The Four Noble Truths

Beautiful Silence by Ajahn Brahmavamso

2010-12-28T20:43:00.003+08:00

The beautiful silence, stillness and clarity of mind.
We often have to carry the burden of our many duties, our mind developed in a way, which accumulates and hold on to our problems/things.

Part 1 of Meditation (letting go)
Let us develop a mind which is willing to let go of things, to let go of burdens.
Released your mind from the world, create a path to the pure and blissful mind, let go of all your burdens. First get the right attitude for letting go things, abandoning them freely without looking back. During the beginning stages of letting go, simply give up your past and future. This is called sustained attention on the present moment.

Abandoning the past means not even thinking about your work, your family, your commitments, your responsibilities, your history, the good and the bad time you had as a child. You abandon all past experiences by showing them no interest in them at all. You become someone who have no history during the time that you meditate. you do not think about where you are from, where you are born, who your parents were or what your upbringing was like. All of that history is renounced in meditation. In this way it become unimportant how many years you have been meditating, and if you abandon all that history then we are all equal and free. We are freeing ourselves of some of these concerns, perceptions and thoughts that limit us and which stop us from developing the peace.

So every part of you finally let go of, even the history of what happened to you so far in this retreat, even the memory of what happened to you just a moment ago? You carry no burden from the past to the present? Whatever happen you are no longer interested in it and you let it go. When any experience, perception or thought arise, just let it sink and stop right there.

As for the future, the anticipations, fears, plans and expectations, let all of that go too. Buddha once said about the future "whatever you think it will be, it will always be something different. This future is known to the wise as uncertain, unknown and so unpredictable. It is often complete stupidity to anticipate the future, and always a great waste of your time to think of the future.

In this stage of meditation keep your attention right in the present moment, to the point where you don’t even know what day it is or what time it is. Don't Know! All you know it is right now. You have come into the reality of "NOW". You are here and you are mindful. Reaching here you have done a great deal.

Stage 2 Meditation (Silence awareness/inner silence)
The next stage is to develop silent awareness of the present moment.
It is helpful to clarify the difference between silent awareness of the present moment and thinking about it. The smile of watching a tennis match on TV is informative. When watching such a match you may notice that in fact, there are two matches occurring simultaneously, there is the match that you see on the screen, and there is a match that you hear described by the commentator. Indeed, if in Australia or New Zealander, then the commentary from Australia or New Zealand presenter is likely to be much different from what actually occurred! Commentary is often biased. In this simile, watching the screen with no commentary stands for silent awareness in meditation, paying attention to the commentary stands for thinking about it. You should realise that you are much closer to Truth when you observe without commentary, when you experience just the silent awareness of the present moment.

Sometimes it is through the inner commentary that we think we know the world. Actually the inner speech does not know the world at all. It is the inner speech that weaves the delusions that cause suffering. It is the inner speech that causes us to be angry with those we make our enemies and to have dangerous attachments to those we make our loved ones. Inner speech causes all of life's problems. It constructs fear and guilt. It creates anxiety and depression. It builds these illusions as surely as skilful commentator on TV can manipulate an audience to create anger or tears. So if you seek for truth, you should value silent awareness, considering it more important when meditating than any thought whatsoever.

One of the beautiful ways of overcoming the inner commentary is to develop such refined present moment awareness that you are watching every moment so closely that you simply do not have the time to comment about what has just happened.

Another useful method of developing silent awareness is to recognise the space between thoughts, between periods of inner chatter. Please attend closely with sharp mindfulness when one thought ends and before another begins,-- there! That is silent awareness!

You may spend the majority time just developing these two stages because if you can get this far then you have gone a long way indeed in your meditation. In that silent awareness of Just Now you will experience much peace, joy and consequent wisdom.

Beautiful Silence by Ajahn Brahmavamso

Who is Gautama Buddha?

2008-10-30T22:07:00.003+08:00

The Buddha is not a god, or prophet or any such creature. He is a unique being that arises only in certain conditions to proclaim the Dhamma that sets man free from the bonds of pain and suffering.

Gautama Buddha was born in northern India about 2250 years ago. The exact place of his birth is said to be the Lumbini garden. Which lie just inside the border of the little Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal. Gautama's father, King Suddhodana was the ruler of the tiny kingdom of Sakyas. Naturally, he was delighted to have an heir who could follow him onto the throne. He was thus not very happy when a wise man predicted upon seeing the baby that if he did not become a world ruler he would become a great religious teacher.

Suddhodana did everything in his power to keep Gautam's mind out of the religion direction.
Gautama was thus brought up in a sealed world of security and luxury. He lived in a beautiful palace, wore cloths of the most splendid materials, ate only the finest foods and was generally entertained and waited upon in the best style.

Gautama grew up and eventually married a young princess, Yasodhara, who bore him a son, Rahula. One day, However, he persuaded his attendant, Channa to drive him down to the local village, where he had not been till then. In all, he was to make four trips to the village which were to totally change his life.

On the first trip he met an old man, on the second trip he met a sick man and on the third trip he met a party of people carrying a corpse to the cremation ground. Not having seen old age, sickness and death, he was naturally deeply shocked. Upon realisation that this was the common fate of all mankind, palace life was no longer pleasant or even bearable for him.

He became obsessed with the fact of suffering and with finding a way of ending it.
On a fourth trip to the village, he came across an ascetic, a holy man. One who had given up everything to follow the religious life. Despite having no possessions, this man radiated a calmness that suggested to Gautama that he had somehow come to terms with the unpleasant fact of suffering.

Gautama decided to follow the example of the ascetic. He slipped out of the palace late one night, exchanged his splendid silken robe for the simple orange one of a holy man, and cut off all his beautiful black hair. Then, carrying nothing but a begging bowl for people to put food in, he set off on his great quest.

Gautama when to all the famous religious teachers of his time and learned all they had to teach. In the process he subjected his body to great hardship and torment. He lived in deep forests, burning in the midday heat and shivering in the night; he slept on beds of thorns, sometimes he lived in the cemeteries, he starved himself until he became so thin that if he touched his stomach he could feel his backbone. But still he cannot find an answer to his basic search and realised that if he kept on that way he would probably die before finding the answer.

He therefore took a little food, much to the disgust of his fellow ascetics who promptly left him. Then he sat himself under a great tree at a place now called Bodh Gaya. He was determined to sit there untill he found the answer he sought or die trying. During the night of a full moon of May, Gautama passed into deep meditation and gained various kinds of knowledge. he recalled his previous lives, he also saw how karma works, he saw how to overcome desire, attachment to existence and clinging to false views. Finally as the morning star rose, he attained enlightenment and declared "Birth is ended, the holy life has been fulfilled, what was to be done has been done".

Don’t Trust Your Mind

2008-10-13T22:11:00.003+08:00

By Ajahn Brahm

Once you see your mind for what it is, you will realise how much trouble it has caused you.

How many times have you run away? How many times have you followed the stupid thinking mind? How many times has it led you? As if you were stupid cow? Many many times.

Sometimes you just say that’s enough, I am not going to be led by you. I will be led by the Dhamma instead, led by the Eightfold path.

The doer inside us create this critical mind. The judgmental mind, the fault finding mind. It creates so many problems and difficulties for us. Because of this “doer” we even judge beautiful people and create enemies out of them. Even the great Ariyas, we can hate them and have ill will towards them, criticise them and put them down. It’s bad Karma to criticize Ariyas.

Nevertheless, because of the judgment mind, the mind that is always under the control of this ‘Doer’ we can even criticise the Buddha. That’s because this doing mind haven’t really been seen for what it is.

The more one meditates and practice, the more one gets into the peaceful states of mind. Then one can see what this thinking mind is all about. After a while you just don’t believe it anymore.

2008-10-10T14:06:00.002+08:00

Ajahn Brahmavamso (Peter Betts)
Was born in London in 1951. He regarded himself a Buddhist at the age of 17 through reading Dhamma books while still at school. His interest in Buddhism flourished while he was studying in Cambridge University. After completing his degree in Theoretical Physics and teaching for a year, he traveled to Thailand to become a monk at the age of 23. He spent 9 years studying and training in the forest tradition under Ajahn Chah. He is presently Abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery in Perth, Australia.

The Right to Believe? - Ajahn Brahm
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=z1Prm3nAvFs&feature=related

Dealing With The Emotion by Ajahn Brahm
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=17_TtOysQOA&feature=related

Talk Your Way To Happiness
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=g7d-KozmokQ&feature=related

"The Buddhist Attitude to Sensuality" by Ajahn Brahm
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=GV1f4G-hiDw&feature=related

What is Marriage and why we have marriage suffering?

2008-10-08T17:06:00.002+08:00

Recently I have come across to a lot of (Buddhist) friends who have marriage problem.
Some says their love one had affair and some think their relatives or good friends like her husband. Some suspect her husband are gay and some think their love one don't love them anymore.

What is Marriage and why we have marriage suffering?

When two people fallen in love, they have happiness all around them. The love is so strong that they cannot spend a day apart. They will call each other many times just to tell says "I miss you". Until both decided to get married! things changed.....

Why are things different when you are married? The person doesn't seem to be the one you love anymore. Is it because of pressure? Or is it because of other factors that against the relationship? What is it?

Well I may have the answer.

There are many different marriage suffering.

The most common sufferings arise due to expectation, we tend to set a standard in our mind that our love one should or should not do something. for example: Why is he back so late, Why he can’t help me with this, When is he free to go holidays with me, How come he never tell me this, Why he do all this, How come he is always with him, and etc. Imagine if both partners expect something from each other, and the expectation can’t be fulfill what will happen?

Another type of sufferings is the very common one. Most lover like to give what they think their partner want, but not what the partner really want.
Let me share this story with you.

The story of Lilly
Lilly grew up in a wonderful family. her mother is a perfect housewife who work day and night to keep the house in order. And her father is a supreme husband who works very hard to bring the bread and butter home for the family. However her mother and father don’t really get along with each other. From young Lilly watch her mother and father suffer to maintain their marriage that they don’t even treasure.

A few years ago Lilly got married, she live with her husband in their new home. She became a housewife like her mother she works all day to make sure the home is neat and tidy. Every time after dinner Lilly’s husband will asked her to accompany him to watch the movie or listen to the music together, but Lilly thinks that she had far too much house work to do, she rejected her husband again and again. As time goes by her relationship with her husband began to decrease, she began to picture her self like her mother doing house work all the time living her husband alone.

She realised, over this year instead of giving what her husband really want (Which is to be by his side watching movie). She worked hard to keep the home orderly for her husband thinking that it is what he wants. Just like her mother and father, who love each other but are trying so hard to give one something that they don’t really want.

The correct way to show our love is really to listen to our partner and give them what they really want (reasonable request... use your wisdom) .

2008-09-30T20:32:00.001+08:00

2008-09-30T20:25:00.001+08:00

Does ghost exist? Ever wonder what a spirit is?

2008-09-28T23:08:00.000+08:00

In my understanding, there is good and bad sprits every where we go.
Just recently a friend of mind told me that she is being disturbed by a spirit who consistently waking her up every night in her sleeps. As her friend I understand that she wouldn’t joke about things like this. And in the past few days, staying with her I was also disturbed by the spirits and I could not understand where they come from and what they want and how should I get rid of them. I meditated and also chants but nothing seem to work. So I did a research on these spirits/ghosts. I studies really hard and also consulted some wiser teacher who have been practicing meditation.

Then today a wise man told me: Our mind is really powerful. It can connect us to the spirit’s world when we allowed it. When we think of it a lot, there is when we are giving out the signal to them to enter our mind, but if we train our mind not to think of the spirits then we are actually lowering the connection signal. And these spirits can not get through to our mind, so they will slowly disappear. Through meditation we can calm our mind and also free our self from habitual states of greed, hatred and delusion.

How to advance our understanding of mindfulness meditation and get deeper in to our practice?

2008-09-27T11:04:00.004+08:00

Find a quiet place where you can be alone and lock the door so you can practice unaccompanied. Now take a sit on the floor with your leg fold up like the Buddha. When you are ready, close your eyes and breathe normally.

You can start watching your mind now, normally thoughts come in like a lightning when u starts to relax your body, don’t stop it from coming in but simply be aware that it is a thought. Try to observe your mind and see what his writing. The Choezen Kuchen Rinpoche (http://www.choezerinpoche.org/) said: “You should stop writing and watch who is writing”. You will find part of your thoughts were control by your mind.

We need to remember and understand that our mind does not belong to us. If you do not watch it, defilements will grow and multiply. We cannot leave the mind alone. It needs to be watched consistently. To helps deepen our understanding please refer to the book below.

Title of the book: Don’t look down on the Defilements
They will laugh at you
By Ashin Tejaniya 2008

What is Defilements?
Defilements are not only the gross manifestations of greed, hatred and delusion but also all little small thoughts that come in to your mind. See if you ever had one of the following or similar thoughts cross your mind:

“These lights should not be on at this time”
“His behaviour is so irritating”
“He should not have done that”
“I could do it a lot faster”
“I am a hopeless meditator, my mind cannot even stay on the rising-falling for one minute.”
“Yuck the salad had onion in it”
“No banana again”
All such thoughts are motivated by defilements!!
Don’t underestimate them!

Have you ever told someone you are not angry even though you are clearly unhappy with them? Do you talk negatively about your boos, a friend, your family or even a good friend? All such talk is motivated by defilements! Watch out for it!

With right attitude, it will allows you to accept, acknowledge and observe whatever is happening whether pleasant or unpleasant in a relax and alert way. You have to accept and watch both good and bad experiences. Every experience gives you a learning opportunity to notice whether the mind accepts things the way they are or whether it likes, dislikes, reacts or judges.

You are not trying to make things turn out the way you want them to happen. You are trying to know what is happening as it is. Wrong attitudes are caused by delusion. We all have them in our minds. All wrong attitudes are the defilements craving and aversion or any of their relatives such as elation, sadness or worry. Not accepting defilements will only strengthen them. The defilements hinder your progress in meditation and prevent you from living your life fully. They also prevent you from finding true peace and freedom. Don’t look down on defilements … they will laugh at you!

Look out for the defilements. Get to know the defilements that arise in your mind. Observe and try to understand them. Do not attach to them, reject or ignore them and do not identify with them. As you stop attaching to or identifying the defilements, their strength will slowly diminish. You have to keep double checking to see what attitude you are meditating with.

Living a Happy Married Life

2008-09-16T18:40:00.004+08:00

Building a Successful Marriage

By Venerable Dr. K Sri Dhammananda

Success in marriage is based on compatiblity. Both partners must try to be the right person by acting out of mutual respect, love and concern for each other.

Love is an inner feeling and a fulfillment arising for the other person.

In a successful marriage, a partner must not always try to get things his or her own way. "Man has his will but woman has her way" . There is only one path to be trodden by both, it may be uneven, bumpy, and sometimes difficult but it is always a "mutual path".

A happy marriage is not one which we exist with eyes closed. We see faults as

well as virtues, and we accept the fact that no one is perfect. A husband and wife must learn to share the happiness and pain in their daily lifes. Mutual understanding is the secret formula of a happy marriage. Marriage is a blessing, but unfortunately, many people treat it otherwise due to lack of correct communication and understanding.

Most marital troubles which arise are normally due to an unwillingness of one partner to compromise and be patient with the other. The Golden rule to avoid a minor misunderstanding is to be :

Patient
Tolerant
and understanding

Human beings are emotional and get into angry arguments easily. Husband and wife should do their utmost that both are not angry at the same time. This is the golden rule for a happy married life. If both parties are not angry at the same time, problem can easily resolved by adopting the noble spirit of patience, tolerance and understanding.

Husband should treat his wife with respect, understanding and consideration and not servant nor as a doll in his hands. Although he may be the bread winner of the family, it is also his duty to help his wife with household work whenever he is free. The wife, on the other hand, should not always nag or grumble at her husband over trivial matters. If he really has certain shortcomings, she should try to talk with him and point out his mistakes.

A spouse should try to tolerate and handle problems without bothering the partner, including those related to his or her career. If one is inclined towards jealousy, one must try to restrain suspicions over the partner's movements since they may not at all be justifiable.

2008-09-15T14:52:00.000+08:00

The eight factors of the Path:

SALEM CUT

Right Speach
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concertration
Right Understanding
Right Thoughts

2008-09-15T14:11:00.000+08:00

What is Life?

Buddha thought us four noble truths of life. "There is suffering in life, there is a cause of suffering, there is an end of suffering, and there is a path of practice that puts an end to suffering."

Buddha said the noble truth of suffering:
There are three form of stressfulness that causes suffering: Pain, Fabrication and Change
Pain: Association with the unloved is suffering
Fabrication: Not to get what you wants is suffering
Change: Separation from the loved one is suffering