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Kamma, The Real Creator
By Dr. Mehm Tin Mon

Who is the Real Creator?
Who create Human beings, celestial beings and woeful beings?
Why are some born rich and some born poor?
Why some are ugly and some are beautiful?
Who are there ups and down in Life?
Who determines your fate and destiny?
How can you be rich and prosperous in every existence?

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Learning to Tech

From the renown and beloved teacher of forest tradition of Thai Theravada Buddhism Ajahn Chah's A Still Forest Pond.

Makkha Puja is an important Buddhist holiday celebrating the coming together of 1,250 enlightened disciples in the Buddha's presence. At this meeting, he told them to "wander forth" spreading the Dharma "for the good, the benefit, and the awakening" of beings everywhere.

To celebrate this holiday, Ajahn Chah and his many hundred monks sit up all night in meditation with the village lay supporters. In a typical year the great hall is filled with perhaps a thousand villagers. They sit for an hour, then Ajahn Chah or one of his chief disciples, who are all abbots of their own monasteries, gives an inspiring Dharma talk. Again they sit for an hour, alternating sitting and talks all night long.

One of the earliest Western students of Ajahn Chah was seated among the group of new monks feeling the inspiration and joy and difficulty of this night long celebration and practice. At the completion of one hour of sitting in the middle of the night, Ajahn Chah announced to the villagers that they would now hear a talk in their native Lao language by the Western monk. The monk was as surprised as the villagers, but having no chance to prepare or to get nervous, he sat in front of the assembly and spoke of the inspiration that had brought him to ordain and of the new understandings of the Dharma he had gleaned from practice. After this experience, he was rarely ever nervous about speaking before a group.

Ajahn Chah later explained that Dharma teaching must flow unprepared from the heart and from inner experience. "Sit, close the eyes, and step out of the way," he said. "Let the Dharma speak itself."

On another occasion, Ajahn Chah asked Ajahn Sumedho, his senior Western monk, to speak. Sumedho talked for a half hour. "Speak a half hour more," said Ajahn Chah. A half hour later, Ajahn Chah said "Speak more still:' Sumedho continued, becoming increasingly boring. Many of the listeners started to doze.

"Surrender to speaking," Ajahn Chah cajoled. "Just do it." After struggling on for several hours, Sumedho had learned to bore his listeners thoroughly and was never again afraid of their judgments when he talked.

Ajahn Chah asked a monk who was leaving if he was planning to teach when he got back to the West. No, he had no particular plans to teach Dharma, he replied, although if someone asked, he would do his best to explain how to practice.

"Very good," Ajahn Chah said, "it is beneficial to speak about the Dharma to those who inquire. And when you explain it," he went on, "why not call it Christianity.

They won't understand in the West if you say anything about Buddha. "I speak of God to Christians, yet I have not read their books. I find God in the heart. Do you think God is Santa Claus, who comes once a year with gifts for children? God is Dharma, the truth; the one who sees this sees all things. And yet God is nothing special­just this.

"What we are really teaching is how to be free from suffering, how to be loving and wise and filled with compassion. This teaching is the Dharma, anywhere in any language. So call it Christianity. Then it will be easier for some of them to understand."

Ajahn Chah had this advice for an aspiring Dharma teacher:

"Don't let them scare you. Be firm and direct. Be clear about your own shortcomings, and acknowledge your limits. Work with love and compassion, and when people are beyond your ability to help, develop equanimity. Sometimes teaching is hard work. Teachers become garbage cans for people's frustrations and problems. The more people you teach, the bigger the garbage disposal problem.

Don't worry. Teaching is a wonderful way to practice Dharma. The Dharma can help all those who genuinely apply it in their lives. Those who teach grow in patience and understanding."

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Intuitive Awareness
By Ajahn Sumedho

This book is compiled from talks given mostly in 2001 by Ajahn Sumedho; they convey an intuitive understanding of the Buddha’s teaching which has arisen from over 35 years of practice as a Buddhist monk.
This approach starts with accepting ourselves as we are, not as some ideal of whom we think we should be. By doing this a relaxation can take place that creates space for insight to arise. For some people this space arises as the sound of silence, or simply a quiet or empty mind. However it manifests, this points to the unconditioned; beyond body and mind objects.

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Thus we are elated by expectations concerning the stages of the path far beyond our reach, while at the same time we tend to neglect the lower stages—dull and drab, but far more urgent and immediate—lying just beneath our feet. To adopt this attitude, however, is to forget the crucial fact that vision always operates upon a groundwork of previously established routine and must in turn give rise to new patterns of routine adequate to the attainment of its intended aim. If we are to close the gap between ideal and actuality—between the envisaged aim of striving and the lived experience of our everyday lives—it is necessary for us to pay greater heed to the task of repetition. Every wholesome thought, every pure intention, every effort to train the mind represents a potential for growth along the noble eightfold path. But to be converted from a mere potential into an active power leading to the end of suffering, the fleeting, wholesome thought formations must be repeated, fostered, and cultivated, made into enduring qualities of our being. Feeble in their individuality, when their forces are consolidated by repetition they acquire a strength that is invincible.

The key to development along the Buddhist path is repetitive routine guided by inspirational vision. It is the insight into final freedom—the peace and purity of a liberated mind—that uplifts us and impels us to overcome our limits. But it is by repetition—the methodical cultivation of wholesome practices—that we cover the distance separating us from the goal and draw ever closer to awakening.

An earlier version of this essay appeared in the BPS Newsletter, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka.
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi lives and teaches at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York. He is a translator of texts from the Pali canon and the cofounder of Buddhist Global Relief.

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Vision and Routine

Why you need both to strike a balance
By Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

All human activity can be viewed as an interplay between two contrary but equally essential factors—vision and repetitive routine. Vision is the creative element in activity, whose presence ensures that over and above the settled conditions pressing down upon us from the past we still enjoy a margin of openness to the future, a freedom to discern more meaningful ends and to discover more efficient ways to achieve them. Repetitive routine, in contrast, provides the conservative element in activity. It is the principle that accounts for the persistence of the past in the present, and it enables the successful achievements of the present to be preserved intact and faithfully transmitted to the future.

Although they pull in opposite directions—the one toward change, the other toward stability—vision and routine mesh in a variety of ways, and every course of action can be found to participate to some extent in both. For any particular action to be both meaningful and effective, the attainment of a healthy balance between the two is necessary. When one factor prevails at the expense of the other, the consequences are often undesirable. If we are bound to a repetitive cycle of work that deprives us of our freedom to inquire and understand things for ourselves, we soon stagnate, crippled by the chains of routine. If we are spurred to action by elevating ideals but lack the discipline to implement them, we may eventually find ourselves wallowing in idle dreams or exhausting our energies on frivolous pursuits. It is only when accustomed routines are infused by vision that they become springboards to discovery rather than deadening ruts. And it is only when inspired vision gives birth to a course of repeatable actions that we can bring our ideals down from the ethereal sphere of imagination to the somber realm of fact. It took a flash of genius for Michelangelo to behold the figure of David invisible in a shapeless block of stone, but it required years of training, and countless blows with hammer and chisel, to work the miracle that would leave us a masterpiece of art.

The key to development along the Buddhist path is repetitive routine guided by inspirational vision.

These reflections concerning the relationship between vision and routine are equally applicable to the practice of the Buddhist path. Like all other human activities, the treading of the way to the cessation of suffering requires that the intelligent grasp of new disclosures of truth be fused with the patient and stabilizing discipline of repetition. The factor of vision enters the path under the heading of right view—as the understanding of the undistorted truths concerning our lives and as the continued penetration of those same truths through deepening contemplation and reflection. The factor of repetition enters the path as the onerous task imposed by the practice itself: the need to undertake specific modes of training and to cultivate them diligently in the prescribed sequence until they yield their fruit. The course of spiritual growth along the Buddhist path might in fact be conceived as an alternating succession of stages in which, during one phase, the element of vision predominates, and during the next the element of routine. It is a flash of vision that opens our inner eye to the essential meaning of the dharma, gradual training that makes our insight secure, and again the urge for still more vision that propels the practice forward to its culmination in final knowledge.

Though the emphasis may alternate from phase to phase, ultimate success in the development of the path always hinges upon balancing vision with routine in such a way that each can make its optimal contribution. However, because our minds are keyed to fix upon the new and distinctive, in our practice we are prone to place a one-sided emphasis on vision at the expense of repetitive routine.

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Illustrated Buddhist tales for young and old
As interpreted by Kurunegoda Piyatissa

It is a pleasure to rewrite the Jataka stories in modern English understandable by western readers. To achieve this goal, the stories are being retold in order to convey the spirit and meaning. They are not scholarly word-for-word translations as have been done by others. The Pali Text Society published the whole text in English translation a hundred years ago. In Sri Lanka they were translated into Sinhalese in the 14th century, where they were known as Pansiya Panas Jataka.

In all Buddhist countries the Jataka tales were the major sources for developing the character of the people. They were used widely in preaching by monks and lay preachers. King Dutugemunu (2nd century B.C.), in Anuradhapura, paid for the support of preachers to teach Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha. They usually used these stories in their sermons. Even the Venerable Arahant Maha Mahinda, who introduced Dharma into Sri Lanka, used these stories to illustrate the truth of the teachings. Some were even used by the Lord Buddha in his teachings, and from him his followers learned them and passed them into popular use in society. Even earlier, the same types of stories were present in Vedic literature.

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As he said, you train yourself to breathe in and out sensitive to pleasure, breathe in and out sensitive to rapture. Pleasure and rapture of this sort don’t just happen on their own. You don’t sit there waiting for them to happen. You can change the way you breathe so that it induces feelings of pleasure and rapture. You’ve got that potential. There are lots of different potentials there. You can talk to yourself in ways that increase your suffering or decrease it. Why choose to increase it when you have the other opportunity? The perceptions you hold in mind you can change as well.

So realize that you have this power, and view the Buddha’s teachings basically as advice in all these levels of fabrication. Bodily: Learn how to breathe in a new way. Verbal: Talk to yourself in a new way. Ask new questions. The Buddha made a science of questions, you know. He divided questions into four types: the questions that deserve categorical answers, those that have to be reanalyzed before you answer them, those where you have to question the questioner before you answer them, and those where you put the question aside because it’s not worth answering. These categories don’t apply only to questions coming from other people. They also apply to what the mind says inside to itself, the questions it raises, the way it looks at things.

So when a question comes up in your mind, you can ask yourself: Which category does it belong to? Does it really deserve an answer? Is the answer something that’s going to apply only to specific incidents? Or is it a general principle that’s true across the board? There are a lot of ways we get ourselves into trouble by holding on to something that was true for one set of circumstances and then automatically applying it to something else where it doesn’t really fit. So learn new questions. Question the way you talk to yourself, question your mental fabrications, the way you slap perceptions on things. Take some of the Buddha’s recommendations and try them on for size.

This way you find that in the present moment there’s the potential to suffer, but there’s also the potential not to suffer. We’re working on the skill of how not to suffer, no matter what happens.

That’s our gift from the Buddha. So don’t leave it on the shelf. Take it down and put it to use.

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu is an American Theravada Buddhist monk trained in the Thai Forest Tradition. He currently serves as abbot of the Metta Forest Monastery in San Diego County, California and is a frequent contributor to Tricycle. His latest book is Good Heart, Good Mind: The Practice of the Ten Perfections. Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s talks, writings, and translations are all freely available at his website:
www.dhammatalks.org

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One way to answer that question is to ask yourself: Where is the sharpest point of the pain right now? You’ll notice that as soon as you focus on it, it moves. It goes someplace else. So you follow it. You keep this up for a while, and there will be a sense that the pain and the body separate out from each other, like cream separating out of milk.

Back in the old days when they didn’t have homogenized milk, I remember when the milkman would come and place the milk at the back door. There’d be about an inch of cream on the top of each bottle. It naturally separated out. In the same way, when you start questioning the perception where the mind says to itself, “The pain is right there and it really hurts right there in that part of the body,” question it. You’ll begin to notice that body sensations and pain sensations can separate out from each other. Sometimes when the pain sensation separates out, it disappears. Sometimes it hovers there, separate from the body. Sometimes you have the weird sense that when it separates out from the body, it slips into your heart and disappears there.

This way, you change your commentary, you change the things you’re saying to yourself. You learn how to say healthier things.

Then you can take this skill and apply it to other parts of your life as well. If you find you’re driving yourself crazy over some incident in your family life, at work, whatever, and it echoes, echoes, echoes, echoes in the mind, you can question it: What actually happened, and where right now is the sensation of that event? It’s at the contact at the mind. But why does it have to contact the mind now, when the incident happened a long time ago? Or even if it’s happening right now, why do you have to comment on it in a way that stabs the mind and drives you crazy? You have the choice.

This is one of the reasons why the Buddha taught the Dhamma to begin with. People were suffering and they didn’t see that they had any choice in the matter. They felt they just had to suffer, to put up with it as part of life. You hear this now, again and again, even in Buddhist circles: Aging is part of life, so we have to learn how to accept it. Death is part of life, so we have to learn how to accept it. Well, yes, we accept the fact that it happens, but you don’t have to accept the fact that you’re going to suffer from it.

The strange thing is, when you begin to learn how not to suffer from it right now, you’re creating the conditions where you won’t have to experience it at all sometime in the future. In other words, it is possible to find the deathless inside when you question the way you put things together right now. Remember, the present moment is a construct. There’s the raw material coming in from your past kamma. Any sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or tactile sensations that come your way, any ideas that come popping into the mind: They’re all the results of past kamma. The Buddha says to see it that way. But past kamma isn’t everything. How you put it together right now in the present is important, too. In fact, that’s what makes the difference between whether you’re going to suffer from the past kamma or not.

It’s like going into your kitchen. You open your refrigerator, and there’s nothing there but raw eggs. You weren’t looking forward to having eggs today, but that’s what you’ve got, so that’s what you’ll eat. Still, you don’t have to eat them raw. You can cook them, do all kinds of things with them: boil them, fry them, steam them, scramble them.

So there are these potentials coming from the past, and what matters is what you do with them, in terms of how you breathe, how you talk to yourself, and the images you hold in mind. So learn how to question the way you talk to yourself and the images you hold in mind. Question even the way you breathe. We’re told again and again, “When you’re doing breath meditation, just let the breath do its own thing. Don’t try to control it.” But you’ve got the opportunity to make it really pleasant, and the Buddha encourages you to do that.

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Pratical Insight Meditation
By Mahasi Sayadaw Gyi

The Venerable Mahasi Sayadawgyi had written his great work of treatise on Vipassana Meditation in two volumes in 1945. The first publication was in 1954 followed by thirteen editions up to now. Volume I of this treatise had been translated into English by U Min Swe and published in December 1980.

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The Satipatthana Vipassana
By Mahasi Sayadaw Gyi

As mentioned in the introduction to the original text, the daily talks given by the Venerable Mahasi Sayadawgyi to every batch of new yogis since the arrival at the Mahasi Sasana Yeiktha had been tape-recorded on 27th July 1951. This had been transcribed and published in book form in 1954, followed by twenty editions up to now. This Myanmar book had been translated into English by the late U Pe Thin, who had also translated a number of discourses of Mahasi Sayadawgyi. Although the first English Edition was no longer with the Buddha Sasana Nuggaha Organization, it has come to our knowledge that this first English Edition was published by the Department of Religious Affairs in 1954 and again in January 1979.

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