theravadin

[theravadin]

Express yourself completely, then keep quiet.

Be like the forces of nature: when it blows, there is only wind; when it rains, there is only rain; when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.

-Lao Tzu

[theravadin]

[theravadin]

[theravadin]

[theravadin]

[theravadin]

My theme lately is: allow. Allow all of what is... What we think, how we feel... Our experiences in their rawest forms without judging. And then from that place of deep acceptance and compassion, deciding how to proceed

[theravadin]

"The word "suchness" describes reality as it is. Concepts and ideas are incapable of expressing reality as it is. Nirvana, the ultimate reality, cannot be described, because it is free of all concepts and ideas. Nirvana is the extinction of all concepts. It is total freedom. Most of our suffering arises from our ideas and concepts. If you are able to free yourself from these concepts, anxiety and fear will disappear. Nirvana, the ultimate reality, or God, is the nature of no-birth and no-death. It is total freedom. We need to touch this reality to leave behind the fear connected with the idea of birth and death."

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

[theravadin]

“May our heart’s garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers.”

— Thích Nhất Hạnh

[theravadin]

**The Parable of the Mustard Seed**

Once, there was a woman named Kisa Gotami who lived in the time of the Buddha. She was a young mother, and her only son had suddenly fallen ill and passed away.

Overcome with grief, she could not accept his death. She carried her son's lifeless body from house to house, asking if anyone could give her medicine to bring her child back to life.

The villagers, seeing her desperation, advised her to go to the Buddha, who was known for his wisdom and compassion.

Kisa Gotami went to the Buddha, laid her son's body before him, and begged for a cure. The Buddha looked at her with deep compassion and said, "I can help you, but first, you must bring me a single mustard seed from a household that has never known death."

With a glimmer of hope, Kisa Gotami set out to find such a household. She knocked on many doors and asked the same question: "Have you ever lost a loved one?" But in every house, she visited, the answer was the same. Every family had experienced the loss of someone dear.

Gradually, the truth dawned on her. Death is a part of life; no one is exempt from it. She returned to the Buddha and told him what she had learned.

The Buddha gently said, "The mustard seed could not bring back your son, but it has shown you the truth. Grief comes from attachment and clinging. To find peace, one must accept the impermanence of life."

Kisa Gotami, now understanding the nature of life and death, found solace in the Buddha's teaching and became one of his devoted followers.

---

This story teaches us about the impermanence of life and the importance of accepting this truth to find peace and liberation from suffering.

[theravadin]

[theravadin]

hi! as you may know i have just acquired the bhikku nanamoli/bhikku bodhi english translation of the majjhima nikaya! i would like to ask anyone willing to comment on this, what order should i read the suttas in? i was initially going to simply read them from 1 to 152 in the order they are presented in the book, but i also found this study guide which offers perhaps a more coherent/cohesive order in which to progress through the suttas. for anyone who has spent time with these texts, which of these two reading orders would you recommend?

[theravadin]

forgot to mention this yesterday but my majjhima nikaya came in yesterday :3

[theravadin]

"Each of us lives in a reality we take to be the real one. This is how it is, we insist. End of story. But isn’t even the consensus reality we share as human beings just a projection of our human sense perceptions? Animals don’t have the same perceptions as we do; therefore, they don’t share the same reality. So what is the “real” reality? Is it ours? Is it a dog’s? A bird’s? A fly’s? The answer is, there isn’t one “real” reality. Reality is wherever we find ourselves in the moment, and it’s not as solid, not as certain, as we think."

Pema Chodron, in Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change

[theravadin]

i'm thinking about when i was younger, before i'd even really learned much about buddhism beyond the very basic summary you learn in a basic social studies class in grade school, how i didn't understand meditation at all. i only understood it as the stereotypical idea of "clearing your mind of all thought." i didn't understand how that was possible; how could you just empty your mind? how could you not think of anything?

it wasn't until i was maybe 15 or 16 that i discovered the concept of ānāpānasati, mindfulness of breath. that made it click for me. you're not chasing away your thoughts, because especially without practice that is a pretty futile endeavor. instead, you're bringing in something you already have, your breath, and focusing your mind on it. it doesn't chase away your thoughts; in a sense it replaces them, but more accurately, it transforms them. thich nhat hanh once compared the effect of mindfulness to the effect of light: light does not destroy shadows; it transforms them into more light. just so, mindfulness of breath does not destroy your errant thoughts, but transforms them into more mindfulness. you are able to use your breath as a lever into mindfulness (pali: "sati"), into concentration ("samādhi"), into insight (vipassana), into peace (i believe the pali for what i mean here is "passaddhi").

[theravadin]

watching one of thich nhat hanh's old dhamma talks (2012 or 2013 i think) where he is teaching in vietnamese (obviously with english subtitles) and i feel like i enjoy this better? i feel like i'm learning more. i completely understand that english was not his first language (or his second, which was french i believe) but i've always struggled to understand him when he spoke english, and i think you can tell it's more difficult for him to translate his thoughts into it. he was still a wonderful english speaker and writer, but you can tell how much more at home he was speaking his native language

[theravadin]

Some of the rakan statues at Otagi Nenbutsu-ji in Arashiyama, Kyoto. The temple was originally located in Gion, and most of it was destroyed by natural disasters and war. The remains of the building were moved to Arashiyama in 1922 to preserve it, but it was partially destroyed by a typhoon in the 1950s. Many of the statues were restored by Kocho Nishimura from 1981 to the early 1990s.

[theravadin]