Good health; Contentment; a Trustworthy Relationship; Nibbana By Ven Aggacitta

Dhammapada Verse 204: 

Good health; Contentment; a Trustworthy Relationship; Nibbana
By Ven Aggacitta 

 

Recently I went to KL to see an ex-varsity course mate who is suffering from leukaemia. As early as six months ago, she had informed me about her sickness and asked me for advice. I replied her email telling her about some methods of meditation and of some meditation centres around KL, as well as encouraged her to practise qigong. Unfortunately, she did not receive it. I called to ask her to check again so that I could forward it once more, if necessary, but she never contacted me. 

Lately, someone informed me that she was in hospital in ICU. When I went down to see her, I found her in a very serious condition. She is a single parent with two children—one in university and the other in college. I went with one of our devotees who is also a qigong instructor. He told me that he recently attended the funerals of two other cancer patients. He proceeded to teach her a little qigong and to share good qi with her. Her daughter told me her mother rejected conventional western medical treatment and has been relying on Chinese herbs, qigong as well as meditation. However, as she was so sick that she could barely talk, I couldn’t find out what sort of meditation she had been doing. It was also difficult to ask her to do qigong as she was then too weak. Thus, the only refuge was in the Dhamma. Since she has meditated before, she has to fall back on internal reflections. 

These circumstances made me recall one verse from the Dhammapada. 

Good health is the greatest gain 
Contentment is the greatest wealth 
Having a trustworthy relationship is the best relative 
Nibbana is the highest bliss.

Good health is the greatest gain 

one of the major factors. Environmental conditions and the food that we eat are also contributory factors, e.g. we tend to eat less fresh products and more preserved stuff. We have lost control of our desires and there is more lobha, dosa and moha. Many mundane achievements in life give us pleasure but they also bring about more stress. If you value life and want to have a good death, you must prepare for it early just as one must learn how to swim first before attempting to cross the sea on board a boat which may capsize at any time. Death is unpredictable. We can prepare for it by learning to meditate and practising qigong for health. 

In vipassana meditation, you don’t just watch the rise and fall of the abdomen. You also watch the six sense doors (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and thinking). Even if you are immobile on the hospital bed, you can still watch these six sense doors and you won’t feel bored or restless. In my recent trip to PJ, I watched a video on the practice of qigong without using bodily movements. It made use of a lot of visualisation to mentally absorb good qi around us into the different organs of the body. You can use this type of qigong as well when you are immobile. I am told that in China, some cancer patients use qigong to heal themselves without resorting to conventional treatment but they have to practice for eight hours daily. When a person is at death’s door and values his life, I am sure he will find the necessary zest to do this. 

Contentment is the greatest wealth 

Some people are wealthy but keep hankering for more. In order to achieve that, they have to work yet harder and thus put more stress on themselves. When you fall seriously ill, no amount of wealth will be able to help you. Being contented however, doesn’t mean being complacent. 

You still have to earn enough to support yourself and your dependents. 

A trustworthy friend is the best relative 

There is a saying which goes, “We cannot choose our relatives but we can choose our friends.” 

Certain kinds of relatives leave much to be desired. Therefore the greatest types of relatives are those friends who are trustworthy, share your joys and sorrows, and can be counted on in times of trouble. It is stated in Mangala Sutta that it is a blessing when you associate with the wise for they can influence you to walk the Noble Eightfold Path, which will lead to Nibbana, the end of suffering. 

Nibbana is the highest bliss 

In this mundane world, success and wealth can bring happiness. During meditation, we can also be happy and peaceful. These are all worldly happiness. However, the bliss of Nibbana is the greatest bliss. But it is difficult to explain because very few people are enlightened enough to experience it. Nibbana is something that is not connected to the senses. Most people understand the happiness experienced through the five senses. They say that since Nibbana is nothing, how can it be blissful? As such, they cannot understand Nibbana. I have a good simile to illustrate this. If you are having the most restful sleep of your life (representing Nibbana or the total disconnection from the five sense doors) and someone wakes you up to offer you something wonderful to eat (representing the five sense doors), you wouldn’t want to wake up, for the deep slumber (the bliss of Nibbana) is far superior. 

I hope all of you will appreciate the Buddha’s teaching and take good care of your health; exercise, practise restraint of your desires and meditate so that you can control lobha, dosa and moha as and when they arise. With less lobha, dosa and moha, there will be less suffering.

Sadhu ........... Sadhu ........... Sadhu ...........

4 March 2023

Luang Phor Lek Suthammapanyo

Luang Phor Lek Suthammapanyo

Devotee: If all beings fare in accordance with their kamma, and yet those with apinya (psychic powers) know the future, does that mean that they will be able to escape misfortunes? Or is it that the future cannot be changed?

LP Lek: Everything is not stable and uncertain (impermanence). For ordinary people, their kamma is constantly in flux.

But those with the Higher Knowledges have insight of the future. 

Most of these wise people will accept the Law of Kamma. Simply put, even if you try to change the future, the ending might still not be good. So you have to accept it reluctantly. 

As an example, there was a tudong monk at Phu Kra Dueng who had some trouble with a large snake. In fact, he was swallowed almost in half by the python already. It was strange, the snake started swallowing him from his feet up.

When the villagers and hunters found him, they were discussing a way to save this monk, how to kill the snake so that they could save him. But the monk used the remaining of his strength to wave away the villagers, telling them not to interfere. 

The monk said that he had once committed bad kamma and harmed this being and as a result he is accepting that he wants to let the snake eat him as a form of compensation. Even though he knew in advance and could escape, but he still let the snake attack him. 

Luang Phor Lek Suthammapanyo

Wat Tha Kha Nun, Kanchanaburi Province

3 March 2023

WHAT HAPPENS AT DEATH? (an excerpt from S.N.Goenka)

WHAT HAPPENS AT DEATH? (an excerpt from S.N.Goenka)

Before long, alas! this body will lie

upon the ground, cast aside

devoid of consciousness,

even as a useless log.

To understand what happens at death, let us first understand what death is. Death is like a bend in a continuous river of becoming. It appears that death is the end of a process of becoming, and certainly it may be so in the case of an arahant (a fully liberated being) or a Buddha; but with an ordinary person this flow of becoming continues even after death. 

Death puts an end to the activities of one life, and the very next moment starts the play of a new life. On the one side is the last moment of this life and on the other side is the first moment of the next life. It is as though the sun rises as soon as it sets with no interval of darkness in between, or as if the moment of death is the end of one chapter in the book of becoming, and another chapter of life begins the very next moment.

Although no simile can convey the exact process, still one might say that this flow of becoming is like a train running on a track. It reaches the station of death and there, slightly decreasing speed for a moment, carries on again with the same speed. It does not stop at the station even for a moment. 

For one who is not an arahant, the station of death is not a terminus but a junction from where thirty-one different tracks diverge. The train, as soon as it arrives at the station, moves onto one or another of these tracks and continues. 

This speeding "train of becoming," fuelled by the electricity of the kammic reactions of the past, keeps on running from one station to the next, on one track or the other, a continuous journey that goes on without ceasing.

This changing of "tracks" happens automatically. As the melting of ice into water and the cooling of water to form ice happens according to laws of nature, so the transition from life to life is controlled by set laws of nature. 

According to these laws, the train not only changes tracks by itself, it also lays the next tracks itself. For this train of becoming the junction of death, where the change of tracks takes place, is of great importance. 

Here the present life is abandoned (this is called cuti-disappearance, death). The demise of the body takes place, and immediately the next life starts (a process which is called patisandhi - conception or taking up of the next birth). The moment of patisandhi is the result of the moment of death; the moment of death creates the moment of conception. 

Since every death moment creates the next birth moment, death is not only death, but birth as well. At this junction, life changes into death and death into birth.

Thus every life is a preparation for the next death. If someone is wise, he or she will use this life to the best advantage and prepare for a good death. The best death is the one that is the last, that is not a junction but a terminus: the death of an arahant. 

Here there will be no track on which the train can run further; but until such a terminus is reached, one can at least ensure that the next death gives rise to a good birth and that the terminus will be reached in due course. It all depends on us, on our own efforts. We are makers of our own future, we create our own welfare or misery as well as our own liberation.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1165961034027014?mibextid=q5o4bk&fs=e&s=TIeQ9V

2 March 2023

Luang Pu Thong-In Katapunyo

Luang Pu Thong-In Katapunyo

Boon (merit) doesn’t live at the temple

Going to the temple to tamboon

If you don’t know the way to make merit

You still won’t be able to get merit

Going to the temple just to do Sangkatan

Offer flowers, joss sticks and candles

If you let your kilesas (defilements) arise

Going there and start chatting with others

Instead of sitting watching the breath

And concentrating in samadhi

If you bring things to the temple

Competing with one another

Is that still considered making merit?

Relating to food that feeds the body

It is considered as giving alms

As for the food of the mind and heart

It is boon or merit

It is the air that you inhale and exhale

You don’t even need to spend a baht

Why aren’t you doing it [meditation]? 

Luang Pu Thong-In Katapunyo

Wat Prachakhom Wanaram, Roi Et

Cr. to the owner of this photo

1 March 2023

The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.

The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.

11 March 2023

Question:  Ajahn mentioned that a Sotapaññā has fear of doing bad karma and would never do anything to break precepts, but a Sotapaññā still has attachment to the senses and can occasionally get irritated or angry. Do I understand it correctly that sensual pleasures and getting irritated are not considered as bad karma?

Than Ajahn:  They are not bad karma but they are the karma that will cause you to have rebirth if you still have sensual pleasures. You're still addicted to sensual objects so you have to keep coming back for them. 

After this body dies, you will go after a new body, to get a new body, so that you can enjoy the sensual pleasures again. So they’re not bad karma. They won't cause you to be born in a lower realm. You'll still be born as a human or in a higher realm of existence.

Student:  I see. It's more of a hindrance to the practice.

Than Ajahn:  Hindrances to nibbāna. If you want to go to nibbāna, you have to give up your sensual pleasure desire.

Student:  All right. And that is achieved by asubha.

Than Ajahn:  That's right.

Student:  So asubha will get us to nibbāna. 

Than Ajahn:  Not all the way yet. It will get you out of the sensual realm of existence. You will not return to the sensual realm of existence once you have seen asubha because you don't want to come and have sex with any ghosts or any corpses anymore. 

But you'll still be in the realm of the rūpa and arūpa because when you no longer have any sensual desire, you’ll find happiness by meditation, by entering into jhāna. And jhāna is also an object which can also cause you dukkha because it's also aniccaṁ, dukkhaṁ anattā. So you have to give up these two also in order not to return to the rūpa and arūpa realms of existence. 

If you still enjoy rūpa jhāna and arūpa jhāna, then you still want to come back to them, so you are still not yet get to nibbāna.

Student:  Oh! Okay, so jhāna is still considered impermanent.

Than Ajahn:  Impermanent. It still has the three characteristics of existence. It can give you dukkha when you are out of jhāna. When you are in jhāna, you are peaceful, but when you come out of jhāna, you’re longing for it and your longing for jhāna can cause you to have irritation and sadness.

Student:  Oh! I see. I never thought about it that way. I always thought that jhāna is the way to get us back on track.

Than Ajahn:  It's a replacement to your sensual pleasure, but it's also considered as another type of addiction. Like people nowadays stop smoking cigarettes, and they're going for vaping, right? They use vaping instead of going for a smoke, so they’re just replacing one addiction with another addiction. Same way with our practice. We replace our addiction to sensual pleasures with meditation, with rūpa jhāna, arūpa jhāna. 

Once we get rid of sensual pleasures, we also shouldn’t be attached to the rūpa jhāna or arūpa jhāna too. 

We should learn to live without jhāna. And we will find that the cause of our irritation is our desire for rūpa jhāna and arūpa jhāna. So we have to use wisdom to teach us that rūpa jhāna and arūpa jhāna are also aniccaṁ, dukkhaṁ, anattā.

Once you can see this, you will also get rid of avijjā, the other remaining fetters.

Student:  Māna.

Than Ajahn:  Yes, and restlessness, then you will not come back to the three realms of existence. No more. Not anymore. You’ll be in nibbāna like the Buddha and his noble disciples. Okay?

Student:  That clarifies everything. I previously misunderstood that jhāna is the way out of everything. Now I understand that jhāna is also impermanent.

Than Ajahn:  It’s a tool for you to get out of the sensual realm of existence, but you must not be attached to the tools. You have to give up the tools when you have accomplished your mission. 

Student:  Thank you Than Ajahn. That was very insightful. Thank you so much. 

“Dhamma in English, May 31, 2022.”

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto

www.phrasuchart.com

YouTube:  Dhamma in English.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g

The Heart of Buddhism by Luang Pu Dteu Acaladhammo. Translated by Hāsapañño Bhikkhu.

The Heart of Buddhism by Luang Pu Dteu Acaladhammo. Translated by Hāsapañño Bhikkhu. 

The Buddha Gotama didn’t destroy bodily form–bodily form grows old and decrepit, sensation grows old and decrepit, cognisance grows old and decrepit... Only our hearts don’t get old and decrepit.

Rūpaṁ aniccaṁ – Form arises as something that is uncertain; it changes, transforms and becomes otherwise as a function of its nature.

However our minds plead with it, it doesn’t listen.

Akāliko – the property of space just is the way it is.

Cakkhu’ndriyaṁ – look at our eyes. The eyes break apart, the eyes disintegrate. We can’t stop the eyes (from this).

Sot’indriyaṁ – look at our ears. The ears become decrepit, the ears die. We can’t stop the ears.

Ghān’indriyaṁ – see and understand our nose. The nose catches a cold which singles out the nose, or there is sinusitis or rhinitis; we can’t stop this.

Jivh’indriyaṁ – look at our tongue. The mouth and the tongue catch a cold or a cough – we walk and we cough, we eat and we cough, we drink and we cough; we’re just coughing, coming and going.

Ānāpāna – this is the Pāli language; in English, it’s called ‘breath’. With bodily form there is breath, with sensation there is breath, with perception there is breath, with mental fabrications there is breath, with cognisance there is breath. When breath is finished and done, it’s called ‘being dead’. 

If you have money, gold or jewels, when you die you will abandon and lose that wealth. 

If you have a daughter, you will pass away from your daughter. If you have a son, you will pass away from your son.

If you have a husband, you will pass away from your husband. If you have a wife, you will pass away from your wife. 

If you have a father, you will pass away from your father. If you have a mother, you will pass away from your mother.

If we have a fortune of up to 80,000 or 90,000, it’s just neutral stuff that exists in the world. When we pass away, we have to throw it all away.

If we haven’t yet died, we have to bring ourselves to develop goodness and develop wholesomeness to a sufficient extent. Once we have died that goodness will be a refuge for us, something for us to rely on.

~••~•~

The Heart of Buddhism by Luang Pu Dteu Acaladhammo. Translated by Hāsapañño Bhikkhu. 

https://www.vimokkharam.org/_files/ugd/9c709d_8815da4ae3eb49939d7ac30cdacb3462.pdf

28 February 2023

The teachings of Ajahn Lee.

The teachings of Ajahn Lee.

When trees are withered and dry, it’s because they don’t have any water to nourish them. The same holds true with us. If the mind doesn’t stay inside the body, the body won’t flourish. It’ll have to wither and wear out, grow ill in one way or another, and eventually die because of this disease or that. 

So the mind is like water that permeates the body to give it nourishment. If the mind focuses its attention outside of the body, then the body won’t be able to gain any sense of freshness, fullness, or ease. This is because the mind is the most important factor influencing the body. 

It’s our most valuable resource.

Now, when the mind is a valuable resource in this way, we should learn how to look after it. We have to hand it over to someone we can trust. In other words, we entrust it to somebody venerable. 

But the word venerable here doesn’t mean the external venerables, like monks, because not all monks are trustworthy. Some of them are good monks, some of them aren’t. If we let them cheat us out of our valuables, we end up even worse off than before. 

No, venerable here means internal venerables: the venerable qualities of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha within the mind.

When we meditate, we’re handing our minds over to these venerable qualities. They’re qualities that are kind and considerate. They won’t abuse us or cause anyone any harm. This is why we can wholeheartedly entrust our valuables—our mind—to them. 

For example, when we meditate buddho, buddho, we have to be sincere to these qualities. We really have to think about them. We don’t just think about them in jest. 

“Thinking in jest” means that we think without really being intent. We have to be really intent on keeping buddho with the mind, and the mind with buddho each and every time we breathe in and out. This is what it means to be sincere in our thinking. It’s the kind of thinking that serves a purpose.

The purpose here is to develop something of real and abundant essence within ourselves—to create results that will be lasting. Things that don’t serve any real purpose are those giving results that don’t last. 

When we talk about lasting results: for example, when you sit here and meditate, you’ll find that the results will continue appearing even after you die. 

But if you aren’t really meditating, if you let your mind think about other things, you’ll find that the results will vanish at death, because the things you think about aren’t certain or sure. 

They’re not lasting. They’ll have to change, deteriorate, and end up disappearing and dying in the same way that you will.

~~~~~~~

Starting Out Small: A Collection of Talks for Beginning Meditators, by Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo

https://www.dhammatalks.org/ebook_index.html#StartingOutSmall

27 February 2023