Buddhist Answers to Question asked 030 : Is it enough to meditate five minutes a day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3wBQZyaCxw

Published on Oct 16, 2014

Venerable Pasura Dhantamano was born in Thailand and has over 25 years of meditation experience. He studied a master’s degree in International Relations. He is the chief of international relations division, Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Thailand, an organization dedicated to spreading world peace through inner peace.

THE BUDDHA’S LAST WORDS

Here’s Japan’s newest technology innovation: Priest delivery

Junku Soko, a Buddhist priest who works for hire through Amazon, leads prayers with members of Yutaka Kai's family at a memorial ceremony for Kai's wife, Chieko, in Osaka, Japan. Photo: The New York Times

JONATHAN SOBLE PUBLISHED:  SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

SAKAI (Japan) — The stubble-haired Buddhist priest lit incense at a small, cupboard like altar just as members of his order have done for centuries. As the priest chanted sutras, Mr Yutaka Kai closed his eyes and prayed for his wife, who died last year of complications from a knee replacement.

Mr Kai, 68, set aside his family’s devout Buddhism when he left his rural hometown decades ago to work in a tire factory. That meant Mr Kai did not have a local temple to turn to for the first anniversary of his wife’s death, a milestone for Japanese Buddhists.

Ani Sutta (SN 20.7) - Deviation

"In the same way, in the course of the future there will be monks who won't listen when discourses that are words of the Tathagata — deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness — are being recited. They won't lend ear, won't set their hearts on knowing them, won't regard these teachings as worth grasping or mastering. But they will listen when discourses that are literary works — the works of poets, elegant in sound, elegant in rhetoric, the work of outsiders, words of disciples — are recited. They will lend ear and set their hearts on knowing them. They will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering."

Mara the Opera

By Wendy Joan Biddlecombe Sep 20, 2016

Stephen Batchelor discusses his role in the new opera on the Buddhist devil that debuts next month.

Author and contemporary Buddhist teacher Stephen Batchelor has entered the world of opera, writing the libretto for Mara: A Chamber Opera of Good and Evil.

Buddhist Answers to Question asked 029 : Difference between meditation and praying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twj7z8SUGWA

Published on Oct 16, 2014

Venerable Pasura Dhantamano was born in Thailand and has over 25 years of meditation experience. He studied a master’s degree in International Relations. He is the chief of international relations division, Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Thailand, an organization dedicated to spreading world peace through inner peace.

To See Things as it is

Sharing by Assc. Prof. Dr. Punna Wong

' Many people believe in god.

But the reality is that they treat their god as an insurance policy. If anything goes wrong they claim they had paid their premiums and hence have the right to a claim.

And what is this premium?

Buddhist College of Singapore launches new $35 million building for monastic students

by Melody Zaccheus, The Straits Times, Sept 10, 2016

SINGAPORE - The Buddhist College of Singapore now has its own $35 million building, placing it in a better position to serve its students - monks from the region.

<< The new Buddhist College of Singapore building is housed within the Kong Meng San
Phor Kark See Monastery compound in Bishan. ST PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN

The building within the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery compound on Bright Hill Road in Bishan, was officially opened by PM Lee Hsien Loong on Saturday (Sept 10).

The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace

Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will - Agentless Agency?

Rick Repetti (ed.) Routledge (2016)

Throughout the history of Buddhism, little has been said prior to the Twentieth Century that explicitly raises the question whether we have free will, though the Buddha rejected fatalism and some Buddhists have addressed whether karma is fatalistic. Recently, however, Buddhist and Western philosophers have begun to explicitly discuss Buddhism and free will.

Buddhist Answers to Question asked 028 : Addicted to social network

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD9dKZVwMBc

Published on Oct 16, 2014

Venerable Pasura Dhantamano was born in Thailand and has over 25 years of meditation experience. He studied a master’s degree in International Relations. He is the chief of international relations division, Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Thailand, an organization dedicated to spreading world peace through inner peace.

What brings us on a meditation retreat?

What brings us on a meditation retreat? In a situation like this you can begin to recognise the spiritual aspiration of your life, something very good. Something very beautiful inside brings you to a place where you will have to suffer, go through the physical torments of sitting still and of facing the mental obsessions and fears that arise. But there is a willingness to do that. Why? Because, basically, human beings are spiritually oriented beings. When we contemplate humanity in this way, we begin to see everyone has the same potential. It is possible, then, to look at each other in terms of being spiritual beings rather than as being English, French, German, Japanese, or whatever.

When you are on Retreat, by Ajahn Sumedho
https://buddhismnow.com/…/when-you-are-on-retreat-by-ajahn…/

Photo: https://loseldawa.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/enderong-retreat/

Asubha kammathana

Choosing Buddhism: The Life Stories of Eight Canadians

Mauro Peressini Canadian Museum of History (2016)

This book explores the experience of Canadians who chose to convert to Buddhism and to embrace its teachings and practices in their daily lives. It presents the life stories of eight Canadians who first encountered Buddhism between the late 1960s and the 1980s, and are now ordained or lay Buddhist teachers.

When can contentment arise?

Thousands flock to Indian Himalayas for rare Buddhist festival

AFP | September 19, 2016

HEMIS: Hundreds of thousands of monks, devotees and tourists have 
flocked to India’s remote Ladakh region for a rare Buddhist festival, 
dubbed the “Kumbh Mela of the Himalayas” by promoters.

Buddhist Answers to Question asked 027 : The Middle Way Philosophy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJdYyxFg50c

Published on Oct 16, 2014

Venerable Pasura Dhantamano was born in Thailand and has over 25 years of meditation experience. He studied a master’s degree in International Relations. He is the chief of international relations division, Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Thailand, an organization dedicated to spreading world peace through inner peace.

Dhammapada 153-154

Translated by Glenn Wallis

I have coursed through the whirl

Of numerous lives

Seeking, but not finding,

The builder of the house.

Pain is birth over and over again.

Builder of the house - you are seen!
Never again will you build a house.
The rafters all broken,
The roof of the house destroyed,
The mind, free from the conditioned,
Has come to the end of cravings.

"If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate" ~ Ajahn Chah

The Theravada Bhikkhu Sangha in Malaysia

Theravada Buddhism had existed in Malaysia for centuries among the Thai ethnic community that lived along the peninsula’s northern border with Thailand. A vigorous community, the Thai bhikkhu sangha had a benevolent influence on the other races especially the ethnic Chinese in the northern states. However, due to language and cultural differences, few Chinese ordained into the Thai bhikkhu sangha. Theravada Buddhism only began to have a significant impact on the Chinese Malaysian community early this century as a result of a curious combination of causes.

Anguttara Nikaya. V,194

The wanderer Uttiya asked the Lord: 

Hundreds of Tibetans Gather For Buddhist Teachings in China's Qinghai

Radio Free Asia, Sept 13, 2016

Qinghai, China -- Hundreds of Tibetan monks and laypeople coming from across northwestern China’s Qinghai have gathered this week at a Buddhist monastery in the province for a traditional eight-day period of religious teachings and debates, according to a Tibetan source living in the region.

This year’s Jang Gunchoe, or Winter Teaching, is being held at Tsigorthang (in Chinese, Xian) county’s Drakkar monastery, and began on Sept. 10, RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Hundreds of monks from four different schools of Tibetan Buddhism, and representing 48 different monasteries, are participating in the assembly,” the source said, naming the Buddhist schools represented at Drakkar as Geluk, Nyingma, Kagyu, and Jonang.

Buddhist Answers to Question asked 026 : Buddhism and the Precepts

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

Published on Oct 16, 2014

Venerable Pasura Dhantamano was born in Thailand and has over 25 years of meditation experience. He studied a master’s degree in International Relations. He is the chief of international relations division, Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Thailand, an organization dedicated to spreading world peace through inner peace.

Five rewards in listening to the Dhamma

‘Kung Fu’ nuns bike Himalayas to oppose human trafficking

Reuters| September 16, 2016

This is the fourth such journey they have made, meeting local 
people, government officials and religious leaders to spread 
messages of gender equality, peaceful co-existence and respect 
for the environment.

NEW DELHI: Clad in black sweatpants, red jackets and white helmets, 
the hundreds of cyclists pedaling the treacherously steep, narrow 
mountain passes to India from Nepal could be mistaken for a Himalayan 
version of the Tour de France.

“Not Sure!'' - The Standard of the Noble Ones

As soon as the mind thinks of something we send it out, send it out every time. We don't realise that it's simply the habitual proliferation of the mind. It disguises itself as wisdom and waffles off into minute detail. This mental proliferation seems very clever, if we didn't know we would mistake it for wisdom. But when it comes to the crunch it's not the real thing. When suffering arises where is that so-called wisdom then? Is it of any use? It's only proliferation after all.

Tourism transforms long-hidden Buddhist valley in Himalayas

By Thomas Cytrynowicz, AP, September 14, 2016

DEMUL VILLAGE, India -- For centuries, the sleepy valley nestled in the Indian Himalayas remained a hidden Buddhist enclave forbidden to outsiders.

Enduring the harsh year-round conditions of the high mountain desert, the people of Spiti Valley lived by a simple communal code - share the Earth’s bounty, be hospitable to neighbors, and eschew greed and temptation at all turns.

That’s all starting to change, for better or worse. Since India began allowing its own citizens as well as outsiders to visit the valley in the early 1990s, tourism and trade have boomed. And the marks of modernization, such as solar panels, asphalt roads and concrete buildings, have begun to appear around some of the villages that dot the remote landscape at altitudes above 4,000 meters (13,000 feet).

Buddhist Answers to Question asked 025 : What should I do after I’ve lost my job

Published on Oct 16, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlP8dR-oBrA

Vietnamese Authorities Demolish Buddhist Pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City

Radio Free Asia, Sept 12, 2016

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam -- Government authorities in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City have destroyed a Buddhist pagoda from which they recently evicted monks, and have moved all of the temple’s contents to another location, the head of the religious institution said Monday.

<< Buddhist monk Thich Khong Tanh, abbot of the Lien Tri Pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City, discusses the iron-fist rule of the Communist Party 40 years after the Vietnam War, April 9, 2015.

On Sept. 8, authorities forcibly removed all monks from Lien Tri Pagoda, which belongs to the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and is located in district two of the city’s An Khanh ward, to clear the land for a lucrative development project. The Vietnamese government does not recognize the church.

Different Attitude of the Human Mind

Miss India finalist Barkha Madan to Gyalten Samsen

Miss India finalist Barkha Madan, who played the Bhoot in RGV's horror film, will be back in Indian theatres after 12 years with Surkhaab, a film she produced before turning into a Buddhist nun.

Negoro-ji and Buddhism in Stunning Wakayama

by Tomoko Hara and Sarah Deschamps, Modern Tokyo Times Tokyo, Japan -- Japan is blessed with amazing nature and the cultural reality of  this unique nation means that you have so many stunning places to visit.  Wakayama prefecture is located in the Kansai region and throughout this part of  Japan you have many amazing landscapes.  Also, Wakayama is near to Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, and Nara. Therefore, it is a great  base to visit many places that are extremely rich in history and culture. The Negoro-ji area in Wakayama is blessed with many Buddhist temples, exquisite architecture, lovely gardens and this is equally matched by the rich heritage. On top of this, the mountainous area provides a stylish backdrop and for tourists who adore culture, religion, history, and heritage, then Negoro-ji will certainly appeal. Kyoto and Nara often spring to mind when you think about special religious places in Japan. However, in truth, Wakayama is equally blessed because of Negoro-ji, Koyasan,  Nachi Katsuura, and the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage area that runs throughout the Kii Peninsula. On top of this, you have many other amazing places to visit in order to soak up spirituality.

Buddhist Answers to Question asked 024 : How can we be happy with work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CkaPkCOO8c

Published on Oct 16, 2014

Venerable Pasura Dhantamano was born in Thailand and has over 25 years of meditation experience. He studied a master’s degree in International Relations. He is the chief of international relations division, Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Thailand, an organization dedicated to spreading world peace through inner peace.

If you let go completely, you will have complete peace

Reincarnation

Reincarnation is a fascinating subject that has remained on the fringe of scientific study for too long. Fortunately, it has recently begun to attract serious interest from the scientific community. Decades ago, American astronomer and astrobiologist Carl Sagan stated that “there are three claims in the [parapsychology] field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study,” with one being “that young children sometimes report details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation.” Fast forward to today, and amazing discoveries have been made, as multiple researchers have taken it upon themselves to study this intriguing and inexplicable — at least from a materialist scientific worldview — phenomenon. Subjects like reincarnation belong to the non-material sciences, an area of research that deserves more attention. As Nikola Tesla himself said, “the day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”

The Sad Saga of the Suicidal Spider

A young, happy spider found the perfect corner in a quiet room in which to build her first home. Joyfully she spun and wove a beautiful web, artistic enough to be featured in Spiderworld’s Home and Garden. Exhausted but proud of her efforts, the young spider rested in the center of her web, waiting for lunch.