Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness- started.

 Really enjoying Bhante Gunaratana’s “Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness”, simple, concise and effective guidance with the eightfold path. #book 

Theragatha 14.1 quote “I delight not in life, I delight not in death..”

 

“I delight not in life, I delight not in death. I await my time like a hireling his wage. I delight not in life, I delight not in death,
I await my time mindful and aware.” 

Thag. 14:1

Craving as an obstacle to any meditation and contemplation. Check this first!

 Craving as an obstacle to meditation and contemplation

 Insight:

 Many people approach their meditation or contemplation practice by completing a set of steps or a 'method' that they use to come into pleasant or beneficial mind states.

One thing that is hardly ever, if ever, discussed by these methods and teachers delivering these methods is the fact that CRAVING is often present for the person attempting to practice a method or set of instructions for meditation.

Now, with craving present, it may still be possible to follow a method or set of instructions and bring about a pleasant, calm abiding. But this will only be temporary, and last for a set period of time. This is why it is difficult for many people to sit in meditation for long periods of time without any sense of effort of tension.

Craving in the background, for a result, for existence, for pleasant feeling tone, and for anything not present, especially sensual-related pleasure, will become an obstacle for progress in meditation.

Sometimes, the best thing that one can do prior to sitting, or even during sitting in meditation, is to actually check and verify whether the presence of craving is there in the mind or not!

If craving is present, this MUST be acknowledge first, and allowed to be seen and felt in the mind and body. A whole meditation session may just consist of this point alone. Any futher instruction or method or step should be abandoned at that point and just the presence of craving noted and allowed to come to the foreground.

If this is done correctly (ie right attention), then this can be termed 'right effort' and 'right mindfulness', since this is likely the only beneficial and skillful action that can be performed without skipping over craving, which always entails some level of suffering in the moment.

So do check for the presence of craving when sitting, and become very familiar with the feeling and presence of craving, and therefore suffering, before attempting to gloss over this with any feel-good method or technique in meditation (such as metta, breath awareness, body awareness etc.)

Peace.

Impermanence and the world- quote by yya Khema

 Impermanence and the world- Ayya Khema

#anicca #impermanence #contemplate #phenomena #threemarksofexistence

Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah- Review.

 

Dean Paradiso's Reviews > Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah

Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah
by 

Ajahn Chah,

 

Jack Kornfield (Goodreads Author) (Foreword),

 

Ajahn Amaro (Introduction)

Dean Paradiso's review

Dec 13, 2023  ·  edit

it was amazing

bookshelves: eastern-philosophy, buddhism, meditation, non-fiction

I enjoyed going through this book/audiobook. The audiobook was read out by Malcolm Smith and done in a relevant fashion. Some of the things I liked about this compilation were the variety of teachings, approaches, and ways in which Ajahn Chah expressed his approach. He made use of stories and colourful anecdotes that really highlighted the points that he was making about practice and how to approach the teachings of the Thai Forest tradition (Theravada) in general. Ajahn Chah's approach relies less on the suttas and commentaries, and more on practical advice and guidance that has been handed down in the Thai Forest tradition. Most of these talks were meant for monastics, novice monks and those who were serious about the practice of early Buddhism and seclusion. As such, they do require some background knowledge in the basic framework of the eightfold path, the Four Noble Truths, and the overall aims of early Buddhism. That said, beginners, can indeed gain much advice and insight into how to approach the path from a high level, and even some low level details related to sitting practice, walking practice and the importance of conduct (sila). AC uses the 3 groups of sila, samadhi and panna as his overall framework, rather than focusing on each of the eight steps in the Eightfold Path.

This compilation could be listened to multiple times, and one would gain something new out of it after each listening, since we approach the practice and teachings each time at a different stage in our development, and there might be some small piece of advice that could prove to be really useful at the time. I also appreciate that this compilation is one of the very few authorised compilations of Ajahn Chah's talks and teachings, and it serves a special place in preserving the approach taken in the Thai Forest monastic tradition of Buddhism.

Notes on 'Know Where You're Going: A Complete Buddhist Guide to Meditation, Faith, and Everyday Transcendence' by Ayya Khema

 

Notes on "Know Where You're Going: A Complete Buddhist Guide to Meditation, Faith, and Everyday Transcendence"

by Ayya Khema

Dean Paradiso

306 reviews50 followers

December 10, 2023

This is a good recording of talks and Q&A given over a week long (or multiple day) retreat in the 90s. Some of the topics included are an overall view of the Theravada / classical Buddhism framework, the Fourth Noble Truths and Dependent Origination.

Each day contained some practical meditation exercises and some questions and answers from the audience. 

Some things I liked were giving a high level overview of how the mediations related to the Buddha's teachings, and being specific in the meditation instructions and Q&A. Some things to note however- the approaches taken tend to be more commentarial (ie Visudhimagga, Burmese approach), than suttas based. As such, some emphasis is given to concentration and absorption throughout the exercises, and there seems to be more of an emphasis on sitting, rather than carrying around contemplations or integration throughout the day. 

I was also not clear on the difference that AK explained between worldly dependent origination and how that differs from transcendental dependent origination. Another quirk is AK's use of the term 'corelessness' and using terms like emptiness, which aren't very standard when looking at the early Buddhist vocab or the suttas. Overall, a helpful book, but keep in mind some context when considering these teachings and the approach here.

Ajahn Chah's approach to Buddhism, practice and progress on the eightfold path to awakening.

 

'Food for the Heart', a compilation of talks from Ajahn Chah.

I've been reading the book or rather listening to Ajahn Chah's "Food for the Heart", which is a compilation of various dhamma talks given over a period of time. They seem to be aimed at novice monks, and those recently joining the Forest Monastery where Ajahn Chah practiced and taught. They also seem to be given during the later years of his life where he reflects on his learning, practice and other aspects of his practical philosophy on Buddhism.

There's a couple of unusual or unique points that I've come across in his talks and writings. 

The first is in the way he uses the term "mind", which can mean awareness, bare awareness, or the container (sense door) for thoughts. He makes use of "mind" in a rather unique way as compared with other early Buddhist (and Theravada) schools. He uses it as a way to separate out phenomena and where the phenomena appear (in the mind as a sort of passive observer).

His approach to practice is very practical, and does not use direct translations of the suttas, or even the commentaries much, such as the Visudhimagga. He does reference the rules of the Vinaya quite a bit, and seems strict in maintaining those rules for monks however, often sanctioning any laxity in following the rules and regulations down to a tee.

In making use of the eightfold path, he approaches it in terms of the 3 main categories- Conduct (Sila), Meditation (Samadhi), and Wisdom (Panna), and does not talk much about the separate parts of the eightfold path, except indirectly.

He first advises to follow the preceipts, rules of the Vinaya, and become strict in restraint and looking at one's intention with regards to the rules of conduct (right speech, right action, right livlihood). 

Once conduct is taken up, he focuses on building some stability and calmness of "mind", which he terms "samadhi" and uses the mind directly in this practice. He advises in several sections to first build concentration and focus by using the breath, and particularly on the nose area. He advises to do this at first in seclusion and later in other activities that are less secluded. He advises that seclusion is necessary for novices at least in the beginning until there's some familiarity with samadhi and calmness of mind (via samatha meditation on the breath). This calmness is always then employed for use via insight meditation (vipassana), and particularly with investigation into the three marks of existence- impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self or non-ownership. Samadhi is not undertaken for calm and jhanas in themselves. He has his own idea of what the jhanas are, and generally says there are no signposts in regards to knowing which of the four jhanas one is in at the time. Practice is more important than analysis in this regard.

Later he replaces this breath awareness, focused meditation with a simple observing or watching the mind. He advises to watch the mind directly, as if it were a fixed point or 'seat' and then watch for guests that enter the house of the mind. He advises to wave them away and become familiar with the fixed point of natural, clear awareness. This is done until some stability, clarity and calmness ensue. I've also found this practice to be similar to some practices taught in other Buddhist schools, such as Mahamudra, Zen etc.

After calmness, clarity and focus ensues from the above simple practice of watching the mind, then attention is used to investigate phenomena as they arise or are experienced and these are 'dropped into buckets' being impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and non-self.

This approach is rather unique to the Thai Forest monk tradition or lineage, and not really detailed in such a way in the suttas. However, it is likely closer to the way the Buddha originally taught than other contemporary approaches which make over-use of absorption meditation, jhanas, serial points of consciousness, or 'mindfulness' practices which are really objects of concentration done in a serial manner (e.g. Mahasi noting, Goenka vipassana etc.)

Overall, there's a lot of helpful and useful material in "Food for the Heart" and a rather unique approach to try out within the framework of early Buddhism, that doesn't require extensive scholarly study.

DP.