Do you really want to be reborn human? Odds of being reborn to a war torn country, an abusive family, alcoholics, drug addicts, religious fanatics, poor country, birth defect, cancer, mental illness, infanticide, familial rape, a country with high homicide rate. You are basically playing the lotter...

the topics of admirable conversation have a wide range if you ask me, you might just not be used to doing it. even a talk of politics you can turn around into something wholesome. maybe this is just me but my main concern is keeping those precepts, i cant get to jacksonville every uposatha, and what...

So, should we use our own interpretation or not? what Suttas say about this issue? the suttas are better written than the bible... the same discourse was preached to a group of nuns in the buddha's time (anyone remember which sutta this was?) two days in a row, and by the end of the first day there...

ignorance of the four noble truths https://suttacentral.net/en/dn15 my own personal explanation would be memorizing what the buddha said because he explained it perfectly it is important to find good translations nāmarūpa for example is not well translated as 'mentality-materiality' if you had more ...

Idaṃ kho pana, bhikkhave, dukkhaṃ ariya·saccaṃ: jāti·pi dukkhā, jarā·pi dukkhā (byādhi·pi dukkho) maraṇam·pi dukkhaṃ, a·p·piyehi sampayogo dukkho, piyehi vippayogo dukkho, yampicchaṃ na labhati tam·pi dukkhaṃ; saṃkhittena pañc·upādāna·k·khandhā dukkhā. Furthermore, bhikkhus, this is the dukkha ariy...

– Katamo ca, bhikkhave, paṭiccasamuppādo? – And what, bhikkhus, is paṭicca-samuppāda? Avijjā·paccayā, bhikkhave, saṅkhārā; Conditioned by avijjā, bhikkhus, there are saṅkhāras saṅkhāra·paccayā viññāṇaṃ; conditioned by saṅkhāras, there is viññāṇa viññāṇa·paccayā nāmarūpaṃ; conditioned by viññāṇa, th...

This being – this comes to be With the arising of this – this arises This not being – this does not come to be With the cessation of this – this ceases http://seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/The-Law-of-Dependent-Arising_LE_Rev_1.0.pdf not in my own words but what is well said bear...

if you perceive emptiness for a brief moment, have you reached a jhana or do you have to be absorbed into it

There is a way in which one could rightly say of me: ‘The ascetic Gotama is an annihilationist who teaches his Dhamma for the sake of annihilation and thereby guides his disciples.’ “And in what way could one rightly say of me: ‘The ascetic Gotama is an annihilationist who teaches his Dhamma for th...

i dont wish to rain on anyone's parade i applaud practice and i dont formally meditate i maybe got into first jhana, i think i did but i'm not certain that was one time, after i kept the eating precept for awhile quit smoking did pretty good there for a month it's harder in general for laypeople to ...

there's this one btw, it was hard for me to find the sutta in AN but i took screenshots
http://seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-conte ... _Heart.pdf

Realistically the only thing one can do is practice to the best of their ability, when circumstances allow them to. Anything else is just spiritual bureaucracy. In some ways I do agree, but the sutta when The Buddha talked to the Sakyans about the Uposatha, he tells them it is no good to sometimes ...

I believe metta can only take you to first jhana, my memory is not fresh so I may be wrong. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an08/an08.063.than.html https://suttacentral.net/mn52/en/bodhi https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an11/an11.017.than.html http://seeingthroughthenet.net/w...

Meditation is like playing Super Mario Bros. Samatha is building momentum and running, Jhanas is when you get to the end of the level and jump on the flag, Vipassana Nana are the coins you pick up on the way. Paths (stream entry, one returner, etc..) are the save points you can restart from when yo...

dharmacorps wrote: ↑Thu Jun 07, 2018 5:57 pm Or you could say Tantra was not taught by the Buddha.

excellent