Buddhism-Buddhism

Do not fasten onto thoughts of the past

Comment April 1, 2015

People who like to gather up thoughts, worries, etc., to hold onto are no different from prisoners tied down with a ball and chain. To fasten onto thoughts of the past is like having a rope around your waist tied to a post behind you. To fasten onto thoughts of the future is like having a rope around your neck tied to a door in front. To fasten onto thoughts you like is like having a rope around your right wrist tied to a post on your right. To fasten onto thoughts you don’t like is like having a rope around your left wrist tied to a wall on your left. Whichever way you try to step, you’re pulled back by the rope on the opposite side, so how can you hope to get anywhere at all?

As for people who have unshackled themselves from their thoughts, they stand tall and free like soldiers or warriors with weapons in both hands and no need to fear enemies from any direction. Any opponents who see them won’t dare come near, so they’re always sure to come out winning.

But if we’re the type tied up with ropes on all sides, nobody’s going to fear us, because there’s no way we can take any kind of stance to fight them off. If enemies approach us, all we can do is dance around in one spot.

So I ask that we all take a good look at ourselves and try to unshackle ourselves from all outside thoughts and preoccupations. Don’t let them get stuck in your heart. Your meditation will then give you results, your mind will advance to the transcendent, and you’re sure to come out winning someday.

Source: Access to Insight
Translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Always Speak Kind Words

Comment March 31, 2015

Do not speak anything harsh.
Those who are spoken to will answer you.
Angry talk is painful, and retaliation will touch you.
If you make yourself as still as a broken gong,
you have attained nirvana, for anger is not known to you.

~Buddha

Kratie, Cambodia
The greatest battle-winner

Comment March 29, 2015

Though you might conquer in battle
A thousand times a thousand men,
You’re the greatest battle-winner
If you conquer just one – yourself.

~The Dhammapada
Loving-kindness and Compassion

Comment March 29, 2015

Water buffaloes in Cambodia

The Spirit of Free Inquiry: The spirit of free inquiry is an important feature of Buddhism. The Buddha encouraged people to investigate the truth of His Teachings for themselves before accepting his ideas. He never expected people to practise His Teaching out of ‘blind faith’ and superstition, but instead encouraged a free spirit of questions and contemplation. Buddhists believe that people should accept and practise Teachings and lifestyles they find, through their own experience, to be physically and mentally beneficial.

Self-reliance: Buddhism also stresses the importance of self-reliance and individual effort. There are the two main ways that Buddhists focus on self-reliance. Firstly, each person must work out for themselves the way to end their own suffering and attain happiness. And secondly, it is up to each person to realise that it is their own actions that determine their future. In Buddhists thinking, each individual’s destiny is not determined by an outside power but by the way we live our own lives and our personal attitudes to suffering, happiness and the world around us. This means that every one of us is responsible for our own actions. Every one of us can progress or develop only as much as our own efforts allow. Buddhists learn that dedication, self-discipline and wise judgment are the keys to reaching the highest goals in life.

Tolerance: Because Buddhism respects the right of all people to inquire freely and to make their own choices, it also teaches tolerance toward other faiths and ways of life. Buddhist students are taught to live in harmony with everybody, regardless of race or religion.

Loving-kindness and Compassion: All living things are equal to a Buddhist. Universal loving-kindness, (a gentle and warm approach to life) together with a compassionate attitude, are the main ways that Buddhists accept not only other people, but all other creatures. All living things, humans and animals alike, share the same environment — we are all part of the same world, as we know from learning about the environment and about nature. If people want to live happily, Buddhism teaches that we must each have concern for the welfare of the other living things that we are here sharing the world with. Continue reading →
The Wise Person Straightens The Mind

Comment March 29, 2015

Mind agitated, wavering,
hard to guard and hard to check,
one of wisdom renders straight
as arrow-maker a shaft.

Explanation: In the Dhammapada there are several references to the craftsmanship of the fletcher. The Buddha seems to have observed the process through which a fletcher transforms an ordinary stick into an efficient arrow-shaft. The disciplining of the mind is seen as being a parallel process. In this stanza the Buddha says that the wise one straightens and steadies the vacillating mind that is difficult to guard, like a fletcher straightening an arrow-shaft.

Source: BuddhaNet
Many people never learn this

Comment March 29, 2015

Farmers in Cambodia

by Ven. Dr. K. Sri Dhammananda

Happiness and Materialism

Many people believe they can solve all their problems if only they have money; but they fail to realise that money itself has its attendant problems. Money alone cannot solve all problems.

Many people never learn this and all their lives they rush about using all their energy trying to collect may more “gadgets”, and when they have them they find that these do not satisfy them, but they must have other “things and more gadgets”. In fact, the more they have the more they desire to have; so they can never be happy or content.

The following advice gives us tremendous consolation to make up our mind when we lose something:-

“Say not that this is yours and that is mine,
Just say, this came to you and that to me,
So we may not regret the fading shine,
Of all the glorious things which ceased to be.”

Wealth is not something for you to dump somewhere and to crave for. It is for you to make use of for your welfare as well as others. If you spend your time by only clinging to your property without even fulfilling your obligations towards your country, your people and your religion you may find that when the time comes for you to leave, this world will still be plagued with worries. You will not be benefited with that property which you have so painstakingly collected.

To hope for wealth and gain through gambling is like hoping for shelter from the sun through the clouds, whereas to hope for progress and prosperity through diligence in work is like building a permanent house as a shelter from the sun and rain.

“Your property will remain when you die. Your friends and relatives will follow you up to your grave. But only good or bad actions you have done during your life-time will follow you beyond the grave.” Continue reading →
We create them in our own minds

Comment March 29, 2015

by Ven. Dr. K. Sri Dhammananda

Worry and Fear

Worries and miseries are twin evils that go hand in hand. They co-exist in this world. If you feel worried, you are miserable! If you are miserable, you are worried. We must face facts. Although we cannot run away from them, we must not let these twin evils of worry and misery overcome us. We must overcome them. We can do so by our own human efforts, correctly directed with determination and patience. With proper understanding and carefully applied intelligence, we should be able to subdue our emotional feelings and do away with worries and miseries.

Our worries are of our own making. We create them in our own minds, through our inability or failure to understand the danger of our egoistic feelings and our inflated and false values of things. If only we could see things in their proper perspective in that nothing is permanent in this world and that our own egoistic self is our wild imagination running riot in our untrained mind, we should be going a long way to finding the remedy to eradicate our worries and miseries. We must cultivate our minds and hearts to forget about self and to be of service and use to humanity. This is one of the means whereby we can find real peace and happiness.

Many people have longings and hankering, fear and anxieties which they have not learnt to sublimate and are ashamed to admit them even to themselves. But these unwholesome emotions have force. No matter how we may try to bottle them up they seek a release by disordering the physical machinery resulting in chronic illnesses. All these can be repelled by correct methods of meditation or mental culture, because the untrained mind is the main cause of such worries.

Whenever you have worries in your mind, don’t show your sulky face to each and every person you come across. You should reveal your worries only to those who really can help you. How nice it would be if you could maintain your smiling face in spite of all the difficulties confronting you. This is not very difficult if only you really try.

Link source
Loving-Kindness

Comment March 28, 2015

Grandma in Cambodia

by Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera

What is lacking in the world today is loving-kindness or goodwill.

In the world today, there is sufficient material wealth. There are very advanced intellectuals, brilliant writers, talented speaker, philosophers, psychologists, scientists, religious advisors, wonderful poets and powerful world leaders. In spite of these intellectuals, there is no real peace and security in the world today. Something must be lacking. What is lacking is loving-kindness or goodwill amongst mankind.

Material gain in itself can never bring lasting happiness and peace. Peace must first be established in man’s own heart before he can bring peace to others and to the world at large. The real way to achieve peace is to follow the advice given by religious teachers.

In order to practise loving-kindness, one must first practise the Noble Principle of non-violence and must always be ready to overcome selfishness and to show the correct path to others. The fighting is not to be done with the physical body, because the wickedness of man is not in his body but in his mind. Non-violence is a more effective weapon to fight against evil than retaliation. The very nature of retaliation is to increase wickedness.

In order to practise loving-kindness, one must also be free from selfishness. Much of the love in this world of self-centered, only a love of one is own self:

‘Not out of love for the husband loved; but the husband is loved for love of self. Children are loved by the parents, not out of love for the children, but for love of self. The gods are loved, not out of love for the gods, but for love for self. Not out of love is anybody loved, but for love of self are loved.’

Man should learn how to practise selfless love to maintain real peace and his own salvation. Just as suicide kills physically, selfishness kills spiritual progress. Loving-kindness in Buddhism is neither emotional or selfish. It is loving-kindness that radiates through the purified mind after eradicating hatred, jealousy, cruelty, enmity and grudges. According to the Buddha, Metta _ Loving-kindness is the most effective method to maintain purity of mind and to purify the mentally polluted atmosphere.

The word ‘love’ is used to cover a very wide range of emotions human beings experience. Emphasis on the base animal lust of one sex for another has much debased the concept of a feeling of amity towards another being. According to Buddhism, there are many types of emotions, all of which come under the general term ‘love’ First of all, there is selfish love and there is selfless love. One has selfish love when one is concerned only with the satisfaction to be derived for oneself without any consideration for the partner’s needs or feelings. Jealousy is usually a symptom of selfish love. Selfless love, on the other hand, is felt when one person surrenders his whole being for the good of another _parents feel such love for their children. Usually human beings feel a mixture of both selfless and selfish love in their relationships with each other. For example, while parents make enormous sacrifices for their children, they usually expect something in return. Continue reading →
Ten Evil Actions

Comment March 28, 2015

by Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera

There are ten demeritorious deeds from which Buddhists are advised to keep away. These deeds are rooted in greed, hatred and delusion, and will bring suffering to others but especially to oneself in this life and later lives. When a person understands the Law of Kamma and realizes that bad deeds bring bad results, he will then practise Right Understanding and avoid performing these actions.

There are three bodily actions which are kammically unwholesome. They are: (1) Killing of living beings, (2) Stealing, and (3) Unlawful sexual intercourse. These bodily deeds correspond to the first three of the Five Precepts for people to follow.

The effects of killing to the performer of the deed are brevity of life, ill-health, constant grief due to the separation from the loved, and living in constant fear. The bad consequences of stealing are poverty, misery, disappointment, and a dependent livelihood. The bad consequences of sexual misconduct are having many enemies, always being hated, and union with undesirable wives and husbands.

Four verbal actions are kammically unwholesome, and they are as follows: (1) Lying, (2) Slander and tale-bearing, (3) Harsh speech, and (4) Frivolous and meaningless talk. Except for lying, the other unwholesome deeds performed by speech may be viewed as extensions of the Fourth Precept.

The bad consequences of lying to the one who performs the deed are being subject to abusive speech and vilification, untrustworthiness, and physical unpleasantness. The bad effect of slandering is losing one’s friends without any sufficient cause. The results of harsh speech are being detested by others and having a harsh voice. The inevitable effects of frivolous talk are defective bodily organs and speech which no one believes. Continue reading →
Everything is Changeable

Comment March 27, 2015

by Ven. Dr. K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera

What exists is changeable and what is not changeable does not exist.

Looking at life, we notice how it changes and how it continually moves between extremes and contrasts. We notice rise and fall, success and failure, loss and gain; we experience honor and contempt, praise and blame; and we feel how our hearts respond to all that happiness and sorrow, delight and despair, disappointment and satisfaction, fear and hope. These mighty waves of emotion carry us up, fling us down, and no sooner we find some rest, then we are carried by the power of a new wave again. How can we expect a footing on the crest of the waves? Where shall we erect the building of our life in the midst of this ever-restless ocean of existence?

This is a world where any little joy that is allotted to beings is secured only after many disappointments, failures and defeats. This is a world where scanty joy grows amidst sickness, desperation and death. This is a world where beings who a short while ago were connected with us by sympathetic joy are at the next moment in want of our compassion. Such a world as this needs equanimity. This is the nature of the world where we live with our intimate friends and the next day they become our enemies to harm us.

The Buddha described the world as an unending flux of becoming. All is changeable, continuous transformation, ceaseless mutation, and a moving stream. Everything exists from moment to moment. Everything is a recurring rotation of coming into being and then passing out of existence. Everything is moving from birth to death. The matter or material forms in which life does or does not express itself, are also a continuous movement or change towards decay. This teaching of the impermanent nature of everything is one of the main pivots of Buddhism. Nothing on earth partakes of the character of absolute reality. That there will be no death of what is born is impossible. Whatever is subject to origination is subject also to destruction. Change is the very constituent of reality.

In accepting the law of impermanence or change, the Buddha denies the existence of eternal substance. Matter and spirit are false abstractions that, in reality, are only changing factors (Dhamma) which are connected and which arise in functional dependence on each other.

Today, scientists have accepted the law of change that was discovered by the Buddha. Scientists postulate that there is nothing substantial, solid and tangible in the world. Everything is a vortex of energy, never remaining the same for two consecutive moments. The whole wide world is caught up in this whirl and vortex of change. One of the theories postulated by scientists is the prospect of the ultimate coldness following upon the death or destruction of the sun. Buddhists are not dismayed by this prospect. The Buddha taught that universes or world cycles arise and pass away in endless succession, just as the lives of individuals do. Our world will most certainly come to an end. It has happened before with previous worlds and it will happen again. Continue reading →

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