Buddhist Insight Meditation
Written by Edna Lake Buddhism differs from most other religions in that a belief in God is deemed a hindrance. There is no saviour or supreme being who can free us from pain, or give us eternal life, nor who can answer all our questions about the meaning of life and death. The law of [...]
Contemplation Of Distaste For The Whole World
Written by Upasaka Colin At the latter-end of the twentieth century astronomers and theoretical-physicists began to see that with our ability to produce anti-matter in the form of positrons in a particle accelerator, the balance between matter and anti-matter is a major factor in determining whether our universe is in a state of expansion or [...]
Contemplation On The Disadvantages Of The Body
Written by Roy Allan My talk this evening continues on the theme of the ten contemplations found in the Girimananda Sutta that we have been discussing over the past three weeks. Background and continuity And just by way of background and continuity for anyone who missed the previous sessions, I will start by putting the [...]
Dana Is The Practice Of Giving
Written by Ubasika Lynne When we hear the word Dana, those of us that are familiar to the temple and it’s every day life, will probably think of the offerings that people bring to the venerable monks. It is said that those who give alms are bestowed with a fourfold blessing; being a long life, [...]
Equanimity For Tuesday Night Discussion
Written by PM. Savaddi and translated by Dhammacaro Upekkha is a difficult word for the person who has never heard of it before to comprehend however it is easy for those who have heard of it and who have practised meditation. Literally, Upekkha means Equanimity, to be able to face life in its entire vicissitudes [...]
Five Hindrances
Translated by Dhammacaro from Potthapada Sutta Five hindrances are the main causes which block mankind from progress in meditation, or right understanding. The Buddha spoke about five hindrances, to Paribhajika Potthapada, at Mullikarama where the discussion took place, “Potthapada, mankind should consider five hindrances that one can not abandon yet, as a debt (sensual pleasure), [...]
How To Know The Progress Of Meditation
One of the problems which the meditation-practitioner has is how to gauge the progress of his practice of meditation. The easy way to know is for him to test his desires, greed, hatred, and delusion. If his desire is less, he has progress, but if his desire is more, he has not. This is an [...]
Introduction
by Ubasika Edna Lake Meditation or mental development is one of the three meritorious actions, the other two are liberality, and morality. There are two main kinds. One – concentration or tranquility meditation which means focusing the mind on one of forty suitable objects of concentration, so that the mind becomes completely absorbed in the [...]
Kalyana-Mitta
Written by Good friend in dhamma The first Pali I consciously learned at Buddhapadipa Temple was the term ‘kalyana-mitta’. I learned this term from my teacher Chulan and at that time simply understood it to mean, ‘spiritual or noble friend’, which indeed it does. It was not long afterwards that I came to realize that [...]
Kamadinava-Katha
Written by Ubasaka Colin Kamadinava-katha, talk on the disadvantages of sensual pleasure When I was a young teacher of English, one of the lessons that I used to give in order to arouse some kind of interested response in my trapped audience of twenty or thirty adolescent boys, was to get them to consider the [...]
