People who loves to gossip.....

"People who love to gossip and pass around divisive tidbits often claim they just want to be kind and helpful, but this is untrue. Similarly, rough, coarse language and frivolous time-wasting chatter reveal a dearth of metta. In general, ill-intentioned speech, vaci-duccarita, turns people away. People are attracted to speech that is truthful, meaningful, unifying, and friendly.

Vaci-sucarita, skillful speech, and vaci-kamma metta verbal acts of loving-kindness, are beneficial for everyone. The more one practices them, the more power one will have to gather others together into a respectful and supportive group." 

~ Sayadaw U Pandita, The State of Mind Called Beautiful

In China, the state decides who can come back from the dead

by Jonathan Kaiman, Los Angeles Times, Mar 14, 2016 Beijing, China -- In China, it's not easy to become a “living Buddha.” First come the years of meditation and discipline. Then comes the bureaucracy. Delegates from China's Tibet autonomous region arrive before the opening of the fourth Session of the 12th National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 5, 2016. (Wu Hong / European Pressphoto Agency) “The highest level of living Buddhas must be approved by the central government,” Phurbu Tsering, the abbot of Sera Monastery near Tibet's capital, Lhasa, said at a meeting of China's rubber-stamp legislature on Monday. “Other Living Buddhas must be approved by local governments.” China is laying down the law on reincarnation, as Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama — Tibet’s enormously influential spiritual leader — enters his twilight years with no successor in sight. Although the ruling Communist Party is an officially atheist organization – officials are barred from practicing religion – it is perennially uncomfortable with forces outside of its control, and has for years demanded the power to regulate the supernatural affairs of Tibetan Buddhist figures, determining who can and cannot be reincarnated.

Cool mind, warm heart

The Four Noble Truths

'The four noble truths are the most basic expression of the Buddha's teaching. As Ven. Sariputta once said, they encompass the entire teaching, just as the footprint of an elephant can encompass the footprints of all other footed beings on earth.

These four truths are best understood, not as beliefs, but as categories of experience. They offer an alternative to the ordinary way we categorize what we can know and describe, in terms of me/not me, and being/not being. These ordinary categories create trouble, for the attempt to maintain full being for one's sense of "me" is a stressful effort doomed to failure, in that all of the components of that "me" are inconstant, stressful, and thus not worthy of identifying as "me" or "mine."

To counter this problem, the four noble truths drop ideas of me/not me, and being/not being, and replace them with two sets of variables: cause and effect, skillful and unskillful. In other words, there is the truth of stress and suffering (unskillful effect), the truth of the origination of stress (unskillful cause), the truth of the cessation of stress (skillful effect), and the truth of the path to the cessation of stress (skillful cause). Each of these truths entails a duty: stress is to be comprehended, the origination of stress abandoned, the cessation of stress realized, and the path to the cessation of stress developed. When all of these duties have been fully performed, the mind gains total release. ... '

'The Four Noble Truths : A Study Guide' by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

A Compassionate Constitution for Sri Lanka

by Senaka Weeraratna, The Buddhist Channel, March Colombo, Sri Lanka -- The moral stature of Sri Lanka’s Constitution would be greatly enhanced if it recognizes the claims of other living beings for compassion and appropriate consideration from human beings, and the protection of their legal rights. The philosophy underlying the Constitution must encompass the view that legal rights are not the exclusive preserve of human beings. This standpoint is consistent with the philosophy underlying the Dasa Rajadhamma which was a basis of governance in the pre-colonial era. The next logical step in the continuum following the anticipated enactment of new animal welfare legislation ( Animal Welfare Bill initially drafted by the Law Commission has now been approved by the Cabinet of Ministers for introduction into Parliament ) would be to enshrine the values of compassion and the moral concern for the welfare of other living beings, in the country’s most important document i.e. the Constitution. The inclusion of these ideas would enable the Constitution to serve also as a basis for advocacy on behalf of the suffering and unrepresented interests namely non – human sentient beings.

Verses for Vandana (Thai liturgy)

Araham samma-sambuddho bhagava
Buddham bhagavantam abhivademi. 
The Noble One, the fully Enlightened One, the Exalted One,
I bow low before the Exalted Buddha.

Svakkhato bhagavata dhammo
Dhammam namassami. 
The Exalted One's well-expounded Dhamma. 
I bow low before the Dhamma.

Supatipanno bhagavato savakasangho
sangham namami. 
The Exalted One's Sangha of well-practiced disciples. 
I bow low before the Sangha.

Youth in Singapore shunning religion

Reasons put forward for trend include country's relative stability, influence of liberal ideologies

The Strait Times 21 Mar 2016 Melody Zaccheus

Pang Xue Qiang

Ng Keng Gene

Having prayed to Buddha as a child and after spending her early teens worshipping Jesus, copywriter Hannah Jasmine Kok, 23, no longer believes in the divine.

She said she left the Buddhist faith at 13 as she could not relate to rituals she performed with her parents, and dropped out of church after three years because she "didn't think it was going anywhere".

Now an atheist, she said: "I think it is highly improbable that any god exists. There is no evidence for it."

ST_20160321_RELIGION21A_2153760.jpg

Related Story

Fewer Singapore residents identify as Buddhists or Taoists

Ms Kok is one of a growing number of young people here with no religious affiliations.

The Department of Statistics' General Household Survey 2015 report released earlier this month found that those who said they had no religious affiliation constituted 18.5 per cent of the resident population last year - up from 17 per cent in 2010.

A look into Bodhisaddha Forest Monastery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F7qx22xWSk

Published on Aug 13, 2015

A look into the practices and thoughts of the monks and laypeople at Bodhisaddha Forest Monastery, Sydney, a Buddhist monastery in the Ajahn Chah Thai Forest Tradition.

Follow the journey of Steve Nguyen as he takes the biggest step of his life.

What scientists don't know how to do

Just look after your mind

“...If you encounter some hindrances such as sleepiness, you might have to use a more austere or severe tool to overcome it. One way is to fast because when you are hungry, you don’t feel sleepy. But you must be able, at a certain level, to control your mental hunger.

Most hunger doesn’t come from your body, but from your mind thinking about food, and when you do, you start to become hungry right away, even though you may have just had something to eat. So you have to have a certain level of mindfulness to be able to stop your mind from thinking about food, like maintaining your mantra, repeating Buddho, Buddho.

Cheng Beng (Qing Ming) and Sharing of Merit by Tan Ajahn Nyanadhammo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Fx3n0DwOo&feature=youtu.be

Published on Mar 25, 2016
20160324 at Cittarama, Malaysia.

We have learned the art of living

"We have learned the art of living, so how can there be sorrow in our lives? Sorrow is caused by defilements, not by external events. If a certain external event occurs and we do not generate defilements, we do not become miserable. Likewise, when we generate defilements we become miserable. We are responsible for our misery. Unfavourable external events will continue to occur, but if we are strong and do not generate defilements, our lives will be filled with happiness and peace. We do not harm others, we help ourselves and help others. Every meditator should understand that one has to meditate regularly so that one is happy and peaceful for the whole life."
~ S N Goenka, For the Benefit of Many