Alavaka Sutta Sutta Nipata SN1.10

... Then Alavaka addressed the Blessed One in verse:

1. What wealth here is best for man?
What well practiced will happiness bring?
What taste excels all other tastes?
How lived is the life they say is best?

No one can run away from death

Pakistan to organise Buddhist conference

The Nation, March 2, 2017 Rawalpindi, Pakistan -- Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) is planning to organise a Buddhist conference with an aim to promote tourism in the country.

Perfecting Generosity Through The Development Of Insight

Peaceful Uplifting Monasteries 

The Atthasalini explains in the section on "charity", that there can be volition (kamma) which is kusala (wholesomeness) before the actual giving, namely when one produces the things to be given, at the time of making the gift, and afterwards when one recollects it 'With joyful heart'. Thus, giving can be an occasion for kusala cittas in three different periods: before, during and after the giving.

Canon - before and present

The Disciple Within -02 內部弟子 雷瓦達尊者

Our Bodhisattva once ridiculed and accused a noble one who was replete in Sīla samādhi and paññā. Due to that akusala kamma, even after His Enlightenment He suffered ridicule and accusations. He had to pay His debts. He could not avoid it. That is why The Buddha said, ``People are born with a chopping knife in the mouth. The fool uses this knife to cut himself up by mouthing badness.'' So said The Buddha after attaining enlightenment.

有一次，我們的菩薩譏笑一位戒定慧圓滿的聖者，由於這項不善業，即使他證悟了，還是要承受別人的譏笑和指責，他必須還他的債，他無法逃避這個債。所以佛陀說：「人一出生，口裡就含著一把利刀。透過用口造惡業，愚者用這把利刀來砍斷自己。」這是佛陀在證悟 後所說的。

AGEING SLOWLY WITH MODERATE EATING

Excerpt from ‘Donapāka Sutta’, Samyutta Nikaya 3.13

“When a man is always mindful,
Knowing moderation in the food he eats,
His ailments then diminish:
He ages slowly, guarding his life.”

New body to manage Bodh Gaya heritage sites proposed

Feb 25, 2017 Anil Kumar Hindustan Times, Gaya

The Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya.(File photo)

Planned development of the south central Bihar Buddhist pilgrimage town of Bodh Gaya, and of the Unesco world heritage site of Mahabodhi Mahavihara located therein, may soon get a fillip following initiation of a proposal for the constitution of the Bodh Gaya World Heritage Buffer Zone Management Authority (BGWHBZMA).

Conditions For Ill Deeds

Ill deeds are called in Pāli: akusala kamma. Kamma is the cetasika (mental factor arising with the citta) which is 'intention' or 'volition’, in Pāli: cetanā. However, the word 'kamma' is also used in a more general sense for the deeds which are intended by cetanā. The term 'kamma-patha' (literally 'course of action') is used as well in this sense. There are akusala kamma-pathas and kusala kamma-pathas, ill deeds and good deeds, accomplished through body, speech and mind (which are the ones that accrue "good kamma" or "bad kamma" and will bring good or bad results including rebirth in the happy realms or lower four realms).

A promise to grow together

When we marry or commit to another person, we make a promise to grow together, sharing the fruit and progress of practice. It is our responsibility to take care of each other. Every time the other person does something in the direction of change and growth, we should show our appreciation.

- Thich Nhat Hanh
(Image: Maja Lindberg)

Tzu Chi's medical care for refugees in Malaysia

REPORTfrom Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation                        Published on 23 Sep 2016

In order to provide humanitarian medical care for the refugees from Myanmar in Malaysia, Taiwan Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation in Malaysia recently organized a free health care to look after those Rohingya refugees.

"Ten Bases Of Meritorious Deeds"

Peaceful Uplifting Monasteries

We would like to have kusala citta more often but akusala cittas are bound to arise so long as the latent tendencies to akusala have not been eradicated. The eradication of defilements is the goal of the Buddha's teachings and this can be realized through the development of insight. Right understanding should be developed together with all other good qualities. Good deeds can be classified as generosity (dana), morality (sila) and mental development (bhavana). The Atthasalini (I, Book I, Part N, Chapter VIII, 157) gives, with regard to kusala cittas of the sense-sphere, maha-kusala-cittas, a tenfold classification of good deeds, namely as the "ten bases of meritorious deeds" (Punna-kiriya-vatthus) as follows:

Only arising and ceasing

Questions & Answers with S. N. Goenka

excerpted from The Clock of Vipassana Has Struck

Most of the questions and answers at the end of each chapter are taken from an exclusive interview with S.N. Goenka in 1991, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Sayagyi's death. We have also drawn on articles and other sources to explain the technique and its benefits and to elucidate the personality and the teachings of U Ba Khin and the value of Vipassana meditation.-Ed.

Who is the Buddha?

[There has been misconceptions by certain quarters 

that the Buddha was 
a 'reincarnation of ...' and in others,
that the Buddha was
a 'messenger of ...'.

This error in understanding or ignoring the Dhamma-Vinaya is often the result of 'wanting to rope in' a well respected teacher resulting in 'cherry picking' or ascribing (while ignoring the large body of teachings that provide the complete understanding of the subject) and 'seeing things where there is nothing there'.

The following is the Buddha's response from the Tipitaka and a commentary from a respected member of the Bhikkhu Saṅgha.]

“.. Just as a blue, red, or white lotus flower, though born in the water and grown up in the water, rises above the water and stands unsoiled by the water, even so, though born in the world and grown up in the world, I have overcome the world and dwell unsoiled by the world.
Remember me, brahmin, as 'awakened’.'

Dona Sutta AN 4.3

China’s ‘Handsomest Monk’ Wins Hearts, Converts

Wang Lianzhang Sixth Tone

Mar 02, 2017

Young abbot’s millennial appeal sparks renewed interest in Buddhism.

Shi Mingxing stands next to a window at Pu’an Temple, Wenzhou, 

Zhejiang province, Feb. 21, 2017. Wu Yue/Sixth Tone

ZHEJIANG, East China — Wandering along a cobblestone path near a temple in eastern China, Buddhist abbot Shi Mingxin is a striking figure: With his long earlobes, he even resembles the Buddha himself. And at 187 centimeters tall, it’s easy to see how the 36-year-old with broad shoulders and deep-set eyes earned the online moniker “the handsomest monk.”

“This is the life of a monk that I illustrated to you as much as I can.”

The Buddha taught us to practise all the time except when we go to sleep. He has set a schedule for a monk: from 6pm to 10pm we practise samādhi and wisdom, by sitting in meditation or walking meditation; from 10pm to 2am, we go to take a rest, to sleep; we get up at 2am and from 2am to 6am we do more walking and sitting meditation until the time to go on piṇḍapāta, to collect food.

Know and be aware

Tibet and India: Buddhist Traditions and Transformations

Posted on 17 February 2017 by Buddhism Now

As Buddhism spread out from north India, the place of its origin in the sixth century BC, the core ideas of this great religious tradition were often expressed through images. This Bulletin and the exhibition it accompanies, “Tibet and India: Buddhist Traditions and Transformations,” focus on Indian and Tibetan Buddhist art of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a period that witnessed both the end of the rich north Indian Buddhist tradition and the beginning of popular Buddhist practice in Tibet. At this critical juncture in Buddhist history, a number of Tibetan monks traveled down out of the Himalayas to study at the famed monasteries of north India, where many also set about translating the vast corpus of Buddhist texts.

Reminder for myself

"When a man is always mindful,
Knowing moderation in the food he eats,
His ailments then diminish:
He ages slowly, guarding his life."

SN 3.13, translation by Bhikkhu Bodhi

It is very nice and gives a personal note to the Buddha seeing him not only teaching people the Dhamma in order to attain Nibbana, but also to deal with very ordinary every day issues, like overweight!

Read the interesting and humorous story of overweight king Pasenadi coming to visit the Buddha, "huffing and puffing", after having eaten a "bucket measure of rice and curries" (Bhikkhu Bodhi), and the cure the Buddha prescribes to him.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/…/sn03.013.wlsh.html

BUDDHIST BAMIYAN MANUSCRIPTS ON PUBLIC VIEW FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THAILAND

12 November 2010

A selection from the centrepiece of the Buddhist collection - some 5,000 leaves and fragments, with around 7,000 micro-fragments from a library of originally up to 1,000 manuscripts found in caves in Bamiyan, Afghanistan - are on display in Buddhamonton in Thailand until February 2011.