standard throughout, while Walshe tended to be slapdash when translating suttas that he didn't like (chiefly those like the Lakkhaṇa, Mahāsamaya, Āṭanātiya and Sampasādanīya Suttas that are unlikely to appeal to a "protestant" Buddhist sensibility).

Here is Th. Rhys Davids translation:

https://archive.org/details/dialoguesofbuddh01davi
https://archive.org/details/dialoguesofbuddh02davi
https://archive.org/details/dialoguesofbuddh03davi


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:45 PM
Title: Re: Anand-Carlsen aṃsa dvi
Content:
I don't think they could have. On move 122 Carlsen has no choice but to take Anand's rook with his knight, and once that's done neither side has sufficient material to force mate. Under the FIDE Laws of Chess (Article 5.2.b) when a position arises that can only result in a draw, the game comes to an immediate end, provided that the move that led to this position was a legal one. And so I doubt the umpires would have permitted the players to go on making meaningless moves just so that they could establish some new world record.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:04 PM
Title: Re: Nikaya to read after MN?
Content:
The Dīgha Nikāya, preferably in Thomas Rhys Davids' translation rather than Maurice Walshe's, except for the Brahmajāla, Sāmaññaphala, and Mahānidāna Suttas. For these three the BPS's single volume translation (with commentary) by Bhikkhu Bodhi are the best.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 18, 2014 8:18 PM
Title: Re: Have you heard any good dhamma talks on Depression?
Content:
Oh, I see.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 18, 2014 3:02 AM
Title: Re: Fourfold Sangha
Content:
That the term ‘ariyasangha’ denotes a sub-class of the monastic sangha, consisting of those monks and nuns who are sotāpanna, sakadāgāmin, etc., is an error propagated by Ajahn Brahmavaṃso. [*] In fact all ariyan disciples, whether monastic or householders, are included in the ariyasangha.

[*] http://www.dhammaloka.org.au/articles/item/1200-the-meaning-of-sangha.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 17, 2014 6:26 PM
Title: Re: Fourfold Sangha
Content:
There is no such term as "cattassa parisa". The Suttas refer to "catasso parisā", and define it in exactly the way I have already explained.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:30 PM
Title: Re: Have you heard any good dhamma talks on Depression?
Content:
How did you get only four? With a Google site search you should get over 3,000. Just go to Google and paste in:

site:http://www.dharmaseed.org depression


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 17, 2014 1:46 AM
Title: Re: Fourfold Sangha
Content:
In the Theravadin usage of terms you wouldn't belong to any sangha but to the upāsaka-parisā or upāsikā-parisā, depending on your sex.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 16, 2014 11:08 PM
Title: Re: The world:Loka vs. Conventional
Content:
I think that in most occurrences of the term what are referred to are adherents of what later came to be called the Carvaka school, essentially an Indian version of Protagoreanism: materialist in ontology, amoralist in ethics and Machiavellian in political and social thought. I base this on the fact that in the Vinaya bhikkhus are unqualifiedly prohibited from studying or teaching Lokāyata thought (Vin. ii. 139), so I would expect it to be something rather more insalubrious than mere cosmological speculation.

However, as Bhikkhu Bodhi remarks in footnote 1932, something along the lines of "cosmological speculator" does seem to fit the present context better than "materialist".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 16, 2014 5:39 PM
Title: Re: the great rebirth debate
Content:
I think we're talking about different things: you about whether a truth-claim seems a natural and reasonable account of how things are (as opposed to a farfetched one), and I about whether a proposed interpretation seems to be a natural and reasonable construal of an utterance's meaning (as opposed to a patently contrived and stretched one).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 16, 2014 5:27 PM
Title: Re: The world:Loka vs. Conventional
Content:
I’ll have to paste it in as I don’t know if it’s available online.

The Brahmins

Then two brahmin cosmologists[1932] approached the Blessed One and exchanged greetings with him. When they had concluded their greetings and cordial talk, they sat down to one side and said to him:

“Master Gotama, Pūraṇa Kassapa claims to be all-knowing and all-seeing and to have all-embracing knowledge and vision: ‘Whether I am walking, standing, sleeping, or awake, knowledge and vision are constantly and continuously present to me.’ He says thus: ‘With infinite knowledge, I dwell knowing and seeing the world to be infinite.’ But Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta also claims to be all-knowing and all-seeing and to have all-embracing knowledge and vision: ‘Whether I am walking, standing, sleeping, and awake, knowledge and vision are constantly and continuously present to me.’ He says thus: ‘With infinite knowledge, I dwell knowing and seeing the world to be finite.’[1933] When these two claimants to knowledge make claims that are mutually contradictory, who speaks truthfully and who falsely?”

“Enough, brahmins, let this be: ‘When these two claimants to knowledge make claims that are mutually contradictory, who speaks truthfully and who falsely?’ I will teach you the Dhamma. Listen and attend closely. I will speak.”

“Yes, sir,” those brahmins replied. The Blessed One said this:

“Suppose, brahmins, there were four men standing in the four quarters possessing supreme movement [1934] and speed and a supreme stride. Their speed was like that of a light arrow easily shot by a firm-bowed archer—one trained, skillful, and experienced [1935]—across the shadow of a palmyra tree. Their stride was such that it could reach from the eastern ocean to the western ocean. Then the person standing in the eastern quarter would say thus: ‘I will reach the end of the world by traveling.’ Having a life span of a hundred years, living for a hundred years, he might travel for a hundred years without pausing except to eat, drink, chew, and taste, to defecate and urinate, and to dispel fatigue with sleep; yet he would die along the way without having reached the end of the world. [1936] Then the person standing in the western quarter would say thus … the person standing in the northern quarter would say thus … the person standing in the southern quarter would say thus: ‘I will reach the end of the world by traveling.’ Having a life span of a hundred years, living for a hundred years, he might travel for a hundred years without pausing except to eat, drink, chew, and taste, to defecate and urinate, and to dispel fatigue with sleep; yet he would die along the way without having reached the end of the world. For what reason? I say, brahmins, that by this kind of running [1937] one cannot know, see, or reach the end of the world. And yet I say that without having reached the end of the world there is no making an end of suffering.

“These five objects of sensual pleasure, brahmins, are called ‘the world’ in the Noble One’s discipline. What five? Forms cognizable by the eye that are wished for, desired, agreeable, pleasing, connected with sensual pleasure, tantalizing; sounds cognizable by the ear … odors cognizable by the nose … tastes cognizable by the tongue … tactile objects cognizable by the body that are wished for, desired, agreeable, pleasing, connected with sensual pleasure, tantalizing. These five objects of sensual pleasure are called ‘the world’ in the Noble One’s discipline.

(1) “Here, brahmins, secluded from sensual pleasures … a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the first jhāna …. This is called a bhikkhu who, having come to the end of the world, dwells at the end of the world. Others say thus of him: ‘He, too, is included in the world; he, too, is not yet released from the world.’ I also say thus: ‘He, too, is included in the world; he, too, is not yet released from the world.’

(2)–(4) “Again, with the subsiding of thought and examination, a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the second jhāna … the third jhāna … the fourth jhāna …. This is called a bhikkhu who, having come to the end of the world, dwells at the end of the world. Others say thus of him: ‘He, too, is included in the world; he, too, is not yet released from the world.’ I also say thus: ‘He, too, is included in the world; he, too, is not yet released from the world.’

(5) “Again, with the complete surmounting of perceptions of forms, with the passing away of perceptions of sensory impingement, with non-attention to perceptions of diversity, [perceiving] ‘space is infinite,’ a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the base of the infinity of space. This is called a bhikkhu who, having come to the end of the world, dwells at the end of the world. Others say thus of him: ‘He, too, is included in the world; he, too, is not yet released from the world.’ I also say thus: ‘He, too, is included in the world; he, too, is not yet released from the world.’

(6)–(8) “Again, by completely surmounting the base of the infinity of space, [perceiving] ‘consciousness is infinite,’ a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the base of the infinity of consciousness …. By completely surmounting the base of the infinity of consciousness, [perceiving] ‘there is nothing,’ a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the base of nothingness …. By completely surmounting the base of nothingness, a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. This is called a bhikkhu who, having come to the end of the world, dwells at the end of the world. Others say thus of him: ‘He, too, is included in the world; he, too, is not yet released from the world.’ I also say thus: ‘He, too, is included in the world; he, too, is not yet released from the world.’

(9) “Again, by completely surmounting the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the cessation of perception and feeling, and having seen with wisdom, his taints are utterly destroyed. This is called a bhikkhu who, having come to the end of the world, dwells at the end of the world, one who has crossed over attachment to the world.”

NOTES

1932 Lokāyatikā brāhmaṇā. See SN 12:48, II 77. Normally, the lokāyatikā are depicted as materialists; here, however, they seem to be simply speculators about the world.

1933 My translation does not follow any of the three editions available to me, which are all problematic. In Be both teachers claim to know an infinite world with infinite knowledge. Pūraṇa Kassapa says: ahaṃ anantena ñāṇena anantaṃ lokaṃ jānaṃ passaṃ viharāmi, and Nātaputta [the Jain teacher Mahāvīra] uses exactly the same words. Since this directly contradicts the statement (in all editions) that the two make mutually opposed claims (ubhinnaṃ aññamaññaṃ vipaccanīkavādānaṃ), Be must be faulty here. The error is likely to be old, for several Burmese manuscripts and a Siamese manuscript (referred to in Ee’s notes) also have this reading.

In Ce and Ee Pūraṇa Kassapa says: ahaṃ anantena ñāṇena antavantaṃ lokaṃ jānaṃ passaṃ viharāmi, and Nātaputta says: ahaṃantavantena ñāṇena antavantaṃ lokaṃ jānaṃ passaṃ viharāmi. This reading, too, seems faulty. First, it has Nātaputta claim finite knowledge, when it is known that he claimed omniscience or infinite knowledge. Second, though it makes the two teachers claim different ranges of knowledge, their conclusions about the world are the same. A true contradiction would emerge only if one teacher asserts that the world is infinite and the other that it is finite. I take it that they both claim infinite knowledge (anantena ñāṇena) but differ regarding the extent of the world. Since the Jains actually posit the world to be both finite and infinite (see just below), I assume the brahmin understands Nātaputta to hold the world to be finite, and thus takes his opponent Pūraṇa Kassapa to posit the world to be infinite. We have no other sources on Pūraṇa’s thought with which to understand his cosmology. Elsewhere the crux of Pūraṇa’s philosophy is said to be the doctrine of non-doing (DN 2.17, I 52,21–53,4) or the thesis that beings are defiled and purified without cause, or that there is no cause for knowledge and vision (SN 46:56, V 126,26–30). At 6:57 a system of six classes of people is ascribed to him.

Mahāvīra’s view of the world is explained in “Various topics prepared on Jain History by Dr. K. C. Jain and his team” (http://www.jainworld.com/literature/jainhistory/chapter4. asp): “It is with regard to these questions [about the world] that Mahāvīra declared: ‘From these alternatives, you cannot arrive at truth; from these alternatives, you are certainly led [astray]. The world is eternal as far as that part is concerned which is the substratum (dravya) of the “world”; it is not eternal as far as its ever-changing state is concerned.’ In regard to such questions, Mahāvīra’s advice to his disciples was neither to support those who maintained that the world is eternal nor those who advocated that it is not eternal. He would have said the same thing regarding such propositions as the world exists and it does not exist; the world is unchangeable; the world is in constant flux; the world has a beginning; the world has no beginning; the world has an end; the world has no end; etc.” (my italics).

1934 Be lacks paramāya gatiyā, found in Ce and Ee.

1935 Daḷhadhammā dhanuggaho sikkhito katahattho katūpāsano. Mp’s comments on these terms differs slightly from its comments at 4:45 (see p. 1690, notes 724 and 725). Here Mp says: “Firm-bowed archer (daḷhadhammā dhanuggaho): an archer who has taken up a firm bow. A ‘firm bow’ (daḷhadhanu) is called the ‘strength of two thousand’ (dvisahassathāmaṃ): a bow to which one can attach an arrow with a head made of some metal such as bronze or lead, etc., fit the arrow notch to the string, grasp the bow handle and draw back the string the full length of the arrow shaft, and shoot the arrow up from the ground. Trained (sikkhito): they have studied the craft in their teacher’s clan for ten or twelve years. Skillful (katahattho): one who has simply studied a craft is not yet skillful; they are skillful when they have achieved mastery over it. Experienced (katūpāsano): one who has exhibited his craft in the king’s court, etc.”

1936 As at 4:45 (and SN 2:26, I 61–62).

1937 Text has evarūpāya sandhāvanikāya here, whereas 4:45 has gamanena. Mp glosses padasā dhāvanena, “running on foot.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 16, 2014 9:36 AM
Title: Re: the great rebirth debate
Content:
Yes, one can easily do that. I, for example, can easily read it as a Joycean stream-of-consciousness account of a trip to Burger King.

The question, though, is how natural and reasonable any of these easily-arrived-at non-literal interpretations might be, and how likely it is that they faithfully reproduce the thoughts that prompted the Buddha's speech. In the present case I submit that the phrase "breaking up of the body" strongly militates against a figurative reading. In your proposed reading we have a murderer whose killing leads to a certain "state of mind". But in between the killing and the ensuing state of mind, we have the killer's own death and the killer's own rotting cadaver to account for. In your non-literal reading what do they stand for?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 16, 2014 6:03 AM
Title: Re: Questions about hell
Content:
Yes. We have here a pre-volition (pubbacetanā) to save innocent lives, which then gives rise to a volition to kill someone who is about to take innocent lives. The effect of the pre-volition (or in modern parlance, the motive) is twofold: firstly it mitigates the degree of unwholesomeness involved in the killing; secondly it is itself wholesome mind-door kamma. It does not, however, have the power to transform the akusala act of intentional killing into a kusala one, as some Mahayanists misguidedly aver.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 16, 2014 5:55 AM
Title: Re: Questions about hell
Content:
Oh yes. I mean one can't intentionally hurt someone and not perform an akusala kamma.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 15, 2014 9:58 PM
Title: Re: Questions about hell
Content:
The nerayikas are in extreme pain and terror. The nirayapālas are not in pain, but being petas they are of course unable to derive any pleasure from their infliction of torture. Why then do they do it? My guess is that they're probably so pissed off at being dragged away from frolicking with their nubile nymphs in their mobile mansions, that they can't help but take it out on the poor nerayikas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 15, 2014 8:28 PM
Title: Re: Looking for Information About Publication Dhamma Spread
Content:
In 1980's Bangkok, copies of Dhamma Spread used to be floating about all over the place, but I haven't seen any for at least two decades now. The monk responsible, Phra Appichato, was a student of Phra Khru Palad Ṭhitavaṇṇo (aka Ajahn Khao), the late abbot of Wat Boonsrimunikorn, a Mahasi-style meditation centre in Bangkok. In the end Appichato moved to Japan and went off the radar. I've no idea whether he's still in robes. Sorry I can't tell you any more than that; despite the fact that we are both Yorkshiremen and lived in Bangkok at the same time, for some reason his path and mine never crossed.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 15, 2014 6:54 PM
Title: Re: samanera ordination chanting in Pali-Thai
Content:
The upasampadā formula is the same in both Nikāyas and can be dowloaded from Buddhanet:

http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/ordination.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 15, 2014 6:46 PM
Title: Re: No birth, death, or enlightenment
Content:
It's inferrable from the fact that Māra the Malign is "Master of this Generation" and "Lord of the Sensual Realm", and so the Paranimmitavasavattidevaloka, being the highest location in that realm, is the sort of place in which one would expect him to be domiciled.

However, for an explicit statement locating Māra among the Paranimmitavasavattī devas, one must turn to the commentary to the Mūlapariyaya Sutta:

Te tividhā sammutidevā upapattidevā visuddhidevāti. Sammutidevā nāma rājāno deviyo rājakumārā. Upapattidevā nāma cātumahārājike deve upādāya tatuttaridevā. Visuddhidevā nāma arahanto khīṇāsavā. Idha pana upapattidevā daṭṭhabbā, no ca kho avisesena. Paranimmitavasavattidevaloke māraṃ saparisaṃ ṭhapetvā sesā cha kāmāvacarā idha devāti adhippetā. Tattha sabbā atthavaṇṇanā bhūtavāre vuttanayeneva veditabbā.

Pajāpatin ti ettha pana māro pajāpatīti veditabbo. Keci pana “tesaṃ tesaṃ devānaṃ adhipatīnaṃ mahārājādīnametaṃ adhivacanan” ti vadanti. Taṃ devaggahaṇeneva tesaṃ gahitattā ayuttanti mahāaṭṭhakathāyaṃ paṭikkhittaṃ, māroyeva pana sattasaṅkhātāya pajāya adhipatibhāvena idha pajāpatīti adhippeto. So kuhiṃ vasati? Paranimmitavasavattidevaloke tatra hi vasavattirājā rajjaṃ kāreti. Māro ekasmiṃ padese attano parisāya issariyaṃ pavattento rajjapaccante dāmarikarājaputto viya vasatīti vadanti. Māraggahaṇeneva cettha māraparisāyapi gahaṇaṃ veditabbaṃ.
(MA. i. 33-4)

Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation (from Discourse on the Root of Existence):



MA.jpg (407.88 KiB) Viewed 859 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 15, 2014 7:12 AM
Title: Re: The world:Loka vs. Conventional
Content:
The particle alaṃ doesn’t mean “useless”, but something like “Enough of that!” when the speaker is announcing his intention to change the subject.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 15, 2014 5:55 AM
Title: Re: Martial Law in Thailand
Content:
http://www.khaosodenglish.com/dictionary.php?group=&id=23

"Thai police later clarified that eating a sandwich with ‘anti-coup intent’ constituted a criminal act."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 14, 2014 7:00 PM
Title: Re: Knowingly consuming trace amounts of alcohol
Content:
If it's my own favourite brand, Cadbury-Bournville's Old Jamaica, then no, for as one might expect of Quaker-manufactured chocolate, the rum flavour comes from a non-alcoholic additive.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 14, 2014 6:07 PM
Title: Re: Long-term lay practitioner life in Thai meditation centr
Content:
Maybe, though it would be prudent to have some sort of back-up plan. I mean it's not an arrangement that has the same stability as if one were being granted citizenship of Thailand (a near-impossibility). There would be nothing to stop the Thai government from suddenly introducing a huge increase in the amount one must have in the bank to be eligible, or even suddenly revoking all visas of this type. Moreover, given the political and social instability that's widely anticipated will succeed the ailing King's death, there's no telling how liveable Thailand is going to be.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 14, 2014 5:57 PM
Title: Re: Wat Saket - Maha Nikaya or Dhammayuttika Nikaya?
Content:
Well, I wouldn't absolutely exclude the possibility that your local monk is competent to teach meditation. It's just that this wouldn't be typical of monks from Wat Saket. It's a monastery that's geared towards turning out sangha educators and administrators rather than yogic virtuosos.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 14, 2014 10:10 AM
Title: Re: Wat Saket - Maha Nikaya or Dhammayuttika Nikaya?
Content:
Unlikely. It's an urban study monastery, so the required training for a new monk would entail no more than cajoling him to memorize the basic parittas and imparting the minimal level of Vinaya observance that's needed for a monk to evade public criticism. Training in meditation is something the monk would have to seek out for himself.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 14, 2014 8:53 AM
Title: Re: Long-term lay practitioner life in Thai meditation centr
Content:
If you are over fifty and have a Thai bank account with 800,000 baht in it, you could apply for a retirement visa. Then, provided you didn't undertake any paid employment, you could live permanently in a Thai wat or meditation centre without the need to leave the country every 3 months.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 14, 2014 8:13 AM
Title: Re: The last thought moment
Content:
This commentarial teaching finds implicit support in the http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an06/an06.016.than.html:
"Now it may be that you are thinking, 'Nakula's mother will not be able to support the children or maintain the household after I'm gone,' but you shouldn't see things in that way. I am skilled at spinning cotton, at carding matted wool. I can support the children and maintain the household after you are gone. So don't be worried as you die, householder. Death is painful for one who is worried. The Blessed One has criticized being worried at the time of death."
Given that the Buddha's policy was to criticize only those things which issue in unwished-for consequences or which hinder wished-for consequences, why would he criticize "being worried at the time of death"? The only unwished-for consequence for a person at death's door is a bad rebirth, and the only wished-for consequences that might be impeded are (1) a deathbed breakthrough to Dhamma (i.e. sotāpatti or arahatta — the time of death is one of the four occasions when this is most likely to happen) or, failing that, (2) a bright rebirth. Worrying at the time of one's death therefore merits criticism because one's state of mind at this time affects one's rebirth.

There is further support in the http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.136.nymo.html, wherein good or bad rebirths are described as occurring as a result of right or wrong views being adopted at the time of death:
"Now, Ananda, there is the person who has killed living beings here [and the rest of ten akusala kammapatha up to] ... has had wrong view. And on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in the states of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, in hell. But (perhaps) the evil kamma producing his suffering was done by him earlier, or the evil kamma producing his suffering was done by him later, or wrong view was undertaken and completed by him at the time of his death. And that was why, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappeared in the states of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, in hell.

"Now there is the person who has killed living beings here... has had wrong view. And on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in a happy destination, in the heavenly world. But (perhaps) the good kamma producing his happiness was done by him earlier, or the good kamma producing his happiness was done by him later, or right view was undertaken and completed by him at the time of his death. And that was why, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappeared in a happy destination, in the heavenly world. But since he has killed living beings here... has had wrong view, he will feel the result of that here and now, or in his next rebirth, or in some subsequent existence.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 12, 2014 6:27 AM
Title: Re: Mark Venerables as Venerables
Content:
Okay, I see what you're getting at. Homelessness (anagāriya) for a bhikkhu means (1) the abandonment of home- and property-ownership and (2) the fourfold sīla (i.e. pāṭimokkha-observance, right livelihood, sense-restraint, and proper use of the four requisites). It doesn't mean being peripatetic and of no fixed abode, even if some bhikkhus do at times undertake such a manner of living.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 12, 2014 6:05 AM
Title: Re: Anand-Carlsen aṃsa dvi
Content:
Carlsen after Anand plays 17 Ng5.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 12, 2014 5:53 AM
Title: Re: Anand-Carlsen aṃsa dvi
Content:
Susan Polgar's live commentary on game 3.

https://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2014/11/anand-carlsen-game-3-live-commentary.html


Welcome to Carlsen - Anand Sochi World Championship game 3 (LIVE commentary by me).

Thanks for joining me. What can we expect from Anand today? After just two games, Anand is already behind with a tough loss with black in game two. He also had a shaky first game with white. If he does not turn things around now, it may be too much of an uphill climb to try to regain his title.

I expect a more aggressive Anand today. He realized that he cannot keep up with Carlsen in dry positions. Changes in strategy and changes in attitude are needed. As I said after game two, he must play the position and not Carlsen. Just loosen the collar, take a deep breath, have fun, give his all and qué será será!


Anand - Carlsen (game 3)

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 d5 Magnus opted for something safer

4 Nc3 Be7 5 Bf4 0-0 Typical position for Queen's Gambit Declined

6 e3 Nbd7 7 c5 c6 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 d5 4 Nc3 Be7 5 Bf4O-O 6 e3 Nbd7 7 c5 c6 8 Bd3 b6 9 b4 a5 10 a3 Ba6 11 Bxa6 Rxa6 12 b5 The players are cranking out these book moves in lightning speed. Anand is going for a sharp line instead of something more positional.

12...cxb5 13 c6 Qc8 14 c7 b4 15 Nb5 We are still in theory.

15...a4 It is interesting that both teams feel that this position is good for them. We will see which team did a better job preparing for this game. 16 Rc1 is the move here. But Anand is taking time for this move and he is biting his nails. Did he forget his analysis?

16 Rc1 Ne4 Anand has 2 choices, 17 Ng5 (more aggressive and less well known) and 17 Nd2 (more popular).

17 Ng5 It seems that Magnus is surprised by 17 Ng5. Perhaps he was expecting Nd2. Magnus has a few decent responses. 17...Nxg5 17...Ndf6 or 17...Bxg5. He's taking time to decide how to proceed. Magnus has both hands over his face. He is in deep thought. Difficult decision to make on how to to continue this game.

If 17...Nxg5 18 Bd6 Ra5 19 Bxe7 Rxb5 20 Qxa4 Ra5 21 Qxb4 Ra7 22 Bxg5 Rxc7 23 Rxc7 Qxc7 is a possibility.

17...Ndf6 After about 30 minutes, Magnus chose the safer Ndf6. Wise choice if he can't remember all the analysis. Anand can take the knight of e4 then Bd6 or even Qc2. White is slightly better but Anand also needs to decide how to continue.

18 Nxe4 Nxe4 Interesting choice for Anand here is 19 f3. Anand could not have asked for a better chance. This is super sharp. One mistake by either side and it's over.

19. f3 has been played! Let's see who remembers more home analysis  This is the 14th game between Carlsen-Anand in the past 2 WC matches. This is the best Anand got out of the opening so far in my opinion. The reason I said this is the best Anand got is because Magnus usually stays away from sharp theorical battles which clearly favor Anand.

19...Ra5 This is a possibility 20 fxe4 Rxb5 21 Qxa4 Ra5 22 Qc6 bxa3 23 exd5 exd5 24 O-O f5 25 Qxb6 Ra6 26 Qb3 Qe6 and White is better.

20 fxe4 Rxb5 21 Qxa4 Ra5 22 Qc6 Anand is up by more than 30 minutes on the clock. It's not that Magnus doesn't know this. But it's clear that he has to recall what he knows, which is costing him a lot of time.

22...bxa3 Let's be clear. Both sides know this line. But it seems that Anand remembers it better &amp; Magnus has to recall what he knows.

23 exd5 We are still in theory. Magnus is thinking between 23...Rxd5 (a better choice) and 23...Bb4+.

23...Rxe5 And the best option for white here is 24 Qxb6. White has a lot to play for. Black's position is cramped.

24 Qxb6 Anand took time for this move, which is the only move top maintain initiatives. Now the plan for Magnus is to put his f8 R on c8. Therefore Qd7 makes sense.

24...Qd7 Now 25 Qa6 to put pressure on the c8 square.

25 0-0 Anand got cold feet and went with a safer option. Magnus only option is to put his Rook on the c file to block the passed pawn.

25...Rc8 Anand has to try to work the c pawn. So the idea is to play Rc6 to stop the mobility of the black queen, then either double up the rooks and Qa6 or move the other Rook to the b file.

26 Rc6 Time will be a serious factor soon. Magnus has about 25 minutes for 15 moves or so without increments. Not an easy task in this position. The problem for Magnus is there is really no "good" plan. And he cannot just sit because Anand can improve his position.

26...g5 27 Bg3 Another option is Be5 to provoke f6 then back to g3.

27...Bb4 A very interesting idea from Magnus. White cannot take the bishop because his rook of c6 is hanging. The idea is Ba5 to attack c7 pawn. Magnus is very clever. He is making Anand calculate this out. He is making it complicated for his opponent  White is clearly better but has many options to continue: Ra1, Rc2, Qa6 or even Qb8. What to do, what to do?  Not a good sign. Anand shook his head a few times. I think he's shocked by Bb4 from Magnus.

28. Ra1 This is the best option at this moment and Anand found it. 7 minutes for 12 moves for Magnus without increments. This is getting serious! 

28...Ba5 This is a bad move as 29 Qa6 and white is close to winning.

29 Qa6 Bxc7 Another bad move. Now 30 Qc4 and white wins easily.

30 Qc4 I expect resignation to come soon. Impossible to hold this position.

30...e5 31 Bxe5 No chance to save this.

31...Rxe5 32 dxe5 Qe7 Now Rc5 or Rc1 and white will soon be up a rook.

33 e6 This also wins easily.

33...Kf8 34 Rc1 1-0 Magnus resigned. The scored is tied up at 1.5 - 1.5.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 11, 2014 12:02 PM
Title: Re: Mark Venerables as Venerables
Content:
What do you mean by ‘strange’?

If you mean unusual or surprising, then no, it’s so exceedingly common and normal that it ought not to surprise anyone.

If you mean difficult to understand or explain (as in: “children have some strange ideas” or “he's a very strange man”), then again no, it’s pretty easy to understand or explain. Monasteries, being by and large generously supported, have the wherewithal to avail themselves of all the best of modern technology.

If you mean slightly or undefinably unwell or ill at ease (as in: “her head felt a little strange”), then I suppose it may prompt such feelings in some, though not in all.

If you mean not previously visited or seen, (as in: “she was lost in a strange country”) then yes, it is strange in comparison to former eras when neither householders nor those gone forth had internet access.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:29 AM
Title: Re: Is cow urine a medicine?
Content:
I've no recollection of any leper's finger ever falling into my almsbowl, nor of any other comparably disagreeable experience. But I don't imagine this was a terribly common experience even in pre-modern times:


Q: Do fingers and toes fall off when someone gets leprosy?

A: No. The bacteria attack nerve endings and destroy the body’s ability to feel pain and injury. Without feeling pain, people injure themselves and the injuries can become infected, resulting in tissue loss. Fingers and toes become shortened and deformed as the cartilage is absorbed into the body. Repeated injury and infection of numb areas in the fingers or toes can cause the bones to shorten. The tissues around them shrink, making them short.

http://www.leprosy.org/leprosy-faqs/
I've also heard of lepers' fingers and toes being chewed off by rats while they're sleeping.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 10, 2014 7:44 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma talk on Bhikkhuni Ordination by Ajahn Amaro
Content:
It can be downloaded from archive.org

https://tinyurl.com/q2fsc34


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 9, 2014 7:15 AM
Title: Re: Can someone record Paritta chanting in english?
Content:
To clarify, do you really mean a chanting of these suttas in English? Or do you just wish to hear them read aloud in a normal, unornamented manner? If it's the former, I believe the monks and nuns of Amaravati have taken to doing their morning and evening chanting in English, though I don't know whether they do the same with parittas. Perhaps Ven. Gavesako could chip in here.

On the other hand, if you just want to hear the parittas read out in English, then you might try contacting the English sāmaṇera Rakkhita, whom I understand has recorded hundreds of hours of himself reciting translations of Pali material. His Facebook chanting page is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1436701486548451


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 5, 2014 10:26 AM
Title: Re: Chocolate Muffin Kamma
Content:
Is what the result of previous bad kamma?

1. That you were offered the muffins?
2. That one of the muffins was bad?
3. That you chose the bad one?
4. That you experienced the muffins through various sense-bases?
5. That you died after eating one of them?

I believe the answers according to the Abhidhamma would be no, no, no, a qualified yes, and maybe.

1. No. One’s past kamma is not a cause for the arising of any kind of cetanā in another being.
2. No. The e-coli bacterium is not included among those rūpadhammas whose arising is conditioned by one’s past kamma.
3. No. One’s past kamma is only a cause for the arising of certain kinds of cetanā in oneself, namely, those cetanās that accompany resultant consciousnesses. But it is not a resultant consciousness that is responsible for the choosing of one muffin rather than the other.
4. One’s experiences of the different facets of the poisoned muffin, i.e., as visual, olfactory, gustatory and tactile objects, are all vipāka. But they are not necessarily all the vipākas of bad kamma. If the muffin has a desirable smell, for example, then one’s experience of this is the ripening of past kusala kamma.
5. The ensuing death might be due to the ripening of past kamma, but is not necessarily so.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 3, 2014 12:30 PM
Title: Re: Día de Muertos
Content:
I think you mean 2nd November, which is All Souls' Day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Souls%27_Day

1st November is all Saints' Day, which commemorates the faithful departed who've ascended to heaven, whereas All Souls' Day is mainly about the souls in Purgatory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints%27_Day


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 3, 2014 11:30 AM
Title: Re: Día de Muertos
Content:
These are eaten in the Vatican too, in the form of dead Pope lollipops.



a.jpg (136.61 KiB) Viewed 1648 times


Some commentary on the subject from Brummie expert on Catholic affairs, Stewart Lee:

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2014 8:26 PM
Title: Re: Día de Muertos
Content:
I always associate el Día de Muertos with my half a dozen or so unsuccessful attempts to read Malcolm Lowry's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Volcano. To date I don't think I've ever got beyond the first chapter.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 1, 2014 12:30 PM
Title: Re: Self-view and Anatta - Interpretation
Content:
For so exquisitely mystical a fellow as you, surely nothing could be more important than heeding the time-honoured advice of W.S. Gilbert:
If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line,
as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms,
and plant them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your
complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter
of a transcendental kind.
And everyone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man
this deep young man must be!"
(from http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/43478/)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 31, 2014 3:27 PM
Title: Re: Is jhana possible?
Content:
You probably won't get a reply as Nathan's Dhamma Wheel account has been deleted. He was on Dharma Overground for quite a long period, but hasn't posted there for about a year now.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 28, 2014 8:14 PM
Title: Re: Sourcing quote attributed to Buddha
Content:
I don’t know of a saying like this in the Suttas, but it might be intended as a very terse paraphrase of Buddhaghosa’s account of “breaking down the barriers” in chapter IX of the Visuddhimagga:
When his resentment towards that hostile person has been thus allayed, then he can turn his mind with loving-kindness towards that person too, just as towards the one who is dear, the very dear friend, and the neutral person. Then he should break down the barriers by practicing loving-kindness over and over again, accomplishing mental impartiality towards the four persons, that is to say, himself, the dear person, the neutral person and the hostile person.

The characteristic of it is this. Suppose this person is sitting in a place with a dear, a neutral, and a hostile person, himself being the fourth; then bandits come to him and say, “Venerable sir, give us a bhikkhu,” and on being asked why, they answer, “So that we may kill him and use the blood of his throat as an offering;” then if that bhikkhu thinks, “Let them take this one, or this one,” he has not broken down the barriers. And also if he thinks, “Let them take me but not these three,” he has not broken down the barriers either. Why? Because he seeks the harm of him whom he wishes to be taken and seeks the welfare of the other only. But it is when he does not see a single one among the four people to be given to the bandits and he directs his mind impartially towards himself and towards those three people that he has broken down the barriers. Hence the Ancients said:

When he discriminates between
The four, that is himself, the dear,
The neutral, and the hostile one,
Then “skilled” is not the name he gets,
Nor “having amity at will,”
But only “kindly towards beings.”

Now, when a bhikkhu’s barriers
Have all the four been broken down,
He treats with equal amity
The whole world with its deities;
Far more distinguished than the first
Is he who knows no barriers.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 27, 2014 7:00 PM
Title: Re: Atanatiya Sutta?
Content:
What goes by the name of "Āṭānāṭiya Paritta" doesn't correspond exactly to what in the Dīgha Nikāya is called the "Āṭānāṭiya Sutta".

The Āṭānāṭiya Paritta can be divided into three parts: (1) from "appasannehi" up to "parittantaṃ bhaṇāmahe"; (2) from "vipassissa ca namatthu" to "mahantaṃ vītasāradaṃ"; and (3) from "ete caññe ca sambuddhā" to the end.

Of these three it is only the second that is derived from the Āṭānāṭiya Sutta. The first and last parts are post-canonical compositions preserved in an ancient Sinhalese paritta anthology.

And so the first part is an introductory passage in which the chanter announces his intention to recite the paritta. The second comprises a number of stanzas taken from the Āṭānāṭiya Sutta itself. Just how many stanzas is subject to regional variation — it might be as few as three or as many as all the stanzas in the entire Sutta. The third part gives a somewhat devotional fillip to the whole thing.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 27, 2014 3:33 PM
Title: Re: How come all the Theravada Countries so under-develop?
Content:
Interesting theory, but as we know from the case of the Danish tennis star Caroline Wozniacki, neon-pink hair isn’t necessarily incompatible with self-discipline and high achievement.



z.jpg (70.29 KiB) Viewed 2939 times


Perhaps a more serious risk to the Japanese economy will be those yellow-haired men wearing shirts decorated with multi-coloured phalluses.



2.jpg (385.25 KiB) Viewed 2939 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Oct 24, 2014 1:05 AM
Title: Re: Going For Refuge - Resources
Content:
The author's source —the Commentary to the Khuddakapatha— isn't correctly represented here. It doesn't state that a breach of refuge occurs merely because one has "come to regard" some exterior Teacher, Dhamma or Sangha as superior to the Triple Gem. The breach occurs only when this inner attitude is given outward expression. Specifically, it is when one performs one of the four kinds of action that would constitute refuge-going, but with the action taking something other than the Triple Gem as its object, that one's Buddhist refuge is lost.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 23, 2014 9:44 AM
Title: Re: Restraint, abandonment, development, protection (AN 4:69
Content:
1. Saṃvara
2. Pahāna
3. Bhāvanā
4. Anurakkhaṇā


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 23, 2014 6:16 AM
Title: Re: Christianity as a subset of Buddhism
Content:
It is a polysemous word which you chose to take in a derisory sense, even though your own preferred dictionary offered a non-derisory one: emptied of or lacking content, which is precisely the intended sense.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 23, 2014 2:24 AM
Title: Re: Christianity as a subset of Buddhism
Content:
Practically speaking, this is the only thing that we've got to identify it with. Normative Christianity cannot be defined with reference to God's Elect, for these (like the Buddhist ariyasangha) constitute an invisible church. Since they're invisible we've no way of knowing who they are. And so we can only go by the visible church, comprising both elect and reprobate Christians.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 23, 2014 2:10 AM
Title: Re: Christianity as a subset of Buddhism
Content:
It isn't the want of specificity in the Seven Principles, but simply the fact that they are neither a creed nor even remotely credal in character.

Of more relevance than your link is the page headed "Are My Beliefs Welcome?", to which the answer appears to be "Yes!" no matter what the enquirer's beliefs may happen to be.

http://www.uua.org/beliefs/welcome/index.shtml


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 22, 2014 8:38 PM
Title: Re: Christianity as a subset of Buddhism
Content:
If we are speaking of Christian Universalism or Unitarianism as historical phenomena, then neither would be included in “mainstream Christianity”, for since the suppression of Arianism most Christians have been trinitarians, and since the anathematizing of Origen’s theses most Christians have supposed that not all will be saved.

But if we are speaking of what nowadays goes by the name of Unitarian Universalism, then nothing much at all can be assumed about what its adherents believe. The whole thing is so credally vacuous that if we hear somebody say: “Jones is a Unitarian Universalist” we know no more about the man than if we had been told: “Jones is spiritual but not religious,” or even: “Jones is a rather nice chap.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 22, 2014 7:09 AM
Title: Re: Christianity as a subset of Buddhism
Content:
Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but either way a non-eternal heaven isn’t what the majority of believing Christians believe in or hope for, nor is it what any mainstream Christian church teaches.
Opponents of Psychopannychism and Thnetopsychism include the Roman Catholic Church, most mainline Protestant denominations, and most conservative Protestants, Evangelicals, and Fundamentalists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_mortalism
It seems to me that you’re basically falling into the same kind of triviality and irrelevance that one finds in the interfaith writings of the late Ajahn Buddhadasa. Like Buddhadasa you concoct a Christianity that would scarcely be acceptable to a single Christian on earth and then proceed to demonstrate how well your idiosyncratic version of Christianity harmonizes with Buddhism. Perhaps the most fitting response to this is: “So?”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 21, 2014 6:55 AM
Title: Re: Sending metta to the dying?
Content:
This "othering" of the Thais is among the stupidest things I've ever read. The correct conclusion is that Thais grieve just like anyone else, only they do their weeping in private (and certainly not in front of monks), deeming it in poor taste to make a public exposure of their negative emotions.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:29 PM
Title: Ms Sheffield's Mettā Project
Content:
Kimberley Sheffield, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Northampton, is presently researching mettā-bhāvanā for her thesis. If you use mettā-bhāvanā, whether as your sole practice or merely as part of your practice, Kimberley would be grateful for your help:

“Looking for a few more people who do Metta/Loving Kindness to take part in a short online task. Please get in touch if you're interested – kimberley.sheffield (at) northampton.ac.uk Thank you!”

https://www.facebook.com/kimberley.sheffield


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 19, 2014 6:12 PM
Title: Re: You have been warned
Content:
I wouldn't be so sure. If we can trust Clement of Alexandria's criteria, the fact that Johnny's methane emissions, though noisome and evil in themselves, nevertheless invariably issue in some good end, infallibly indicates that Master Fartpants is on the side of the angels.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 19, 2014 7:57 AM
Title: Re: You have been warned
Content:
Alt “comix”


Crikey. While I can believe that http://viz.co.uk/category/roger-irrelevant and http://viz.co.uk/category/postman-plod might be minions of Satan, surely not http://viz.co.uk/category/johnny-fartpants?!?



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.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2014 5:24 PM
Title: Re: Why is Buddhist Faith not blind?
Content:
Yes, that sounds about right to me.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2014 5:11 PM
Title: Re: Monk with Native American headress
Content:
I'm not sure about that. If the recital was just for the sake of a pūjā or a paritta, then of course it wouldn't be a sangha-kamma. But where a saṅgāyana is held for the purpose of generating a consensus, or reaffirming an existing consensus, that the recited material is dhamma and not a-dhamma, vinaya and not a-vinaya, then I believe it would in fact be reckoned a sanghakamma. The presence of laity in the sīmā would constitute a defect in the assembly (parisā-vipatti), but that wouldn't stop it from being a sanghakamma.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2014 4:40 PM
Title: Re: Monk with Native American headress
Content:
But perhaps it merits a new thread, being only rather tenuously related to monks in feathers?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2014 4:39 PM
Title: Theravada/Mahayana monastic interaction
Content:
My own preference, in short, would be for oecumenism in Europe and isolationism in the USA. Presently I've no opinion about Australia, NZ, South Africa, etc.

Oecumenism in the USA will be fatal to the Theravada; with America's ever-invasive, "melting pot" inclusivist nonsense there is no way the Theravada monastic sangha will be able to retain its integrity in the long term unless it adopts the sort of strategic withdrawal one associates with the likes of the Amish or ultra-Orthodox Jews. In Europe, on the other hand, the evidence of the last three decades is that Theravadin bhikkhus are able to interact and coöperate to a quite considerable extent with Mahayana persons and institutions, to their mutual benefit and without the sangha suffering any fundamental alteration in character.

And what do you think, Tilt?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2014 4:00 PM
Title: Re: Monk with Native American headress
Content:
Fair enough, but doesn’t that mean that with respect to the present issue your concern is misdirected? I mean if it’s the future fate of the Theravada in the west that worries you, surely the real problem in the OP’s video is not that some Mahayanist is making a feathered wazzock of himself, but that Theravadin bhikkhus should be fraternizing with these sort of people in the first place?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2014 12:28 PM
Title: Re: Revealing a cheating spouse: Wrong Speech?
Content:
OVER THE COFFIN

They stand confronting, the coffin between,
His wife of old, and his wife of late,
And the dead man whose both they had been
Seems listening aloof, as to things past date.

—‘I have called,’ says the first. ‘Do you marvel or not?’
‘In truth,’ says the second, ‘I do—somewhat.’

‘Well, there was a word to be said by me!...
I divorced that man because of you—
It seemed I must do it, boundenly;
But now I am older, and tell you true,
For life is little, and dead lies he;
I would I had let alone you two!
And both of us, scorning parochial ways,
Had lived like the wives in the patriarch’s days.’
— Thomas Hardy
If I were a woman, and in the advantageous position of knowing all that I know as a man, I should take the view of the divorcée in Hardy’s poem and wish that my friend would mind her own business and keep her knowledge of my husband’s infidelities to herself.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:17 AM
Title: Re: Monk with Native American headress
Content:
Yes. That's what I meant by the word gamely.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:49 AM
Title: Re: Why is Buddhist Faith not blind?
Content:
Just a brief supplementary note: it seems to me that the subject of the indriyas is much more ably handled by the commentators than by Ñāṇavīra Thera. In particular, the commentarial positing of a twofold indriya-pentad, one mundane and the other supramundane, is a hermeneutic device that permits the ready harmonisation of those sutta passages that appear to imply exclusive possession of the indriyas by ariyans, and those which imply that the indriyas may be available to all.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:41 AM
Title: Re: Why is Buddhist Faith not blind?
Content:
As I read it, the Buddha is saying that if one is wholly lacking in the five faculties then one is a puthujjana. But it doesn’t follow from this that the faculties cannot be partially present in a puthujjana. Indeed it implies that they can be partially present, else all the sabba words in sabbena sabbaṃ sabbathā sabbaṃ natthi would be redundant.

Yassa kho, bhikkhave, imāni pañcindriyāni sabbena sabbaṃ sabbathā sabbaṃ natthi, tamahaṃ ‘bāhiro puthujjanapakkhe ṭhito’ ti vadāmi.

“And bhikkhus, I say that he in whom these five faculties are wholly, completely and in every way absent is an outsider, one standing on the side of the worldlings.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 14, 2014 11:55 PM
Title: Re: Why is Buddhist Faith not blind?
Content:
It seems to me that Ñāṇavīra's claim can be derived from the sutta passage he cites in support of it only by committing the most elementary of formal fallacies. The passage —from the Paṭipaṇṇaka Sutta— states that anyone who wholly lacks the five faculties is a puthujjana; from this Ñāṇavīra concludes that anyone who is a puthujjana must wholly lack the five faculties. This is like arguing that since all wingless birds are flightless, therefore all flightless birds must be wingless. But as any ostrich, emu or penguin might have told Ñāṇavīra, to reason so is to commit the sentential fallacy of affirming the consequent.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 14, 2014 9:48 PM
Title: Re: Monk with Native American headress
Content:
1.jpg (145.77 KiB) Viewed 2843 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 14, 2014 4:17 PM
Title: Re: Monk with Native American headress
Content:
And not nearly as funny as a certain Dutch monk who went to teach in South Africa a couple of decades ago. His hosts took him on an excursion to a Zulu village whose chief gave orders that he be treated as a guest of honour. At the chief's behest the villagers proceeded to adorn the monk in leopard skins and bright orange ostrich feathers, wrapped cow tails around his arms, and finally armed him with a spear and an umbumbuluzo battle shield. The monk gamely played along with the whole thing, ending up looking something like these chaps:



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However, he found himself in hot water when some pictures of the event got back to Sri Lanka and were shown to his preceptor.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 14, 2014 1:16 PM
Title: Re: Monk with Native American headress
Content:
It would be an imprudent thing to attempt in Northern Ireland, for the Taigs might mistake him for an Orangeman.  But elsewhere in the British Isles I suppose it’s as uncertain as it is with the Indian’s headdress.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 13, 2014 9:31 PM
Title: Re: Lokavidu
Content:
Offhand I don’t recall lokavidū being defined in the Suttas.

In the commentaries it’s the ‘loka’ of the Rohitassa Sutta that is given most weight. Although the Visuddhimagga adds many other senses of ‘loka’ as being applicable here (e.g. the Buddha’s ability to see all the realms of existence with his supernormal powers, and suchlike), in most other places, when giving a succinct and non-exhaustive definition, the commentaries just stick to the Rohitassa ‘loka’. So, to that extent they concur with the sense that Ajahn Munindo wishes to emphasise.

As for the ‘seeing through’, this is exactly what the teaching of loka to Rohitassa was all about: the world’s nature to arise and cease is to be seen with right understanding, and it’s because this seeing is a seeing-through that it issues in nibbidā and virāga with respect to the world.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 12, 2014 7:39 AM
Title: Re: Does anyone know if Luang Por Prasit is still alive?
Content:
Luang Phor is still living and currently establishing a branch wat in Phrao just down the road from me. You'll find plenty of material online if you google his name (หลวงพ่อประสิทธิ์ ปุญญมากโร) and the name of his wat (วัดป่าหมู่ใหม่) in Thai.

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Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2014 11:02 PM
Title: Re: Dhamma & defending human/civil rights
Content:
No quarrel on that score, since I regard human rights advocacy and the like as coming under dāna rather than sīla. But it seems you’ve moved the goalposts here, for your earlier point to which my question was a response (“the urge to defend one's own rights comes from the sense of discontent with the extant state of affairs where his/her rights are being violated,”) was concerned merely with the moral compatibility of human rights advocacy with the Dhamma, not with its obligatoriness or otherwise.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2014 9:56 PM
Title: Re: Issue with other schools of Buddhism
Content:
Well, in that case the claims of the Chinese schools would have been more credible if they had made a point of selecting low-key Indian figures for their patriarchs. As it is, the persons identified by the eminences of the Chinese schools as being “Indian patriarchs” were not just any old Tom, Dick or Harry, whom Buddhist historians might easily have overlooked. They were heavyweights in the Indian Buddhist scene, starting with the Buddha’s major disciples and continuing with various big names among later generations of acaryas in mainland India.

Nagarjuna, for example, is claimed by the Chinese to have been the 14th Indian patriarch of the Zen school, while Vasubandhu is claimed to have been both the second patriarch of the Pure Land school and the 21st patriarch of the Zen school — a very busy bloke! Yet the Chinese, in effect, would have us believe that the acaryas’ occupation of these leadership positions was not only completely overlooked by Indian Buddhist historians, but also failed to find any expression in the writings of the acaryas themselves. There’s nothing in the works that can reliably be attributed to Vasubandhu to indicate that the man was an enthusiast for the ritualistic adoration of Amitabha. There’s nothing in the works that can reliably be attributed to Nagaruna to indicate that he was into some “special transmission outside the sūtras” or that he was a koan enthusiast.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2014 7:42 PM
Title: Re: Issue with other schools of Buddhism
Content:
The Zen tradition’s claim that it is the heir of a lineage of Indian and Chinese patriarchs, together with parallel claims advanced by all the other schools that sprang up in China (the Tientai, the Huayan, the Pure Land, the Vinaya school, etc.), hasn’t the tiniest shred of credibility. That this stuff was simply invented by the Chinese is evident from the fact that the Indian Buddhists knew nothing at all about these purported lineages. Despite these schools' claims about many centuries of lineages of Indian patriarchs, not one of them left even the tiniest trace on the Indian palaeographic record.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2014 7:17 PM
Title: Re: Dhamma & defending human/civil rights
Content:
But must it always come from discontent and never from any other cause?

Do you, in other words, reject the possibility of moral conduct that is rationally (rather than emotionally) prompted — conduct of the kind advocated by the Stoics or Kant or the Buddha of the Vinaya Piṭaka?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 4, 2014 4:17 PM
Title: Re: Dhamma & defending human/civil rights
Content:
Do you mean to say that you cannot conceive that the "desire to amend an inflicted wrongdoing" could ever be aroused by any cause but resentment?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 27, 2014 6:08 AM
Title: Re: For you Australians
Content:
Blimey, the victors in the Great Patriotic War, now reduced to singing about Vegemite sandwiches? How are the mighty fallen!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:35 PM
Title: Re: Person with samatha vs Arhat's natural state
Content:
If we are taking at the moment in its most strictly literal abhidhammic sense, then there may or may not be a difference between a kilesa-free moment in a worldling and the same in an arahant. For example, an arising of eye-consciousness, or any of the other fivefold sensory consciousnesses, would be exactly the same in a wordling and an arahant. On the other hand, a moment of compassion would be different in the two persons. In the worldling the compassion would arise in a kamma-generating kusala citta, while in an arahant it would be in an inoperative (i.e., non-kamma-generating) kiriyā citta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 26, 2014 5:19 AM
Title: Re: Person with samatha vs Arhat's natural state
Content:
It's like the difference between the wintertime absence of blooms on a rhododendron and the absence at all times of blooms on a lepidodendron. The former is an absence of something that might be present and will again become so, but happens not to be present now, while the latter is an absence of something that can never be present again, since lepidodendrons are extinct.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 26, 2014 4:46 AM
Title: Re: WW3 is not inevitable: what we can do to prevent it
Content:
Then on the lighter side there's the Welsh writer David Langford's Earthdoom (1987), a spoof disaster novel in which our planet is simultaneously afflicted with everything from polar slippage to an invasion of rabid alien lemmings to the reappearance in South Devon of a time-travelling Hitler. All a bit daft, though scarcely more so than the OP's link.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 25, 2014 2:36 PM
Title: Re: Why the fuss about hijabs?
Content:
Thanks, but I'd already seen it and the only part relevant to the resolution of the nun conundrum is point #1, which is something we already knew.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 25, 2014 1:53 PM
Title: Re: Why the fuss about hijabs?
Content:
I’m far from being an expert on the epidemiology of rickets, but I’ll hazard a guess that its absence in nuns is attributable to four factors:

Firstly, because adults are less susceptible to it than infants. 

Secondly, because nuns don’t get pregnant and therefore have a lower vitamin D requirement than gestating Muslimahs. 

Thirdly, because so many Catholic nuns nowadays belong to orders where they spend much of their time in normal clothes or in nun costumes of a modern and clerically minimalist design. As a result, fairly considerable areas of their skin are left exposed and therefore receptive to the beneficial early morning sunlight. 

And fourthly, because even the most obnubilated nun in the most sartorially conservative order will normally have at least her cheeks, chin and nose on exhibition.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 25, 2014 11:56 AM
Title: Re: Why the fuss about hijabs?
Content:
There's a full transcript here:
http://www.thedohadebates.com/debates/item/index0afd.html?d=81&s=7&mode=transcript

Though there's one part that I'm not sure is correct: the French minister several times says something that's been transcribed as "common will", but it's possible that this is his pronunciation of "common weal".

And the participants' biodata:
http://www.thedohadebates.com/debates/item/indexdcdf.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 25, 2014 8:00 AM
Title: Re: Why the fuss about hijabs?
Content:
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Going by the depiction of him in the Mahāsupina Jātaka and the Vajji Sutta, I expect the Buddha would have spoken like Monsieur Jacques Myard of the French National Assemby (2:28), or like Farzana Hassan of the Muslim Canadian Congress (11:53).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 24, 2014 12:36 PM
Title: Re: The value in learning about other traditions
Content:
It isn't true. For example, in Shantideva's Bodhicaryavatara and its commentaries, the "gross-out dead body stuff" is so strong that even Phra Khantipālo (who had a pronounced enthusiasm for this sort of thing) felt compelled to dismiss it as "certainly sick" in his Bag of Bones booklet.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 24, 2014 12:06 PM
Title: Re: Why the fuss about hijabs?
Content:
And here's a further, albeit minor, difference between the Catholic nun and the Muslimah. The former, being celibate, will not be burdening our state health services with any rickets-ridden children.  
Burka-wearing prompts the return of rickets in Birmingham

“A new health awareness campaign has been launched among Muslim women by health officials in the Midlands after a rise in the number of cases of rickets. It is thought that pregnant women who regularly wear a burka are depriving themselves of exposure to sunlight, which results in Vitamin D deficiency. Sixty-five children in Birmingham have needed hospital treatment in the past three years for rickets, a disease which was thought to have died out in Victorian times. And health bosses fear this may be the tip of the iceberg with more cases of the illness, which affects bone development, not being formally diagnosed.”
http://www.secularism.org.uk/burka-wearingpromptsthereturnofi.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 24, 2014 11:59 AM
Title: Re: Why the fuss about hijabs?
Content:
None at all?

I doubt the the Catholic nun's parents dressed her up in a wimple and habit starting at the age of eighteen months, or just as soon as she got too big for her swaddling clothes. She wears the uniform of a religious order that she has entered of her own free choice. Now this might just be true of the Muslimah also, but we know darn well that it isn't so for the majority of them.

Furthermore, suppose the two women decided to exchange their present garb for something a little more risqué. I don't know exactly how the Vatican would handle such a disciplinary infraction, but I'm sure that the measures taken would not involve hiring a gang of bearded apes to beat the errant nun black and blue. Can this be said also of the Muslimah? Not if she comes from, say, the tribal regions of Pakistan, or most parts of the Middle East, or any place on earth where Wahhabism happens to prevail.

So that's two importance differences between these two women: freedom of choice, or lack of it, and the consequences that are likely to ensue should they make a dissenting and religiously unsanctioned choice.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 11, 2014 10:45 AM
Title: Re: Having children vs. not
Content:
Possibly, for going by the Majjhima Nikāya's Mahāsīhanāda Sutta, parents aren't absolutely needed for human birth, some humans being opapātika:
“Sāriputta, there are these four kinds of generation. What are the four? Egg-born generation, womb-born generation, moisture-born generation, and spontaneous generation.

“What is egg-born generation? There are these beings born by breaking out of the shell of an egg; this is called egg-born generation. What is womb-born generation? There are these beings born by breaking out from the caul; this is called womb-born generation. What is moisture-born generation? There are these beings born in a rotten fish, in a rotten corpse, in rotten porridge, in a cesspit, or in a sewer; this is called moisture-born generation. What is spontaneous generation? There are gods and denizens of hell and certain human beings and some beings in the lower worlds; this is called spontaneous generation.

So in the unlikely event of sexual intercourse coming to be viewed with the same disapprobation that it was at the start of the mahākalpa, spontaneous generation might thereonafter supply the means for those gandhabbas that have a human birth as their vipāka.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jul 8, 2014 7:39 AM
Title: Re: The interpretation of the 8 precepts
Content:
But in the commentary to the Ratana Sutta the said misconduct on the part of a sekha disciple is limited to such transgressions of the monastic rule as would not proceed from unwholesome volitions, or at least not necessarily proceed from such volitions. It wouldn’t include actions such as intentional killing, stealing, etc., which orthodoxy holds to be not possible for sekhas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jul 7, 2014 7:06 AM
Title: Re: Is death always caused by kamma?
Content:
But is death —the cutting off of the life-faculty— the same thing as a vedanā?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jul 7, 2014 6:35 AM
Title: Re: The interpretation of the 8 precepts
Content:
The "[sevenfold] moral habit with livelihood as the eighth" (ājīvaṭṭhamakasīlaṃ) is a commentarial term. The formulation is based upon a sutta (whose name I can't remember right now) where the Buddha lays down abstention from wrong livelihood and from the first seven of the akusala kammapaṭha as being the very minimum standard of virtue needed for progress in bhāvanā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jul 6, 2014 11:53 AM
Title: Re: Did the Buddha teach the practice of all night vigils?
Content:
The Buddha didn't teach it in the sense of making it an obligatory observance, but we can see from the Udāna's Uposatha Sutta that it was something the early sangha used to do.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.5.05.irel.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 6, 2014 12:10 PM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
Then I suggest you direct your question to the proper quarters, which is to say, to some Buddhist who actually holds such a view.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 6, 2014 12:04 PM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
The diminution in the killing of animals that some vegetarians hope their dietary practice will conduce to could only come about if the said practice were to be undertaken by sufficient numbers. One single person’s undertaking to purchase no meat will not have any discernible (that is to say, measurable) effect on the market or on the animal-slaughter that market demand generates. A vegetarian may nonetheless comfort herself with the thought that although her refusal to purchase meat has no discernible effect on the market, at least she is not personally contributing to it. We can surely agree on this much, right?

But when it comes to a guest’s refusal to eat her host’s meat (which is what the present sub-section of the thread is concerned with), not only will this not have any measurable effect on the market, it will not have even an unmeasurable effect on it; there is no possibility of its having an effect of any kind on the market, for the guest’s refusal will not cause the purchased meat to become unpurchased. That being so, the sole effects of her refusal will be an insulted host and some wasted food.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 6, 2014 11:17 AM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
You make my point for me: "priggish" and "uncivil".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 6, 2014 10:26 AM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
I believe the implied situation here is not one in which the host offers meat to a vegetarian out of sheer bloody-mindedness, but rather one in which she has no prior knowledge of her guest's dietary preferences and simply offers the kind of food she would offer to any guest. And so the question of whether a vegetarian's motivations are intelligible to her isn't really relevant.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 6, 2014 7:16 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma and polygamy
Content:
Because "householders, bhikkhus, are believers in good omens" (gihī bhikkhave, maṅgalikā - Vin.ii.140).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 6, 2014 7:02 AM
Title: Re: Greed and lust
Content:
Rāga and lobha are synonyms.

From the Dhammasangaṇī:
"Tattha katamo lobho? Yo rāgo sārāgo anunayo anurodho nandī nandīrāgo cittassa sārāgo icchā mucchā ajjhosānaṃ gedho paligedho saṅgo paṅko ejā māyā janikā sañjananī sibbinī jālinī saritā visattikā suttaṃ visaṭā āyūhinī dutiyā paṇidhi bhavanetti vanaṃ vanatho santhavo sineho apekkhā paṭibandhu āsā āsisanā āsisitattaṃ rūpāsā saddāsā gandhāsā rasāsā phoṭṭhabbāsā lābhāsā dhanāsā puttāsā jīvitāsā jappā pajappā abhijappā jappā jappanā jappitattaṃ loluppaṃ loluppāyanā loluppāyitattaṃ pucchañjikatā sādhukamyatā adhammarāgo visamalobho nikanti nikāmanā patthanā pihanā sampatthanā kāmataṇhā bhavataṇhā vibhavataṇhā rūpataṇhā arūpataṇhā nirodhataṇhā rūpataṇhā saddataṇhā gandhataṇhā rasataṇhā phoṭṭhabbataṇhā dhammataṇhā ogho yogo gantho upādānaṃ āvaraṇaṃ nīvaraṇaṃ chādanaṃ bandhanaṃ upakkileso anusayo pariyuṭṭhānaṃ latā vevicchaṃ dukkhamūlaṃ dukkhanidānaṃ dukkhappabhavo mārapāso mārabaḷisaṃ māravisayo taṇhānadī taṇhājālaṃ taṇhāgaddulaṃ taṇhāsamuddo abhijjhā lobho akusalamūlaṃ - ayaṃ vuccati lobho."

C.A.F. Rhys Davids' translation from A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics:


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Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 6, 2014 6:30 AM
Title: Re: the great vegetarian debate
Content:
The problem, as I see it, is that it would be priggish and uncivil behaviour for a guest. Moreover, being a sort of gastronomic equivalent of ‘overriding normal usage’ such behaviour is conducive to needless strife (i.e. needless because vegetarianism is not a requirement of Buddhist sīla) and therefore at odds with the spirit of http://www.yellowrobe.com/component/content/article/120-majjhima-nikaya/281-araavibhanga-sutta-the-exposition-of-non-conflict.html (araṇa).


An old post from Dhamma Study Group:
Sarah Abbot: “Actually, it was on the very first day I first met [Acharn Sujin] that I had another of those Great Non-Pampering experiences. This one was on an earlier trip in Sri Lanka with Nina too ... I’d been a super-strict vegetarian for a few years, right through university and beyond. We sat down at a table of delicious curries and I started enquiring about the ingredients of the soup and explaining what I could and couldn’t eat. I was shocked when K. Sujin just seemed to ignore these concerns - which of course came well wrapped up in a long list of humane justifications - and put some soup in my bowl and then a very little of every kind of food on my plate. Ever so sweetly she told me to eat it out of consideration for our hostess.”

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/dhammastudygroup/conversations/topics/30929


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 6, 2014 6:08 AM
Title: Re: Dhamma and polygamy
Content:
Actually since writing I've learned that I misidentified the ajahn. The view was actually set forth in The Heritage of the Sangha, an unpublished Vinaya treatise by the Canadian Wat Pa Nanachat monk Ven. Thiradhammo. Thiradhammo's opinion was later cited with approval by the English monk Ven. Ariyesako in his http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/ariyesako/layguide.html.

As for Ajahn Brahmavaṃso, I don't know what his views are on bhikkhus' officiating at heterosexual marriages, but he is on record as saying that he would be happy to do so at homosexual ones.



.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 6, 2014 5:15 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism/Brahmanism/Hinduism discussion
Content:
Let me help him out...

The theodicy-based objection to God in the Bhūridatta Jātaka assumes an omniscient God and could therefore be evaded by positing a non-omniscient God who simply wasn’t sure what would happen if he created the universe. Among philosophical theologians holding to a non-omniscient God conception there are broadly four views, summarized by http://www.alanrhoda.net/blog/2006/02/four-versions-of-open-theism.html:
1. Voluntary Nescience: The future is alethically settled but nevertheless epistemically open for God because he has voluntarily chosen not to know truths about future contingents. Dallas Willard was thought to hold this position.

2. Involuntary Nescience: The future is alethically settled but nevertheless epistemically open for God because truths about future contingents are in principle unknowable. William Hasker and Peter Van Inwagen espouse this position.

3. Non-Bivalentist Omniscience: The future is alethically open and therefore epistemically open for God because propositions about future contingents are neither true nor false. J. R. Lucas espouses this position.

4. Bivalentist Omniscience: The future is alethically open and therefore epistemically open for God because propositions asserting of future contingents that they 'will' obtain or that they 'will not' obtain are both false. Instead, what is true is that they 'might and might not' obtain. Greg Boyd espouses this position.
Then the imperfect, evolving and non-omnipotent God of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_theology like Whitehead, Hartshorne et al would appear to evade the critique of the Bhūridatta Jātaka by cheerfully conceding that God is indeed a bit limited, but nonetheless remains a fit object for human reverence since He isn’t as limited as ourselves.

Finally, one might might bite the bullet and meet Bhūridatta’s objection to God head-on with the retort: “Yep, God’s bad.” An historical example would be the malevolent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge conception of Gnostic dualists.

None of the above, however, seem to have many takers among theists.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 5, 2014 2:58 PM
Title: Re: Questions about De Silva's Pali Primer
Content:
I recommend that you be patient and stick with it. Even if there are things in it you don’t yet understand, just completing it will leave you endowed with a considerably larger Pali vocabulary than the average primer.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jan 4, 2014 1:24 PM
Title: Re: Dhamma and polygamy
Content:
It’s not a rule as such, but rather a disputed modern application of the fifth saṅghādisesa rule — the prohibition against acting as a go-between between a man and woman for the sake of effecting a marriage, betrothal or temporary liaison. Some hold that officiating at a marriage would amount to breach of this rule. However, this is a minority view (I’ve only ever heard it from some of the monks at Wat Pa Nanachat, based apparently on an old article by Ajahn Brahmavaṃso) and it doesn’t seem correct to me, nor to any of the Thai or Burmese Vinaya scholars with whom I’ve raised the subject. I think the most that can be claimed is that officiating at weddings is not among the traditional rôles of a bhikkhu. Instead, the usual practice is to leave it to the secular authorities to perform the wedding and then bless the couple with paritta-chanting afterwards.

But to come back to the fifth saṅghādisesa, as far as the spirit of this rule is concerned, it’s clear that what is prohibited are such acts as matchmaking and procuring, but this is not really what a wedding officiant is doing. At a wedding the ‘match’ is already a fait accompli and the officiant does no more than ratify it. On the other hand, to conform to the letter of Vinaya a bhikkhu officiating at a wedding would need to ensure that the liturgy was worded in a way that didn’t entail any of the three component acts involved in matchmaking: accepting the request of one party to convey a proposal (paṭiggaṇhanaṃ), enquiring into the response of the other party (vīmaṃsanaṃ), or reporting the response back to the first party (paccāharaṇaṃ).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 1, 2014 12:00 PM
Title: Re: Passing of First African American Bhikkhu
Content:
Dharma talk by Ven. Suhita Dharma, “The Way,” June 4, 2012, Vallecitos Mountain Ranch People of Color silent seven-day meditation retreat:

http://www.vallecitos.org/teacher-talks/ven-suhita-dharma-6-4-12-the-way


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 1, 2014 11:56 AM
Title: Re: Passing of First African American Bhikkhu
Content:
Obituary by Mushim Ikeda


December 28, 2013

Dear Dharma Friends,

It is with the utmost sadness that I wish to share with you that one of my oldest friends, the most Venerable Bhante Suhita Dharma, whose Vietnamese Dharma name and title was Hoa Thuong Thich An Duc, passed away around 5 am this morning in his room at Chua Dieu Phap Temple in San Gabriel, California, at the age of 73 or so. I know that he approved of the photo I’ve attached, because he used it as his Facebook profile pic. His death was sudden and unexpected, and evidently without pain or struggle, possibly due to cardiac arrest.

Ven. Suhita Dharma was the first African American to be ordained as a Buddhist monk. He was my co-teacher for a number of years for the People of Color annual meditation retreat at Vallecitos Mountain Refuge outside of Taos, New Mexico. Born in Texas, he was a monk for 58 years of his life, entering the Trappist monastery when he was 14 and a half, and later becoming a fully ordained Buddhist monk. He never saw any contradiction between his Catholic family roots and his early life as Brother Anthony of the Trappists on one hand, and his life as a Buddhist monk, on the other hand, seeing all of monastic life as being essentially very similar. He often told me that he considered the Rule of St. Benedict to be the best and most comprehensive set of monastic rules. He also once said that when he was with the Trappists, who are a silent Order, that all of the brothers were joyful and that he “never once saw a long face among them.” He was among the last generation of so-called child monks in the Trappist Order, as they soon thereafter raised the minimum age for ordination. Before becoming a Trappist monk, Bhante Suhita had been a star altar boy in Texas, where his family lived for a number of years, and he always said that he was asked to be there if a visiting dignitary came, because even though he was so young, he had memorized all of the services and could do them perfectly. He said he loved high ritual, and was not pleased when the services in the Catholic Church switched from Latin to English.

As a Buddhist monk, he loved to travel, and he spent extensive periods of time in Sri Lanka, where he rose to the status of “Mahathera”; Thailand; Nepal; and I believe in Malaysia as well, plus some other countries. Some years ago, he was given the title “Hoa Thuong” in the Vietnamese Buddhist Church, which he told me was the equivalent of a bishop in the Catholic Church. His circle of connections within the monastic Buddhist world was huge, and included monks and nuns from every Buddhist country. Within the last several years, he divided his time between residing at Chua Dieu Phap temple in San Gabriel, California and his hermitage and Sangha in Juarez, Mexico. He told me several weeks ago that he hoped to do one last pilgrimage in Europe and to visit a number of monasteries and sacred sites there. He also told me that one of the few regrets he had about his life was that he had once had an opportunity to enter the Carthusian monastic order (the Order of Saint Bruno) and to live as a cloistered monk, in silence, but that he’d become very ill, had to go into hospital in England for an extended period of time, and after he recovered his life took him in a different direction.

Bhante Suhita Dharma and I have been the best of Dharma friends for around 28 years, since we first met at the International Buddhist Meditation Center (IBMC) in Los Angeles in 1985. He would say publicly that he had five spiritual friends, and that I was one of them. I never asked him who the other four were, since I always figured that if he’d wanted to tell me, he would have done so. In reality, he was a teacher and good spiritual friend to many, but held this role lightly and without attachment or possessiveness. I think it’s fair to say that he wanted people to be curious and free in their spiritual development, and to be street smart and self-reliant and to trust their own common sense (which he called “mother wit”), to stay grounded and real. As one of the most senior monks in North America, he was experienced in many different forms of meditation and spiritual practice, but always taught people to remain simple, sincere, and disciplined in spiritual life, and to keep the goal of helping others front and center at all times. He had little patience for laypeople who romanticize their idea of monastic life, or for anyone who, as one U.S. practitioner of color put it many years ago, is “hiding out in the emptiness zone.” He was an eminently practical person, a trained social worker, and had spent many years working with formerly incarcerated men, homeless persons, people with HIV-AIDS, as a prison chaplain, and as founder of the Metta Vihara hospice in Richmond, California.

Bhante Suhita had lived through Jim Crow, and he recalled that, as a little boy, he once went into a public restroom in Texas, where a white man told him to get out. He was with his grandmother, Big Mama, at the time and when he came out of the restroom and told her what had happened he said that she opened her purse and took out a switch blade and was going to storm into the men’s restroom, but evidently restrained herself from doing so, and the family put both her and her grandson on a train to San Francisco to stay with other family members for awhile.

Bhante Suhita Dharma’s view of life was global and inclusive. His Dharma was subtle, profoundly deep and broad, and fairly invisible. He never wanted to become known as a Buddhist teacher and liked to remain independent and unattached to form and image. As one person who tried to interview him for a Buddhist journal once said thoughtfully, “There isn’t a lot of self there.” He enjoyed ice cream, fried chicken, and old school horror movies. He greatly disliked tofu and personal drama. Wherever he lived he had a television that was always turned on to a news network, and if I wanted to find out more about any current event I would usually ask him for the scoop. He also loved books on Buddhism and Catholic monasticism and collected them avidly. He was very close to my son, who knew Bhante from the time he (my child) was born. They had a deep connection to one another through their similar approaches to off-the-radar everyday Buddhism in action and their penchant for mordant commentary and feisty conversational ripostes.

The brief bio, below, was written by Bhante himself for the faculty section of Vallecitos Mountain Ranch, some years ago. He chose the attached formal photo of himself in traditional saffron robes to accompany it. He liked being alone and always said he was a card-carrying hermit and member of the Raven’s Bread Hermit Ministries organization. Although he knew many people, as far as I could tell, he always preserved a deep inner silence and eremitical vocation. The etymology of the Japanese Zen term unsui works pretty well to describe Bhante Suhita’s spirit as I knew him over 28 years — according to Wikipedia, the term unsui, which literally translates as “cloud, water” comes from a Chinese poem which reads, “To drift like clouds and flow like water.”[2] Helen J. Baroni writes, “The term can be applied more broadly for any practitioner of Zen, since followers of Zen attempt to move freely through life, without the constraints and limitations of attachment, like free-floating clouds or flowing water.”

Bhante Suhita Dharma was an adventurer, and now that he is flowing and floating onward, I know (or think I do!) that what he’d want from us would be for each of us, in our own way, to help others as much as we can, and to become the practitioner described in the Metta Sutta:

“This is to be done by one skilled in aims
who wants to break through to the state of peace:
Be capable, upright, &amp; straightforward,
easy to instruct, gentle, &amp; not conceited,
content &amp; easy to support,
with few duties, living lightly,
with peaceful faculties, masterful,
modest, &amp; no greed for supporters.

“Do not do the slightest thing
that the wise would later censure.

“Think: Happy, at rest,
may all beings be happy at heart.
Whatever beings there may be,
weak or strong, without exception,
long, large,
middling, short,
subtle, blatant,
seen &amp; unseen,
near &amp; far,
born &amp; seeking birth:
May all beings be happy at heart.”

(trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

Bhante was always cheerfully getting ready to die, and when I taught with him, he would sometimes say to the practitioners in the meditation hall: “I will always be with you. And when you least expect it!”


http://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/floating-onward-honoring-venerable-bhante-suhita-dharma/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 1, 2014 8:22 AM
Title: Re: Monastery's in Burma(Myanmar)
Content:
If you are open to considering Burmese monasteries in Thailand, then there is http://www.wattamaoh.org in Lampang Province. The new abbot there, Sayadaw Gandhasāra, is a disciple of Mahasi Sayadaw who is fluent in English and teaches the samatha-vipassanā system outlined in Mahasi’s http://www.aimwell.org/brahmaviharadhamma.html, i.e., insight development based upon mettā jhāna.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 30, 2013 9:07 AM
Title: Re: Divine Abidings
Content:
There is a mistake in the chart.

The near-enemy of compassion is not 'pity'. In fact the very idea of there being some difference between compassion and pity is quite a recent development in the English language; it's a distinction invented by purveyors of pop psychology and inherited by some North American vipassanā teachers. Before the twentieth century the two words were virtually synonymous, notwithstanding their very different provenance and early semantic history. In the texts the near-enemy of compassion is given in some sources as sorrow (soka) and in others as unpleasant mental feeling (domanassa-vedanā).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 30, 2013 7:45 AM
Title: Re: Monk travelling back to is country
Content:
Hi Gabriel,

There is a variety of policies among monasteries in Asia, with some leaving the foreign monk to completely fend for himself and others providing full support with regard to travel costs, visas etc. Pa-Awk Monastery seems to be somewhere in the middle: since they are strict about the prohibition against handling money they arrange for a lay kappiya to deal with all that stuff, but unlike, say, at Wat Pa Nanachat, the ordinand is required to pay the kappiya in advance of his ordination.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 30, 2013 3:00 AM
Title: Re: Monk travelling back to is country
Content:
See appendix V:

http://www.paaukforestmonastery.org/books/teaching_training.pdf



It seems that if a non-Burmese wishes to ordain at Pa-Auk Monastery he will be required to deposit funds with the monastery's kappiya that will be sufficient to cover both visa extensions and repatriation. But I suggest that you contact the monastery to ascertain what their current policy is:
http://www.paaukforestmonastery.org/contact.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 29, 2013 1:18 PM
Title: Passing of First African American Bhikkhu
Content:
Posted on Facebook today by Mushim Patricia Ikeda:

"My Great Spiritual Friend, the most Venerable Bhante Suhita Dharma passed away around 5 am this morning at Chua Dieu Phap Temple in San Gabriel, California. I have just received the news. It sounds as though it was very sudden and that he didn't go through a lot of pain."



suhit2.jpg (201.45 KiB) Viewed 6578 times


https://www.facebook.com/suhita.dharma


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 29, 2013 9:19 AM
Title: Re: Meet the Amish
Content:
In Thailand I suppose the Santi Asoke group might be compared to the Amish in some respects.

http://www.bunniyom.com/insight-santi_mobi3.html

http://www.bunniyom.com/openeyes.marja_leena.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 28, 2013 11:38 PM
Title: Re: Abhidhamma Resources
Content:
Sayādaw U Sīlānanda, Handbook of Abhidhamma Studies, volumes 1-3

http://buddhispano.net/sites/default/files/uploads/Handbook-of-Abhidhamma-Studies-I.pdf

http://buddhispano.net/sites/default/files/uploads/Handbook-of-Abhidhamma-Studies-II.pdf

http://buddhispano.net/sites/default/files/uploads/Handbook-of-Abhidhamma-Studies-III.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 28, 2013 8:22 AM
Title: Re: Can monks attend to his sick parents or former wife?
Content:
"The tradition that has come down to all Theravada Buddhist monks is that described in the Samantapasadika, the great commentary on the Vinayapitaka compiled by Buddhaghosa in Sri Lanka in the 5th century C.E. This authoritative work states that a monk may prescribe and supply medicines to his fellow monastics (monks and nuns), to his parents or to those looking after his parents, and to any laypeople staying in the monastery of Vihara either preparing to go forth as monks of just staying to help the monks. Also, a monk may prescribe but not buy medicines to his brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandparents and to whatever travellers, bandits, people wounded in battle and those without relatives who come to the monastery of Vihara for emergency help. Should a monk prescribe or supply medicines beyond his allowance, he commits an offence against his precepts (a dukkata offence). Further, if he prescribes of supplies a medicine to a layperson for a material gift in return, then he incurs another offence against his precepts for "corrupting families" (kuladusaka). That is what is stated in the Samantapasadika Vinaya Commentary, respected in all Theravada Buddhist countries."
From http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebsut033.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 26, 2013 10:04 PM
Title: Re: Self view, ego and conceit
Content:
Presumably he means attānudiṭṭhi, as found, for example, in the Attānudiṭṭhi, Attānudiṭṭhipahāna, and Assāda Suttas (SN. iii. 185-6; SN. iv. 147-8; AN. iii. 447).

Or else attavāda, as found in dozens of suttas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 26, 2013 7:50 AM
Title: Re: Delineation of head hair and body hair
Content:
From the Visuddhimagga:
"Firstly head hairs are black in their normal colour, the colour of fresh ariṭṭhaka seeds. As to shape, they are the shape of long round measuring rods. As to direction, they lie in the upper direction. As to location, their location is the wet inner skin that envelops the skull; it is bounded on both sides by the roots of the ears, in front by the forehead, and behind by the nape of the neck. As to delimitation, they are bounded below by the surface of their own roots, which are fixed by entering to the amount of the tip of a rice grain into the inner skin that envelops the head. They are bounded above by space, and all round by each other. There are no two hairs together. This is their delimitation by the similar. Head hairs are not body hairs, and body hairs are not head hairs; being likewise not intermixed with the remaining thirty-one parts, the head hairs are a separate part. This is their delimitation by the dissimilar. Such is the definition of head hairs as to colour and so on."

"Herein, firstly, as to natural colour, body hairs are not pure black like head hairs but blackish brown. As to shape, they are the shape of palm roots with the tips bent down. As to direction, they lie in the two directions. As to location, except for the locations where the head hairs are established, and for the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, they grow in most of the rest of the inner skin that envelops the body. As to delimitation, they are bounded below by the surface of their own roots, which are fixed by entering to the extent of a likhā into the inner skin that envelops the body, above by space, and all round by each other. There are no two body hairs together. This is the delimitation by the similar. But their delimitation by the dissimilar is like that for the head hairs."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 25, 2013 4:29 PM
Title: Re: Christmas greetings
Content:
Christmas Greetings everyone.




I thought some of you might appreciate this little-known piece of footage. It's the Apostle Matthew, working as a reporter for the Bethlehem Star, interviewing one of the shepherds to whom the angel of the Lord appeared on the night of Jesus's birth.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 25, 2013 10:59 AM
Title: Re: Western Poetry for Buddhists
Content:
Links to four poems expressive of a Dhammic conservatism akin to that of the http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/j1/j1080.htm and http://www.metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/4Anguttara-Nikaya/Anguttara4/7-sattakanipata/003-vajjisattakavaggo-e.html.


https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/html/1807/4350/poem2162.html
“Envy wears the mask of Love, and, laughing sober fact to scorn,
Cries to Weakest as to Strongest, ‘Ye are equals, equal-born.’
...

“You that woo the Voices — tell them ‘old experience is a fool,’
Teach your flatter’d kings that only those who cannot read can rule.
Pluck the mighty from their seat, but set no meek ones in their place;
Pillory Wisdom in your markets, pelt your offal at her face.”

http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_copybook.htm
“In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, 
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; 
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, 
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: If you don't work you die.”

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/troilus_cressida/troilus_cressida.1.3.html
“The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre
Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office and custom, in all line of order;
...

“How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows!”
http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww293.html
“Genius of Burke! forgive the pen seduced
By specious wonders, and too slow to tell
Of what the ingenuous, what bewildered men,
Beginning to mistrust their boastful guides,
And wise men, willing to grow wiser, caught,
Rapt auditors! from thy most eloquent tongue—
Now mute, for ever mute in the cold grave.
I see him, —old, but vigorous in age,—
Stand like an oak whose stag-horn branches start
Out of its leafy brow, the more to awe
The younger brethren of the grove.
...
“While he forewarns, denounces, launches forth,
Against all systems built on abstract rights,
Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaims
Of Institutes and Laws, hallowed by time;
Declares the vital power of social ties
Endeared by Custom; and with high disdain,
Exploding upstart Theory, insists
Upon the allegiance to which men are born.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 25, 2013 7:26 AM
Title: Re: Did the Buddha really live in the forest?
Content:
Living in a 'park' (ārāma) to all intents and purposes meant living in a forest. We shouldn't picture these so-called ‘parks’ as, say, areas of trimmed lawns, privet fences, gazebos, bird-houses etc., surrounded by a high wall. ‘Ārāma’ just meant a piece of forest that somebody happened to own and used for recreational purposes (chiefly hunting) rather than agriculture.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 8, 2013 3:27 PM
Title: Re: Buddha talked to Acharn Mun?
Content:
It will vary from one monk to another, but as advised in the Vanapatha Sutta, he should go to a place where “...his unestablished mindfulness becomes established, his unconcentrated mind becomes concentrated, his undestroyed taints come to destruction, and where he attains the unattained supreme security from bondage.”

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

If a monk's put his first ten years to good use, then he should have a good idea what sort of place will be optimal for this.


[btw. This is likely to be my last post until the New Year as I'll be leaving shortly and going to an internet-free location]


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 8, 2013 3:00 PM
Title: Re: Buddha talked to Acharn Mun?
Content:
So is this chap:
“Supposing the Pope looked up and saw a cloud and said ‘It's going to rain’, would that be bound to happen?”
“Oh, yes, Father.”
“But supposing it didn't?”
He thought a moment and said: “I suppose it could be sort of raining spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it.”
— Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

But I'm afraid that the notion of a "supramundane transcendental conversation involving no perception" is as meaningless to me as the spiritual rainfall that I’m too sinful to see.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 8, 2013 2:13 PM
Title: Re: Ajahn Sujato and Marriage Equality
Content:
When one enlarges the scope of an existing decree by exploring and pursuing what may reasonably be taken to be intimated in it with respect to conditions not present at the time of its enactment is one necessarily decreeing something new?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 8, 2013 10:57 AM
Title: Re: Violent sports
Content:
To say nothing of the cheerleading that accompanies this Neanderthal recreation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheerleading#Dangers_of_cheerleading

http://www.thetoptens.com/most-dangerous-sports/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 8, 2013 8:52 AM
Title: Re: Buddha talked to Acharn Mun?
Content:
I don’t personally know of any Thai monastery of which I could say: “All (or most) of the monks living there both observe the Vinaya well and avoid the extremes of eternalism and annihilationism.” One can say this of individual bhikkhus, but one can’t say that such a thing prevails in any community that I know of. Generally, in a wat where all the monks observe the Vinaya well the prevailing view will be semi-eternalist, or sometimes even full-blown eternalist, while in a wat where right view prevails the observance of Vinaya will be lax.

(It would appear this tendency is not a new one. I recall that one Chinese pilgrim to India, after visiting numerous monasteries all over the sub-continent, reported that the strictest Vinaya observance was to be found in those of the Pudgalavādin schools).

For this reason, I think it's desirable that a monk in his formative years should gain experience in both urban pariyatti and forest kammaṭṭhāna wats, taking what's best from both of them and then, when's he's got ten rains under his belt, getting the hell away from them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 8, 2013 7:24 AM
Title: Re: Buddha talked to Acharn Mun?
Content:
There weren't any teachings on Dhamma that I found valuable.

Nonetheless there were a number of things about Ajahn Maha Bua himself that made a lasting positive impression on me, mostly relating to the ajahn's uncompromising commitment to Buddhist ascesis and the general way that he ordered his monastery, which is among the best I've ever seen. For example, MB refused to give in to pressure from rich, well-meaning Bangkok lay supporters who wanted to make merit by "developing" the wat (i.e. by making it a more luxurious place). He wouldn't allow them to install electricity or running water or to hire contractors to build luxury concrete kutis or other buildings — everything had to be built of wood and by the monks themselves.

He also imposed this standard on those of his disciples who went off to start wats of their own. I remember there was one senior monk who had founded a new forest wat and was "developing" it in ways that went against MB's ideas of what is appropriate (e.g. building a concrete sala with a marble floor). Moreover the errant disciple was raising funds for these developments by constantly boasting to the laity about the fact that MB was his teacher. When MB heard of all this he not only disowned the disciple but for several weeks would end all his sermons to laypeople with the words: "...and one more thing. I want you to know that Ajahn X is no disciple of mine." (It reminded me of how Cato the Elder would irrelevantly conclude all his speeches to the Roman Senate with the words: "...and furthermore, it is my opinion that Carthage must be destroyed," and wouldn't let up until Carthage was destroyed).

I also liked the fact that MB didn't treat his monks like cattle as they do in the Ajahn Chah tradition — sending them here and there willy-nilly. For example, in the early days of the forest sangha in England, Ajahn Sumedho came to visit Baan Taad and asked MB if he had any western bhikkhus whom he'd be willing to send to teach in England. "What are you talking about?" replied MB, "I don't send bhikkhus anywhere. If you want to know if they want to go to England why don't you try asking them?"

Another difference from Ajahn Chah's wats was that at Baan Taad there wasn't the obsession with pecking order that you get in the former. There was no silly pulling of rank like: "I ordained a week before you, so you have to empty my spittoon!" Hierarchy at Baan Taad was a lot simpler: Maha Bua was the boss and the rest of us were peers, addressing each other as "brother".

I expect there were lots of other things that I liked about Ajahn Maha Bua and his wat, but I don't remember them at the moment, so they'll have to wait until I get my diary back.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 7, 2013 6:36 PM
Title: Re: House blessing ceremony
Content:
I wouldn't have thought so. I mean house-blessings aren't normally carried out with the aim of turning any part of one's home into an exclusion zone.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 7, 2013 4:13 PM
Title: Re: House blessing ceremony
Content:
Normally the largest room available: the living room of an urban home or the entrance room of a rural shack.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 7, 2013 1:57 PM
Title: Re: House blessing ceremony
Content:
This would be normal for an exorcism, since the commonest reason for requesting one is recurrent bad dreams and the assumption that these are caused by spirits who've taken up residence there. But as for house-blessings, in all the dozens that I've attended I can't recall ever being deployed in anyone's bedroom.

Whereabouts in Thailand do you live?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 7, 2013 10:33 AM
Title: Re: Buddha talked to Acharn Mun?
Content:
Once, after the morning meal, a layman from Bangkok asked Ajahn Maha Bua his opinion of Phra Phothirak and his new splinter group, the Santi Asoke Sangha. The ajahn replied with strong criticisms of them for their deviations from orthodox Theravadin practice, singling out their vegetarianism and their refusal to shave their eyebrows. The layman then remarked that it is only in Thailand that monks shave their eyebrows. The ajahn replied that the Buddha’s arahant disciples who visited Ajahn Mun all had shaven eyebrows and therefore it’s the Thai sangha alone that is doing things right.

Meanwhile, over in Lampang Province, my namesake and Pali teacher-to-be, Sayadaw Dhammananda, was also coming in for some criticism for the fact that in his wat the monks kept to the Burmese practice of leaving their eyebrows intact. The sayadaw responded to the criticisms by publishing a learned and well-argued treatise entitled Bhamukhāvinicchaya — An Adjudication on the Subject of Eyebrows. He composed it in Pali and then translated it into Burmese and Thai. After its publication his monks would carry copies of it in their bags to be given away to any Thais who enquired as to why their eyebrows were unshaven. In this treatise the sayadaw demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that although eyebrows grow on one’s head, nonethless they are not included in the term kesamassu (“head-hairs and beard” — i.e. the term for what the Vinaya requires to be shaved) but rather in lomā (“body hairs” — of which the Vinaya prohibits the shaving except for medical purposes).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 7, 2013 9:50 AM
Title: Re: Buddha talked to Acharn Mun?
Content:
No, not Thaksin. I was referring to the Thai military strongmen of the Cold War era. Back in the 1980's the political idol of right-wing Northeastern monks in the Ajahn Mun tradition was General Sarit. He'd been dead twenty years, but the older monks at Baan Taad would wax nostalgically about the days of the Sarit dictatorship as if it had been some kind of golden age.

Sarit felt that democracy had failed in Thailand and intended to rule according to "Thai ideologies", not imported Western political theories, choosing as his model the supposedly benevolent despots of his country's past.

[...]

Nevertheless, though generally popular for its achievements, Sarit's regime was the most repressive and authoritarian in modern Thai history, abrogating the constitution, dissolving parliament, and vesting all power in his newly formed Revolutionary Party. Although he pledged to appoint a constituent assembly to act as a legislature and draft a constitution, no one doubted the body would merely rubber-stamp his orders. Eventually Sarit's constitution was promulgated but not until after his death.

Sarit banned all other political parties, imposing very strict censorship of the press after the coup, his Revolutionary Party banning eighteen leftist and neutralist publications, and forbidding starting up of new opposition newspapers. Sarit's "revolution" brought an intense crackdown on "leftists"; however, as genuine communists were rare in Thailand, it was the mildly socialist or neutralist professors, politicians and newspapers which bore the brunt of the suppression.

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 7, 2013 7:15 AM
Title: Re: good books for those wishing to become a monk
Content:
.

http://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/banner-of-the-arahants/

.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 7, 2013 12:53 AM
Title: Re: Monks and Veganism/Vegeterianism
Content:
It depends how strict you are about it. If you're very strict then it's out of the question because most Thai dishes have at least a dash of fish sauce added to them while being cooked, so in rural Thailand you'd be reduced to living on rice and bananas. But the kind of vegetarianism where you just refrain from eating what is manifestly meat or fish is perfectly doable. For example, there is a vegetarian nun residing in my monastery and although we're supported by very poor mountain folk, on a typical day she'll get rice, forest leaf curry, mushroom curry, boiled bamboo shoots, an egg, noodles, bananas (and sometimes some other fruit according to the season), and sometimes a carton of soy milk.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 6, 2013 10:29 PM
Title: Re: Why life does not really exist
Content:
That plants and the earth have kāya-indriya is mentioned in the Vinaya, but as a view of the Nigaṇṭhas and Acelakas, not the Buddha.
______________________________________

Now at that time the monks of Alavi, making repairs, dug the ground and had it dug. People looked down upon, criticised, spread it about, saying: “How can these samanas, sons of the Sakyans, dig the ground and have it dug? These samanas, sons of the Sakyans, are harming life that is one-facultied (ekindriyaṃ jīvaṃ).”

______________________________________

Now at that time the monks of Alavi, making repairs, were cutting down trees and having them cut down [...] People looked down upon, criticised, spread it about, saying: “How can these samanas, sons of the Sakyans, cut down trees and have them cut down? These samanas, sons of the Sakyans, are harming life that is one-facultied (ekindriyaṃ jīvaṃ).”

______________________________________

Commentary:

“Ekindriyan” ti kāyindriyeneva ekindriyaṃ, nigaṇṭhānaṃ acelakānaṃ mataṃ.

“One-facultied” means having just the body-faculty as their one faculty, as supposed by Jains and naked ascetics.

______________________________________


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 6, 2013 5:15 PM
Title: Re: Buddha talked to Acharn Mun?
Content:
Whatever the ajahn taught that was unsupported in the texts would be attributed either to what he claimed to have personally discovered through his practice or what had been made known to Ajahn Mun during the visits paid to him by past Buddhas and their arahant disciples. The things that he justified by the latter means, when considered individually, will no doubt appear to most people as trifling and innocuous, perhaps even amusing. The general thrust, however, was not so, for it served to justify and promote: (1) an ugly nationalism (wherever there’s a difference between Thai Buddhist practice and that of other Buddhist countries, it’s the Thais who are doing it the Buddha’s way); (2) support of far-right authoritarian government (as a consequence of that nationalism); (3) nikāya chauvinism (wherever Dhammayutt and Mahanikaya practice differ, it’s the Dhammayutts who are doing it the Buddha’s way); and (4) exaltation of self (wherever practice in Maha Bua’s wat differs from that of other wats in the Thai forest tradition, it’s he who is doing it the Buddha’s way).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 6, 2013 5:06 PM
Title: Re: Buddha talked to Acharn Mun?
Content:
I don’t think we need attribute the ajahn’s experience to anything so exotic. If one were to live as Ajahn Mun did — dwelling in a lonely place, fasting for days on end, and devoting all of one’s waking hours to the recitation of a mantra, and all of this unguided by any teacher and informed by only the meagrest acquaintance with the Buddha’s teaching, I think it would be rather remarkable if one did not end up having some bizarre mental experiences.

Now I don’t know whether or not a real arahant could have visions of the kind attributed to Ajahn Mun, though it doesn’t seem entirely unlikely, for example, as a consequence of the kind of neural damage that gives rise to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peduncular_hallucinosis:
Unlike some other kinds of hallucinations, those that patients with PH experience are very realistic, and often involve people and environments that are familiar to the affected individuals. Because the content of the hallucinations is never exceptionally bizarre, patients can rarely distinguish between the hallucinations and reality.
But what I think we can be confident of is that an arahant, through his destruction of the akusala root of delusion, would be beyond the possibility of being deceived by any apparitional or visionary experience that he may undergo.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 6, 2013 1:31 AM
Title: Re: Buddha talked to Acharn Mun?
Content:
In the present case what was principally imparted in the Buddha’s alleged revelations to Ajahn Mun was divine confirmation that the manner of monastic practice in Thailand, and especially in the Dhammayuttika Nikāya, and most especially at Wat Pa Baan Taad (Ajahn Maha Bua’s monastery) was exactly like that of arahant bhikkhus in the Buddha’s day — a confirmation so suspiciously convenient that at times I would find myself reminded of Strachey’s charming account of Cardinal Wiseman:

He devoted much time and attention to the ceremonial details of his princely office. His knowledge of rubric and ritual, and of the symbolical significations of vestments, has rarely been equalled, and he took a profound delight in the ordering and the performance of elaborate processions. During one of these functions, an unexpected difficulty arose: the Master of Ceremonies suddenly gave the word for a halt, and, on being asked the reason, replied that he had been instructed that moment by special revelation to stop the procession. The Cardinal, however, was not at a loss. ‘You may let the procession go on,’ he smilingly replied. ‘I have just obtained permission, by special revelation, to proceed with it.’
— Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians

Like the cardinal with his ‘special revelations’, Ajahn Maha Bua could justify virtually anything simply by claiming that it had been directly revealed to Ajahn Mun by the Buddha himself.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 5, 2013 7:13 PM
Title: Re: Buddha talked to Acharn Mun?
Content:
Perhaps while the latter was undergoing an hallucination or pleasant snooze.

“Bhikkhus, just as when the stalk of a bunch of mangoes has been cut, all the mangoes on it go with it, just so the Tathāgata’s link with becoming has been cut. As long as the body subsists, devas and humans will see him. But at the breaking-up of the body and the exhaustion of the life-span, devas and humans will see him no more.”
— Brahmajāla Sutta


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 5, 2013 7:38 AM
Title: Re: Access to Insight Bulk Download
Content:
There is support, but it isn't so good with executable files with an .exe suffix.

If I download the zip-suffixed file from ATI I can unzip it with no trouble at all, but if I download an exe-suffixed file from anywhere, before I can do anything with it I need to know exactly what the encoding is and then change the .exe to something more precise: .zip, .rar, .gz, .7z or whatever.

Perhaps there is now a program that will detect an exe's encoding, but as I'm usually a year or two behind the times technologically, I haven't come across it yet.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 4, 2013 10:43 PM
Title: Re: Access to Insight Bulk Download
Content:
Just change the .exe file ending to .7z and then unzip it with http://www.kekaosx.com.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 4, 2013 8:55 AM
Title: Re: Brian Ruhe and Representation
Content:
Divisive speech is that which aims at provoking disaffection in one person or group towards some other person or group, but only where this proceeds from an unwholesome volition. Therefore not all speech aimed at provoking disaffection is classed as divisive speech, for sometimes it may be prompted by a wholesome volition. An example would be when, out of concern for the listener’s welfare, one warns him about an evil person with whom it would be harmful for him to consort.

Hence the commentarial statement that the near-enemy of non-divisive speech (i.e. the quality easily confused with it) is “lack of concern for another’s welfare” (anatthakāmatā).

And so if Mr. Ruhe and Ven. Soṇa believe the Mahāyāna to have been inspired by Māra, it would be misguided of them to refrain from saying so out of a wish to be non-divisive.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 3, 2013 11:40 PM
Title: Re: anyone know about Sri Lanka?
Content:
This seems an odd assertion from someone who professes to prefer facts over assumptions. I mean how do you know that it's kammārāmatā and not, say, a compassion-motivated wish to share the Dhamma or something else of a kusala character?

The ārāmatā in kammārāmatā (“delight in work’) is a state of mind, specifically, “a state of delighting in new work” (navakamme ramanakabhāva) and “being addicted (anuyutta) to much work”. It isn’t defined as “doing a lot of work”. Ānanda, for example, as the Buddha’s attendant did a lot of work, but since this was motivated by his solicitude for the Buddha’s material welfare and not by addiction, the texts never refer to it as kammārāmatā.

As it's a state of mind, whether or not somebody has fallen into kammārāmatā cannot be reliably known from the fact that he works much, any more than a person's freedom from kammārāmatā can be known from the fact that he works little. It can only be reliably known by cetopariyayañāṇa or else by the more familiar means of knowing another’s character: living with him, conversing with him, observing how he handles hardship (e.g. when he’s deprived of the opportunity to work), and doing all this for a long time. Not merely by reading a couple of posts to an online forum from a complete stranger.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 3, 2013 7:03 AM
Title: Re: anyone know about Sri Lanka?
Content:
When a junior bhikkhu seeks to make contact with other bhikkhus (as opposed to, say, drinking pals, Boston Red Sox fans or whatever) would it not be more charitable to assume that his aim is kalyānamittatā, not delighting in crowds?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 3, 2013 6:17 AM
Title: Re: Non-Mahavihara Theravada?
Content:
I don't know. There are certainly Theravadin teachers who are given to expressing themselves in a manner that suggests they may subscribe to such ideas. Some of the monks (and nearly all of the nuns) who've had a long-term association with Ajahn Sumedho come to mind. But the general want of clarity in the Dhamma talks of these people makes it hard to say for sure if this is really what they mean.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 2, 2013 6:39 PM
Title: Re: Non-Mahavihara Theravada?
Content:
There are plenty of Theravādins holding to notions that happen to parallel those which the Kathāvatthu Commentary attributes to this or that long-extinct school. For example, Mahāsaṅghika-like ideas about the nature of the Buddha can be found in the Thai forest tradition. But I haven't yet heard of anyone knowingly embracing Mahāsaṅghika doctrines after studying them. This has happened, however, with the Sammitiyas, Vatsīputriyas and other pudgalavādin schools. Their pudgala doctrine was famously revived in Germany by Georg Grimm and his following and in Ceylon by the Pali scholar Rev. A.P. Buddhadatta.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 2, 2013 4:51 AM
Title: Re: Monasticim and parental permission
Content:
I don't know what the policy is at Wat Bananas, but at most Thai wats they will just take your word for it (that is, if they even bother to ask you about it). At the few which require evidence a letter from your parents will suffice.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 2, 2013 4:32 AM
Title: Re: What's the point of jhana?
Content:
I think modern teachers' choice of words is influenced by the fact that in the texts the Suttas' 'bhāvanā' and the Atthakathās' 'kammaṭṭhāna' are used far more often than than the noun 'jhāna' in its broad sense. An additional reason, specific to Thailand, is that the noun 'chaan' (Thai pronunciation of 'jhāna') is popularly associated with the sort of trance states that mediums and shamans go into. And so some teachers will avoid the word jhāna because they want to distance themselves from such déclassé associations.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 2, 2013 4:16 AM
Title: Re: What's the point of jhana?
Content:
“And what, friends, is right concentration? Here, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the first absorption (jhāna), which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion. With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, he enters upon and abides in the second absorption (jhāna) ... etc.”

Here ‘jhāna’ in its narrow sense is identified with sammāsamādhi.

______________________________

“Jhāyatha, bhikkhave, mā pamādattha!”
“Bhikkhus, meditate, don’t be negligent!”

In this context ‘jhāyatha’ (the verb concerned usually with jhāna in its broader sense) is glossed in the commentaries as “samathañca vipassanañca vaḍḍhetha!” — “Make calm and insight grow!” Here sammāsamādhi is included within ‘jhāna’.

In Dhammapada 372 we have an example of the noun ‘jhāna’ in its broad sense:

“There is no meditation (jhāna) for one who is without wisdom, no wisdom for one who is not meditating (ajhāyato). He in whom there are meditation (jhāna) and wisdom, is indeed close to nibbāna.”
(translation: K.R. Norman)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 1, 2013 6:01 PM
Title: Re: Why did Buddhism (and not Jainism etc) die out in India?
Content:
Third part.


 ./download/file.php?id=2122
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Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 1, 2013 6:00 PM
Title: Re: Why did Buddhism (and not Jainism etc) die out in India?
Content:
Second part.


 ./download/file.php?id=2121
(345.98 KiB) Downloaded 104 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 1, 2013 5:59 PM
Title: Re: Why did Buddhism (and not Jainism etc) die out in India?
Content:
In my first post I limited myself to the issue of how Jainism survived Islam. How it survived absorption into Hinduism and why Indian Buddhism failed to do so is another question. The attached article by the prakritist and Jain scholar P.S. Jaini proposes four reasons:

1. The Buddhist sangha, unlike Jain monastics, were neglectful of the laity.

2. Buddhist polemicists, unlike those of Jainism, responded ineffectually to the rise of the Hindu devotional movements and so failed to prevent desertion of the laity into the bhakti fold.

3. On account of its anattā doctrine Buddhism elicited greater hostility from proponents of Hindu orthodoxy than did Jainism (which had a soul theory of its own).

4. The eclipsing of the Buddha’s importance subsequent to the rise of the Mahāyāna’s cult of mythical Bodhisattvas, and the absence of any analogous degeneration in Jainism.


P.S. Jaini, The disappearance of Buddhism and the survival of Jainism: a study in contrast


 ./download/file.php?id=2120
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I have had to split the file into three because of its size. This is the first part.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 1, 2013 4:50 PM
Title: Re: Why did Buddhism (and not Jainism etc) die out in India?
Content:
I think the typical lay Jain doesn't entertain any serious expectations of becoming a kevalin/arhat in the present life and so is little concerned with developing aparigraha or the other characteristic qualities valued in Jain ascesis (with the exception of ahiṃsā, which is a major concern for layman and renunciate alike). Like many a lay Buddhist, the Jain layman’s chief activity is providing material support to his religion’s ascetic virtuosos, thereby acquiring merit and participating vicariously in the ascetics' successes, with his own success being postponed to some future life. For someone with such an outlook getting rich wouldn't be perceived as a problem and might even be regarded as a benefit in that a rich man can offer more bountiful support than a poor man.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 1, 2013 6:46 AM
Title: Re: Why did Buddhism (and not Jainism etc) die out in India?
Content:
In the case of Jainism, its survival is largely attributable to its very strict teachings on nyāyopattadhana, the Jain version of right livelihood. Since the Jains held that even unintentional activities generate karma, they sought to avoid not only those modes of livelihood that ineluctably and always cause harm, but also any which might do so only incidentally or occasionally.

From Christopher Capple’s Jainism and Ecology:



livelihood.jpg (175.92 KiB) Viewed 4181 times


Eventually Jains came to largely eschew agriculture in all its forms and to specialise chiefly in mercantile occupations, with the most favoured ones being jewellery-making and money-lending (I believe this is still the case today; the Indian banking system, for example, was at its inception largely a Jain creation). The Jains became very accomplished in these two fields and ended up doing rather well for themselves.

Now in Muslim conquests everywhere, one recurrent feature is that the wealthiest people in the population are not encouraged to convert to Islam, for it’s more profitable to let them keep their own religion and then compel them to pay the infidels’ tax. And so since the richest people in India happened to be the Jains, their conquerors turned a blind eye to their ‘idolatry’ and didn’t go out of their way to make Muslims of them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 1, 2013 3:26 AM
Title: Re: What's the point of jhana?
Content:
I don't think their respective statements are in conflict. Bhikkhu Bodhi is using 'jhāna' in the sense of the states of meditative absorption (the four rūpajjhānas), while Ven. Thanissaro is using it in its broader Sutta sense, where it is virtually synonymous with bhāvanā and encompasses the full range of activities involved in mental development.

In the Suttas the sense in which Bhikkhu Bodhi is using the noun 'jhāna' is its primary sense, while Thanissaro's use is a secondary one. But with the verb 'jhāyati' it's the other way around. Now it's the sense of mental development in general (i.e. of both calm and insight) that becomes primary, while the narrower sense of 'to enter one of the absorptions' becomes secondary (and of rather uncommon occurrence in the Suttas).

For this reason I think the rendering of "Jhāyatha, bhikkhave!" as "Bhikkhus, go do jhāna!" is apt to be tendentious and misleading, inasmuch as the noun jhāna will be likely to be construed in the narrower of the two senses when in fact it's the broader one that is more often intended.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 29, 2013 8:17 PM
Title: Re: After Warder
Content:
But whose opacity may be readily dispelled by consulting Wikipedia's fine entries for linguistic topics:

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linguistic_morphology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Grammatical_cases

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Grammatical_tenses

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Grammatical_voices

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Grammatical_moods

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Grammatical_gender

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Grammatical_number

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Syntax


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 29, 2013 7:17 PM
Title: Re: Abhidhamma Resources
Content:
Fifteen talks given by Bhikkhu Bodhi during his 2013 Abhidhamma Retreat have been uploaded to youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/bauscym/videos

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 10, 2013 3:28 AM
Title: Re: After Warder
Content:
The second volume —the glossary— is available online:
https://ia600407.us.archive.org/32/items/cu31924071132082/cu31924071132082.pdf

It seems that the work is now out of copyright.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 10, 2013 3:15 AM
Title: Re: Reading Pali Sentences
Content:
The same as that used by old-fashioned Latin teachers: https://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=14281//


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 9, 2013 1:03 PM
Title: Re: Identify this chant for me?
Content:
‘Om’ is composed of the sounds a, u and m, which in certain late-Pali verse compositions serve as mnemonics for Saṅgha, Buddha and Dhamma respectively.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 9, 2013 9:42 AM
Title: Re: Refuge
Content:
I agree, bhante.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 9, 2013 7:42 AM
Title: Re: Refuge
Content:
This kind of vow-talk is a Tibetan way of conceiving the precepts, based, I believe, on the Sarvāstivādin Abhidharma. The Theravāda doesn't conceive of the precepts (sikkhāpada; śikṣāpada) as mysterious meme-like entities that are somehow preserved in lineages and which a person can be said to "have taken" or "to be keeping" only if they've been magically transmitted to him by a suitably qualified "lineage-holder".

In the Theravādin conception you can resolve to undertake the precepts all by yourself. And if you break one then you can re-take it all by yourself, by recognising the fault and resolving to exercise greater restraint in future.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 8, 2013 3:24 PM
Title: Re: Voluntary Euthanasia
Content:
John Keown (brother of Damien Keown, the writer on Buddhist ethics) devotes six chapters of his book https://www.amazon.com/Euthanasia-Ethics-Public-Policy-Legalisation/dp/0521009332// to the Dutch experience, showing in meticulous detail that a slippery slide from VAE to NVAE is exactly what has happened in the Netherlands. The Dutch authorities have exhibited masterful ingenuity in the statistical concealment of the slide (“...the Dutch situation is a regulatory Potemkin village, a great facade hiding non-enforcement”)., but there's no doubt at all that it's happened. Moreover, an additional side-effect has been the decline in palliative care for the terminally ill in the Netherlands: why bother when you can just snuff 'em?

[The Dutch Ambassador to Britain] continued that patients in Dutch hospitals were provided with ‘excellent palliative or terminal care’ and that ‘In medical student training, much attention is focussed on sedatives and palliative care’. The Ambassador cited no evidence to support either of these assertions. They sit uneasily with Dutch research indicating that the pain of a high proportion of cancer patients is inadequately treated, with the recognition by the Remmelink Commission that Dutch doctors lacked expertise in palliative care, and with the views of the leading Dutch hospice doctor, Dr Zylic.

Dr Zylic recently wrote that ‘Palliative care is virtually unknown in Holland’. He added: ‘Almost seventy percent of physicians in the Netherlands have been involved in euthanasia of some sort. Yet there is virtually no training in treating dying patients and coping with the impending death. None of the medical schools offer any thorough training for their young students. It is unbelievable how we deny the importance of such training.’ He continued: ‘we see poor symptom control among physicians’, and ‘we see cases frequently enough of ignorance about palliative care that are causes of profound concern’. ‘Euthanasia’, he argued, ‘should never be seen as an alternative to good care. It was never meant to be this in Holland. It originated at the end of such care, when all else failed. But today it is growing to be seen as an alternative to the more difficult task of caring for the dying.’
Attached is the last of the six chapters:

Chapter 13: The Dutch in Denial?


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(95.31 KiB) Downloaded 102 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 8, 2013 12:01 PM
Title: Re: Monks can create art, but not Music?
Content:
Unless one counts the Buddha’s allowance for bhikkhus to paint the walls of their huts with floral or geometrical patterns, there is no actually no positive allowance to engage in any of the creative arts. There is merely the absence of a prohibition.

Except of course for music and dancing, for whereas painting watercolours and writing poems can be done in silence and without bothering one’s co-residents, music is noise-making and noise is a thorn.

“Good, good, bhikkhus! Those great disciples spoke rightly when they said that I have called noise a thorn to the jhānas. There are, bhikkhus, these ten thorns. What ten? Delight in company is a thorn to one who delights in solitude. Pursuit of an attractive object is a thorn to one intent on meditation on the mark of the unattractive. An unsuitable show is a thorn to one guarding the doors of the sense faculties. Keeping company with women is a thorn to the celibate life. Noise is a thorn to the first jhāna. Thought and examination are a thorn to the second jhāna. Rapture is a thorn to the third jhāna. In-and-out breathing is a thorn to the fourth jhāna. Perception and feeling are a thorn to the attainment of the cessation of perception and feeling. Lust is a thorn, hatred is a thorn, and delusion is a thorn. Dwell thornless, bhikkhus! Dwell without thorns! The arahants are thornless. The arahants are without thorns. The arahants are thornless and without thorns.”
(Kaṇṭaka Sutta )


“Bhikkhus, in the Vinaya of the noble ones, singing is wailing, dancing is madness, and laughing excessively, displaying one’s teeth, is infantile. Therefore, bhikkhus, demolish the bridge that leads to singing, demolish the bridge that leads to dancing, and when rejoicing in the Dhamma you may simply show a smile.”
(Ruṇṇa Sutta)


“Bhikkhus, there is a country in the south named Dhovana [‘Washing’], where there is food, drink, victuals, comestibles, refreshments, tonics, dancing, singing, and music. There is this ‘Washing,’ bhikkhus; that I do not deny. Yet this ‘Washing’ is low, common, for worldlings, ignoble, unbeneficial; it does not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to nibbāna.”
(Dhovana Sutta)


Then the wanderer Sandaka saw the venerable Ānanda coming in the distance. Seeing him, he quieted his own assembly thus: “Sirs, be quiet; sirs, make no noise. Here comes the samaṇa Ānanda, a disciple of the samaṇa Gotama, one of the samaṇa Gotama’s disciples staying in Kosambī. These venerable ones like quiet; they are disciplined in quiet; they commend quiet. Perhaps if he finds our assembly a quiet one, he will think to join us.” Then the wanderers became silent.
(Sandaka Sutta)


Then one of those deities sang, one danced, and one snapped her fingers. Just as, when a musical quintet is well trained and its rhythm well coordinated, and it is composed of skilled musicians, its music is exquisite, tantalizing, lovely, captivating, and intoxicating, just so those deities’ performance was exquisite, tantalizing, lovely, captivating, and intoxicating. Thereupon the Venerable Anuruddha drew in his sense faculties. Then those deities, [thinking:] “Master Anuruddha is not enjoying [this],” disappeared right on the spot.
(Anuruddha Sutta)


“As long as they live the arahants abstain from dancing, singing, instrumental music, and unsuitable shows, and from adorning and beautifying themselves by wearing garlands and applying scents and unguents.”
(Uposatha Sutta)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 8, 2013 5:08 AM
Title: Re: Schopen: Buddha as Businessman?
Content:
“The Teacher, Bhaddāli, does not make known a training rule for disciples until certain things that are the basis for āsavas become manifest here in the saṅgha; but when certain things that are the basis for āsavas become manifest here in the saṅgha, then the Teacher makes known a training rule for disciples in order to ward off those things that are the basis for āsavas.”
(Bhaddāli Sutta)
The Vinaya parallel, addressed to Sāriputta, adds the phrase “does not appoint a Pātimokkha.”

The first phrase means that the Buddha doesn’t begin laying down any rules at all until some event necessitates it. The actual event that led to this was the monk Sudinna having sexual intercourse, leading to the laying down of the first pārājika training rule.

The second phrase means that he doesn’t establish the full code all at once.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 8, 2013 4:19 AM
Title: Re: Seek for Self?
Content:
Yes.

Ven. Thanissaro is following the commentators who take the ‘sam-’ part of words like ‘sambodha’, ‘sambodhi’, ‘sambuddha’, ‘sambujjhati’, etc. to be a shortened form of ‘sāmaṃ’ or ‘sayaṃ’, meaning ‘by oneself’.

Bhikkhu Bodhi is following modern scholars who take it to be ‘saṃ-’, a usually untranslatable intensifying prefix, here indicating completion.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 7, 2013 11:13 PM
Title: Re: New Book on Buddhaghosa
Content:
These haven't been translated into English. Ven. Thanissaro's Buddhist Monastic Code, available from ATI, will give you some idea of the vinayaic points of controversy in the mediaeval period.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 7, 2013 4:40 PM
Title: Re: New Book on Buddhaghosa
Content:
His works are the central and primary commentarial source, and especially so in the case of the Visuddhimagga. Many times in his commentaries to the Suttas Buddhaghosa will present a topic in summary form and then direct the reader to the Visuddhimagga for a more complete exposition.

As to whether Buddhaghosa’s works are considered reliable, obviously this depends on who is doing the considering. The mediaeval view within the Theravāda (so far as this can be ascertained from ṭīkās and other tertiary texts) might be summarised thus:

• The contents of his two Vinaya commentaries (Sāmantāpāsādikā and Kaṅkhāvitaraṇī) were a perennial subject of dissent and squabbling among Vinaya scholars.
• Some of the ideas in his Abhidhamma commentaries met with dissent from one quarter or another, though far less so than with the Vinaya commentaries.
• His Visuddhimagga and Nikāya commentaries appear to have been wholly uncontroversial.

As for the profusion of modern opinions on the commentaries’ value, I think there are already a number of threads where this has been discussed to death.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 7, 2013 1:27 PM
Title: Re: Schopen: Buddha as Businessman?
Content:
But not very convincingly. You cite the Mahīśāsakas’ account of the origin of the alcohol prohibition. This version agrees with the Theravādin one in that both of them depict Bhikṣu Svāgata as requesting alcohol from the grateful laity. If these versions are to be trusted then you might have a case. However, earlier in the article you’ve shot yourself in the foot by expressing a preference for the Mahāsaṅghikas’ account:
We can thus assume that the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya ... is the earlier version and likely better reflects the original narrative concerning the incident which led to the Buddha prohibiting alcohol consumption.
Yet prima facie the Mahāsaṅghika version seems to contradict your claim. It reports that Bhikṣu Svāgata drank the alcohol thinking that it was water. The clear implication here is that he would not have drunk it had he known what it really was (else why bother drawing attention to the bhikṣu’s mistake?).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 6, 2013 5:31 PM
Title: Re: prostrations in theravada
Content:
It depends on the monastery; some places are very formal, some are not. "When you enter a land of squinters, squint with them." (That's the Thai version of "when in Rome...").


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 6, 2013 4:49 PM
Title: New Book on Buddhaghosa
Content:
Looks interesting.

Maria Heim, The Forerunner of All Things: Buddhaghosa on Mind, Intention, and Agency

https://www.amazon.com/The-Forerunner-All-Things-Buddhaghosa/dp/0199331049

Publisher's blurb...
Scholars have long been intrigued by the Buddha's defining action (karma) as intention. This book explores systematically how intention and agency were interpreted in all genres of early Theravada thought. It offers a philosophical exploration of intention and motivation as they are investigated in Buddhist moral psychology. At stake is how we understand karma, the nature of moral experience, and the possibilities for freedom.

In contrast to many studies that assimilate Buddhist moral thinking to Western theories of ethics, the book attends to distinctively Buddhist ways of systematizing and theorizing their own categories. Arguing that meaning is a product of the explanatory systems used to explore it, the book pays particular attention to genre and to the 5th-century commentator Buddhaghosa's guidance on how to read Buddhist texts. The book treats all branches of the Pali canon (the Tipitaka, that is, the Suttas, the Abhidhamma, and the Vinaya), as well as narrative sources (the Dhammapada and the Jataka commentaries). In this sense it offers a comprehensive treatment of intention in the canonical Theravada sources. But the book goes further than this by focusing explicitly on the body of commentarial thought represented by Buddhaghosa. His work is at the center of the book's investigations, both insofar as he offers interpretative strategies for reading canonical texts, but also as he advances particular understandings of agency and moral psychology. The book offers the first book-length study devoted to Buddhaghosa's thought on ethics.
From the reviews...
"This book will be a major contribution to scholarship in Buddhist Studies, as well as to the discipline of moral psychology more generally. The scholarship is impeccable, the attention to canonical material and secondary literature in Buddhist Studies as well as to relevant work in Western philosophy and social theory is meticulous. The book is rich in hermeneutical and philosophical insight, carefully argued, and written with uncommon perspicuity, grace and even humor I would not be surprised if it were to be recognized as one of the most significant recent contributions to Buddhist philosophy."
— Jay L. Garfield, Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professor of Humanities, Yale-NUS College

"Throughout this original, humane, and often beautiful exploration of Buddhist moral thinking, Maria Heim allows herself to be taught and guided by the great Buddhist thinker Buddhaghosa about how to read Buddhist texts well and how to think reflectively about the nature of a moral person. The result is that we are introduced to a Buddhaghosa that we have not met before: an astute humanist always alert to the complexities of the moral life, and a contemporary with us, as it were, offering us fresh resources for our own efforts to make sense of ourselves as moral persons."
— Charles Hallisey, Harvard Divinity School


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 6, 2013 10:05 AM
Title: Re: Schopen: Buddha as Businessman?
Content:
I clicked on the link...
W. Pachow, A Comparative Study of the Prātimokṣa: On the Basis of Its Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Pāli Versions
And then I scrolled down a little...
Related Books

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
William Shakespeare, As You Like It


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 6, 2013 12:48 AM
Title: Re: After Warder
Content:
It's a fine translation and would be worth using for the stated purpose. However, if one wanted to begin with some commentary to suttas in the first four Nikāyas, those of Bhikkhu Bodhi to the Brahmajāla, Mahānidāna, Sāmaññaphala and Mūlapariyāya Suttas are available at a fraction of the price.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 5, 2013 1:27 PM
Title: Re: After Warder
Content:
Commentarial. The passages for translation in Buddhadatta's works are drawn primarily (though not exclusively) from the Jātaka Atthakathā. Duroiselle's work is likewise based on the Sanskrit-influenced grammar of the commentaries. Having said that, even those not interested in the commentaries would do well to at least read chapter xiv, which is by far the best overview of Pali syntax in English.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 5, 2013 11:11 AM
Title: Re: World Chess Championship 2013
Content:
http://cs.boisestate.edu/~amit/teaching/430/articles/deepblue296.html//

"Getting a chess machine to learn from its own mistakes is an appealing idea. It has been tried in the past, but with limited success. "The problem," Campbell explains, "is that when you lose a game, the machine doesn't know what move was the wrong one. It could have been the fourth move or the next-to-last, so it doesn't know what move it has to correct, and determining the reason for the loss and generalizing it to other positions is even more difficult."

In contrast, Deep Blue has no learning ability once its values are chosen by its programmers; it carries out exactly the evaluations hardwired into it. So, in any dictionary definition, as well as in the eyes of its creators, Deep Blue has no intelligence at all."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 5, 2013 10:41 AM
Title: Re: The only farang (mae chi) in the temple
Content:
They are common in Thailand, but not mainstream. It's chiefly among the urban Chinese commercial class that one meets with the belief that an adulterer or adultress will be reborn a fixed number of times in hell, then so many times as a ‘ladyboy’, then so many times as a woman, etc. A popular form of merit-making among these people is to publish free-distribution cartoon books illustrating this rather naïve conception of kammavipāka and appealing to readers who’ve acted immorally to repent, pray to Kuan Yin and perform deeds of merit (such as sponsoring more copies of the book!). Among elderly Thai ladies of little education these books seem to be roughly the equivalent of Mills &amp; Boon and other chicklit romance stories in their popularity and addictiveness.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 5, 2013 10:38 AM
Title: Re: The only farang (mae chi) in the temple
Content:
Words aimed at hurting another's feelings would be harsh speech (pharusā vācā), while those aimed at provoking disaffection in one person or group towards another person or group would be divisive speech (pisuṇā vācā). Both of these would be wrong speech. My own words, however, were intended as a diagnosis, and were not communicated with the aim of hurting anyone or provoking disaffection in anyone.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 5, 2013 9:39 AM
Title: Re: The only farang (mae chi) in the temple
Content:
I meant ‘mentally subnormal’ in the strictly clinical sense. In my opinion it’s not possible for a woman raised in the west to adopt a set of beliefs like Margo Somboon’s unless her critical faculty has atrophied to the point where she has no more capacity for evaluating truth-claims than a wide-eyed six-year-old child.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 5, 2013 9:37 AM
Title: Re: The only farang (mae chi) in the temple
Content:
It sometimes happens that no action is taken, but I don’t know if this is common or not.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 5, 2013 7:19 AM
Title: Re: Schopen: Buddha as Businessman?
Content:
Presumably you are referring here to the corpus of Vinaya texts as a whole (canon, commentary, subcommentary) and not to the Vinaya Piṭaka. In the latter the Ceylonese input (as far as we know) is confined to sixteen verses in the Parivāra (the last book of the Piṭaka to be closed) listing prominent figures in the ordination paramparā from the Buddha’s disciple Upāli to the Ceylonese Vinaya master Siva Thera. The Vinaya Piṭaka's rules don't show any sign of 'massaging' at such a late period.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 4, 2013 5:39 PM
Title: Re: After Warder
Content:
I would suggest you start by studying Charles Duroiselle’s http://www.pratyeka.org/duroiselle/// and (if you can get hold of them) the second and third parts of A.P. Buddhadatta’s Pali Course. If you want to read Jātakas or the Dhammapada Atthakathā, then besides Tilt’s recommendation you should also download De Silva’s textbook from the same website as Duroiselle’s — it’s a good aid to building the vocabulary that you’ll need for these works.

Then read well-translated texts alongside the original Pali. Minor Readings and Illustrator —Ñāṇamoli’s translation of the Khuddakapāṭha and its commentary— is a great one to start with. Another good one is Dispeller of Delusion, Ñāṇamoli’s translation of the Sammohavinodanī (Vibhaṅga Atthakathā). And when you can’t figure out what’s going on and how on earth the translator renders some passage the way he does, post your queries here or go pay a visit to the monks at your nearest Sri Lankan or Burmese vihāra.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 4, 2013 4:54 PM
Title: Re: Schopen: Buddha as Businessman?
Content:
And do your Chinese sources (whether Vinaya or the DA version of the Parinibbāna Sutta) say “may rescind the lesser and minor rules” or “should rescind...”?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 4, 2013 4:22 AM
Title: Re: The only farang (mae chi) in the temple
Content:
What a depressing article. The toe-rag of a journalist should be reprimanded for taking unfair advantage of the mentally subnormal.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 4, 2013 4:06 AM
Title: Re: Schopen: Buddha as Businessman?
Content:
In the Vinaya Piṭaka the better sort bhikkhus are consistently presented as treating them as sacrosanct. For example, when a situation arises where the original formulation of a training rule proves unwieldy in some way and brings about some inconvenience or discomfort, the monks who possess a sense of shame will continue to observe the rule in its original form, enduring the resulting inconveniences, until the Buddha issues an amendment. We don’t find them indulging in any presumptious second-guessing of the Buddha’s wishes.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 3, 2013 12:40 PM
Title: Re: Schopen: Buddha as Businessman?
Content:
Where is it stated that this can be done? Are you referring to some deviant folk practice or to something authorised in the Pali Vinaya texts?

The only thing remotely like this that I've come across is not related to accepting money, but to the procedure for getting rid of money that a bhikkhu has accepted and then forfeited.
If [the trustworthy layman] does not get rid of it, they are to choose one of the bhikkhus present as the "money-disposer," by means of the transaction statement — one motion and one announcement (ñatti-dutiya-kamma) — given in Appendix VI. The money-disposer must be free of the four forms of bias — based on desire, aversion, delusion, or fear — and must know when money is properly disposed of and when it is not. His duty is to throw the money away without taking note of where it falls. If he does take note, he incurs a dukkaṭa. The Commentary recommends that, "Closing his eyes, he should throw it into a river, over a cliff, or into a jungle thicket without paying attention to where it falls, disinterested as if it were a bodily secretion (gūthaka)."
Ven. Thanissaro, Buddhist Monastic Code ch. 7.2


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 3, 2013 5:03 AM
Title: Re: Ajaan Fuang's date of ordination? + other teachers' date
Content:
Ajahns Lee and Sujāto need re-checking. The former died rather young, some time in the 50's or 60's. I don't know exactly when Sujāto was born but it can't have been 1964 as he's several years younger than me.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 2, 2013 1:34 PM
Title: Re: We need new rules
Content:
There’s no universal standard regarding homosexual monks; it’s up to each monastery to set its own policy. In Thailand most at present don’t have any particular policy at all. Of those that do, the policies are rather varied. Some wats, for example, will simply refuse residence to homosexual monks (e.g. Wat Suan Mokkh and other Buddhadāsa-influenced wats). Some wats will place homosexual monks in different sections of the wat to segregate them from each other and prevent the formation of a gay clique and a http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/207326/one-and-many/john-derbyshire// kind of scenario, wherein the clique effectively hijacks the monastery. In recent years such segregation has become a common practice in some of the larger Bangkok monasteries. Some wats will limit the number of homosexuals of the very flamboyant type; the presence of one or two such monks in a wat is no problem, but when you get a whole bunch of ‘screaming queens’ it becomes disruptive as they’re always competing with each other to be the centre of attention.

But as for the 7th pācittiya rule, I’ve never heard of it being applied in the manner you describe. The closest I’ve come across was a Bangkok wat where homosexual monks were instructed not to enter the rooms of temple boys or teenage sāmaṇeras or be seen fraternising with them.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 2, 2013 7:53 AM
Title: Re: We need new rules
Content:
It's a false problem you're raising. In practice if a woman goes to coenobitical monastery to be taught, there'll always be other monks or novices who can sit with the monk who is teaching her. If she goes to an eremitical residence or to a thudong monk camping in the forest, then she will make a point of taking a chaperone with her. If she neglects to do so, or if no suitable chaperone is available, she may still be taught, albeit in brief.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 1, 2013 9:36 PM
Title: Re: We need new rules
Content:
In a sense this is already permitted and practised.

In the injunction against creating new ordinances or abolishing existing ones, the term (paññatti) indicates that the disapproved conduct is that of attempting to add to or substract from the canonical Vinaya corpus binding upon the whole of the monastic sangha. It does not, however, preclude the establishment of in-house rules binding only upon the monks residing in the monastery that establishes them. These are called 'decisions' (katikā) and the sangha has been making them from very early days. We know this because one of the rules about appropriate conduct for a visiting monk is that when he first arrives in a monastery he should enquire of the resident monks concerning the katikā that are in force in that community.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 1, 2013 5:18 PM
Title: Re: We need new rules
Content:
“Your [Jacobin] literary men, and your politicians ... essentially differ in these points. They have no respect for the wisdom of others; but they pay it off by a very full measure of confidence in their own. With them it is a sufficient motive to destroy an old scheme of things, because it is an old one. As to the new, they are in no sort of fear with regard to the duration of a building run up in haste; because duration is no object to those who think little or nothing has been done before their time, and who place all their hopes in discovery. They conceive, very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are mischievous, and therefore they are at inexpiable war with all establishments.”
— Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
Non-Decline

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was dwelling at Rājagaha on Mount Vulture Peak. There the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus:

“Bhikkhus, I will teach you seven principles of non-decline. Listen and attend closely. I will speak.”

“Yes, Bhante,” those bhikkhus replied. The Blessed One said this:

“And what, bhikkhus, are the seven principles of non-decline?

(1) “As long as the bhikkhus assemble often and hold frequent assemblies, only growth is to be expected for them, not decline.

(2) “As long as the bhikkhus assemble in harmony, adjourn in harmony, and conduct the affairs of the Saṅgha in harmony, only growth is to be expected for them, not decline.

(3) “As long as the bhikkhus do not decree anything that has not been decreed or abolish anything that has already been decreed, but undertake and follow the training rules as they have been decreed, only growth is to be expected for them, not decline.

(4) “As long as the bhikkhus honor, respect, esteem, and venerate those bhikkhus who are elders, of long standing, long gone forth, fathers and guides of the Saṅgha, and think they should be heeded, only growth is to be expected for them, not decline.

(5) “As long as the bhikkhus do not come under the control of arisen craving that leads to renewed existence, only growth is to be expected for them, not decline.

(6) “As long as the bhikkhus are intent on forest lodgings, only growth is to be expected for them, not decline.

(7) “As long as the bhikkhus each individually establish mindfulness [with the intention]: ‘How can well-behaved fellow monks who have not yet come here come, and how can well-behaved fellow monks who are already here dwell at ease?’ only growth is to be expected for them, not decline.

“Bhikkhus, as long as these seven principles of non-decline continue among the bhikkhus, and the bhikkhus are seen [established] in them, only growth is to be expected for them, not decline.”

(A. iv. 21-2, Bhikkhu Bodhi tr.)
In point #3 “what has been decreed” (paññattaṃ) refers to Vinaya ordinances of every sort, whether prohibitions, allowances or procedural regulations.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 1, 2013 7:59 AM
Title: Re: Thai words in Thanissaro dhamma talk
Content:
rajabatsat - ราชบัณฑิตยสถาน - Ratchabanditayasathaan, the Royal Academy [Dictionary of Thai].

ju / jum- จำ - jam

gunho - กำหนด - kamnod


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 31, 2013 7:28 PM
Title: Re: We need new rules
Content:
I think that to prove your point you will need to show evidence that Tantrists have either attachment to, or misapprehension of, sīla and/or vata. I don't know whether they do or not, but the mere fact that they perform rituals won't suffice to show that they do.

The meal-time anumodanā of Theravādin monks, for example, is a ritual, yet the Buddha himself is reported to have performed it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 31, 2013 6:51 PM
Title: Re: We need new rules
Content:
It can be declared, but hardly "without fear of contradiction". It's been contradicted, for example, by Alexis Sanderson, Britain's foremost academic authority on Buddhist and Shaivite tantric systems.

http://www.alexissanderson.com

And what does Rudy Harderwijk think he's doing when he cites Benoytosh Bhattacharyya as an authority? I'd never even heard of the man until now. It turns out all his work is pre-WW II.

The Indian Buddhist Ikonography. Oxford 1924
Sadhanamala. Band 1 Barode 1925, Band 2 Baroda 1928
Two Vajrayana Works. Baroda 1929
Guhyasamaja Tantra. Baroda 1928
An Introduction to Buddhist Esoterism. Baroda 1931

There's scarcely any buddhological scholarship from this period that can be wholly trusted.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 31, 2013 2:08 PM
Title: Re: Wat Dhammakaya
Content:
When there's a gathering of saṅgha bigwigs, he can sit on the poshest seat in the house, while making use of all the following paraphernalia of office (เครื่องยศประกอบพระอิสริยยศ):

• พัดยศสมเด็จพระสังฆราช
• พระแท่นภายใต้เศวตฉัตร 3 ชั้น
• บาตร พร้อมฝาบาตร เชิงบาตรรมปัด
• พานพระศรี ถมปัด
• ขันน้ำและพานรอง ถมปัด
• คณโฑ ถมปัด
• พระสุพรรณศรี ถมปัด
• พระสุพรรณราช ถมปัด
• หีบตราพระจักรี ถมปัด
• ปิ่นทรงกลม 4 ชั้น ถมปัด
• กาทรงกระบอก ถมปัด
• หม้อลักจั่น ถมปัด
• กระโถน ถมปัด

I don't know what most of these items would be called in English, but you can look them up in Google images if you want to see what they are.

But as for the man's actual power, like most substantive power in Thailand it lies principally in access, rather than in the official documents listing what his office entitles him to do. As Patriarch he has a hotline to royalty, politicians, senior civil servants, police chiefs, and numerous other influential figures in Thai society. When he contacts these people asking for favours, he can be fairly confident that they’re not going to turn him down unless they’re subject to some more pressing imperative (e.g. when the late Sangharaja ordered the abbot of Wat Dhammakaya to disrobe, nothing came of it because the latter had more powerful politicians etc. in his pocket than the Sangharaja did. But it's unlikely any other monk in Thailand would have been able to ignore such a directive from the Sangharaja).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 30, 2013 3:23 PM
Title: Re: Eradicating sex drive
Content:
No. The texts state that it isn't a Vinaya offence when a bhikkhu has a nocturnal emission, but whether or not an arahant can have one was a disputed point in early Buddhism. The Theravadins sided with the anti-snoregasm camp.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:19 PM
Title: Re: His Holiness the Supreme Patriarch dies
Content:
The Thai Saṅgharāja's official title is six lines long, but nothing in it would literally translate as 'Supreme Patriarch' or 'His Holiness'.



somdet.jpg (69.72 KiB) Viewed 2036 times


“Somdet Phra Ñāṇasaṃvara Paramanariśradharmanītibhipāla Ariyavaṃśāgatañāṇavimala Sakalamahāsaṅghapariṇāyaka Tripiṭakapariyattidhātā Visuddhacariyādhisampati Suvaḍḍhanabhidhānasaṅghavisuta Pāvacanuttambisāra Sukhumadharmavidhāna Damrong Vajirañāṇvaṃśavivaḍha Buddhapariṣadagāravasathāna Vicitrapaṭibhāṇavaḍḍhanaguṇa Vipulasilācāravatrasundara Pavaradharmapavitra Sarvagaṇiśramahāpadhānādhipatī Gāmvāsī Araṇyavāsī Somdet Phra Saṅgharāja.”


'Supreme Patriarch' is just a very free translation of 'Phra Saṅgharāja'. As for 'His Holiness', I once learned from an unreliable source that it was first coined by the United Nations, who applied it to the Pope. Later it was extended to the Dalai Lama, and later still to clerical bigwigs of all sorts.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 29, 2013 9:59 AM
Title: Re: Activism, violence and inner peace...
Content:
From within Buddhism, this:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.057.than.html

(especially the reflection on ownership of kamma).


And from without, this:
http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html

(especially the first four paragraphs).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 29, 2013 3:47 AM
Title: Re: Are there any suttas dealing with death of loved one?
Content:
As far as I know, Ajahn Brahmavamso didn't spend much time as a layman in Thailand, and as a forest monk it's unlikely he would have had much intimate acquaintance with the domestic lives of Thai laity. But even so, I find his radical "othering" of Thai people thoroughly bizarre.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 29, 2013 3:27 AM
Title: Re: Are there any suttas dealing with death of loved one?
Content:
What a lot of twaddle. Thai peasants grieve just like anyone else. They just do their weeping in private and keep a stiff upper lip at the funeral or when monks are visiting their home.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 28, 2013 5:51 PM
Title: Re: Access to Insight going static in January
Content:
No, I don't think I'm the man for the job, Chownah. My memory's been deteriorating in recent years, and in any case, only a rather small proportion of the translations there are agreeable to me.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 28, 2013 3:10 PM
Title: Re: Access to Insight going static in January
Content:
Already claimed by a company in Chicago, along with the com and the net.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 28, 2013 2:55 PM
Title: Re: Vietnamese Language
Content:
Một số bài tiểu luận Thích Minh Châu.

https://www.facebook.com/thichminhchau

1. Giới thiệu Kinh Tập - Sutta Nipata
https://tinyurl.com/l4e3dqj

2. Vai trò của người có trí tuệ trong đạo Phật
https://tinyurl.com/k4josen

3. Lần đầu tiên tôi gặp một nhà sư - Tỳ-kheo Bodhi
https://tinyurl.com/objyyft

4. Đức Phật của chúng ta
https://tinyurl.com/pnh8e67

5. Một bức thư của Thầy Thích Minh Châu
https://tinyurl.com/p99or24


Five articles by Thích Minh Châu.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 28, 2013 12:56 PM
Title: Re: Access to Insight going static in January
Content:
John Bullitt:
"You can always download the entire website for use on your own personal computer or to repost elsewhere on the web."


Presumably this would permit any interested party to start a new website containing all of ATI's material, but which would still be open to new content.

http://www.resuscitated-accesstoinsight.org or whatever.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 28, 2013 12:14 PM
Title: Re: Pali chants to show respect to teachers
Content:
Teachers

Rendering the words in line with the Thai translation, which is expansive rather than literal...

pācerācariyā – primary and secondary school teachers, trainers of apprentices, and college professors
honti – are
guṇuttarānusāsakā – instructors in secular disciplines who are of superior virtue
paññāvuḍḍhikareti – causing growth in understanding
ete – these
dinnovāde – who have given advice
namāmi – pay homage to / prostrate to
ahaṃ – I

“Teachers are the exalted transmitters of worldly knowledge and skills.
I pay homage to these advisors who cause understanding to flourish.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 28, 2013 10:11 AM
Title: Re: Pali chants to show respect to teachers
Content:
Mother and father

Anantaguṇasampannā, janetti-janakā ubho,
Mayhaṃ mātāpitūnaṃ va, pāde vandāmi sādaraṃ.

anantaguṇasampannā – possessed of virtue(s) without limit
janetti-janakā – fathers and mothers (lit. "generators and genetrices")
ubho – both
mayhaṃ – my
mātāpitūnaṃ – mother and father
va – indeclinable particle; no need to translate here
pāde – feet
vandāmi – I salute
sādaraṃ – reverentially

"Both fathers and mothers are possessed of virtues without limit;
I reverentially salute the feet of my mother and father."

I'll do the other one later, if someone else doesn't do it first.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 27, 2013 8:53 PM
Title: Re: Pali chants to show respect to teachers
Content:
These are the gāthās in popular use in Thailand:

Mother and father

Anantaguṇasampannā, janetti-janakā ubho,
Mayhaṃ mātāpitūnaṃ va, pāde vandāmi sādaraṃ.

http://www.learningthai.com/sound/chanting_04.mp3

Teachers

Pācerācariyā honti, guṇuttarānusāsakā.
Paññāvuḍḍhikaretete, dinnovāde namāmihaṃ.

http://www.learningthai.com/sound/chanting_05.mp3

On the audio files the Pali is followed by a chant in Thai.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 27, 2013 12:27 AM
Title: Re: Timezones and the Vinaya
Content:
If the monk understands calculus then he can figure it out from the data on websites like this one:

http://www.howmanyhours.com/flight_time/keflav%C3%ADk/bangkok.php

If he doesn't then he's in shtook. He'll just have to fast.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 26, 2013 7:41 PM
Title: Re: Buddha statues are not idols?..
Content:
Nothing comes to mind. Though that's not really saying much, since I'm rather indifferent to Buddha statues, so if I ever did come across anything about them I'd probably forget it pretty quickly.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 26, 2013 6:50 PM
Title: Re: What exactly was the Buddha's teaching on suffering?
Content:
The absence of the lower realms and the human realm would impose a rather drastic limit on how much dukkha-dukkhatā could be experienced, though vipariṇāma-dukkhatā and saṅkhāra-dukkhatā would remain wholly intact. In such a universe I believe the Buddha would still teach, that is, he would still declare the preferability of bhavanirodha over bhava. On the other hand, I suspect the paucity of dukkha-dukkhatā would mean his following being a great deal smaller than it is in our own universe.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 26, 2013 6:31 PM
Title: Re: Buddha statues are not idols?..
Content:
I don’t think it’s terribly weighty. It seems there’s a rule against making images of the Buddha in one of the non-Theravādin recensions of the Vinaya (I forget which one). But since it’s not found in any other recension it’s doubtful whether it was present in the ur-Vinaya.

Then there’s the fact that the earliest artistic depictions of the Buddha’s life didn’t represent the man himself. But this can be (and has been) plausibly accounted for in a number of different theories, of which iconophobic interdiction is only one.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 26, 2013 6:13 PM
Title: Re: Are Theravadins Simpler ?
Content:
Puggalika-dāna or saṅgha-dāna? If it were the former —an offering that you intended for my personal use— then I would decline it because I don’t use suitcases and there’s no other monk to whom I could easily give it away. If it were the latter, then I would accept it and hand it over to my monastery’s lay stewards. It would then be their responsibility to either barter it for whatever the monastery needs or auction it to pay the bills. Refusing a saṅgha-dāna would be out of the question, unless the gift were something unallowable or the lay donor were under the saṅgha’s interdiction. Luxury French suitcases are not unallowable, however much one might wish them to be. (Although in the case of a Louis Vuitton you’d first need to remove the suitcase’s pretentious monogram, since it’s made out of gold).

Now to continue in this hypothetical vein, suppose I did happen to be a suitcase-using bhikkhu who lacked a suitcase? If you came to me and offered to get me one, and invited me to express some preference, then I would certainly go for something inexpensive. Perhaps a nice sensible product like the Trunki Gruffalo. It’s only £39.99 and no reasonable person could deny that it makes a decorous, yet suitably understated, accoutrement for a bhikkhu.

.



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.

But if you made no such invitation and simply brought me a suitcase that you’d selected yourself, I would accept it no matter what sort it was. Whether it was a poncey over-priced doodah from Paris or a battered old relic that you’d picked up at a jumble sale, or (heaven grant us!) a Trunki Gruffalo, I should accept it with gratitude.

Note that in both of these scenarios my aim would be that of being an easy burden to my lay supporters (subharo) and of light livelihood (sallahukavutti). These are two of the sixteen qualities mentioned by the Buddha in the opening of the Karaṇīyamettā Sutta, upon which the successful practice of mettabhāvanā (and no doubt of bhāvanā in general) depends. In the first scenario I select something cheap so that I don’t burden your bank account. In the second I take what you’ve selected for me so that I don’t waste your time (i.e. by requesting you to go back and change the Louis Vuitton for a Gruffalo or whatever).

As for your other hypothetical scenarios, you can just apply the following rubric:

1. Puggalika-dāna and I need it; I accept it.
1.1. If invited I go for inexpensive.
1.2. If not invited I accept what’s offered.

2. Puggalika-dāna and I don’t need it – I decline it.

3. Saṅgha-dāna – I accept it whether or not I have any personal use for it.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Oct 26, 2013 12:14 PM
Title: Re: Are Theravadins Simpler ?
Content:
You don’t seem to understand how things work out here. Let me explain...

1. If you buy a plane ticket for a Buddhist monk from an official Thai International Airways broker, you will be given a 40% discount, but the ticket has to be for business class. If the TIA sales-staff know the ticket is for a monk they won’t sell you anything else.

2. If you buy the same from a bucket shop or some other unofficial broker, you’ll get no discount but you can have any kind of ticket you want.

3. Thai laypeople buying tickets for monks will commonly calculate whether it’s cheaper for them to buy a discounted ticket in business class or an undiscounted one in economy class. But which of the two they end up buying makes no difference to the monk because...

4. When a monk enters the plane, even if he has an economy-class ticket the TIA cabin crew will still direct him to a seat in the business class. Whenever this has happened to me I didn’t get the impression I was being given any choice. I mean they never asked me if I actually wanted to be upgraded; I just found myself upgraded willy-nilly.

5. In recent years some of the airlines from non-Buddhist countries that fly to Thailand have begun to emulate TIA’s practice of upgrading monks with economy-class tickets to business class (presumably to boost their image with Thai Buddhist passengers).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 24, 2013 11:19 PM
Title: Re: Do people who get murdered deserve it?
Content:
Thank you for clarifying your position. I suspected that this was what you meant, but wanted to know for sure before replying. I'm busy right now, but will post later on why I think this use of 'deserve' is out of place ('undeserved', if you will) in this connection.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 24, 2013 9:19 PM
Title: Re: Do people who get murdered deserve it?
Content:
Now at that time a certain monk was a ruminator; he ate ruminating continually. Monks . . . spread it about, saying: “This monk is partaking of a meal at the wrong time.”

Then these monks told this matter to the Lord. He said: “Monks, this monk has recently passed on from the womb of a cow. I allow, monks, rumination for a ruminator. But, monks, one should not eat (anything), having brought it back from the mouth to outside of it. Whoever should (so) eat should be dealt with according to the rule. (Vinaya, Cūḷavagga. I.B. Horner trans.)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 24, 2013 7:27 PM
Title: Re: Do people who get murdered deserve it?
Content:
How remarkable. Why do suppose it is that you can't help thinking about what is said in connection with kamma in sutta AN 4.77?

This thread, after all, is not concerned with conjecturing about the detailed working out of kamma-vipāka. It deals with altogether different questions: is it proper that what is called 'vipāka' should be equated with what are called 'just deserts', and if not, why not? Now why would discussion of this lead you to think of the Acinteyya Sutta? Have you perhaps detected some sign of the thread's contributors being led into vexation and madness?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 24, 2013 6:40 PM
Title: Re: Do people who get murdered deserve it?
Content:
For those who insist that “Jones' past kamma generated its vipāka” can be equated with “Jones got what she deserved” (a view that's ubiquitous among theosophically-influenced Buddhists and not uncommon among Vajrayanists), the consideration you bring up would no doubt result in a bit of a quandary. They might find themselves at a loss as to whether they should praise the muggers for giving Jones what she deserves or condemn them for breaking the first precept. But though this makes the equating of the two statements problematic, I don’t think that in itself it will suffice to show the equation to be just plain wrong.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 24, 2013 4:16 PM
Title: Re: Do people who get murdered deserve it?
Content:
Oh? Do you mean that the statements “Jones’ death by murder was the ripening of a past unwholesome kamma” and “Jones deserved to be murdered” would differ only in their wording, not in their meaning?

Editorial addition:

Consider the following statements, spoken in the aftermath of Mrs. Jones, an old lady, getting beaten to death by muggers:

1. Mrs. Jones’ death by murder was the vipāka of a weighty unwholesome kamma performed in a former life.

2. Were it not for that past unwholesome kamma her murder would not have happened, therefore Mrs. Jones only got what she deserved. Her fate was well-merited. She got a taste of her own medicine. It serves the old woman right.

3. Since Mrs. Jones deserved her fate, her muggers were only doing what was right and just and should be commended for it.

If we grant that #1 is true (which we ought), then it seems to me that the only way to avoid the reductio ad absurdum that culminates in #3 is by rejecting #2.

How then do we go about rejecting #2?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:36 AM
Title: Re: Can you identify this person on amulet?
Content:
On the left the monk’s name is “Phra Khru Obhāsa- - -ānukicca”. The hyphens are the letters that aren’t clear to me. On the right it says that the amulet was made for his 50th birthday.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 23, 2013 4:13 AM
Title: Re: How Is Good Kamma Related To Nibbana
Content:
Not according to any of the suttas dealing with the cessation of kamma. The Kammanidāna Sutta, for example:

“Thus, bhikkhus, greed is a source and origin of kamma; hatred is a source and origin of kamma; delusion is a source and origin of kamma. With the destruction of greed, a source of kamma is extinguished. With the destruction of hatred, a source of kamma is extinguished. With the destruction of delusion, a source of kamma is extinguished.” (AN.v.262, Bh. Bodhi tr.)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 22, 2013 7:50 AM
Title: Re: Is being a cook wrong livelihood?
Content:
The term ‘maṃsavaṇijjā’ means ‘butchery’, but in the traditional sense, not the modern one. Traditionally a butcher’s trade consisted in killing animals and then selling their meat; it is this that is wrong livelihood. Its modern equivalent would be the abattoir business. What we nowadays called a ‘butcher’ is usually just a meat-seller, not an animal-killer. This is not included in wrong livelihood. The same consideration applies to other occupations involved with the subsequent processing of the meat, including your own.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Oct 20, 2013 4:11 AM
Title: Re: Daw San Yee (Mrs Saw) Passed Away on Tuesday
Content:
Thanks for this notification, bhante. The centre at Oakenholt was slightly before my time, but I recall meeting Mrs. Saw many times at Dr. Rewata's vihara in Edgbaston and then later when I was an anagarika at Ajahn Khemadhammo's monastery on the Isle of Wight.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 2, 2013 6:03 PM
Title: Re: Kamma is anatta?
Content:
Cetanā’haṃ, bhikkhave, kammaṃ vadāmi. Cetayitvā kammaṃ karoti: kāyena vācāya manasā.
(Nibbedhika Sutta, AN.iii.415)
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an06/an06.063.than.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 2, 2013 5:10 PM
Title: Re: the best yardstick of our development
Content:
The king's advice is given in the Kosambiya Jātaka (#428) and carried out by the son in the Dīghītikosala Jātaka (# 371).



Whoops, I didn't see that Ven. Pesala had already replied.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 2, 2013 6:43 AM
Title: Re: Ordination in Thailand
Content:
Bhante, are you sure your info is up to date? Though I've no idea what the current regulations are, I recall that whereas a non-immigrant visa sufficed when I came out to ordain in 1985, when I came back to re-ordain in 2003 I did have to apply for a special 'monk-to-be' visa and wouldn't have been permitted to ordain without one.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Oct 2, 2013 6:37 AM
Title: Re: Kamma is anatta?
Content:
I don't think this phrase ever occurs in the Suttas, but it may be inferred that kamma is anattā from the fact that:

• The saṅkhāras of saṅkhārakkhandha are defined in the Suttas as the six bodies of cetanā.
• Saṅkhārakkhandha is anattā.
• Kamma is cetanā.

I have to go out now, but I'll try to post the relevant citations later, if someone else doesn't do so in the meantime.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 1, 2013 10:03 PM
Title: Re: The experience of celibacy for 12 years
Content:
Yes, in particular for the second attha.

Note that the words in the Saṃyoga Sutta: “By this rule or vow or austerity or holy life, I shall become a deva...” are the stock phrase used in the Suttas for expressing the fetter of adhesion to habitual and vowed observances (sīlabbataparāmāsa). So, in effect the passage is describing something to be expected among brahmacarī outsiders who practise celibacy while lacking the Buddha’s right view guidance. Such persons' enfetteredness by sīlabbataparāmāsa and lack of right view will be obstructive to their attainment of the third attha, but may still yield the second, in the form of rebirth as a deva.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 1, 2013 12:43 PM
Title: Re: The experience of celibacy for 12 years
Content:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.3.02.irel.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 1, 2013 12:42 PM
Title: Re: The experience of celibacy for 12 years
Content:
Saṃyoga Sutta

Sexual Intercourse

Then the brahmin Jāṇussoṇī approached the Blessed One and exchanged greetings with him … and said to him:

“Does Master Gotama also claim to be one who lives the celibate life?”

“If, brahmin, one could rightly say of anyone: ‘He lives the complete and pure celibate life—unbroken, flawless, unblemished, unblotched,’ it is precisely of me that one might say this. For I live the complete and pure celibate life—unbroken, flawless, unblemished, unblotched.”

“But what, Master Gotama, is a breach, flaw, blemish, and blotch of the celibate life?”

(1) “Here, brahmin, some ascetic or brahmin, claiming to be perfectly celibate, does not actually engage in intercourse with women. But he consents to being rubbed, massaged, bathed, and kneaded by them. He relishes this, desires it, and finds satisfaction in it. This is a breach, flaw, blemish, and blotch of the celibate life. He is called one who lives an impure celibate life, one who is fettered by the bond of sexuality. He is not freed from birth, from old age and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and anguish; he is not freed from suffering, I say.

(2) “Again, some ascetic or brahmin, claiming to be perfectly celibate, does not actually engage in intercourse with women; nor does he consent to being rubbed, massaged, bathed, and kneaded by them. But he jokes with women, plays with them, and amuses himself with them….

(3) “… he does not joke with women, play with them, and amuse himself with them … but he gazes and stares straight into their eyes….

(4) “… he does not gaze and stare straight into women’s eyes … but he listens to their voices behind a wall or through a rampart as they laugh, talk, sing, or weep….

(5) “… he does not listen to the voices of women behind a wall or through a rampart as they laugh, talk, sing, or weep … but he recollects laughing, talking, and playing with them in the past….

(6) “… he does not recollect laughing, talking, and playing with women in the past … but he looks at a householder or a householder’s son enjoying himself furnished and endowed with the five objects of sensual pleasure….

(7) “… he does not look at a householder or a householder’s son enjoying himself furnished and endowed with the five objects of sensual pleasure, but he lives the spiritual life aspiring for [rebirth in] a certain order of devas, [thinking]: ‘By this virtuous behavior, observance, austerity, or spiritual life I will be a deva or one [in the retinue] of the devas.’ He relishes this, desires it, and finds satisfaction in it. This, too, is a breach, flaw, blemish, and blotch of the celibate life. He is called one who lives an impure celibate life, one who is fettered by the bond of sexuality. He is not freed from birth, from old age and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and anguish; he is not freed from suffering, I say.

“So long, brahmin, as I saw that I had not abandoned one or another of these seven bonds of sexuality, I did not claim to have awakened to the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment in the world with its devas, Māra, and Brahmā, in this population with its ascetics and brahmins, its devas and humans. But when I did not see even one of these seven bonds of sexuality that I had not abandoned, then I claimed to have awakened to the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment in this world with … its devas and humans.

“The knowledge and vision arose in me: ‘Unshakable is my liberation of mind; this is my last birth; now there is no more renewed existence.’”

When this was said, the brahmin Jāṇussoṇī said to the Blessed One: “Excellent, Master Gotama! … Let Master Gotama consider me a lay follower who from today has gone for refuge for life.”

(A.iv.54-7 Bhikkhu Bodhi trans.)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 1, 2013 10:24 AM
Title: Re: The experience of celibacy for 12 years
Content:
But I have already done so. In the Cūḷadhammasamādāna Sutta the manner of practice is explicitly stated to involve dukkha in the present, but with sukha as its vipāka. The detailed account then describes a man practising the brahmacariyā miserably (= dukkha in the present) but arriving at heavenly rebirth (= sukha vipāka).

Then there is also the Nanda Sutta in the Udāna, where the venerable Nanda is persuaded by the Buddha to continue with the brahmacariyā in the present life (despite his wish to disrobe and take up with his former fiancée), for by doing so he will gain heavenly rebirth and five hundred pink-footed apsaras.

Then there is a sutta in the Aṅguttara Nikāya that describes various secondary defects of the brahmacariyā. One of these consists in living a celibate life motivated only by the desire for heavenly rebirth to which such a life conduces.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 1, 2013 6:36 AM
Title: Re: The experience of celibacy for 12 years
Content:
Sexual coupling is an act inseparable from defilement; that’s why it’s an impossible act for an arahant. If one is a non-brahmacarī householder but whose sex life is kept within the parameters of the third precept, then one may avoid kilesa at the morally transgressive level; nonetheless one’s couplings will unavoidably supply fuel to the anusaya kilesa of lust.

Having said that, the statement “Sex is intrinsically evil” is perhaps best avoided. Not because it’s actually wrong, but because ‘evil’ in everyday English usage is a rather strong word, making the statement a less than felicitous way of phrasing the position — one that may lead newcomers to mistake the Buddhist view of sex for that of the Manichaeans, Priscillianists, and suchlike.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 30, 2013 6:18 PM
Title: Re: The experience of celibacy for 12 years
Content:
I'm not sure what you mean by simple observance of celibacy. In the suttas it's stated that practising the brahmacariyā is a condition for rebirth in the sensual heavens, even where the person who practises it does so very miserably. This seems to imply that there is something intrinsically good in deliberately undertaken abstention from sex. 

Presumably the principle would not apply to someone who abstained solely out of physical incapacity (which would be the proper analogy for your blind man).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 27, 2013 10:51 AM
Title: Re: Suicide and Rebirth
Content:
In Buddhism karma and rebirth are treated as sheer brute facts and nothing more. As such, the Buddhist conception of karma is not like that found in some theistic religious systems. Karma doesn’t serve any purpose within some supposed divine plan. It wasn’t ordained by any God to serve as a guarantor of cosmic justice or a means by which humans might evolve towards union with God or some such ultimate end.

Likewise, the Buddhist conception of rebirth is not the same as Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence" or analogous ideas among New Agers.

The idea that a suicide would have to come back as such and such, in order to experience such and such, in order that such and such lesson be learned.... etc. etc. — this presupposes a conception of karma and rebirth that is alien to the Buddhist world view. It assumes that rebirth has some sort of evolutionary teleology to it (as in Theosophy, for example), but in an atheistic system like Buddhism this is out of the question.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 27, 2013 8:26 AM
Title: Re: Sammasambuddha, Paccekabuddha, Arhat
Content:
Résumé

A Buddha’s path’s a lengthy lag,
Paccekabodhi’s a lonely drag;
Rōshis are stuck in ritualistic ruts,
And myōkōnin are gullible nuts.
The mahāsiddha is a noisome corybant,
So you might as well settle for being an arahant.


(with apologies to Dorothy Parker)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 26, 2013 11:45 PM
Title: Re: Jacobs ladder
Content:
I've seen it, but it's really only earth, hell and the supposed Bardo.

As Rubin's movies go, it's no doubt an improvement on Ghost but all the same, it clearly belongs among the works of his juvenilia. You won't, for example, encounter any of the razor-sharp wit, the lyrical sublimity, or the cognitive and moral challenges that one associates with the works of his mature years, like Stuart Little 2.

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Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 26, 2013 10:28 PM
Title: Re: How do you view sanjaya belatthiputta agnosticism?
Content:
The distinction is between the abandoning of diṭṭhi and the holding to diṭṭhi while evasively concealing what it is and not even realizing that one is doing this.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 26, 2013 8:17 AM
Title: Re: How do you view sanjaya belatthiputta agnosticism?
Content:
The commentary to the Sāmaññaphalasutta doesn’t expound Sañjaya’s doctrine in detail but simply classifies it as a amarāvikkhepavāda (‘perennial equivocation’, ‘eel-wriggling’) and directs the reader to the exposition of the four types of amarāvikkhepavāda in the Brahmajāla Sutta and its commentary.

The attached files contains the section on amarāvikkhepavāda in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation of the commentary. The Brahmajālasutta itself should be available online.


 ./download/file.php?id=2032
(207.72 KiB) Downloaded 125 times




 ./download/file.php?id=2033
(400.33 KiB) Downloaded 45 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Sep 26, 2013 6:36 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism and the UK Conservative Party
Content:
Not really. In all the mainstream parties these sort of things would be treated as issues of conscience. As such, any changes in legislation concerning them would be via private members' bills (as opposed to being official policy, with voting to be enforced by party whips). Having said that, one would expect to find more individuals opposed to abortion in the Conservative Party than in the other parties, simply because the party has a higher proportion of practising Christians and Jews than the other parties, and the commonest grounds for opposing abortion are religious ones.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-17535/Torys-anti-abortion-stance-slammed.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:37 AM
Title: Re: Pali Term: Ussūraseyyā
Content:
It's not altogether certain whether it means (1) oversleeping in the morning, (2) taking siestas at noon, or (3) sleeping at any time during the day. But if it means #1, then much like the English expression "to have a lie-in" the word doesn't entail any stipulation as to whether one sleeps until after sunrise or until after dawn.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Sep 24, 2013 11:47 PM
Title: Re: How do you take "materialism"?
Content:
1. “Great king, there is no giving, no offering, no liberality.”

This is the doctrine of kammic inefficacy (akiriyavāda). These actions yield no fruit.

2. “There is no fruit or ripening of kammas well-done and ill-done.”

Also akiriyavāda.

3. “There is no present world.”

The doctrine of annihilation (ucchedavāda): for beings existing now there is no future world to be attained by kamma.

4. “No world beyond.”

Haphazardism / acausalism (ahetukavāda): the coming into existence of beings in the future will be causeless and not the result of kammas performed by beings existing now.

5. “No mother and no father.”

Akiriyavāda: the performance of right and wrong conduct towards one’s parents yields no fruit. This is according to the Dīgha commentary. Other texts identify it with moral nihilism (natthikavāda): there is no obligation for anyone to practise filial piety.

6. “No beings who have taken rebirth.”

Ahetukavāda. Reiterates #4 but applying the claim to beings in general, not just future ones.

N.B. Although many have translated “natthi sattā opapātikā” as “there are no beings of spontaneous arising”, in the present context the commentators take it to refer to the denial of rebirth in general and not just the denial of devas, petas, hell-beings, etc.

7. “In the world there are no samaṇas or brāhmaṇas of right attainment and right practice who explain this world and the world beyond on the basis of their own direct knowledge and realization.”

Ariyūpavāda (slandering of nobles). The Dīgha commentary doesn’t remark on this passage. The Vinaya commentary treats it as an expression of verbal misconduct rather than wrong view.

8. A person is made of the four great primaries. When he dies the earth [in his body] returns to and merges with the [external] body of earth; the water [in his body] returns to and merges with the [external] body of water; the fire [in his body] returns to and merges with the [external] body of fire; the air [in his body] returns to and merges with the [external] body of air. His sense faculties pass over into space. Four men carry the corpse along on a bier. His eulogies are sounded until they reach the charnel ground. His bones turn pigeon-coloured.”

Ucchedavāda.

9. “His meritorious offerings end in ashes.”

Akiriyavāda.

10. “The practice of giving is a foolish convention. Those who proclaim a doctrine of moral obligation speak only vain, empty prattle.”

Natthikavāda.

Commentary: “This practice of giving has been prescribed by fools and ignoramuses, not by the wise. Fools give, the wise take.”

11. “With the breaking up of the body, fools and sages alike are annihilated and utterly perish. Beyond death they exist no more.

Ucchedavāda.
____________________________________________

The commentary, discussing Ajita’s views in relation to those of Pūraṇa Kassapa and Makkhali Gosāla, remarks:

Among these, Pūraṇa, with his statement “By doing so there is no evil,” denies kamma [because of his doctrine of the inefficacy of action]. Ajita, with the statement “One is annihilated with the breakup of the body,” denies vipāka [because he completely rejects a future re-arising]. Makkhali, with his statement, “There is no cause [for the purification of beings],” etc., denies both.

By denying kamma one denies its vipāka [because there is no vipāka when there is no kamma]. By denying vipāka one denies kamma [because when there is no result, kamma becomes inefficacious]. Thus all these thinkers, by denying both kamma and vipāka, in effect espouse acausalism (ahetukavāda), the inefficacy of kamma (akiriyavāda), and moral nihilism (natthikavāda).
(adapted from Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation of the Sāmaññaphalasutta and commentary)

So although it’s the fashion to call Ajita a “materialist”, I think that from the commentarial point of view this designation —though not wrong— rather misses the point. Where a teacher espouses a plurality of wrong views, he will be most aptly denoted by whichever of these serves as the prōton pseudos. In the case of Ajita this clearly consists in his denial of vipāka, making “akiriyavādin” the fittest name for him.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 22, 2013 7:44 PM
Title: Re: Women cannot become Buddhas?
Content:
In your hypothetical future it would presumably depend on which of the two regularities (dhammatā) were the dominant one: that Buddhas are always born in the optimal state for carrying out their task or that they are never female. If the former is dominant then we'll get Buddhas who are female but nonetheless optimal; if the latter then the Buddhas will be male but sub-optimal.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 16, 2013 10:38 AM
Title: Re: An Apple a Day?
Content:
But only if you aim it right.

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Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 15, 2013 9:26 PM
Title: Re: If not sure about authenticity, compare with the suttas?
Content:
The passage to which you refer is included in the Dīgha Nikāya’s Mahāparinibbāna Sutta, but in the Anguttara Nikāya occurs as a complete discourse: the Mahāpadesa Sutta. Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation in Numerical Discourses:

The Great References891

On one occasion the Blessed One was dwelling at Bhoganagara near the Ānanda Shrine. There the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus: “Bhikkhus!”

“Venerable sir!” those bhikkhus replied. The Blessed One said this:

“Bhikkhus, I will teach you these four great references.892 [168] Listen and attend closely; I will speak.”

“Yes, Bhante,” those bhikkhus replied. The Blessed One said this:

“What, bhikkhus, are the four great references?

(1) “Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu might say: ‘In the presence of the Blessed One I heard this; in his presence I learned this: “This is the Dhamma; this is the discipline; this is the Teacher’s teaching!”’ That bhikkhu’s statement should neither be approved nor rejected. Without approving or rejecting it, you should thoroughly learn those words and phrases and then check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline.893 If, when you check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline, [you find that] they are not included among the discourses and are not to be seen in the discipline, you should draw the conclusion: ‘Surely, this is not the word of the Blessed One, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One. It has been badly learned by this bhikkhu.’ Thus you should discard it.

“But a bhikkhu might say: ‘In the presence of the Blessed One I heard this; in his presence I learned this: “This is the Dhamma; this is the discipline; this is the Teacher’s teaching!”’ That bhikkhu’s statement should neither be approved nor rejected. Without approving or rejecting it, you should thoroughly learn those words and phrases and then check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline. If, when you check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline, [you find that] they are included among the discourses and are to be seen in the discipline, you should draw the conclusion: ‘Surely, this is the word of the Blessed One, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One. It has been learned well by this bhikkhu.’ You should remember this first great reference.

(2) “Then a bhikkhu might say: ‘In such and such a residence a Saṅgha is dwelling with elders and prominent monks. In the presence of that Saṅgha I heard this; in its presence I learned this: “This is the Dhamma; this is the discipline; this is the Teacher’s teaching.”’ That bhikkhu’s statement should neither be approved nor rejected. Without approving or rejecting it, you should thoroughly learn those words and phrases and then check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline. If, when you check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline, [you find that] they are not included among the discourses and are not to be seen in the discipline, you should draw the conclusion: ‘Surely, this is not the word of the Blessed One, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One. [169] It has been badly learned by that Saṅgha.’ Thus you should discard it.

“But … if, when you check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline, [you find that] they are included among the discourses and are to be seen in the discipline, you should draw the conclusion: ‘Surely, this is the word of the Blessed One, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One. It has been learned well by that Saṅgha.’ You should remember this second great reference.

(3) “Then a bhikkhu might say: ‘In such and such a residence several elder bhikkhus are dwelling who are learned, heirs to the heritage, experts on the Dhamma, experts on the discipline, experts on the outlines. In the presence of those elders I heard this; in their presence I learned this: “This is the Dhamma; this is the discipline; this is the Teacher’s teaching!”’ That bhikkhu’s statement should neither be approved nor rejected. Without approving or rejecting it, you should thoroughly learn those words and phrases and then check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline. If, when you check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline, [you find that] they are not included among the discourses and are not to be seen in the discipline, you should draw the conclusion: ‘Surely, this is not the word of the Blessed One, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One. It has been badly learned by those elders.’ Thus you should discard it.

“But … if, when you check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline, [you find that] they are included among the discourses and are to be seen in the discipline, you should draw the conclusion: ‘Surely, this is the word of the Blessed One, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One. It has been learned well by those elders.’ You should remember this third great reference.

(4) “Then a bhikkhu might say: ‘In such and such a residence one elder bhikkhu is dwelling [170] who is learned, an heir to the heritage, an expert on the Dhamma, an expert on the discipline, an expert on the outlines. In the presence of that elder I heard this; in his presence I learned this: “This is the Dhamma; this is the discipline; this is the Teacher’s teaching!”’ That bhikkhu’s statement should neither be approved nor rejected. Without approving or rejecting it, you should thoroughly learn those words and phrases and then check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline. If, when you check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline, [you find that] they are not included among the discourses and are not to be seen in the discipline, you should draw the conclusion: ‘Surely, this is not the word of the Blessed One, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One. It has been badly learned by that elder.’ Thus you should discard it.

“But a bhikkhu might say: ‘In such and such a residence one elder bhikkhu is dwelling who is learned, an heir to the heritage, an expert on the Dhamma, an expert on the discipline, an expert on the outlines. In the presence of that elder I heard this; in his presence I learned this: “This is the Dhamma; this is the discipline; this is the Teacher’s teaching!”’ That bhikkhu’s statement should neither be approved nor rejected. Without approving or rejecting it, you should thoroughly learn those words and phrases and then check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline. If, when you check for them in the discourses and seek them in the discipline, [you find that] they are included among the discourses and are to be seen in the discipline, you should draw the conclusion: ‘Surely, this is the word of the Blessed One, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One. It has been learned well by that elder.’ You should remember this fourth great reference.

“These, bhikkhus, are the four great references.”894

_______________

NOTES

891 This passage is also included in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta, DN 16.4.7, at II 124–26.

892 Mahāpadese. Mp glosses as mahā-okāse (apparently as if the compound could be resolved mahā + padese) and as mahā-apadese, the latter explained as “great reasons stated with reference to such great ones as the Buddha and others” (buddhādayo mahante mahante apadisitvā vuttāni mahākāraṇāni). This second resolution is certainly to be preferred. DOP gives, among the meanings of apadesa, “designation, pointing out, reference, witness, authority.” Cattāro mahāpadesā is sometimes rendered “four great authorities” but the sutta actually specifies only two authorities, the suttas and the Vinaya. Walshe, in LDB, renders it as “four criteria.” I understand the term to mean “four great references,” the four provenances of a teaching.

893 Tāni padabyañjanāni…sutte otāretabbāni vinaye sandassetabbāni. Mp gives various meanings of sutte and vinaye here, some improbable. Clearly, this instruction presupposes that there already existed a body of discourses and a systematic Vinaya that could be used to evaluate other texts proposed for inclusion as authentic utterances of the Buddha. Otāretabbāni is gerundive plural of otārenti, “make descend, put down or put into,” and otaranti, just below, means “descend, come down, go into.” My renderings, respectively, as “check for them” and “are included among” are adapted to the context. Sandassetabbāni is gerundive plural of sandassenti, “show, make seen,” and sandissanti means “are seen.”

894 The clearer of the two Chinese parallels is in DĀ 2, at T I 17b29–18a22. Here cattāro mahāpadesā is rendered “four great teaching dhammas.” I translate the first declaration (T I 17c2–13) as follows: “If there is a bhikkhu who claims: ‘Venerable ones, in that village, city, country, I personally heard [this] from the Buddha, I personally received this teaching,’ you should not disbelieve what you hear from him, nor should you reject it, but through the suttas determine whether it is true or false; based on the Vinaya, based on the Dhamma, probe it thoroughly. If what he says is not the sutta, not the Vinaya, not the Dhamma, then you should say to him: ‘The Buddha did not say this. What you have received is mistaken! [Or: You have received it erroneously!] For what reason? Because based on the suttas, based on the Vinaya, based on the Dhamma, we [find] that what you said deviates from the Dhamma. Venerable one, you should not uphold this, you should not report it to people, but should discard it.’ But if what he says is based on the suttas, based on the Vinaya, based on the Dhamma, then you should say to him: ‘What you said was truly spoken by the Buddha. For what reason? Because based on the suttas, based on the Vinaya, based on the Dhamma, we [find] that what you said accords with the Dhamma. Venerable one, you should uphold this, you should widely report it to people; you should not discard it.’ This is the first great teaching dhamma.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 15, 2013 9:09 PM
Title: Re: Korean Dhammapada
Content:
John Choi has uploaded the 법구경 (Beopgugyeong / Dhammapada) to Youtube in segments, with about 3-5 verses in each video. If you want the printed text just click on the "Show More" button.

183
To avoid all evil, 
to cultivate good, 
and to cleanse one's mind — this is 
the teaching 
of the Buddhas.

악을 피하고
선을 가꾸며
마음을 깨끗이 씻는 것,
바로 이것이
모든 붓다들의
가르침이다.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 15, 2013 11:32 AM
Title: Re: I'd feed a starving child before a plump arahant
Content:
In what circumstances is it better to act immorally than to act morally out of mere prudence?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 15, 2013 7:07 AM
Title: Re: I'd feed a starving child before a plump arahant
Content:
To keep one’s precepts merely out of a prudential wish to avoid unpleasant vipākas no doubt bespeaks of an inferior level of motivation, but don't you think it's better than not being motivated towards sīla at all? And I doubt the unkilled bugs would find it in the least sad.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Sep 14, 2013 7:15 PM
Title: Re: Women cannot become Buddhas?
Content:
It’s part and parcel of the general doctrine that in their final life bodhisattas will be reborn in circumstances that permit them to have the optimal impact upon devas and men.[1] For example, it is said that they will be reborn in whatever happens to be reckoned as the highest social class at that time; the place of their birth will be a cultured and not a barbarous one; they will be physically attractive, possessed of a good voice, etc. etc.

The texts don’t spell out precisely why it would be better for them to be men rather than women, but it's not hard to guess. As far as we know, all human societies are patriarchal, always have been, and most probably always will be.[2] So, if you’re intent on making a really big splash in the world, other things being equal, possession of a male body will stand you in better stead than possession of a female one.


_______
Notes

[1] This point is very commonly misstated, with claims being made to the effect that a bodhisatta, in his penultimate life in the Tusita heaven, gets to choose the circumstances of his final birth. But this isn’t what the Suttas say. They say only that before passing away he foresees what the circumstances of his final life will be, not that he chooses them. As with any other saṃsāric being, the bodhisatta, after passing away from Tusita, fares according to his kamma. It just happens that by the time he is ripe for awakening, the power of his accumulations of paramī and his resolve for sammāsambodhi will be such as will lead to rebirth in optimal circumstances. Pace the Tibetans, it doesn’t mean that he is in possession of the power to say: “Let my rebirth be such and such!”

[2] For any readers who've been taken in by the matriarchal myth-making peddled by loony feminists (i.e., supposedly matriarchal prehistoric societies, or presently existing ones among the Iroquois, or in the South Seas, etc.), I offer the following reading suggestions (especially Goldberg’s book, which in its most recent edition carries the new title, Why Men Rule):

• Cynthia Eller, The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future (Boston, Beacon Press, 2001).
• Donald E. Brown, Human Universals (Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1991)
• Joan Bamberger, The Myth of Matriarchy: Why Men Rule in Primitive Society, in M. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere, Women, Culture, and Society, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1974).
• Steven Goldberg, The Inevitability of Patriarchy, (William Morrow &amp; Company, 1973).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Sep 13, 2013 10:35 PM
Title: Re: Can consciousness experience woeful states?
Content:
According to the Abhidhamma all of the consciousnesses and mental factors that can arise among beings in the lower realms can arise also in the human realm, with just one partial exception. The exception is the dukkha-vedanā experienced in the hell realms. In no realm outside of hell does any living being undergo painful bodily feeling of comparable intensity for even a single moment. Hence the Buddha’s statement in the Bālapaṇḍita Sutta:

“Were it rightly speaking to be said of anything: ‘That is utterly unwished for, utterly undesired, utterly disagreeable,’ it is of hell that, rightly speaking, this should be said, so much so that it is hard to find a simile for the suffering in hell.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 2, 2013 4:43 PM
Title: Re: Does an arahant not feel angry at all?
Content:
Though a little dated in some regards, The Psychology of Nirvana by the psychologist and Pali scholar Rune Johansson remains probably the best Sutta-based study on the personality of an arahant — both what it feels like to be one and how such a person will appear to others.

http://watflorida.org/pages/Library.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Sep 2, 2013 5:05 AM
Title: Re: Emerging from the first jhana to develop a mental body
Content:
If you've based the statement in this thread title upon Harvey's article, then I think you are probably confusing (1) the production of "subtle mind-generated materialities" (cittaja sukhuma rūpa) by each jhānic citta with (2) the generation of a "mind-made body" (manomaya kāya) after emergence from the fourth jhāna. The two things have nothing to do with each other.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 1, 2013 3:43 PM
Title: Re: Right speech in a one on one situation
Content:
Gently confronting one’s interlocutor with the stock Sutta query “Kim’atthiyaṃ āvuso...” may yield some interesting outcomes.

“Discerning what benefit, friend, and what advantage, do you thus disparage Katie’s taste in clothes?”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Sep 1, 2013 7:58 AM
Title: Re: Audio of recitation of the Vinaya-pitakas's Mahavagga
Content:
Like Ven. Pesala, I’ve never heard of any tradition of memorizing and reciting this text. The only monks I can imagine doing so are those (exceedingly few) who aspire to be vinayadharas. Still, if this is what you want to do, perhaps you could make a start by memorizing those portions of the Mahākhandhaka which are in more or less regular liturgical use and which most senior monks are likely to have memorized. It shouldn’t be hard to find recordings of them at Youtube. They are:

1. Paṭiccasamuppāda anuloma: “avijjāpaccayā saṅkhārā, saṅkhārapaccayā viññāṇaṃ…”
2. Paṭiccasamuppāda paṭiloma: “avijjāyatveva asesavirāganirodhā saṅkhāranirodho…”
3. Three Udānas: “yadā have pātubhavanti dhammā…”
4. Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta.
5. Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta.
6. Ādittapariyāya Sutta.
7. Brahmayācanakathā.
8. Tisaraṇagamana: “buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi…”
9. Assaji’s gāthā to Sāriputta: “ye dhammā hetuppabhavā…”
10. Upasampadā formulas: “suṇātu me, bhante, saṅgho, ayaṃ itthannāmo itthannāmassa āyasmato upasampadāpekkho…”
11. Cattāro nissayā: “piṇḍiyālopabhojanaṃ nissāya pabbajjā…”
12. Cattāri akaraṇīyāni: “upasampannena bhikkhunā methuno dhammo na paṭisevitabbo…”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 31, 2013 11:43 AM
Title: Re: Good Pdf Book Suggestion Please
Content:
I suggest you buy the Kindle version of Rupert Gethin's The Foundations of Buddhism and convert it to a pdf.

https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Buddhism-OPUS-ebook/dp/B005OQGBLC/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin

CONTENTS

List of Tables and Figures
List of Maps
A Note on Buddhist Languages
INTRODUCTION I
I. THE BUDDHA: THE STORY OF THE AWAKENED ONE
The historical Buddha
The legend of the Buddha
The nature of a buddha

2. THE WORD OF THE BUDDHA: BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES AND SCHOOLS
Dharma: texts, practice, and realization
The first recitation of scriptures
Sutra and Abhidharma
The origin of the ancient Buddhist schools
The Mahayana sutras

3· FOUR TRUTHS: THE DISEASE, THE CAUSE, THE CURE, THE MEDICINE
The orientation of the Buddha's teaching
The disease of suffering
The origin of suffering: attachment, aversion, and delusion
The cessation of suffering: nirvana
The way leading to the cessation of suffering

4· THE BUDDHIST COMMUNITY: MONKS, NUN, AND LAY FOLLOWERS
The Buddha's followers and the origin of the Buddhist order
Ordination and the Buddhist monastic ideal
The underlying concerns of the Vinaya
From wandering to settled life
The spiritual life
The lay community
Spiro's schema: apotropaic, kammatic, and nibbanic Buddhism

5· THE BUDDHIST COSMOS: THE THRICE-THOUSANDFOLD WORLD
Of space and time: world-systems
Cosmology and psychology: macrocosm and microcosm
Cosmology, folk religion, and modern science

6. NO SELF: PERSONAL CONTINUITY AND DEPENDENT ARISING
The Buddhist critique of self as unchanging
The problem of personal continuity
Ignorance, attachment, and views of the self
The elaboration of the teaching of dependent arising
Did the Buddha deny the existence of the self?

7· THE BUDDHIST PATH: THE WAY OF CALM AND INSIGHT
Introductory remarks
The role of faith
Good conduct
The practice of calm meditation
The stages of insight meditation
The relationship of calm and insight

8. THE ABHIDHARMA: THE HIGHER TEACHING
Stories, legends, texts, and authors
The Abhidharma as a system of Buddhist thought
The consciousness process, karma, and rebirth
Some Abhidharma problems

9· THE MAHAYANA: THE GREAT VEHICLE
The beginnings of the Mahayana
The vehicle of the bodhisattva
Transcendent buddhas
Emptiness and the 'perfection of wisdom'
Nagarjuna and the 'middle' (Madhyamaka) school
'Ideas only' (vijnapti-matra) and the Yogacara
The Tathagatagarbha

10. EVOLVING TRADITIONS OF BUDDHISM: SOUTH, EAST, NORTH, AND WEST
Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka and South-East Asia: Southern Buddhism
China, Korea, and Japan: East Asian Buddhism
Tibet and Mongolia: Northern Buddhism
A final note: Buddhism in the West
Select Bibliography
Glossary
Index


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Aug 31, 2013 8:19 AM
Title: Re: Spanish Language | Recursos en español
Content:
Abhidhamma Theravada — un grupo de Facebook en español.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/350633041686742/


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 30, 2013 3:27 PM
Title: Re: The 6 "higher powers"
Content:
That a non-arahant may develop any of the five mundane abhiññās is, as far as I know, an uncontested question. Or have you met someone who claims otherwise?

Such a possibility can be seen from the life of Anuruddha, from the Brahmajāla Sutta (where non-Buddhist ascetics develop recollection of their former lives and are thereby led into wrong view) and from the MN's two Sāropama Suttas (where bhikkhus are urged not to be satisfied with concentration-based knowledge and vision that falls short of arahatta (with the former glossed in the commentary as the dibbacakkhu).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 30, 2013 3:03 PM
Title: Re: Anurudha manapa kayika sutta
Content:
It's probably a regional name for the second of the two Anuruddha Suttas in the Aṅguttara Nikāya's Aṭṭhakavagga. There is no translation of it at ATI.

AN. iv. 262-6
Gradual Sayings IV. 175-8
Numerical Discourses pp. 1182-5


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 30, 2013 2:21 PM
Title: Re: prefix ā vs. a
Content:
The prefix ā- exhibits quite a range of semantic functions, both basic and idiomatic. However, since de Silva’s book is a primer, not a comprehensive reference grammar, it’s no surprise that she doesn’t wish to overburden new students by describing all of them.

In the Section on Prefixative Words (Opasaggikapada) in the Padarūpasiddhi, the grammarian Buddhapiya summarised the uses of the prefix -ā as follows:

Ā iti abhimukhabhāvu’ddhakamma mariyādā’bhividhi
patti’cchāparissajana ādikammaggahaṇa nivāsa-
samīpa’vhānādīsu; abhimukhabhāve āgacchati, uddhakamme
ārohati, mariyādāyaṃ āpabbatā khettaṃ, abhividhimhi ākumāraṃ
yaso kaccāyanassa, pattiyaṃ āpattimāpanno, icchāyaṃ ākaṅkhā,
parissajane āliṅganaṃ, ādikamme ārambho, gahaṇe ādīyati
ālambati, nivāse āvasatho, samīpe āsannaṃ, avhāne
āmantesi.

Translation:

“The prefix ‘ā’ has such meanings as a state of approaching towards, an upwardly directed or overhead action, bordering, complimenting, reaching, wishing, embracing, commencing, taking, residence, propinquity and addressing.”

For example:

1. Abhimukhabhāve: āgacchati.
In the sense of ‘a state of approaching towards’, as in the verb ‘to come’.

2. Uddhakamme: ārohati.
In the sense of ‘an upwardly directed or overhead action’, as in the verb ‘to ascend or rise into the air’.

3. Mariyādāyaṃ: āpabbatā khettaṃ.
In the sense of ‘bordering’, as in ‘a mountain-bordered territory / territory-bordering mountains’.

4. Abhividhimhi: ākumāraṃ yaso kaccāyanassa.
For the sake of complimenting by highlighting something surprising or unexpected, as in, ‘Kaccāyana’s fame, even though he was yet a child’.

5. Pattiyaṃ: āpattimāpanno
In the sense of ‘reaching or arriving at’, as in ‘arriving at [= falling into] a Vinaya offence’.

6. Icchāyaṃ: ākaṅkhā,
In the sense of ‘wishing’, as in ‘desire’.

7. Parissajane: āliṅganaṃ
In the sense of ‘[literally or figuratively] embracing’, as in ‘enclasping’.

8. Ādikamme ārambho.
In the sense of ‘commencing action’, as in ‘initiating’.

9. Gahaṇe: ādīyati ālambati.
In the sense of ‘taking’, as in the verbs ‘to take’ and ‘to hold’.

10. Nivāse: āvasatho.
In the sense of ‘residence’, as in ‘refuge place’.

11. Samīpe: āsannaṃ.
In the sense of ‘propinquity’, as in ‘near’.

12. Avhāne: āmantesi.
In the sense of ‘addressing’, as in ‘he addressed’.

.

As for a-, Pali grammarians don’t regard this as a prefix in the strict sense (i.e. as an upasagga). Rather, it is simply one of the forms that the indeclinable particle ‘na’ can take when it occurs as the first item in a compound. Its semantic range is rather broad, coinciding fully with those of the prefixes ‘ni’ and ‘paṭi’ and partially with that of ‘vi-’.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Aug 30, 2013 10:13 AM
Title: Re: L. Cousins' "de-quantification" of dhammas
Content:
Could you specify where in his writings Cousins presents these views? In the only article by him in my possession (The Paṭṭhāna and the Development of the Theravādin Abhidhamma JPTS, [1981] 22-46) Cousins speaks much like any other ābhidhammika, using 'process' when talking about the various vīthis, and the stock (modern) simile of frames-in-a-movie when speaking of individual cittas. I vaguely recall that in other writings he tends to depart from the widespread tendency of modern Abhidhamma writers who place a near-exclusive emphasis on the analytic side of the subject, while treating the synthetic side (i.e., conditional relations) as scarcely more than an afterthought. Cousins, as I recall, reverses this emphasis, but in doing so I can't recall his ever departing from the post-Anuruddha Theravādin consensus in any matter of substance.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 7, 2013 8:20 AM
Title: Re: Buddhist Violence Doesn't Exist
Content:
Non-delusion (amoha, paññā) in the Jātakas is for the most part represented as a sort of Solomonic shrewdness and acuity in analysing and understanding situations and people, coupled with a practical prudence that enables a Bodhisatta to deal optimally with life's vicissitudes. Sometimes an optimal outcome cannot be achieved while keeping one's hands clean, in which case the Bodhisatta takes a proportionalist approach (much as dhammika rājās are expected to do). As the Bodhisatta is as yet unawakened, we shouldn't expect his paññā to be of the level that permanently eradicates kilesa and the harmful actions that issue from kilesa.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 7, 2013 7:19 AM
Title: Re: Buddhist Violence Doesn't Exist
Content:
There are in the Suttas about thirty occurrences of the adverb sattadhā, meaning ‘sevenfold’. In the Jātaka verses these mostly occur in connection with some miscreant (usually Devadatta) getting zapped by the utterance of a saccakiriyā (e.g., “Etena saccavajjena, muddhā te phalatu sattadhā!” — “By this utterance of truth may your skull explode into seven pieces!”) spoken by one of the Buddha’s future leading disciples. In the first four Nikāyas they mostly occur in connection with the axe-wielding yakkha Vajirapāṇī threatening to use his axe to the same effect. The persons thus threatened are those of the Buddha’s interlocutors who resort to dishonorable debating tactics and the like. Now in none of these cases does the Buddha ever say to Vajirapāṇī: “Hey, yakkha, just buzz off, will you! Shoo! Go away!” On the contrary, he takes advantage of the yakkha’s strong-arm tactics by warning his interlocutor that he’s going to get it if he doesn’t mind his manners.
Then the Blessed One said to Ambaṭṭha the Brahman: ‘Then this further question arises, Ambaṭṭha, a very reasonable one which, even though unwillingly, you should answer. If you do not give a clear reply, or go off upon another issue, or remain silent, or go away, then your head will split into seven pieces on the spot. What have you heard, when Brahmans old and well stricken in years, teachers of yours or their teachers, were talking together, as to whence the Kaṇhāyanas draw their origin, and who the ancestor was to whom they trace themselves back?’

And when he had thus spoken Ambaṭṭha remained silent. And the Blessed One asked the same question again. And still Ambaṭṭha remained silent. Then the Blessed One said to him: ‘You had better answer, now, Ambaṭṭha. This is no time for you to hold your peace. For whosoever, Ambaṭṭha, does not, even up to the third time of asking, answer a reasonable question put by a Tathāgata, his head splits into seven pieces on the spot.’

Now at that time the yakkha Vajirapāṇī stood over above Ambaṭṭha in the sky with a mighty iron axe, all fiery, dazzling, and aglow, with the intention, if he did not answer, there and then to split his head into seven pieces. And the Blessed One perceived the yakkha Vajirapāṇī, and so did Ambaṭṭha the Brahman. And Ambaṭṭha on becoming aware of it, terrified, startled, and agitated, seeking safety and protection and help from the Blessed One, crouched down beside him in awe, and said: ‘What was it the Blessed One said? Say it once again!’

And so for the purpose of opening Ambaṭṭha's eyes to the Dhamma, the Buddha accepts with alacrity the aid of a thuggish axe-wielding yakkha. Unlike some of his modern western admirers, the Lion of the Sakyans (as one would expect of a kṣatriya) is no advocate of simple-minded hippie pacifism.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 6, 2013 11:31 PM
Title: Re: Christianity, from a Buddhist perspective
Content:
P.S.

To Peter B. and any other Scotsmen here... my apologies for the englishing of the Burns extract. I just didn't think there'd be too many who'd know what 'ane', 'guid', 'wha', 'sic', 'frae', etc. mean.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 6, 2013 11:12 PM
Title: Re: Christianity, from a Buddhist perspective
Content:
For my part I think that it requires a "Holy Willie" mindset, consisting in a strong conviction that one is not oneself one of the hell-bound, a thankfulness that this is so, and a strong stomach. I doubt any beast could be so vicious.


Holy Willie's Prayer

by Robert Burns

O Thou, who in the heavens does dwell, 
Who, as it pleases best Thysel', 
Sends one to heaven and ten to hell, 
All for Thy glory, 
And not for ony good or ill 
They've done afore Thee! 

I bless and praise Thy matchless might, 
When thousands Thou hast left in night, 
That I am here afore Thy sight, 
For gifts and grace 
A burning and a shining light 
To all this place. 

What was I, or my generation, 
That I should get such exaltation, 
I who deserve most just damnation 
For broken laws, 
Five thousand years ere my creation, 
Through Adam's cause? 

When from my mother's womb I fell, 
Thou might have plunged me deep in hell, 
To gnash my gums, to weep and wail, 
In burning lakes, 
Where damned devils roar and yell, 
Chained to their stakes. 

Yet I am here a chosen sample, 
To show thy grace is great and ample; 
I'm here a pillar of Thy temple, 
Strong as a rock, 
A guide, a buckler, and example, 
To all Thy flock.

(etc. etc. for another twelve verses)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/works/holy_willies_prayer/

In practice, however, my impression is that Holy Willie types (Fred Phelps and his horror-show of a family will serve as a good example) are not very common among Christians today. Rather, most hell-believing Christians are simply not at peace with their belief in a literal everlasting hell; they are tormented by it and resigned to being so.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 6, 2013 8:55 PM
Title: Re: Itivuttaka 1.24 A Heap of Bones
Content:
I shouldn’t have thought so, for comparable teachings are given elsewhere to disciples in all walks of life.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 1, 2013 2:18 AM
Title: Re: "Dogs do it better"
Content:
But Sanaṅkumāra doesn’t just do that. He repeatedly descends to earth to let folk know that…

“... a person consummate
in clear-knowing &amp; conduct,
is the best of beings
human &amp; divine.”

and the preceding part of his speech is just spice.

______________________________________

Notes.

[1] Where too we find a pretty glowing endorsement of kṣatriyas:

The king commanded him: “Stay with me for a long time.” Then he said to him: “As to what you have told me, O Gautama, this knowledge did not reach any brahmin before you. Thus it was to the kshatriya alone, among all the people, that the teaching of this knowledge belonged.” Then he began to teach him…

[2] Suggested by Th. Rhys Davids in Dialogues of the Buddha.


[3] Some helpful general remarks on ‘caste’ from Paul Williams:

Scholars tend to think of Brahmanism at the time of the Buddha not in terms of the Indian actuality of caste (jāti) as it has developed over many, many centuries, but rather in terms of the Brahmanic ideology of class (varṇa). Note this distinction carefully, because confusion between caste and class seems to be almost normal in works on Indian religions. Classical Brahmanic texts dating from Vedic times and beyond refer to society divided into the four classes (varṇas) of brahmins (brāhmaṇas), warriors/rulers (kṣatriyas), generators of wealth (vaiśyas), and the rest (‘servants’, śūdras ). This division is by birth, it is a division of purity, and it is strictly hierarchical. Each preceding class is purer and therefore superior to the following. Thus the preceding class has a higher social status than the following, quite regardless of any wealth one might have.

Within this system there is no correlation between wealth or power and social status. Status is determined by relative purity. It is not given by wealth, power or, as such, behaviour or insight. Members of the first three classes are referred to as ‘twice-born’ (dvija), and they are entitled and expected to enter into the world of Vedic religious duties, for most of their lives as married householders. This involves keeping alight the domestic sacrificial fire and engaging particularly in the duty to sacrifice, each in the appropriate and distinctive way determined by relative position (relative purity) in the social hierarchy. Nearly everyone can be fitted somewhere into one or other of these classes. Which class one is a member of determines (according to the Brahmanic lawbooks) a whole range of social behaviour from who one can eat with to which sort of wood is used in making one’s staff, or which sacrifices have to be carried out, by whom, and at what age.

Over the years Indian social actuality going back many centuries has seen not just four but hundreds of castes (jātis) and subcastes. If we try and relate class to caste, varṇa to jāti, class is classical Brahmanic ideology while caste is historical and modern actuality . They are different. The varṇa system is what the Brahmanic authors wanted to see, and to the extent that brahmins were the dominant group in society the varṇa ideology provided a template for what they sought to realise. The jātis represent the actual system of Indian social division within relatively recent historical time. It is important to preserve the terminological separation of the two, and not to confuse them. At the time of the Buddha there was the ideology of varṇa, that formed part of the ideology of brahmins, the dominant group in much of North Indian society. No doubt there was within that area also some form of social division influenced to a greater or lesser degree by the ideology of varṇa . But the extent to which the varṇa ideology influenced the actual social divisions in the region from which the Buddha came, a fringe area in the Himalayan foothills, is still very unclear.

The Buddha was critical of the intrinsic supremacy of the brahmins, and with it the ideology of varṇa. But it would be misleading from this to infer, as some modern writers do, that the Buddha was ‘anti-caste’. First, a criticism of the varṇa system is not in itself a comment on jāti, caste, although it could be transposed to the ideology that nevertheless underlies caste. For his part the Buddha spoke of the true brahmin as one who had spiritual insight and behaves accordingly (see the famous Dhammapada Ch. 26). In this sense the Buddha affirmed a hierarchy not of birth but of spiritual maturity. It is not obvious that the Buddha would have any comment to make about a brahmin who is also spiritually mature (understood in the Buddha’s sense). The Buddha was not offering social reform. And this is what one would expect. The Buddha was himself a renouncer of society.
(Buddhist Thought, pp. 13-15)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri May 31, 2013 5:14 PM
Title: Re: "Dogs do it better"
Content:
and to your (or is it Ven. Thanissaro’s?) footnote to it:

“This verse, concerned with disputing the dominant position of brahmans in the cast system, is obviously not, as claimed in the following paragraph, "connected with the goal." It rather sounds like polemical nonsense.”

Actually what we have here is a literary device that occurs numerous times in the Dhammapada and the SN’s Sagāthavagga. First there will be a line or verse expressing some mundane commonplace (that may or may not be in accordance with Dhamma). This will then be trumped by a subsequent line or verse expressing the Dhamma. The “connected with the goal” attribute applies of course to the latter, not to the more pedestrian utterance that served as its springboard.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri May 31, 2013 4:30 PM
Title: Re: "Dogs do it better"
Content:
Typically brahmin-bashing Suttas are addressed to a brahmin enquirer (or challenger) whom the Buddha sees as having the potential for awakening, or at least for conversion, but who in the meantime is so bloated with caste conceit as to be unteachable. So the Buddha will begin by taking the man down a peg or two and teach him the Dhamma only when he’s suitably softened.

In the present case, however, the Sutta is addressed to bhikkhus and no context is given. Perhaps the purpose is to provide the listeners with material to be used for the above teaching tactic.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 7:27 PM
Title: Re: The Digha Nikaya in Norwegian
Content:
In Kåre’s translation I believe “woohoo!” would be “Det er vidunderlig og fantastisk”. As in:

“Acchariyaṃ vata bho, abbhutaṃ vata bho, evarūpopi nāma uḷāro satthā bhavissati, evarūpaṃ uḷāraṃ dhammakkhānaṃ, evarūpā uḷārā visesādhigamā paññāyissantī” ti.
(Janavasabha Sutta, DN. 18)


“Det er vidunderlig og fantastisk at det finnes en så ypperlig læremester og en så ypperlig lære, og det er blitt bekjentgjort en så ypperlig vei til det herligste!”
(ibid. Kåre Lie trans.)


“It is wonderful, it is marvellous, that such a glorious Teacher should arise, that there should be such a glorious proclamation of Dhamma, and that such glorious paths to the sublime should be made known!”
(Maurice Walshe trans.)


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 30, 2013 7:26 PM
Title: Re: The Digha Nikaya in Norwegian
Content:
Anumodanā!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 3:18 PM
Title: Re: The causes for wisdom
Content:
The commentary to this sutta defines the term twice, once giving the stock commentarial definition (the paragraph beginning: "tattha _yoniso manasikāro_ nāma upāyamanasikāro...") and once a context-specific one (notice the limiting adverb "ettha", "here"). It is only in the latter that sotāpattimagga is alluded to. In the general definition there's no limiting of yoniso mansikāra to ariyans.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 3:00 PM
Title: Re: The causes for wisdom
Content:
More to the point, the phrase “ṭhānaṃ etaṃ vijjati ... sacchikareyya” (“it is possible ... he would realize.” More literally: “...this situation is to be found ... he may realize...”) would seem to contradict Pulga by indicating that stream-entry attainment is possible for such a person but not inevitable.

If it is merely a possibility that one attending appropriately may realize the fruit of stream-entry, then there is also a possibility that he may not. And all those who do not would count as instances of puthujjanas possessed of yoniso manasikāra. Hence yoniso manasikāra may be present in a puthujjana.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 1, 2013 9:57 AM
Title: Re: Devanagari or Burmese Pali characters needed - help please?
Content:
This does seem rather odd, bhante, and I don’t know why it should be. I have two Myanmarese Unicode fonts in my computer (Myanmar MN and Myanmar Sangam MN) and with both of them the word appears exactly as in your image.


.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Mar 1, 2013 8:51 AM
Title: Re: Western Teachers of the Thai Forest Tradition
Content:
My background is rather variegated, comprising six years in Thai and Burmese urban pariyatti monasteries, six years in monasteries affiliated with the late Khrubar Phrommajak, two years in an Ajahn Chah wat, one year in a Dhammayut forest wat, two years in vipassana meditation centres, and nine years living alone. Though I don’t identify with any particular sub-tradition, the monks whom I have most to do with nowadays are Thais belonging to Khrubar Phrommajak’s Lamphun branch of the Chiang Mai tradition of Khrubar Sriwichai.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 28, 2013 11:43 PM
Title: Re: Devanagari or Burmese Pali characters needed - help please?
Content:
This seems to be missing an i.

သမ္မာသတိ



.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Feb 28, 2013 11:03 PM
Title: Re: Western Teachers of the Thai Forest Tradition
Content:
Thanks for the news.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 27, 2013 12:01 AM
Title: Re: Western Teachers of the Thai Forest Tradition
Content:
I don’t think there’s very much to investigate here. Outside of those in the Ajahn Chah circuit very few western monks in the TFT have set themselves up as teachers.

The Ajahn Thet disciples of the 70's and 80's have all disrobed except Ajahn Munindo, who switched to Ajahn Chah, and Ajahn Dhammachando (Tan Chad), who lives as a hermit in Tak Province and doesn’t teach.

The Buddhadāsa disciples have all disrobed, with the exception of the veteran German monk Tan Khemadassī (who was only rather loosely associated with Ajahn Buddhadāsa). He lives as a hermit on an island in Trat Province and doesn’t teach. Of those who’ve disrobed I think only the ex-Santikaro Bhikkhu now teaches.

As for Ajahn Mahā Boowa’s disciples, I’m not up-to-date with the recent generation, but of the four I used to know back in the 80's, Ajahn Paññavaḍḍho is deceased, Tan John Vuḍḍhiko disrobed, and I haven’t heard anything about Sīlaratano or Abhijāto taking up teaching. Paññavaḍḍho gave a few interviews and Q &amp; A sessions in the last years of his life, but their contents were scarcely more than a reiteration of Mahā Boowa’s teaching.

Then there are some western Dhammayutt monks who trained in the TFT but with less well-known ajahns. Here too I’m not up to date, but I think most whom I used to know have disrobed except the New Zealander Tan Guttasīla and the Aussie Bill Platypus (I forget his Pali name). I've no idea what's become of those two.

If you're interested in TFT-like stuff that's independent of Ajahn Chah, it might be more fruitful to look at those teachers who were formerly in the Ajahn Chah camp but then moved onto other pastures, or who are technically still in the camp but whose dhammic centre of gravity appears to lie elsewhere than in Ajahn Chah's teachings.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 25, 2013 11:53 AM
Title: Re: Ways to learn Thai
Content:
When I began learning Thai in 1985 almost all of the available teaching materials were rubbish, written by bumbling linguistic amateurs. Perhaps the sole exception were the textbooks for the AUA course, but taking that course necessitated living in Bangkok. Moreover, monks weren't permitted to attend the AUA public classes and so could only take the course if they had a lay supporter who was willing to pay a fortune for private tuition.

Nowadays that's all changed and there are some great Thai courses for autodidacts. In fact one is almost spoilt for choice. The most impressive that I've seen, in terms of balance, clarity and pedagogical acuity, are those prepared by a Thai woman called Benjawan Poomsan Becker:

https://www.amazon.com/Benjawan-Poomsan-Becker/e/B001JP7YSG/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 25, 2013 11:31 AM
Title: Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
Content:
Robot refrigerators to the rescue....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/feb/18/british-diet-improbable-research


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 24, 2013 7:15 PM
Title: Re: Sakvala
Content:
I’ve just checked with the dictionary and it turns out my memory was deceiving me about the form of the Indonesian word. It’s actually ‘cakrawala’. Attached are the dictionary entries for both forms.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 24, 2013 3:35 PM
Title: Re: Sakvala
Content:
It's not that Sinhalese is the language of Indonesia, but that both languages have a great number of Sanskrit loanwords, one of which is cakravāḷa. Otherwise they are not at all alike, belonging as they do to entirely different language familes: Sinhalese to the Indo-European, and Indonesian (or Bahasa Indonesia) to the Austronesian.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 24, 2013 11:58 AM
Title: Re: Ordination in Thailand
Content:
I think Wat Pa Nanachat may well be unique in this respect. I have a septuagenarian American friend who has sometimes stayed at WPN for lengthy periods and was hoping to ordain there. His application was rejected on account of the rule you mention. The explanation given to him was that the community had found it too difficult to train westerners who ordain in old age. Western quinquagenarians, sexagenarians, etc., find it irksome to be bossed about by vicenarians and tricenarians (which is what most of the WPN community are) who are their monastic seniors. It might not be so bad if there wasn't actually a lot of bossing about but at WPN there's a great deal of it.

With Thais ordaining in late life doesn't seem to be so much of a problem. The difficulties WPN encountered are avoided largely through senior Thai monks having the skill to train their charges in a non-coercive fashion, without needing to issue peremptory orders, pull rank on one's juniors, and that sort of thing. In fact there's many a Thai abbot who will never order anyone to do anything but will get things done by just quietly dropping hints.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Feb 24, 2013 10:43 AM
Title: Re: Sakvala
Content:
Sakavala is the Sinhalese and Indonesian form of the word. If you want English language materials you'd be better off searching for the Pali cakkavāḷa or cakkavāla, or the Sanskrit cakravāḷa or cakravāḍa or cakravāla.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 22, 2013 3:40 AM
Title: Re: The translation of Muditā
Content:
"But here some woman or man is not envious, he does not envy, begrudge or harbor envy about others' gain, honor, veneration, respect, salutations and offerings. Due to having performed and completed such kammas, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in a happy destination... If instead he comes to the human state, he is influential wherever he is reborn. This is the way that leads to influence, that is to say, not to be envious, not to envy, begrudge or harbor envy about others' gain, honor, veneration, respect, salutations and offerings.
http://www.vipassana.com/canon/majjhima/mn135.php


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Feb 22, 2013 3:27 AM
Title: Re: Did Arthur C. Clarke say this?
Content:
The passage the op alludes to is from The Deep Range (1957), alhough it's an archaeologist's hammer, not a scientist's. A prominent figure in the story is a Scottish bhikkhu, who seems to be a composite of the Englishman Ñāṇamoli (or perhaps Ñāṇavīra) and the Scotsman Sīlacāra (Jack F. McKechnie).


“Well, this is something that has been building up for several years. We’ve warned Headquarters, but they’ve never taken us seriously. Now your interview in Earth has brought matters to a head; the Mahanayake Thero of Anuradhapura— he’s the most influential man in the East, and you’re going to hear a lot more about him—read it and promptly asked us to grant him facilities for a tour of the bureau. We can’t refuse, of course, but we know perfectly well what he intends to do. He’ll take a team of cameramen with him and will collect enough material to launch an all-out propaganda campaign against the bureau. Then, when it’s had time to sink in, he’ll demand a referendum. And if that goes against us, we will be in trouble.”

The pieces of the jigsaw fell into place; the pattern was at last clear. For a moment Franklin felt annoyed that he had been diverted across the world to deal with so absurd a challenge. Then he realized that the men who had sent him here did not consider it absurd; they must know, better than he did, the strength of the forces that were being marshaled. It was never wise to underestimate the power of religion, even a religion as pacific and tolerant as Buddhism.

The position was one which, even a hundred years ago, would have seemed unthinkable, but the catastrophic political and social changes of the last century had all combined to give it a certain inevitability. With the failure or weakening of its three great rivals, Buddhism was now the only religion that still possessed any real power over the minds of men.

Christianity, which had never fully recovered from the shattering blow given it by Darwin and Freud, had finally had unexpectedly succumbed before the archaeological discoveries of the late twentieth century. The Hindu religion, with its fantastic pantheon of gods and goddesses, had failed to survive in an age of scientific rationalism. And the Mohammedan faith, weakened by the same forces, had suffered additional loss of prestige when the rising Star of David had outshone the pale crescent of the Prophet.

These beliefs still survived, and would linger on for generations yet, but all their power was gone. Only the teachings of the Buddha had maintained and even increased their influence, as they filled the vacuum left by the other faiths. Being a philosophy and not a religion, and relying on no revelations vulnerable to the archaeologist’s hammer, Buddhism had been largely unaffected by the shocks that had destroyed the other giants. It had been purged and purified by internal reformations, but its basic structure was unchanged.

One of the fundamentals of Buddhism, as Franklin knew well enough, was respect for all other living creatures. It was a law that few Buddhists had ever obeyed to the letter, excusing themselves with the sophistry that it was quite in order to eat the flesh of an animal that someone else had killed. In recent years, however, attempts had been made to enforce this rule more rigorously, and there had been endless debates between vegetarians and meat eaters covering the whole spectrum of crankiness. That these arguments could have any practical effect on the work of the World Food Organization was something that Franklin had never seriously considered.

“Tell me,” he asked, as the fertile hills rolled swiftly past beneath him, “what sort of man is this Thero you’re taking me to see?”

“Thero is his title; you can translate it by archbishop if you like. His real name is Alexander Boyce, and he was born in Scotland sixty years ago.”

“Scotland?”

“Yes—he was the first westerner ever to reach the top of the Buddhist hierarchy, and he had to overcome a lot of opposition to do it. A bhikku—er, monk—friend of mine once complained that the Maha Thero was a typical elder of the kirk, born a few hundred years too late—so he’d reformed Buddhism instead of the church of Scotland.”

“How did he get to Ceylon in the first place?”

“Believe it or not, he came out as a junior technician in a film company. He was about twenty then. The story is that he went to film the statue of the Dying Buddha at the cave temple of Dambulla, and became converted. After that it took him twenty years to rise to the top, and he’s been responsible for most of the reforms that have taken place since then. Religions get corrupt after a couple of thousand years and need a spring-cleaning. The Maha Thero did that job for Buddhism in Ceylon by getting rid of the Hindu gods that had crept into the temples.”

“And now he’s looking around for fresh worlds to conquer?”

“It rather seems like it. He pretends to have nothing to do with politics, but he’s thrown out a couple of governments just by raising his finger, and he’s got a huge following in the East. His ‘Voice of Buddha’ programs are listened to by several hundred million people, and it’s estimated that at least a billion are sympathetic toward him even if they won’t go all the way with his views. So you’ll understand why we are taking this seriously.”


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Feb 20, 2013 5:55 AM
Title: Re: Being defeated and loss of attainments
Content:
According to Theravada teaching all ariyan attainments are irreversible. They cannot be lost.

Skill in jhāna is easily lost, and supernormal powers even more easily. Devadatta, for example, is reported to have lost all his powers just by conceiving a thought of malice towards the Buddha. Proficiency in jhāna can decline if one is indolent about maintaining it, or living in circumstances that are not optimal for it, or if one’s sīla is not sufficiently pure.

As for pārājika offences, I don’t know of any text states that one will necessarily lose jhānas or powers in this way, but as it amounts to a very grave decline in sīla it does seem rather likely to be the case. What the texts do say is that if people are “in communion by theft” (i.e., pretending to be bhikkhus or bhikkhunīs when they are not) then this will impede realization (abhisamaya), here meaning stream-entry. So if a bhikkhu committed a pārājika offence but concealed it and remained in the robes, then he would be cut off from any possibility of progress.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 19, 2013 3:56 PM
Title: Re: being envious of oneself Re: The translation of Muditā
Content:
Is the aging model (musician, yogi) afflicted with some dissociative disorder, such that she supposes her remembered younger self to be a wholly different person, lacking any causal continuity with her present self? If she is, then I suppose that there may arise in her envy towards her past self whom she perceives to be someone else. I’ll leave it to any shrinks who might be reading this to pronounce on whether such a thing is actually possible. But even supposing that it is, clearly we would be talking about a psychologically very exceptional situation and not a sane puthujjana’s typical mental functioning.

On the other hand, if we are talking about an aging model experiencing the normal sort of misery that comes with losing one’s good looks, then I can only say ditto to Beeblebrox’s contribution. I don’t think the semantic range of ‘envy’ (even by your own quoted dictionary definition of it, let alone the very precise commentarial delimiting of issā) would extend to the scenarios you’re describing.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Feb 19, 2013 1:51 PM
Title: Re: What is meant by “Sabbe Dhamma Anatta”
Content:
The writer you quote seems to be treating the Dhammapada Commentary's interpretation (which he approves of) as if it were the sole and normative definition of dhammā in this context. But in fact it's unique and exceptional. Everywhere else the commentaries support the view that the writer rejects, the usual gloss being:
'Sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā' ti sabbe tebhūmakasaṅkhārā aniccā.
'Sabbe dhammā anattā' ti sabbe catubhūmakadhammā anattā.

'All saṅkhāras are impermanent' means that all saṅkhāras belonging to the three planes are impermanent.
'All dhammas are not self' means that all dhammas belonging to the four planes are not self.
(SA.ii.318; )
The three planes are those of sense-desires, refined-form and formlessness. The four planes are the same with the addition of the supramundane.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2013 7:46 PM
Title: Re: when/why did renaming people start?
Content:
But these weren’t new names. Moggallāna was Kolita’s brahminical gotra name (he was from the Maudgala gotra) and Sāriputta was Upatissa’s matronym (his mum was called Sārī). Most of the Buddha’s disciples of brahminical birth are called in the Suttas by their gotra names, for example all the various Kassapas, Kaccāyanas, Koṇḍaññas, Vacchas, Bharadvajas, Piṅgalas, etc.

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

The Vinaya has a story which offers a clue as to why this is so. It tells of how Mahākassapa wished to ordain a man and summoned Ānanda to act as the announcing ācariya. Ānanda repeatedly tried to dodge taking part in the ceremony. Eventually he was summoned by the Buddha and asked to justify his conduct. Ānanda explained that if he were to take part the Vinaya would require him to announce Mahākassapa as the preceptor using the man’s personal name, Pipphali. But he held Kassapa in such high esteem that he had never called him Pipphali even when speaking about him in the third person. The Buddha then amended the rule, permitting gotra names to be used when making this announcement. And so from this it would appear to be a matter of courtesy that gotra names predominate over personal names in the Suttas. Perhaps this also accounts for why the Buddha’s personal name (given in the commentaries as Siddhattha) isn’t mentioned at all in the Suttas.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2013 6:03 PM
Title: Re: The translation of Muditā
Content:
As you may have seen from the Vibhaṅga quote posted by Dmytro, muditā even in the Canon is conceived as other-directed. The commentaries make it clearer why this is so. The range of potential ārammaṇas for any beautiful mental factor is co-extensive with the range of potential ārammaṇas for the unwholesome state that it opposes and displaces. So, whomsoever may be the object of one’s envy may also be the object of one’s sympathetic joy. But as we have seen, one cannot be the object of one’s own envy. From this it follows that one cannot be the object of one’s own muditā.

This is not to say that joy doesn’t arise on account of one’s own sampattis, but merely that ‘joy’ in this case would be a term for something other than muditā. Whereas muditā is always reckoned as wholesome (except when occurring in the kiriyācittas of an arahant, when it is merely functional), the joy that arise in connection with one’s own sampattis may be wholesome or unwholesome. If, for example, you win the lottery and joy arises as you dream of all the ways you’ll now be able to indulge yourself, then this would be unwholesome pīti and sukha. But if joy arises as you contemplate all the gifts that you now plan to give people, then it would be wholesome pīti and sukha. In neither case would the joy be termed muditā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2013 7:20 AM
Title: Re: Pali for the teaching of the Buddhas
Content:
John Ross Carter's translation of the verse and Buddhaghosa's word-commentary:

https://tinyurl.com/badn6fd


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 16, 2013 3:28 PM
Title: Re: Jhana during Inquisition
Content:
Given the tendency of jhāna to powerfully reinforce whatever diṭṭhi (right or wrong) prompts the person to strive for it, one would expect them to be even more Christian (or at least more Papist) afterwards, if they were indeed jhāna-attainers. In St. Teresa's case it's noteworthy that her rabid fulminations against Jews and Lutherans were all written subsequent to her mystical experiences; they are not juvenilia, but the works of her 'mature' years.

Here's an article that may interest you:

Lance S. Cousins, The Stages of Christian Mysticism and Buddhist Purification: Interior Castle of St. Teresa of Ávila and the Path of Purification of Buddhaghosa


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(114.96 KiB) Downloaded 392 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 16, 2013 8:09 AM
Title: Re: The meaning of Muditā defined in the suttas
Content:
None of the occurrences of the term in the Sutta Pitaka is accompanied by any definition as such. However, the abhidhammic identification of muditā as a state opposed to arati is supported in the Dasuttara Sutta:

Or he might say, "I have developed the emancipation of the heart through sympathetic joy, and yet resentment still grips my heart..." He should be told, "No! Do not say that! Do not misrepresent the Blessed Lord, it is not right to slander him thus, for he would not have said such a thing! Your words are unfounded and impossible. If you develop the emancipation of the heart through sympathetic joy, resentment has no chance to envelop your heart. This emancipation through sympathetic joy is the cure for resentment."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Feb 16, 2013 7:14 AM
Title: Re: which dhamma texts would you pick?
Content:
There is an old commentary to it, traditionally attributed to Buddhaghosa. The commentary comprises an explanation of the words in each verse, along with some story that ostensibly accounts for the verse's origin. The stories were translated many decades ago by Burlingame as Buddhist Legends, but he left out the arguably much more useful word-commentary. The latter has now been translated by John Ross Carter, but you need to get the right edition. The Ross Carter translation that Ñāṇa linked to is the 112-page edition, with the verses only. For the word-commentary you need to get the 552-page edition by Ross Carter, Mahinda Palihawadana and Jaroslav Pelikan:

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ReligionTheology/Buddhism/?ci=9780195108606

But if you don't want to spend $65 there is also a Kindle version for $7.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 9, 2013 6:07 PM
Title: Re: Greetings from Pennsylvania
Content:
Well, thanks for the links. I scarcely followed world news at all in 2008.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jan 9, 2013 5:40 PM
Title: Re: Atheist Church 'Sunday Assembly'
Content:
Dominique Mosbergen obviously doesn't know her English history. It would be "Britain's first atheist church" if only Richard Congreve, an English admirer of Auguste Comte, hadn't beaten them to it by 135 years.

https://tinyurl.com/Nineteenth-Century-Churches

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

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


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 8, 2013 11:50 PM
Title: Re: Not-Thinking as a practice
Content:
In about the mid-80's the term "vipassanā-wallah" came into use as either a jocular term for persons committed to one or another of the modern systems of dry insight meditation or a pejorative term for persons fanatical about the same. I don't know who came up with the term, but I first heard it myself from the Aussie Patrick Kearney when he was a monk in Thailand.

In more recent years, with the growth of interest in absorption practice, "jhāna-wallah" has come into use to denote those with a similar dedication to samatha-bhāvanā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:14 AM
Title: Re: Not-Thinking as a practice
Content:
I understand that sutta to be about the overcoming of the five hindrances in samatha-bhāvanā. Both a Buddhist jhāna-wallah and a non-Buddhist yogi striving to become a block of stone via the impercipient attainment (asaññā-samāpatti) would of course need to do this, for the latter attainment, though not at all approved in Buddhist tradition, does require jhānic proficiency as its foundation.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 8, 2013 10:08 AM
Title: Re: Not-Thinking as a practice
Content:
Nothing, but that's rather different from the non-thinking tout court that you were advocating earlier.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 8, 2013 8:50 AM
Title: Re: Not-Thinking as a practice
Content:
By arriving at a level of insight knowledge that is adequate to cut off the first three fetters. This is done by developing and making much of the Eightfold Path.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jan 8, 2013 2:53 AM
Title: Re: Visiting Vulture's Peak
Content:
I got a reply. It would appear that the cable cars up to Vulture Peak are closed every Thursday, but the mountain itself stays open for visitors all the year round.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 7, 2013 5:30 PM
Title: Re: Visiting Vulture's Peak
Content:
Thanks, Christine. I've forwarded my query to Shantum.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 7, 2013 2:46 PM
Title: Visiting Vulture's Peak
Content:
Hello all,

A Thai monk has asked me to find out in which months the Vulture's Peak (Gijjhakūṭa, Skt. Gṛdrakūta) at Rajgir is "open". I told him that as far as I know it's always open, but the monk (who has visited it four times) insists that it's closed during certain months of the year. He wishes to know because his aunt is travelling there this year and is particularly anxious to see the Vulture's Peak. I've checked a few tourist sites and pilgrims' accounts via Google and haven't found anything that would contradict my own view. Does anyone here know anything about this matter?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 7, 2013 1:19 PM
Title: Re: Greetings from Pennsylvania
Content:
What is it that everyone (except me, it seems) now knows about modern finance post-2008?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 7, 2013 10:56 AM
Title: Re: Not-Thinking as a practice
Content:
A worldling who believes that the abandoning of māna consists in the deliberate avoidance of thinking and conceiving will be going about things the wrong way. He will probably just end up frustrated, unless he’s a jhāna-wallah and very strongly committed to deliberate abstention from thinking, in which case he may arrive at the impercipient attainment and end up spending a few kalpas in the Brahmā realms as an anthropomorphic block of stone.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 7, 2013 6:52 AM
Title: Re: Not-Thinking as a practice
Content:
In MN 1 it is for the sekha alone, i.e. the stream-entrant, once-returner and non-returner, that non-conceiving assumes the form of a prescription. Conceiving (maññati, e.g., "he conceives earth...") is what the worldling does do, what the sekha ought not to do, and what the asekha (arahant) does not do.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 6, 2013 10:12 PM
Title: Re: On Hell Wardens
Content:
It's the 545th Jataka, whose full name is the Mahānāradakassapa Jātaka, though it's commonly shortened to Nārada Jātaka.

Tampissa lokantaranirayaṃ vitthārena vaṇṇetvā ‘mahārāja, micchādiṭṭhiṃ avissajjento na kevalaṃ etadeva, aññampi dukkhaṃ anubhavissasī’ ti dassento gāthamāha:

Sabalo ca Sāmo ca duve suvānā,
pavaddhakāyā balino mahantā;
Khādanti dantehi ayomayehi,
ito paṇunnaṃ paralokapattan ti.

Having described that lokantara hell in detail, he said, "Great king, if you do not wholly give up your wrong view, you will come in for still further suffering. Seeing which, he spoke a verse:

"Two dogs Sabala and Sāma,
Large in body, great and mighty,
Devour with their iron teeth
Him who departs from here to that world yonder."
(J-a.vi.247)
.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 6, 2013 4:41 PM
Title: Re: What is the Pali word for humility?
Content:
Not really.

Humility in the bad sense (having little self-esteem and a low opinion of oneself) is hīno'ham'asmi māna ("the 'I am inferior' conceit"), or omāna for short.

Humility in the good sense, meaning that one is docile and tractable enough to be teachable, is denoted by various words that would translate literally as "the state of being easily spoken to". The most common of these are soracca, sovacassatā, and suvacatā or subbacatā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jan 6, 2013 4:15 PM
Title: Re: On Hell Wardens
Content:
Were you perhaps thinking of the two hell-hounds, Sabala ("Mottled") and Sāma ("Black")? Their names are given in the Nārada Jātaka, and earlier in the Ṛg Veda, as Lord Yama's two watchdogs Śyāma and Śabala.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 24, 2012 12:20 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Laodicean


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:15 AM
Title: Re: On the nature of Beauty
Content:
Oh? Doesn't the phrase something not repulsive in the first passage in bold indicate exactly the opposite?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 18, 2012 2:21 PM
Title: Re: how do you enter jhana?
Content:
I expect Ven. Sujīva's source would be the Visuddhimagga.

But in the Suttanta Piṭaka the five masteries (pañca vasiyo) are found in the Ñāṇakathā of the Paṭisambhidāmagga (Paṭi. i.99-100. English translation: Path of Discrimination 97-8).


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:53 AM
Title: Re: how do you enter jhana?
Content:
http://www.buddhanet.net/mettaf3.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 17, 2012 7:31 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
kiviak


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 16, 2012 9:53 PM
Title: Re: Why does metta come before Upekkha?
Content:
It isn't that you're not meant to develop upekkhā *at all* before reaching the third jhāna in the other three. Rather, it's that you're not meant to develop it with with the fourth jhāna as your aim. This is not to say that you can't develop it with other aims. For example, in the mettabhāvanā section of the Brahmavihāra chapter you will find quite a number of upekkhā-arousing practices, such as recollection of ownership of kamma. The mettā-developing yogi doesn't practice these aiming at the fourth jhāna, but rather to get over any antipathy towards particular beings that is impeding his arrival at non-discriminating mettā.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 16, 2012 10:57 AM
Title: Re: the great rebirth debate
Content:
Two remarks regarding "no spontaneously reborn beings [beings born without the need for parents in heaven or hell]"

1. Although 'spontaneously born' is the usual meaning of opapaatika, in the context of mundane right view the commentaries understand it to denote rebirth in general, no matter which of the four modes of generation is involved.

2. When opapaatika is used in the sense of 'spontaneously-born', the range of beings thus born is not confined to those in heaven and hell:
"What is spontaneous generation? There are devas and denizens of hell and certain human beings and some beings in the lower worlds; this is called spontaneous generation. These are the four kinds of generation." (MN.i.73)

Spontaneously-born humans are those that arise at the start of a world-cycle through the decadence and increasingly coarse appetites of the Abhassara Brahmas.

The "beings in the lower worlds" are petas and suchlike.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 15, 2012 5:50 PM
Title: Re: Dependent Origination & Jesus the Liberator
Content:
I should love to arrange for a meeting between this John Lambert fellow and the Baptist pastor Rev. Tip.

Rev. Tip was originally an animist and hereditary shaman of Mae Soon, the Pgaz K'Nyau village where I live. His conversion to Christianity appears to have been rather skin-deep and the man remains an animist at heart, subsuming the Gospel under animism much as John Lambert subsumes the Dhamma under Christianity.

In the Tipist christology, for example, Jesus enjoys the exalted status of guardian spirit of the Mae Soon village too-hoo tree. This is the tree on whose branches Pgaz K'Nyau hill-tribe women will nail their dried umbilical cords after giving birth to a son. This may perhaps strike Christians as a bit of a demotion from being the Divine Logos, co-eternal with the Father, etc., but Rev. Tip's having none of it. As far as he's concerned he's done the bearded farang hippy a great favour by appointing him to this exalted post.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Dec 14, 2012 1:58 AM
Title: Re: Creating disgust of the body
Content:
.

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


.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:27 AM
Title: Re: Obama in Burma
Content:
I doubt he would have had much choice in the matter.

Some years ago Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn of Thailand went on a state visit to Burma. Before the visit, the Thai royal protocol people had talks with their Burmese counterparts about the details of the visit. They requested that the prince be exempted from the requirement that visitors to the Shwedagon should remove their footwear, for in Thailand the custom is that this is not required of royalty when visiting temples. The Thai royal family even walk into uposatha halls and viharas with their shoes on and sometimes a sword hanging from their waists (the ordinary military can't bring weapons into temple buildings because of the Vinaya prohibition against teaching Dhamma to people with weapons).

But the Burmese weren't having any of it: if the prince wouldn't take his shoes off he'd have to stay outside. For a few days the two sides played hardball with each other, with the Thais threatening to cancel the visit and the Burmese refusing to budge. The latter also pointed out that King Bhumibol didn't have any problem removing his shoes when he visited the Shwedagon many years earlier. Anyhow, in the end the Thais backed down and the prince went barefoot.

So, if the Burmese wouldn't compromise even with head-anointed royalty, it's hardly likely they'd do so with some tuppeny ha'penny president.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 17, 2012 2:06 AM
Title: Re: Should Religion Get Involved in Politics?
Content:
At 0:40 in the video, Rev. Dhammananda says:

“The Buddha has given this advice: ‘anujaanaami bhikkhave raajaana.m anuvattitu.m’. First advice as the followers of the Buddha: to cooperate with the existing government or law enforced by the government.”


The passage quoted is from one of the Khandhakas of the Vinaya Pitaka. It was spoken after some king (I forget if it was Bimbisara or Pasenadi) had introduced a new calendar. Some bhikkhus approached the Buddha in doubt as to whether they should follow it or stick with the old calendar (e.g., when deciding on the date for entering the rains retreat). The Buddha replied by ruling that bhikkhus should conform to the wishes of kings and made it an offence of wrong-doing not to do so.

Buddhaghosa’s Vinaya Atthakatha qualified the rule by limiting its scope to those wishes of a king that are ‘dhammika’: ‘righteous’, ‘just’, ‘in line with Dhamma’.

So, pace Dhammananda this is not a general piece of advice for “followers of the Buddha”. It’s a Vinaya rule and concerns bhikkhus only.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 14, 2012 6:54 PM
Title: Re: Melodic chanting prohibited for monks!
Content:
I think your rendering of the sutta needs re-working. You seem to have translated the word bhaṅga twice.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Nov 14, 2012 6:44 PM
Title: Re: Conjuncts in Pali
Content:
Hi Vinodh,

Given your stated purpose, it would seem that the real question is not what combinations of consonants are possible in Pali, but rather, which of these combinations need to be represented by special characters in Sinhalese script. The answer is that this is required for pre-nasalized consonants (nt, nd, mb, etc.) and then a few others.

The following links should tell you all you need:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/sinhala.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhala_alphabet" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Though if the modified font is intended only for Sinhalese and Pali and not for Sanskrit, then disregard sanskritic consonant clusters like kś and śrī.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 11, 2012 5:24 PM
Title: Re: Congratulations to Americans
Content:
Ireland seems until recently to have been a particularly extreme case:

"On 22 May 1971 a group of Irish feminists including Mary Kenny travelled to Belfast by rail and made their return to Dublin laden with contraceptive devices into a statement on the illogicality of the law. This provoked criticism from the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland; Thomas Ryan, Bishop of Clonfert, said that "... never before, and certainly not since penal times was the Catholic heritage of Ireland subjected to so many insidious onslaughts on the pretext of conscience, civil rights and women's liberation.""

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

As the old joke went: "The clever Irish have found a way around their country's condom ban. They smuggle them across the border hidden inside bags of heroin."


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 11, 2012 3:34 PM
Title: Re: Question regarding "jathaka katha"
Content:
The Jataka Katha (or Nidanakatha or Jataka Nidana) is not in the Tipitaka but is the opening section of Buddhaghosa’s commentary (atthakatha) to the Jataka verses, which are in the Tipitaka. It’s one of the earliest attempts to present the Buddha’s life in the form of a connected biography: in effect a Theravadin version of works like the Buddhacarita, Divyavadana, Lalitavistara, etc. Some of its contents are present in the Sutta Pitaka, some are not.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 10, 2012 1:45 PM
Title: Re: Can a Theravada Buddhist monk KILL in self defense ?
Content:
If a bhikkhu is cornered by an attacker, it is not a Vinaya offence if he gives the attacker a blow, provided that it's only with the aim of escaping from him. If the bhikkhu attempts to kill the attacker and succeeds, then he is defeated (as other posters have mentioned). If he inadvertently kills the attacker while giving him a blow with the aim of escaping, then that too would be no offence, for only intentional killing of a human is a defeating offence.

The source is the Vinaya Pitaka's account of the 4th pacittiya rule in the Patimokkha's Sahadhammikavagga. For a modern exposition of this, click here and scroll down to 74:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/bmc1/bmc1.ch08-8.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:38 PM
Title: Re: Post an image of your previous incarnation, if you like
Content:
.
Always felt quite an affinity with this chap.


[attachment=0]3093_egil_LG.jpg[/attachment]

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/skallagrimsson.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egill_Skallagr%C3%ADmsson

And I'd like my old skull back....

http://www.viking.ucla.edu/Scientific_American/Egils_Bones.htm


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 8, 2012 3:34 AM
Title: Re: Vessantara And Maddi
Content:
I take it from Nagasena's exposition that it's essentially a story in the "pearl of great price" genre. It indirectly extols buddhahood and those who attain it by stressing what such an attainment will demand of a man.

Though there's also a more pedestrian moral that might be drawn from it (suggested by my friend Ralph Flores), namely, that responsible Buddhist parents ought to think twice before hiring a Bodhisatta as a babysitter. (Extreme Giving: The Vessantara Jātaka and Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life http://www.sunypress.edu/p-4559-buddhist-scriptures-as-literatu.aspx )

.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 7, 2012 11:27 AM
Title: Re: Does illegal downloading violate the 2nd precept?
Content:
One factor in transgression of this precept is that the thing taken is adinna, a thing-not-given. 

A thing counts as a given-thing if it comes into one's possession (possession being defined in the KhpA as "capability to use or dispose of it as one pleases") in such a manner as would neither incur the punishment of rulers (raajada.n.da) nor be "criticised by the wise" (vi~n~nuugarahita). If either of these stipulations is not fulfilled, then it's a thing-not-given.

The "punishment of rulers" clause means that the second precept is not separable from the geographical factor of local property laws. On the other hand, the "criticised by the wise" clause means that the precept is not wholly subservient to geography. It's a safeguard against the kind of geographical relativism that avers such and such to be okay if done in Switzerland but not if done in Swaziland.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 6, 2012 6:43 AM
Title: Re: Happy Birthday Bhante Dhammanando!!!
Content:
Thank you all for your kind wishes. Anumodana. 

     

Hadn't noticed these fish smilies before.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 5, 2012 10:20 AM
Title: Re: John Peacock: Will the Real Buddha Please Stand Up?
Content:
The Vinaya prohibition you mention was laid down in the aftermath of a suicidal bhikkhu jumping off a cliff and surviving the fall but snuffing the unfortunate fellow he landed on. However, the rule itself speaks only of "throwing oneself off" and says nothing of cliffs. The prevailing interpretation in Thailand takes the rule as prohibiting bhikkhus from jumping from any high place for any reason whatever. According to this view the rule has no essential connection with suicide. For example, many years ago in a Thai monastery library I happened to jump down from a stool after retrieving a book from a high shelf. The librarian monk, a Vinaya scholar, came over and gave me a dressing down for (in his view) breaking this rule and told me that in future I should climb down, rather than jump, whenever there was a need to get from a high place to a low one.[*]

On the other hand, among the Sinhalese it seems that "throwing oneself off" is widely understood to be an idiomatic expression that covers all conceivable methods of killing oneself. This is the interpretation given by Ven. Thanissaro in his Monastic Code and was also my own understanding when I (with no suicidal intent) jumped off the library stool. In the years since then I've heard some clever arguments for both readings, but without finding either entirely compelling. My current policy is to play it safe by neither killing myself nor jumping off stools.

But to come to the point, no matter which reading of the rule we go with, it doesn't contradict the fact that certain bhikkhu disciples attained arahatta in the act of killing themselves. If the rule does indeed prohibit suicide, then it simply means that they attained arahatta after committing a dukkata offence (which is very minor and not the sort of offence that impedes dhammaabhisamaya). If the rule doesn't prohibit suicide, then they wouldn't even have committed a dukkata, for none are reported to have opted for leaping from high places as their chosen method. 

Notes:
[*] And applying the Great References, presumably the rule would also include leaping from low places to high ones, thus barring bhikkhus from emulating the rather salubrious-looking practice of the Sisters of St. Beryl:

https://youtu.be/YK9kg-Ngz0Q" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://youtu.be/GV_A7YeOhfs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 5, 2012 7:27 AM
Title: Re: What Dhamma Book are you reading right now?
Content:
Sorry, what I wrote above was nonsense. I don't know what I was thinking but I got it completely the wrong way round. Dhp. 279 is in fact the phrasal anatta, not the adjectival one. So the Wallis translation doesn't in fact have the redeeming feature I imagined it to.

Fancy making such a mistake on the Buddha's birthday!


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jun 4, 2012 11:57 AM
Title: Re: What Dhamma Book are you reading right now?
Content:
I would say that this part is the translation's only redeeming feature. The rendering 'non-substantial' suggest that Wallis is among those few Pali translators who are alert to the semantic distinction between the adjective 'anatta' (as used here) and agglutinated predicative phrase 'anatta'. Most other translators get the two homonyms muddled and when encountering the adjective will translate it as they would the phrase (i.e., as "is/are not self").


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 3, 2012 11:14 PM
Title: Re: Adequate paritta chant?
Content:
Mahasamaya Sutta, DN. 20

Chanted by the monks of Wat Saket (Temple of the Golden Mount). The Saket monks are the best chanters in Bangkok, imo. If any of you ever go to Bangkok do take a trip over there when they're holding their evening chanting. The sutta starts at 1 minute 35 seconds.
https://youtu.be/HvvwFLi8UXg

Chanted solo by Luang Poo Sim Acaro, late abbot of Wat Tham Pa Phlong, Chiang Mai.
https://youtu.be/ahSRwbfb9iQ

Chanted by English laypersons of the Samatha Trust at Wat Rama IX, Bangkok, with Pali words (minus diacritics). I think the bearded man leading the chanting is either Lance Cousins or Charles Shaw.
https://youtu.be/S0ueBovjdnM

Ditto, but a better recording from some other location, but the words are only in Thai Pali.
https://youtu.be/7PaAEM9x_6Q

Chanted by Thai laywomen at Wat Analayo in Germany
https://youtu.be/ss3x5ya53yk

There probably lots of others elsewhere, but on youtube I couldn't find any Sinhalese or Burmese examples.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 2, 2012 9:56 AM
Title: Re: how would you describe the taste of a maguromki in words?
Content:
Sweet if it's on the tip of your tongue; salty if on the edges near the tip; sour if on the edges further back; bitter if in the middle of the backmost part of the tongue.

At least that's what I was taught in school biology class, with credit going to a man by the name of Edwin Boring.

Had I been born a few years later, I'd have learned that biologists had grown bored with the Boring theory and replaced it with a new one in which the taste buds on all parts of the tongue are able to detect all tastes (rather as with the Abhidhamma's account of the jivhaa-pasaada), although varying in their sensitivity to each kind of taste.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu May 31, 2012 3:09 PM
Title: Re: The great Abhidhamma Pitaka authenticity debate
Content:
I think we could if it was in fact specifically abhidhammic teachings that the Thai monks were using to support their ideas, and if they were reading and applying these teachings correctly. Having just read the book, I would say that this is not the case at all. The author (Bernard Faure) mistakenly treats the teaching that "kamma is cetanaa" (on which the Thai monks base their case) as if it were a uniquely abhidhammic doctrine, when in fact it's a core principle of both Sutta and Abhidhamma. As for the monks themselves, from the views that Faure attributes to them it's not at all evident that they have any acquaintance with the Abhidhamma. Faure writes:

"A related type of argument that is used by modern Thai and Sri Lankan monks (see Kent and Jerryson) is more psychological and seems to rely on the Abhidhamma. This argument emphasizes intention and claims that, if the killing is committed with the right state of mind (detachment or compassion), it entails no karmic consequence and therefore can be considered to be a wholesome act." (pp. 214)

But this is in plain contradiction to abhidhammic doctrines.

"...if the killing is committed with the right state of mind (detachment or compassion)..."

According to the Abhidhamma acts of intentional killing always proceed from aversion-rooted cittas. An aversion-rooted citta hardly qualifies as a "right state of mind". Moreover, since the mental factors of compassion (karu.naa) and detachment (alobha) never arise with aversion-rooted cittas, the authors are describing an impossibility.

"...it entails no karmic consequence..."

According to the Abhidhamma only an action that proceeds from the functional cittas of an arahant entails no kammic consequence. Any action proceeding from the kusala and akusala cittas of non-arahants is liable to generate a vipaaka.

"...and therefore can be considered to be a wholesome act..."

According to the Abhidhamma intentional killing can never be considered a wholesome act for it proceeds from an aversion-rooted citta and such cittas are always unwholesome.

Now the Abhidhamma does allow that a series of kusala cittas in which compassion is predominant may trigger a series of akusala cittas that impel a bad action of some kind. This would give us the kind of scenarios conventionally referred to as "doing evil with a good motive". For example stealing bread to feed the starving or having a sick pet euthanized. The point to note with such scenarios is that it is not the prior motive (or in abhidhammic terms, the preceding series of kusala cittas) that determines the moral tone of the action, kusala or akusala, but the akusala cittas that directly produce the action. The kusala prior motive will mitigate the degree of the akusala involved in the theft of the bread or the killing of the pet, but they don't have the power to transform the nature of these kammas from akusala into kusala.

For a detailed discussion of Abhidhamma and killing see Rupert Gethin's article Can Killing a Living Being Ever Be an Act of Compassion? The analysis of the act of killing in the Abhidhamma and Pali Commentaries

http://www.urbandharma.org/pdf/geth0401.pdf


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue May 29, 2012 10:01 PM
Title: Re: Mangala sutta - highest blessing
Content:
Conventions governing the comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives seem to be more fluid in Pali than in English. It is quite common for the superlative to be used in Pali where English idiom would demand the comparative.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 8:14 PM
Title: Re: Bhante Vimalaramsi
Content:
Hi all,

I'll be heading back up to my hermitage tomorrow or the day after. I'll try to post a reply to Sean's post tomorrow, but after that I won't be participating further in the thread (no dial-up connection on the mountain where I live).

All the best to you all for this new year.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 7:28 PM
Title: Re: Bhante Vimalaramsi
Content:
I hope this post will clarify matters.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 7:19 PM
Title: Re: Bhante Vimalaramsi
Content:
When the concerns are justified no amount of dialogue will clear them up. Reading the venerable's books on the Ānāpānassati Sutta and Mettabhāvanā, as well as his series of posts to DSG some years ago, I am satisfied that the two criticisms I made in my post are justified.

And lest my use of mischief in the earlier post be misunderstood . . .

According to the Oxford Dictionary in phrases like "the mischief lies in..." and "the mischief of it is that..." the word "mischief" means the most vexatious feature of something. Naturally it wasn't my intention to suggest that Ven. Vimalaraṃsī was being mischievous.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 2, 2012 7:16 PM
Title: Re: Bhante Vimalaramsi
Content:
"Calming", "tranquillising", "pacifying" — I think they're all about equally fine. My grumble was about Ven. Vimalaraṃsī's "relaxing". It's his habit to insert this in brackets after "tranquillising".

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Dec 31, 2011 7:41 AM
Title: Re: Bhante Vimalaramsi
Content:
passambhayaṃ kāyasaṅkhāraṃ assasissāmī’ ti sikkhati; ‘passambhayaṃ kāyasaṅkhāraṃ passasissāmī’ ti sikkhati.
[...]
passambhayaṃ cittasaṅkhāraṃ assasissāmī’ ti sikkhati; ‘passambhayaṃ cittasaṅkhāraṃ passasissāmī’ ti sikkhati.

He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in tranquillising the bodily formation’; he trains thus: ‘I shall breathe out tranquillising the bodily formation.’
[...]
He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in tranquillising the mental formation’; he trains thus: ‘I shall breathe out tranquillising the mental formation.’

These two lines —the final parts of the first and second tetrads of the Ānāpānassati Sutta (MN. 118)— are what Ven. Vimalaraṃsī cites as "proof texts" in support of his notion that the sine qua non of Buddhist bhāvanā is the willed relaxing of a supposed "tight mental fist" in one's head. As far as I know, it is on these passages alone that his theory is based. (If he has at any time cited others, then I welcome correction).

My first "issue" with Ven. Vimalaraṃsī is his claim that the above two modes of ānāpānassati are in some manner, or for some reason, of much greater moment than all the others. This is merely the venerable's personal opinion, for in the Suttas the Buddha doesn't single out any of the sixteen modes as meriting greater attention than the others.


Moving on to a more serious problem, it seems to me that the above passages simply cannot sustain the interpretation that the venerable imposes upon them. When citing these passages he is wont to present his case rather tersely, but when the reasoning is unpacked, it seems to go something like this:

1. The Buddha instructs the yogāvacara to tranquillize the bodily formation while breathing in and out.
2. To tranquillize means to relax.
3. That which is in need of relaxing must be something tense, tight or strained.
4. This tense, tight or strained thing may be tropologized as a "tight mental fist".
5. This mental fist is composed of attachment, aversion and self-view.
6. Willed relaxation of this "fist" brings about the letting go of attachment, etc.
7. Repeatedly doing so leads to the purification of the mind and attainment of the noble paths and fruits.

I'm not sure if I've got the latter stages of his thinking exactly right (it's ages since I last read him), but for present purposes it doesn't really matter, because the mischief lies in points 2 and 3.

In English usage the primary sense of the verb "to tranquillize" is to calm someone/something that is agitated or disturbed. The word has also a secondary sense —largely occurring in medical contexts— where it means to relax that which is tight or strained. A person suffering from stress and tension, for example, may take a tranquillizer.

Now Vimalaraṃsī's argument requires one to assume that the secondary sense of the English verb "to tranquillize" is the primary sense of the Pali verb "passambhati", (or if not that, then it is at least the sense that the Buddha had in mind when he taught the Ānāpānassati Sutta).

And what's wrong with that? What's wrong is that the venerable ought not to have assumed anything of the kind. Rather than making the linguistically naïve assumption of there being a perfect symmetry between the semantic range of "passambhati" and that of "tranquillize", he ought to have investigated how "passambhati" and related words (passaddha, passaddhi, passambhayaṃ, etc.) are used in the Suttas. Had he done so, he would have discovered that all the Pali words that occur in binary opposition to passambhati have to do with agitation or disturbance or turbulence. Passambhati and its derivatives NEVER occur in opposition to any of the Pali words denoting tightness or tenseness. 

This is not of course to say that the method devised by Ven. Vimalaraṃsī may not be an effective practice, but merely that it is not nearly so well-grounded in the Suttas as he imagines it to be.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 28, 2011 10:59 AM
Title: Re: Some thoughts about rebirth
Content:
Thanks for the welcome. I'm afraid I won't be back for regular posting just yet, as I'm going back up the mountain in a few days. I came down down because a whole bunch of friends from different places all decided to visit me at the same time, and I couldn't have accomodated them in my usual abode.

All the best for the coming year!

Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 28, 2011 9:35 AM
Title: Re: Some thoughts about rebirth
Content:
I don't see why not, especially as we seem already to have an instantiation of this in the person of the current U.S. Secretary of State.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 25, 2011 9:36 AM
Title: Re: Ordination in Thailand
Content:
The abbot of Wat Tha Ma O, Sayādaw Dhammānanda, is now nearly blind and too frail to teach. The de facto abbot now is a very talented Burmese-trained Thai monk, Sayādaw Gandhasāra. U Gandhasāra has undertaken a fair bit of international teaching (mostly leading retreats in Europe) and speaks English well. He is also an incredibly prolific translator, especially of Burmese treatises into Thai, and impresses me as a competent meditation technician.

Earlier this year I transcribed and translated Wat Tha Ma O's Pali evening chanting and confession formulas for another Englishman who was preparing to ordain there. As these are rather different from those in general use in Thailand I am uploading the file here for anyone who might be considering ordaining at Tha Ma O.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat May 15, 2010 3:57 PM
Title: Re: One "citta" at a time
Content:
I think you are falling into the same error as Nyanavira Thera: that of supposing that a temporal locative construction like "imasmi.m sati, ida.m hoti" necessarily indicates the simultaneity of the two things or events. But this simply isn't so.

Such a construction in Pali is every bit as ambiguous as a "when... then..." sentence in English. In both languages the relationship between the referents of the two clauses may be one of simultaneity OR subsequence OR consequence.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Apr 24, 2010 3:24 PM
Title: Re: Ajahn Sucitto: Fragmentation & Distancing from Experience
Content:
Or perhaps "ground of being" is just Ajahn Sucitto's Cockney pronunciation of "ground up beans".In that case obviously he would be alluding to the Satipatthana Sutta's simile for the thirty-two parts of the body.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 25, 2010 3:25 PM
Title: Re: english translations
Content:
There's a non-PTS translation of the Dhammasangani by a Burmese. I forget the translator's name now, but probably Dmytro or Robert will know it

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 25, 2010 3:03 PM
Title: Re: The Validity of Non-Theravada Ordinations Lineages
Content:
Hi Bhante and Bankei,

Just to let you know that I've read your posts and will post a reply after a few days (I'm not much online these days).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Jan 18, 2010 5:00 PM
Title: Re: The Validity of Non-Theravada Ordinations Lineages
Content:
It's more fundamental than that: if the Diipavamsa's judgment of the Sabbathivaadins and Dhammaguttiyas is correct, then there never was a "chain" to be broken. In the Pali Vinaya a schism in the sangha is a sort of one-generation-only virus, for the Buddha's rulings are such that no schism is capable of outliving the bhikkhus responsible for it. To be specific, there is a ruling that sanghakammas will be invalid in any case where schismatical bhikkhus complete the quorum. In other words, for a sanghakamma to be valid there must be enough non-schismatical bhikkhus present to constitute a quorum by themselves. So, if a sanghakamma, e.g., bhikkhu ordination, is invalid when schismatics complete the quorum, how much more so when schismatics constitute the entire quorum.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 29, 2009 5:18 PM
Title: Re: Abhidharma-kosa
Content:
For me that disagreement, though it may historically have generated the more noise, nonetheless seems not as momentous as the one regarding mindfulness.

One practising rightly will sooner or later know for herself whether nibbana is the mere absence of kilesas and dukkha (as the Sautrantikas held) or a real dhamma cognized by a supramundane consciousness (as the Theravada holds). An accurate grasp of nibbana isn't needed for realizing it, but only for avoiding mistaking experiences that are not nibbana for nibbana.

But with a wrong conception of sati one won't practise rightly at all.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 24, 2009 3:41 PM
Title: Re: Different Nikaya and Sanghakamma
Content:
I haven't heard that the Ajahn Chah monasteries have anything like a blanket ban on performing sanghakammas with Mahanikayans who aren't members of their club. I believe it depends on whether the visiting monk is observing a comparable standard of Vinaya. For example, if the monk uses money and isn't prepared to confess his transgressions of the training rules that deal with this, and forfeit any money in his possession, along with any items he has purchased with money, then he won't be allowed in the Paatimokkha recital.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:35 PM
Title: Re: Different Nikaya and Sanghakamma
Content:
I don't know. I'd need to look it up as my memory of this topic is pretty hazy. I believe that for it to count as sanghabheda the separate recitations have to be the outcome of dissension between the two parties over one of the various grounds for schism (e.g., teaching adhamma as Dhamma).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 23, 2009 9:36 AM
Title: Re: Abhidharma-kosa
Content:
As well as those mentioned by early posters, there are significant differences in the descriptions of the various paramattha dhammas. Mindfulness, for example, is held by the Theravada to be a beautiful mental factor that arises only with kusala cittas in non-arahants and kriya cittas in arahants. But Vasubandhu treats it as an ethically indifferent factor that may be present with both kusala and akusala cittas.

Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Dec 23, 2009 1:21 AM
Title: Re: Five Tonics & Conjey
Content:
Ven. Gavesako and I once discussed the chocolate question on an old E-sangha thread, but I don't know if it is cached anywhere. Here is what used to be the link for it: http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?showtopic=68796

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 10:36 PM
Title: Re: Five Tonics & Conjey
Content:
I think you've been misled by a translation of ekabhattika that is faithful to the wording (eka = one, bhatta = meal) but not to the meaning, for it conflates ekabhattika with ekaasanika.

Ekabhattika: "one-mealer" means eating only during one part of the day (from dawn to midday), but despite the wording it doesn't actually set any limit on how many meals are consumed during this period.

Ekaasanika: "one-session-eater" means eating just one meal a day.

And so all ekaasanikas are ekabhattikas, but not every ekabhattika is an ekaasanika. Ekaasanika is an optional dhutanga observance undertaken (chiefly) by the gluttonous, while ekabhattika is what the sixth precept entails and what arahants practise.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 2:06 AM
Title: Re: Inspiring Quotes
Content:
It does now. You need to click the URL button to make the link clickable.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 20, 2009 12:25 PM
Title: Re: The universe is without a refuge, without a Supreme God.
Content:
The "without a refuge/protector" translation supposes anabhissaro to be an adjective formed from "na abhissarati", the passive form of the verb abhisarati, from the root *sar (the same root as sarana, refuge).

The "without a Supreme God" translation, since it posits a connection between anabhissaro and issaro (God) would need to be formed from an entirely different root: *is or *iis. But since there is no such verb as abhissati or abhiissati, one would first need to form the noun issaro, then prefix it with abhi-, then add the negative an-.

Both ways are possible, but the second is extremely improbable, for had the word been formed in this way we should expect to meet with instances of the unnegated form 'abhissaro' in the sense of "Supreme God". But there is no such instantiation even in the commentaries, let alone the Suttas.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Dec 20, 2009 8:47 AM
Title: Re: Different Nikaya and Sanghakamma
Content:
Hi Bankei,

Funeral ceremonies aren't really a relevant example; they are not sanghakammas and have no Vinaya significance at all.

Regarding the situation between the two nikayas in Thailand, I don't think it is readily describable in Vinaya terms. As far as I know neither nikaya has anything like an official position statement as to how it regards the monks of the other nikaya (i.e., that they are schismatics, or not really monks, or whatever). Prince Mongkut's personal doubt about the intactness of the Mahanikaya ordination lineage doesn't have any status as a Vinaya ajudication, even if some in the Dhammayuttika Nikaya take it seriously.

In practice the monks in a Mahanikaya monastery will normally allow a visiting Dhammayutt monk full participation in sangha activities, while Dhammayutt wats are highly inconsistent in how they treat visiting Mahanikaya monks. For example, the extreme chauvinists among the Dhammayutts (e.g., Ajahn Maha Boowa and his associates) will treat a visiting Mahanikaya monk like a samanera. On the other hand, in the north of Thailand (where the Dhammayuttika Nikaya is sparsely represented) many Dhammayutt forest ajahns don't care a damn about nikaya affiliation.

When I was a Dhammayutt monk myself I remember sometimes hearing whisperings about "the regulations of the Dhammayuttika Nikaya". For example, Mahanikai monks can stay at Dhammayutt wats, but must leave during the rains retreat; Dhammayutt monks can confess to Mahanikai monks, but can't hold the Patimokkha recital with them, etc. But these regulations seem to be very elusive. Nobody could ever show me a copy of them, or give me a citation; nor have I ever met a monk who admits to having seen a copy of them.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 5:51 PM
Title: Re: Two new articles on bhikkhunīs
Content:
I've uploaded it again.It downloads okay onto my computer.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 5:26 PM
Title: Re: psychiatric drugs and the fifth precept
Content:
See Ven Thanissaro's account of the 51st paacittiya rule, which gives all the sources:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/bmc1/bmc1.ch08-6.html

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 5:00 PM
Title: Re: Two new articles on bhikkhunīs
Content:
Attached is another article by U Pandita: Was the Buddha Obliged to Observe Vinaya Rules?


 ./download/file.php?id=478
(111.96 KiB) Downloaded 169 times


From the introduction:
Juo-Hsüeh Shih makes an interesting assumption in her work Controversies over Buddhist Nuns when she discusses the historicity of ñatticatutthakamma ordination form in Vinaya:

Moreover, evidence in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta of the DN suggests that the Buddha himself may have used this formula [i. e., the ehibhikkhu formula]1 all his life. (352) So why did the Buddha not follow the procedure [i. e., the ñatticatutthakamma procedure]2 he had himself prescribed? (355) It is more plausible to suggest that the last stage in the evolution of the ordination process, the ñatticatutthakammaupasampadā, began after the Buddha’s death . . . (356)

Her argument can be schematized as follows:

1. If the Buddha really prescribed the ñatticatutthakamma ordination during his lifetime, he must have adopted it in giving ordination to his followers.
2. But he used the older ehibhikkhu formula all his life.
3. Therefore:
a) Either he failed to observe his own rule,
b) Or the ñatticatutthakamma ordination is a later development that has materialized only after his passing away.
4. But the Buddha could not have failed to observe his own rules.
5. Therefore, only the conclusion (3b) is plausible.

As seen above, her argument is based on the assumption that the Buddha was obliged to observe Vinaya rules like his followers. “No one is above the law”, she seems to say, not even the Buddha himself.

However, I find it difficult to take her assumption at face value because it contradicts the orthodox Theravādin view...


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 4:28 PM
Title: Re: psychiatric drugs and the fifth precept
Content:
In which suttas are such episodes reported?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 4:00 PM
Title: Re: Sūdanī
Content:
A correction: since there's no 'h' in sūdanī "cleanser" isn't correct. The word comes from the root *sūd not *sodh. Hence, "Eradicator/Destroyer of Papañca". Also, I suspect papañca here is intended in its broad sense of impediment or stumbling block, rather than its narrow sense of diffuseness or proliferation.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 2:35 PM
Title: Re: Emblem of Consciousness?
Content:
Unlike the other kasiṇas, viññāṇa-kasiṇa is never treated in any detail in Pali sources. In the Visuddhimagga Buddhaghosa doesn't deal with it at all, instead substituting the light-kasiṇa, which isn't mentioned in the Suttas. Given the extreme paucity of data about viññāṇa-kasiṇa, I don't see how it could be compared with Mahamudra or Dzogchen (or anything else) with much sense of certitude.

Again, Udayin, I have proclaimed to my disciples the way to develop the ten kasiṇa bases. [...] One contemplates the consciousness kasiṇa above, below, and across, undivided and immeasurable. And thereby many disciples of mine abide having reached the perfection and consummation of direct knowledge.
(MN. 77)
That's about all the Suttas have to say. Then there's an intriguing statement in the Nettipakaraṇa:
There are ten kasiṇa bases: the earth kasiṇa, water kasiṇa, fire kasiṇa, air kasiṇa, blue-black kasiṇa, yellow kasiṇa, red kasiṇa, white kasiṇa, space kasiṇa, and consciousness kasiṇa. Herein, the eight kasiṇas from the earth and water kasiṇas down to the white kasiṇa are calm (samatha). The space kasiṇa and consciousness kasiṇa are insight (vipassanā).
(Netti. 89)
Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:05 PM
Title: Re: Sūdanī
Content:
The -ī suffix in sūdanī indicates an actor rather than an action-noun, hence "cleanser."

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Nov 27, 2009 4:36 PM
Title: Re: Nibbana
Content:
As far as I know they're all subject to death and the Buddha had no qualms about speaking of them as such.
"If, Aggivessana, a king's elephant dies in old age, well tamed, well trained, the king's old elephant that has died is reckoned as one that has died tamed. And so, Aggivessana of a king's elephant that is middle-aged. And too, Aggivessana, if a king's elephant dies young, well tamed, well trained, the king's young elephant that has died is reckoned as one that has died tamed. Even so, Aggivessana, if a monk who is an elder dies with the cankers destroyed, the monk who is an elder that has died is reckoned as one that has died tamed. And so, Aggivessana, of a monk of middle standing. And too, Aggivessana, if a newly ordained monk dies with cankers destroyed, the newly ordained monk that has died is reckoned as one that has died tamed."
Dantabhumi Sutta, Horner trans.
Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 26, 2009 7:02 PM
Title: Re: From little things big things grow...
Content:



Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Nov 26, 2009 6:32 PM
Title: Re: If there was no Theravada, which tradition would you pick?
Content:
Stoicism.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:49 PM
Title: Two new articles on bhikkhunīs
Content:
Greetings all,

Attached are two articles recently made available by their author, U Pandita (not the Mahasi meditation teacher of this name, but another Burmese scholar monk). The articles are a critique of two contentions in Dr. Juo-Hsüeh Shih's article, Controversies over Buddhist Nuns, namely, her claim that Buddhaghosa misinterprets the term 'anupasampanno' in his commentary to the the Vinaya's duṭṭhullārocana training rule, and the claim (made also by Gombrich) that there once existed bhikkhunīs ordained by the "ehi bhikkhunī" method.


 ./download/file.php?id=455
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 ./download/file.php?id=456
(101.9 KiB) Downloaded 213 times


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 21, 2009 3:00 PM
Title: Re: Bhikkhuni Ordination performed - by Ajahn Brahmavamso
Content:
I will consider it, and perhaps prepare something for posting when I'm next online (probably Wednesday next week).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 21, 2009 12:39 PM
Title: Re: Attainment as Qualification to Teach?
Content:
It is Buddhaghosa's editor who expresses a wish to be reborn in heaven and later meet the Buddha Metteyya. Dhammika, like Nyanavira before him, confuses the scribe's colophon with that of Buddhaghosa himself.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 21, 2009 12:17 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Cyanide


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Nov 21, 2009 12:08 PM
Title: Re: Bhikkhuni Ordination performed - by Ajahn Brahmavamso
Content:
Thanks for posting this. It's an excellent vinicchaya on the part of Ven. Thanissaro.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 8, 2009 2:13 PM
Title: Re: The Casual Drink Or About That One Precept...
Content:
I would say that it is less ambiguous than those suttas where one has to wrestle with the term pamaada.t.thaana, but not enirely unambiguous. If a reader wanted to insist on the moderation interpretation of the fifth precept he might argue that this sutta has no bearing on the question for it is merely stating what noble disciples do do, not what ordinary persons ought to do. In other words, he might treat the sutta as strictly descriptive, not prescriptive.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Nov 8, 2009 1:17 PM
Title: Re: The Casual Drink Or About That One Precept...
Content:
Among some Tibetan Buddhists the logic goes something like this:

1. All kammically akusala actions are included in the list of ten unwholesome courses of action (akusala kammapa.tha): taking life, taking what is not given, misconduct in sense-pleasures, false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, frivolous speech, covetousness, malice, and wrong view.
2. The consumption of alcohol is not included in the list of ten akusala kammapa.thas.
3. Therefore consuming alcohol is not in itself kammically akusala. (from 1 &amp; 2)

But...

4. Since consuming alcohol was discommended by the Buddha, it must in some sense be blameworthy.
5. An act may be blameworthy either because it leads to akusala kammapa.thas or because it is itself an akusala kammapa.tha, or both.
6. Since consuming alcohol is not itself an akusala kammapa.tha, it must be blameworthy because (and only because) it leads to akusala kammapa.thas. (from 3 &amp; 5).

But...

7. Not all consumption of alcohol is sufficient to give rise to the akusala kammapa.thas.
8. Therefore the fifth precept enjoins only abstention from consuming excessive alcohol, i.e., alcohol in such a quantity that the akusala kammapa.thas may reasonably be expected to result.

The Tibetan argument wouldn’t have been accepted by the Theravadin commentators, although they would have differed over the precise grounds for rejecting it. Buddhaghosa and Dhammapaala would have accepted points 1-6, but rejected 7-8, since it was their view that even the minutest quantity of alcohol leads at least to mental akusala. Buddhadatta and Sumangalasaami would have rejected premise 2, since it was their view that consuming alcohol is included in the akusala kammapa.thas under misconduct in sense-pleasures.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Oct 29, 2009 5:59 PM
Title: Re: nina van gorkom vs burmese abhidhamma styles?
Content:
Nina is of that generation, but her critique (and that of her teacher, Khun Sujin, and their circle) is unrelated to that of Humphreys. What the Sujinists reject is the very idea that there is such a thing as a formal method by which satipatthana and vipassana can be developed. And so their critique is not directed merely against this or that proposed satipatthana method but against all proposed methods and any conceivable method that anyone might ever care to propose.

Here's a dialogue between a Sujinist and an advocate of formal meditation that might help to clarify the Sujinists' position.

http://www.dhammastudy.com/behere.html

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:32 PM
Title: Re: Hi, this is Paññāsikhara.
Content:
Welcome, bhante!  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:27 PM
Title: Re: Having put aside covetousness and grief....
Content:
I agree with the sayadaw's translation and don't think that he is ignoring the grammatical form. In a sentence that comprises an absolutive like vineyya or vinayitvaa followed by a finite verb, there are several possibilities as to how the actions denoted by the two verbs might be temporally related. Pali primers naturally focus on the commonest one: "Having done this, he then did that." But the next most common construction is one in which the absolutive refers to some ongoing action that is simultaneous with the action of the finite verb. For example, "she walks holding a parasol" would be expressed in Pali as "saa chatta.m gahetvaa gacchati", literally, "she, having held a parasol, walks."

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 12, 2009 4:46 PM
Title: Re: Pali word association game
Content:
matthalunga - brain


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 12, 2009 4:17 PM
Title: Re: What is this design?
Content:
Well, you oughtn't to read too much significance into it, though coincidentally before logging in I was writing an e-mail to another monk on the subject of the Anguttara Nikaya's 7 methuna-sa.myogas ("sexual bonds" -- defects of the brahmacariya that are not as grave as sexual intercourse, though impediments all the same). The seventh bond is living the brahmacariya in the hope of obtaining rebirth as a deva in one of the sensual heavens.

Apsaras are dangerous.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Mon Oct 12, 2009 2:51 PM
Title: Re: What is this design?
Content:
A celestial nymph. Search google images for "apsara".


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 19, 2009 9:58 PM
Title: Re: Buddhism and politics
Content:
I would say that it's ultimately unworkable, but that hasn't been an impediment to its being adopted by non-conservatives, either across the board (as, for example by Marxists and Nazis) or in an issue-specific fashion (as, for example, with the feminist support for abortion).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 19, 2009 9:46 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
chess


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 19, 2009 12:57 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Prince Kropotkin


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 19, 2009 12:12 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Pistol


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 19, 2009 12:07 PM
Title: Re: What's a gelatin, liquid crystal, or plasma?
Content:
The eight rupa dhammas that are inseparable and which constitute one material cluster. See chapter VI of the Abhidhammatthasangaha: http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/abhisgho/abhis06.htm
These four elements coexist and are inseparable, but one may preponderate over another as, for instance, pathavi in earth, apo in water, tejo in fire, and vayo in air.

They are also called Mahabhutas, or Great Essentials because they are invariably found in all material substances ranging from the infinitesimally small cell to the most massive object.

Dependent on them are the four subsidiary material qualities of colour (vanna), smell (gandha), taste (rasa), and nutritive essence (oja). These eight coexisting forces and qualities constitute one material group called 'suddhatthaka rupa kalapa - pure-octad material group'.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 18, 2009 11:49 AM
Title: Re: What's a gelatin, liquid crystal, or plasma?
Content:
I think it should be: "What are the characteristics of the rūpa dhammas which constitute the conceptual reality known as "gelatin" and which are known by the faculty of understanding (paññindriya) when it has been developed to the level of insight knowledge (vipassanā-ñāṇa)?"


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 18, 2009 9:55 AM
Title: Re: Omniscence
Content:
By latterday Buddhists I meant Theravada Buddhists of the after-generations following the Buddha's parinibbana. For example, Nagasena of the Milindapanha, and the Pali commentators.

What I particularly had in mind was an article (I've forgotten what it was called, but I think it may have been by Dan Lusthaus) which purported to relate the history of the idea of omniscience in Buddhism, depicting it as becoming ever more exaggerated over the years. Insofar as the article concerned the Mahayana the author's point seemed to be justified. But insofar as it concerned Pali Buddhism, the author had clearly not done his homework and could argue his point only by a very selective reading of the texts. 

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:20 PM
Title: Re: Buddhism and politics
Content:
Splendid. I don't feel so lonely now.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 17, 2009 3:10 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
coypu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNYX2QJ85lo


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 17, 2009 3:07 PM
Title: Re: Omniscence
Content:
"Knowable things" (ñeyya dhamma) is an important qualification and one that usually gets overlooked by those modern scholars who assert that latterday Buddhists came to exaggerate the Buddha's cognitive range. The Buddha, according to the Pali commentators is able to know all knowable things, but the commentators don't claim that all things are knowable.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:10 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
five-spice powder


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:06 PM
Title: Re: Good study materials
Content:
It's a good book, but there's no need to pay 23 Euros for it. It's available free from lots of German websites (they are respectable ones, so I assume they are not breaching copyright).

http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/savifadok/volltexte/2008/154/

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 5:17 PM
Title: Re: The Retro house in quarantine!
Content:
Sorry to hear this news. 

Wishing your son a very speedy recovery.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 5:09 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
permanently inebriated


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 5:00 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Crito


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:07 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Ken Dodd


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:37 PM
Title: Re: "th" in Pali
Content:
I'm afraid I don't recall how his pronunciation went.  

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:27 AM
Title: Re: "th" in Pali
Content:
I think there are plenty of other non-arcane methods that are better than 'hothouse', 'madhouse' etc. For example:

th: like 'tea' but with the tip of the tongue striking the back of the top teeth rather than the palate.

ch: like Bob Marley's pronunciation of the c in 'Caribbean' when he sings Buffalo Soldier.

jh: like Linton Kwesi Johnson's pronunciation of the g in 'gather' when he's reciting his poem Di Great Insohreckshan

bh: as the waiter in your local Indian restaurant pronounces the bh in bhindi masala.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:42 AM
Title: Re: "th" in Pali
Content:
Indeed. Modern attempts to show the pronunciation of Indic aspirates by comparing them with English words (th = hothouse, ph = flophouse, bh = clubhouse, dh = madhouse etc.) are always misleading, for 'th' in Pali, Sanskrit etc. doesn't represents two distinct syllables as it does in these suggested English words.

For example, 'hothouse would be realized by most English speakers as ['hɒt-haʊs] or ['hɒt-tʰaʊs], with variants of this consisting only in modifications to the vowels (as in, say, Yorkshire or Mississippi) or the replacement of the obstruent with a glottal stop (as in Cockney). There is no variant afaik in which the 'th' is unsegmented. Not even in Southern Asian forms of English is 'hothouse' pronounced ['hɒt̪ʰ-ʔaʊs] or ['hɒ-t̪ʰaʊs].

The Pali aspirates may be phonetically represented as follows:

kh - [kʰ]
gh - [gʰ]

ch - [cʰ]
jh - [ɟʰ]

ṭh - [ʈʰ]
ḍh - [ɖʰ]

th - [t̪ʰ]
dh - [d̪ʰ]

ph - [pʰ]
bh - [bʰ]

ḷh - [ɭʰ]

The little subscript h, [ʰ], in each of these words indicates that the consonant is aspirated. In the case of 'th', aspiration means that when the tongue-tip leaves the teeth to release the sound [t̪] the vocal cords don't start to vibrate immediately. Instead, there is a short delay in which breath flows out of the mouth more or less unimpeded, thus giving us [t̪ʰ].

Best wishes,
'd̪ʰʌm-mʌː-'nʌn-d̪əʊ 'bʰik-kʰʊ


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:02 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Tsuchigumo


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 6:00 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Bowie


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 5:59 AM
Title: Re: Stream-Winners Subsequent Lives
Content:
The deceased sotapannas whose narratives are related in Pali texts were all reborn as devas, and as such had perfect recall of their preceding human life. Since we don't have any accounts of sotapannas who are reborn in the human realm one can only speculate as to what they would be like. My guess is that strong natural-decisive-support condition would probably lead to their being reborn in a Buddhist family. If it didn't and they were reborn among holders of wrong view, they would be impervious to any parental attempts to indoctrinate them, since akusala cittas accompanied by wrong view cannot arise in the mental continuum of a sotapanna. But this doesn't mean that the cittas that do arise will all be accompanied by knowledge (ñanasampayutta); so it's quite conceivable that in their early years they would have no sense of being sotapannas until they came to re-encounter the Dhamma.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 16, 2009 5:42 AM
Title: Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread
Content:
Some Thais have also produced an animated life of the Buddha movie (I think it came out at the start of last year). I haven't seen it myself, but my friend Eisel Mazard gave it one of his characteristically caustic reviews
Several days ago, I saw the "major motion picture" titled _The Life of Buddha_ --a Thai-made cartoon, that will doubtless define many of the assumptions about the historical Buddha for some time to come (at least within Thailand, if not beyond, as English-translation DVDs are available).

Precisely because the film is regarded as an attempt to portray the historical Buddha, its wildly unhistorical character is difficult to behold without a wince.

Textual scholars will immediately recognize the events as hastily cobbled together from Ashvaghosa and the Lalitavastra --viz., non-Pali, non-Theravada, Sanskrit sources (now considered "Mahayana").

Thus, while the source material selected is fundamentally alien to the tradition of Buddhism in Thailand, the film-makers have attempted to impose "Thai" elements in a manner both artless and anachronistic.

Perhaps the most striking example: they depict Devadatta reading Pali from a manuscript written in Khom (classical Cambodian) orthography! Here is ancient Cambodia written into ancient India (with the ocean and the passage of over a thousand years that separates the two simply smeared). Perhaps more disturbing: the Buddha's followers are depicted as exclusively male, with no female monastics of any kind --apparently just to avoid Thai discomfort on this issue (currently it is illegal for female renunciates to beg with bowl in Thailand, and charges are pressed on this from time to time, to keep the women "in their place" in the modern Thai notion of Buddhism --notwithstanding what the historical Buddha taught, or that he had female renunciates as disciples, etc.).

A long cataloge of such historical errors could be provided --and, presumably, somebody in a department of cultural studies will do so eventually.

As with many modern attempts to re-tell the life of the Buddha (even in contemporary Sri Lanka), the main defects of the narrative are:
(1) the focus is almost exclusively on "magical" events surrounding the birth, childhood, and death of the Buddha --viz., omitting the actual philosophy and adult life that made the historical figure worth remembering in the first place,
(2) instead of philosophic debate, the Buddha is simply depicted traversing the countryside of India to perform banal miracles (e.g., fighting a magic snake, making it rain indoors, etc.) to "win" the "faith" of converts --and this is both fundamentally boring to behold, and wildly extraneous to any reason (secular or religious) for respecting the historical Buddha or his teaching,
(3) there is neither any interest in the social/historical reality that the Buddha spoke to (in India of his time), nor is there any interest in the social/historical reality that the audience now inhabits, and that the content of the film might address.

Under heading #3, we could note that a Sri Lankan (or mainland Indian) film along the same lines would at least mention the existence of the caste system, and the Buddha's critique thereof; but not so for the Thais. It would also be easy to imagine some other film-maker having an interest in issues that vitiate modern Thailand, such as alcoholism, drug-addiction, prostitution, etc. --but this is purely "cloud-cuckoo-land" filmmaking.

The film is garbage; however, the monks and laypeople that now step forward in praise of it (as an accurate depiction of the historical Buddha) do us a great favor in discrediting themselves.

The same may well be said of the craze for "Jatukam" amulets in Thailand; it is as if the most corrupt had devised these as a means of having the worst elements of Thai monasticism identify themselves, at the same time convincing all the dunces to wear a sign around their necks in public to declare their own gullibility.

The saddening question is this: will there ever be an interest in the historical material that the Pali suttas hold, such as might challenge the widespread assumptions built up from half-remembered legends of Ashavghosa, the Lalitavastra, and Jataka fables ("Wet-san-don", etc.)?

In Thailand, the answer is "no". The Buddha they believe in shaved his head, and yet maintained a full head of hair. He evidently never said, wrote, or recited anything of philosophic significance, and is instead an object of worship simply on account of his (supposed) royal blood and conjurer's tricks.

So far as the dramatist's art is concerned, I here recall Schopenhauer's comment on Dante's epic poems: the first (inferno) had a great deal of dramatic interest, the second (purgatory) less so, and then the last (paradise) was an utter bore, as it simply floated from one cloud to the next, with no suffering or conflict to provide dramatic interest. So too, here, the film-makers never considered that it might be an aesthetic mistake to delete suffering --not only because the Buddha's philosophy is (in some sense) "about" suffering, but also because drama (_per se_) requires suffering to satisfy the requirements of the stage. If we turn ancient India into paradise, and put a halo around all of the characters' heads, all that remains is for a bunch of figures to float around, making resounding declarations in echoing voices --viz., there is, strictly speaking, no plot.

But ancient India was no such paradise, and the other parties the Buddha debated with (and preached) to provided much more than just mute astonishment before a haloed spectacle --they provided real opposition based on their own religious and philosophical views, and, moreover, they confronted him with real problems based on their own experience.

There was (and is) "a point" and "a plot" to the Pali canon; and it's a shame that both the film-makers, and so much of the Thai audience, simply miss the point.
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 14, 2009 11:54 PM
Title: Re: Accepting Rebirth
Content:
I don't know about Zen masters. The spiritual virtuosos of Tibetan Buddhism are believed by their devotees to be enlightened in a vastly superior sense to that of the Theravada.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 14, 2009 9:15 PM
Title: Re: Quick question about Buddhist Manners
Content:
It's the Thai word for a folded hand salute, called 'añjali' in Pali.









https://forestwisdom.blogspot.com/2008/02/why-wai.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 14, 2009 4:51 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
dunces


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 14, 2009 1:50 PM
Title: Re: Accepting Rebirth
Content:
The list is actually of 62 views.

Have you read the Brahmajala Sutta and seen what these views are, what the Buddha says about how each view arises and in what its error consists? If you have, then would you care to say which ones in particular struck you as being a dogmatic judgment on the part of the Buddha?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 14, 2009 1:39 PM
Title: Re: Accepting Rebirth
Content:
In the Theravada their claims to enlightenment (or the claims that their tradition makes on their behalf) would be dismissed without appeal. In the Theravadin conception of enlightenment one may be enlightened without recalling former existences, but not without understanding the conditionality of dhammas. To doubt or reject rebirth is to suppose that those dhammas denoted "causes and conditions for further becoming" might not in fact give rise to further becoming. To suppose this is possible only for one by whom the conditionality of dhammas has neither been understood intellectually nor penetrated by insight.

When dhammas become manifest
To the ardent meditating brahman,
All his doubts then vanish since he understands
Each dhamma along with its cause.
(from the Udana, sutta 1)
One needs to bear in mind that when those of non-Theravadin persuasion speak of 'enlightenment', they're often referring to something altogether different from the enlightenment of the Buddha's Buddhism.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sun Jun 14, 2009 9:43 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
killer qu'est-ce que c'est?


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:04 PM
Title: Re: Buddhism and politics
Content:
These aren't actually the sort of things that I had in mind, since I wouldn't view them as intrinsically conservative causes.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 13, 2009 9:48 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Christmas Humphreys


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 13, 2009 9:36 PM
Title: Re: Pali Primer Study Group (Lily de Silva)
Content:
The verb 'pasīdati' can mean either 'to be pleased' or 'to have faith'. But in the former case the subject of the verb will normally be the mind (citta, mano, hadaya etc.), not a person. Since the subject in the exercise is 'upāsaka', your proposed translation is a better one.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 13, 2009 9:24 PM
Title: Re: Will G.W. Bush go to hell
Content:
Because Coolidge displayed a degree of inactivity and a dexterity for snoring that seems to be unmatched by any other US president. At night he slept even longer hours than Reagan, and in the daytime he took lengthy siestas, and preferred lounging in his rocking-chair to any other activity. Obviously the more time a president spends sleeping and lounging in his rocking-chair, the less time he will have to devote to belligerence, criminality and the like.


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(669.48 KiB) Downloaded 110 times


Best wishes,
Dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 13, 2009 5:34 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Carrott


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 13, 2009 5:23 PM
Title: Re: Will G.W. Bush go to hell
Content:
I think all those elected to the American presidency (except perhaps Calvin Coolidge) would thereby have greatly boosted their chances of an unfortunate rebirth. But this has nothing to do with how many people loved them or hated them. Rather, it's the result of all the evil compromises that practical politics will impose upon even the wisest and most well-meaning president.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 13, 2009 4:25 PM
Title: Re: Quick question about Buddhist Manners
Content:
Unless you're a Bangkok Buddhist schoolgirl whose parents have enrolled you in Assumption RC College. While at school the girls will be expected to behave like Catholics, which means no waiing to monks or Buddha statues. Whenever I walk past by Assumption on the way to my Abhidhamma classes the Buddhist pupils will look around to check if there are any Catholic nuns watching; if there are none then they will wai in the usual manner. If a nun is watching, they'll wai all the same, but to avoid a scolding they'll cunningly disguise it as a sneeze.
 

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 13, 2009 4:08 PM
Title: Re: Facebook URL user names are now available
Content:
Thanks for this.

https://www.facebook.com/dhammanando


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 13, 2009 1:46 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Pear tree

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfEJkF9jqVI


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:48 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
walrus


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:20 AM
Title: Re: Buddhism and politics
Content:
I find them to be perfectly compatible. To the extent that the Buddha has anything at all to say on social and political matters, the positions he takes are for the most part traditionalist conservative ones. The most political Buddhist text of all —the Mahasupina Jataka— reads almost like a manifesto of classical western conservatism (though not of what goes by the name of 'conservatism' in contemporary Britain or America).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:01 AM
Title: Re: Rebirth in clasical theravada
Content:
If a person's faith in rebirth rests upon evidence of this sort, then I suppose reading Ian Stevenson books and the like will be important to him. In practice, however, my impression is that there are very few Buddhists whose faith in rebirth is of this sort.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 12, 2009 9:19 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
Egbere


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:30 AM
Title: Re: the great rebirth debate
Content:
It is inconceivable that the sort of person in whom the path and fruition consciousnesses arise would be unable to distinguish them. With path and fruition consciousnesses we are not talking about any ordinary person, but about one in whom the faculties of sati and paññā have been developed to the level of strong insight and who is on the threshold of the ariyan plane.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Fri Jun 12, 2009 1:24 AM
Title: Re: the great rebirth debate
Content:
I think it's really those who assert that the two things are one who have some explaining to do.

In the Abhidhamma the terms 'path' and 'fruition' refer to two separate moments of consciousness. The path-consciousness is a kamma and the fruition-consciousness is its vipaka. Since the fruition-consciousness arises after the path-consciousness has passed away (i.e., it's not a case of one consciousness changing into another) they are properly counted as two, not one. The only sense I can see in which they might be regarded as one is that they both take Nibbana as their object.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:42 PM
Title: Re: The Ethics of Dhamma Distribution
Content:
A text sometimes cited in support of this opinion is the Jatila Sutta, though to me it seems a bit of a stretched reading to take it as implying an injunction against commercial publishing of Dhamma books etc.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.6.02.than.html


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:23 PM
Title: Re: Rebirth in clasical theravada
Content:
It is held to be an indispensible doctrine. As I wrote in the Great Rebirth Debate thread:
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.
Kammic efficacy and rebirth are part of mundane right view. To reject or doubt rebirth is to suppose that there are some causes that don't yield effects – specifically, that there can be ignorance and craving that will not issue in further becoming. Those of such a view have not understood the conditionality of dhammas even at the intellectual/pariyatti level. To not understand this is to not understand the four noble truths, the three characteristics, or anything else that is of decisive importance in the development of paññā.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 11, 2009 10:07 PM
Title: Re: MN 19. Dvedhāvitakka Sutta
Content:
No. It is an honorific plural, like that used by Queen Elizabeth when delivering formal speeches. In Pali texts kings say 'we', 'us', 'our' etc. when issuing commands and the Buddha does so when speaking in an exhortatory or homiletic mode. When speaking in other modes they will both use the first person singular.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Thu Jun 11, 2009 12:03 AM
Title: Re: Question for monks -blessing chant - Yathā vārivahā pūrā
Content:
There may be some regional differences in this matter.

I recall that in the village wats of Lamphun on uposatha days, at the end of the day the laypeople would give an envelope of cash to the senior villager who had led them in chanting, requesting the precepts, and other ceremonial stuff. He would then bless them by chanting the "yathā..." and the "sabbītiyo..." just like the monks.


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 10, 2009 4:17 PM
Title: Re: Accepting Rebirth
Content:
The candle simile is used in the Milinda, but to make a quite different point to that of Carus.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 10, 2009 2:45 PM
Title: Re: MN 19. Dvedhāvitakka Sutta
Content:
No problem. In fact it's better to consult several translations.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Wed Jun 10, 2009 9:45 AM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
mangalitsa


Author: Dhammanando
Date: Tue Jun 9, 2009 8:17 PM
Title: Re: Word Association Game
Content:
rottweiler


