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Phrases on Buddhism Compiled by Sarah Abbott and Alan Weller
from discussions with Sujin Boriharnwanaket and Phra Dhammadhara (Alan Driver) in Sri Lanka
•If one does not realise yet that one has wrong understanding, it is imposible to develop right understanding.
•The beginning is understanding the characteristic of awareness correctly. •\
•Live alone with sati, aware of visual object as visual object.
•One takes subtle attachment for calmness because of lack of understanding of calmness.
•This moment is so real.
•Life is so short, so fragile. Get rid of attachment.
•Always burning with lobha, dosa, moha . . . renunciation with satipatthana. . .
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•Right action is abstaining from wrong action. There must be awareness of a nama or rupa to be right action of the eightfold path.
•Seeing sees visible object. What is seen is not a person. We have attach- ment to individuals, but individuality has no separate characteristic.
•The understanding that begins to know conditioned realities is also con- ditioned. •Right understanding understands not a person or a Buddhist.
•The arising of any conditioned reality is dukkha because of its arising. If there is no arising, there is no dukkha. If there is no awareness of the reality now, how can one understand the absolute reality of dukkha? •
The arising happens because there is passing away of previous moments. Once there is no arising there can be total peace and calm. •Can you tell what is beyond this moment? •If there is no thinking of this or that concept, can there be concept at this moment? •
The game of life that tanha always wins. •
Don’t be a victim of the conceptual system, but the conqueror of your ignorance. •
. •You can have metta by accumulations, but is requires panna to see the value and develop it.
••Panna gives one a more sober, realistic view of life.
•Start with right beginning. Without right understanding, it cannot be
right beginning.
•Propagating wrong view is the most dangerous thing to do.
•Don’t force yourself to think it is the right time and right place for the arising of awareness, because awareness can arise anytime or place. Don’t limit it.
•If right understanding is well established, what about awareness now? •At the moment of developing right understanding, there is real rest no matter what one is doing. •Without satipatthana, there is always cling to self, always wanting the best for self, even wanting more understanding.
•The Buddha taught us to listen to dhamma, not people.
•Let go of desire and attachment for other objects that do not appear now.
When there’s awareness, there’s letting go. •The Buddha taught everyone to have kusala citta at any moment, at any level, because to have kusala citta at any moment is so helpful.
•Right understanding brings detachment. If there is even a little attach- ment, it hinders the progress of right understanding. •Samatha doesn’t get rid of concepts. •As understanding grows, it grows beyond the level of thinking of sammuti sacca and knows the difference between paramattha sacca and sammuti sacca instead of clinging to sammuti cacca and taking for self.
•We must be brave enough to study with panna any reality. We need to be brave to begin to study visible object as visible object.
•One doorway is never enough. Each doorway should be a check.
. •. •Attachment is only a conditioned moment. Attachment is like a trap or a bait. •One kills oneself and one’s heart by one’s attachment and ignorance. We are trapped, lured by attachment all the time. It’s truly poisonous.
•We are cut up with sammuti sacca when there is no awareness of thinking. •There are different conditions for different namas and rupas. With more understanding of different conditions you will see that there is no self. •It needs right understanding to know whether this moment is kusala or akusala.
•It is not in the texts, but is now at the moment of right understanding.
•When one thinks ‘I am aware’, it is not right awareness.
•When it is not right awareness, it cannot be accompanied by right under-
standing.
•Whenever right awareness arises, it is aware before there is time to think ‘I am aware’. •4
•When there is no awareness, no understanding, no learning, there is no developing or seeing realities as they are. •
It is very confusing if there is no understanding of the development of vipassana. •It is very natural in daily life, the teachings of the Buddha.
•One cannot get away from thinking of people, so in many suttas the Bud- dha taught many people to develop the four Brahma viharas.
•At the moment of considering someone’s death, there can be the condition for calmness instead of trying to force calmness by thinking of different objects.
•Does visual object appear as just visual object now? It cannot appear as visual object o moha.
•By developing vipassana one can see different levels of thinking, because there can be thinking before thinking in words or concepts. •
•One begins to see the difference between calmness at the moment of kusala and no calmness at the moment of akusala. •When right understanding grows, awareness also grows. •
•Nibbana does not arise.
•Citta goes all the time form moment to moment. It comes and goes all
the time in the way of kulala or akusala. Nibbana does not come and go.
•The growth of vipaassana must begin with detachment and go the way of detachment, because attachment is very subtle and always wins when there is no understanding.
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•The purpose of the Satipatthana Sutta is to show that any object which is real can be the object of awareness. Otherwise this moment which is real cannot be known. •Learn to see dhamma as dhamma. •
Almost every object is an object of attachment when there is no develop- ment of understanding. •
The Buddha’s teaching is for practice, not just for reading or intellectual understanding.
•Right understanding knows everything correctly.
•Right understanding gradually eliminates attachment and ignorance and wrong view of self.
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•One has to understand what is the right object of awareness first.
•When there is the idea of self with wrong view, it conditions other akusala.
. •Intellectual understanding should be the foundation, but if one thinks that it is enough, there is no development and it hinders the development of higher understanding because one does not understand there are more levels of higher understanding.
•It’s possible to have all the intellectual understanding but no understand- ing of the practice, like a blind man carrying a torch.
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. . .
•When the monk abandons home life, there are more conditions for being
virtuous at the degree of being able to leave home.
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•Any intellectual understanding cannot be clear.
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Do we hope for result for me?
•One begins with detachment from the very beginning.
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•Getting to know oneself better is the only way to really help others. If
one develops more metta, karuna, more understanding and a more sincere inclination to other people, one will see that what has been most helpful to oneself will be what is most helpful to others also. One understands oneself better.
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•If metta is strong enough one will be concerned to help.
•If sati does not arise understanding cannot know which are the moments of sati and which are the moments without sati. •
The purpose should be right understanding.
•Be an island. . . depend on oneself, one’s own understanding which can eradicate one’s defilements.
. •Want to have conditions for the arising of satipatthana, waiting for the arising of satipatthana this is not the understanding of the development of sati. The moment of thinking it is not the moment of direct awareness.
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•To know the difference between thinking and sati, there has to be sati.
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•Attachment likes calmness so much that it clings immediately.
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If one is not courageous enough, one clings to calmness for sure.
•At this moment of thinking one begins to see whether one thinks with
kusala or akusala. •
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•Life is a dream. When one knows the citta that dreams one is awake.
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•One cannot afford to be disinterested in reality.
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At the moment of seeing visible object as visible object, there is no at-
tractiveness in visible object.
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