Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org

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that it is unpleasant. And so on. The whole of our lives thus revolve around these two realities, the mind and the resulting mental-physical experience of objects by the mind. This process is not really a problem in and of itself; obviously we cannot avoid experience, and there’s no suffering that comes from it directly. <strong>Practical</strong>ly speaking, suffering doesn’t come from the objects of experience; it comes, as stated, from our misunderstanding of the experience. Once there arises the mental-physical matrix, there will arise the six senses – seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, and thinking – which are the base for physical and mental experience. Mundane consciousness always arises either at the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body or the mind. When seeing, the eye and the light touching it are physical and the mind that is aware of the experience is mental; when hearing, the sound and the ear are physical and the knowing of the sound is mental. Each of the six senses serves as a base for mental-physical experience of reality. Because of the six senses, there arises contact between the mental and the physical, which is the next link in the chain of dependent origination. When the mind seeks out the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, or even thoughts, there is contact between the mind and its object; without the six senses, there is no meeting of the two, so the Buddha explained that the six senses lead to contact. Then, once there is contact, there arises feeling, either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral; without the mind coming in contact with the senses, feeling cannot arise, so the Buddha explained that feeling arises based on contact. These five aspects of reality – consciousness, mental-physical experience, the senses, contact, and feeling – are the neutral aspects of reality. Life would be without suffering if our minds were able to stop at feeling and just experience everything as it is. For this reason, these five are the most important aspects of reality for us to investigate. Once we come to understand them clearly, to see them for what they are, we won’t resort to further complication, which is where we fall into trouble. 114
When we practice meditation our goal is simply: knowing when we feel pain, knowing when we feel happy, knowing when see, knowing when we hear, etc. When we see something we try to know it as seeing, so we say to ourselves “seeing, seeing”. When we hear something we try to know it as hearing, so we say to ourselves “hearing, hearing”. When we feel pain we try to know it as pain, so we say to ourselves “pain, pain”, just reminding ourselves it’s only pain, nothing more, nothing less, without giving rise to any projections or judgements about it. This is in line with how the Buddha taught Bahiya, whom the Buddha said was the quickest of his students to attain arahantship. Bahiya was a man who had been shipwrecked and lost all of his possessions including his clothes. With nothing to cover his body but a piece of wood, he stood by the side of the road and begged for alms. As time went on, people began to think he must be an arahant because of his apparent disdain for ordinary clothing and made regular offerings to him as a result. Some people brought him clothing as an offering but he refused, realizing that accepting clothing would endanger his reputation as a holy man. Eventually, he began to believe himself to be holy as well, falling prey to the undeserved admiration and gifts. <strong>In</strong> the end, however, his past goodness saved him when a brahma god who had been a fellow monk with him in the time of a previous Buddha came to admonish him, telling him directly that he was neither an arahant nor practising to become an arahant and that he should go to find the Buddha to teach him the correct path. Immediately, he gave up his occupation and travelled for an entire night to where the Buddha was staying. When he arrived, however, he was told that the Buddha had gone on alms into the city. Rushing out of the monastery, he found the Buddha still walking on the road to the city, and fell down at his feet asking for a brief instruction that would allow him to become an arahant. The Buddha, seeing that he was still too excited to appreciate such a teaching, put him off three times, telling him it wasn’t an appropriate time, since he was on alms. Bahiya pleaded with the Buddha that neither his own life nor the life of the Buddha was certain, and that he was in dire 115
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Lessons In Practical Buddhism Yutta
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Introduction This book is based on
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Celebrating A Buddhist Holiday When
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eons and 100,000 great eons to beco
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any of us know how we became human
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- AN 1.331 Rare are the people who
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Thailand: “So today is a holiday
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“Whether a bhikkhu or a bhikkhuni
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great suffering. This is a danger t
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actually most apparent in good peop
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suffering that comes to the recipie
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good ones, cleaning the defilement
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teachers, refusing to listen and ev
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since the brain and mind together b
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A Comprehensive Practice Introducti
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from external interruption. One of
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future advancement based on this kn
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when they hear such a teaching. To
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teaching that the Buddha advised in
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immediately judge and react to just
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If we want to remain free from slav
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to support one’s practice, protec
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however, for people to possess dwel
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clearly uncontrollable - it is mere
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tiṭṭhikā” - “patience, for
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end his practice forever. The merce
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unpleasant. Certain situations are
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truly beneficial - how much more so
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entered into absorption, their comp
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Delusion too can be incredibly into
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The first step in our progress, the
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towards observing the nature of phe
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further refine their observation; t
Page 67 and 68: A person who has realized nibbāna
Page 69 and 70: other recommended him to disrobe an
Page 71 and 72: the fact that “mindfulness” is
Page 73 and 74: cultivation of objective understand
Page 75 and 76: many minutes, hours, days, or even
Page 77 and 78: experience, not impersonal space-ti
Page 79 and 80: “Rising” and “falling” are
Page 81 and 82: meaning is actually closer to “ac
Page 83 and 84: emembrance. It is called memorizati
Page 85 and 86: 8. sabbaloke anabhiratasaññā, pe
Page 87 and 88: Once you see impermanence, it’s n
Page 89 and 90: disgusting it is because, if you do
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Page 93 and 94: to create, wanting to become. When
Page 95 and 96: knowledge, “I am freed!” - MN 7
Page 97 and 98: their beauty. This is likely the re
Page 99 and 100: 2. paṇīto - is subtle 3. asecana
Page 101 and 102: The Buddha taught that inside of al
Page 103 and 104: Both greed and anger are caused by
Page 105 and 106: of experience. Once we are able to
Page 107 and 108: was as “afraid, afraid”, as wel
Page 109 and 110: for themselves and others. Actually
Page 111 and 112: true freedom - to see that all thin
Page 113 and 114: When we undertake the practice of m
Page 115 and 116: you can build up that won’t fall
Page 117: and effect works incessantly. This
Page 121 and 122: Part Three: Subjective Experience N
Page 123 and 124: haven’t studied the Buddha’s te
Page 125 and 126: happy. Even giving rise to good int
Page 127 and 128: The Nature of Reality Reality is a
Page 129 and 130: Simple Truth Studying the Dhamma is
Page 131 and 132: it changes. You will come to see th
Page 133 and 134: see the simple reality of our exper
Page 135 and 136: until finally the kid gets fed up.
Page 137 and 138: peaceful indigenous peoples of the
Page 139 and 140: to perpetuate themselves; beliefs i
Page 141 and 142: must look at it quite closely, whic
Page 143 and 144: and to agree with it, but the key i
Page 145 and 146: something goes contrary to our expe
Page 147 and 148: you obviously won't bump into anyth
Page 149 and 150: would like it to be. The technique
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