Goenka on the attitude for serving the Dhamma

"The most exalted task is worthless if performed with arrogance. The most menial task is invaluable if performed with humility and love. Therefore the base of service must be the actual practice of Dhamma in order to ensure the proper results. ...

"... No one serving Dhamma should feel superior or inferior to others. Whatever the task assigned, one should accept it happily as an opportunity to serve for the benefit of many, to bring a smile to faces that were tearful, to foster peace where before there was none.

"We serve merely for the sake of serving, without expecting anything in return. And the result will be to create an atmosphere of love, good-will and purity, which will help those who come now, and in later generations, to grasp the Dhamma and find real peace.

"Therefore, Dhamma service is an extraordinary opportunity. Perform it to liberate yourselves and to help others be liberated from defilements, from bondages, from misery. Be the torchbearers of the Dhamma to dispel the surrounding darkness of ignorance and suffering."

The motivation to practice

Question : we are advised to avoid foolish people, what if they are our parents or our siblings?

Tan Ajahn: If you can live in a different place, move out. If you don’t have to live with them, move out. But if you have to stay with them, don’t let them influence you—that’s all. If they want to tell you to do things that you know are inappropriate, you just don’t have to do them. It is not disrespectful or ungrateful.

Lama Tsomo expands Tibetan tradition in Montana

by ROB CHANEY, The Missoulian, April 4, 2016 Missoula, MO (USA) -- A basic principle of Buddhist meditation holds that good things rise out of confusion, if you give yourself the freedom not to force them forward. << For several years, Tsomo taught weekly classes in Missoula on meditation. Tsomo calls meditation a bridge between the brain’s amygdala, which controls reflexive or instinctual reactions, and the more complex parts that hold our personalities and memories. TOMMY MARTINO, Missoulian As Linda Pritzker pursued her interest in Buddhism, that idea propelled her much further than she expected. It transformed her from someone who couldn’t talk about the time of day with her Tibetan teachers to someone who’s authored a book on meditation with a forward written by the Dalai Lama.

Eliminate all your kilesas and nothing can affect your heart at all

Question : I was taught by one teacher to practice open awareness of whatever comes to mind; that means I just accept and note whatever arises in the mind—not thinking, not reflecting, not judging. Is this enough to gain enlightenment? Is there anything else I need to do to make my practice complete?

Tan Ajahn: Can you accept everything when it happens, without any reaction? Can you accept when somebody beats you up? Can you accept when somebody takes your wife away? Can you accept when somebody cheats you or takes your money away? If you can, then you are already enlightened. If you can’t, then remain on the path and continue to meditate.

Buddhism is not a branch of Hinduism

"Hinduism is not a religion in the usual sense of the word, but is rather a collection of sometimes widely divergent religious concepts and practices that evolved out of Brahmanism in India. It is sometimes said that Buddhism is a branch of Hinduism or that it started as a reform movement within Hinduism. Neither of these claims is correct. Hinduism did not exist at the time of the Buddha and only began to evolve after the 3rd or 4th centuries CE. But even if Hinduism is confused with Brahmanism it is still clear from the Buddhist scriptures that the Buddha saw his Dhamma as contrasting with and being an alternative to the religion of his time, not a reform or a reinterpretation of it.

Ajahn Chah and Money

There was once a monk I met who told me he was a real meditator. He asked for permission to stay with me here and inquired about the schedule and standard of monastic discipline. I explained to him that in this monastery we live according to the Vinaya, the Buddha’s code of monastic discipline, and if he wanted to come and train with me he’d have to renounce his money and private supplies of goods. He told me his practice was “non-attachment to all conventions.” I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. “How about if I stay here,” he asked, “and keep all my money but don’t attach to it. Money’s just a convention.” I said sure, no problem. “If you can eat salt and not find it salty, then you can use money and not be attached to it.” He was just speaking gibberish. Actually he was just too lazy to follow the details of the Vinaya. I’m telling you, it’s difficult. “When you can eat salt and honestly assure me it’s not salty, then I’ll take you seriously. And if you tell me it’s not salty then I’ll give you a whole sack to eat. Just try it. Will it really not taste salty? Non-attachment to conventions isn’t just a matter of clever speech. If you’re going to talk like this, you can’t stay with me.” So he left.

- Unshakable Peace (Ajahn Chah)

To develop wisdom

Question : Can Tan Ajahn teach me a method to develop wisdom after I have a sufficient level of calmness?

What does the Pali texts say about bogus monks?

The Buddha considers a layman who pretends to be a monk to be a very serious offence. Such a person is barred for life from being granted ordination. The Mahavagga, Vinaya Pitaka states 11 types of people who cannot be ordained, and if ordained in ignorance, are considered invalid. Thus they are virtual Pārājikas. They are:

Jata Sutta (SN7.6)

Bharadvaja went to the Blessed One and......
addressed the Blessed One with a verse:

A tangle within,
a tangle without,
people are entangled in a tangle.

Gotama, I ask you this: who can untangle this tangle?

[The Buddha:]
A man established in virtue,
discerning,
developing discernment & mind,
a monk ardent, astute:
he can untangle this tangle.

A pint or a prayer? Monks in Japan put Buddhism on the menu

PUBLISHED: 9:51 AM, APRIL 8, 2016

TOKYO — The hum of conversation and the clinking of spoons and coffee cups fills the wood-panelled cafe in a fashionable Tokyo neighbourhood as more than a dozen customers sip drinks and nibble desserts.

At first glance, the cafe, that also serves alcohol, looks like any other except for an altar next to the counter top bar with a Buddha statue set against a gold backdrop.

Its name, Tera Cafe, is a another hint — Tera is Japanese for temple.

The menu confirms this is something different. It lists classes for 1,500 yen (S$18.64) in weaving prayer beads, calligraphy with sutras, or lines of scripture, and consultations with a Buddhist priest.

The first step is that we must develop samatha-bhāvanā

“…In order to do this, we need mindfulness or sati. Sati is the Dhamma that will stop the mind from thinking, a process that will bring the mind into calm, into concentration, into oneness, into singularity, into the real mind, into the one who knows—all characteristics of the healthy mind.

Right now we don’t discern the knowing from the knower. We see the thoughts. We have been constantly thinking from the time we are born to the present. We might stop thinking when we go to sleep, but the rest of the time we are constantly thinking and cannot see the thoughts or the knower behind the thoughts.

The highest goal can only appear by rigorous meditation

Question : Is it possible for a free thinker or follower of another religion to practice meditation to eliminate defilements and gain wisdom? How will Tan Ajahn advise a free thinker to practice meditation?

Guardian reporter Dave Stewart tells about time with Buddhist monks

by Dave Stewart, The Guardian (Prince Edward), April 3, 2016

Guardian reporter Dave Stewart spent the afternoon recently with a group of monks with the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Society monastery in Little Sands. The group bakes thousands of rolls of bread each week for a number of non-profit organizations in an attempt to pay back the kindness Islanders have shown them. The monks also presented Stewart with some treats, which he is holding, as a token of their appreciation for his visit.

Prince Edward Island, Canada -- Buddhist monks believe they are making the world a better place, one kind act at a time.

I had the pleasure of seeing that first-hand recently by spending the afternoon with a group with the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Society monastery in Little Sands.

I watched as they turned massive amounts of dough into thousands of bread rolls, reiterating over and over again how at the very core of their beliefs is a desire to help out the less fortunate.

"We believe the more we do to help others, the more happy we will be,'' Venerable Dan told me.

Sayādawgyi U Paṇḍita, Passed Away at 94

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Sayādawgyi U Paṇḍita

(July 29, 1921 — April 16, 2016)

by Lion's Roar Staff April 16, 2016
The modern Vipassanā meditation teacher Sayādawgyi U Paṇḍita 
has passed away, at the age of 94.

A highly influential Theravada teacher, U Paṇḍita was, at the time 
of his death, the abbot of Paṇḍitārāma Meditation Center in Yangon, 
Myanmar, which he founded in 1991. He had himself been trained 
by the famed Mahāsi Sayādaw, and took over the Mahāsi Meditation 
Center after Mahāsi’s death in 1982.

U Paṇḍita’s influence in the West was strong with students and 
teachers alike, due in part to his time teaching at Insight Meditation 
Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts in 1984. (Read IMS teacher
Sharon Salzberg’s account of training with U Pandita.) The talks he 
gave there were later collected in the book In This Very Life: 
Liberation Teachings of the Buddha. He also authored several 
other writings, including the book The State of Mind Called 
Beautiful.

Founding IMS teacher Joseph Goldstein told LionsRoar.com:

So many of us here are saddened to hear
of Sayādaw U Paṇḍita’s passing.
He was such a powerful influence in all of our lives,
urging us on to realize our highest aspirations.
His great service to the Dhamma is inestimable.
It feels like the passing of an era.

Karaniya Metta sutta

"Let him not deceive another nor despise anyone anywhere. 
In anger or ill will let him not wish another ill.
Just as a mother would protect her only child with her life even so let one cultivate a boundless love towards all beings."