Views (diṭṭhāsava)
Views (diṭṭhāsava)
8. Ajahn Chah made me look at myself. Teaching by Ajahn Sumedho. [Teaching Dhamma] [Ajahn Chah] [Ajahn Sumedho] // [Hearing the true Dhamma] [Posture/Sitting] [Pain] [Aversion] [Admonishment/feedback] [Humor] [Patience] [Goodwill] [Discernment] [Contentment] [Cessation] [Happiness] [Saṅgha] [Views] [Relinquishment]
Quote: “Your practice now is patience.” — Ajahn Chah
Story: Ajahn Chah chats for hours after Pāṭimokkha. [Idle chatter] [Judgementalism]
8. Ajahn Chah’s time of illness was a gift to the Saṅgha. Reflection by Ajahn Pasanno. [Sickness] [Generosity] [Saṅgha] [Ajahn Chah] // [Bodhisattva] [Renunciation] [Communal harmony]
Ajahn Chah’s emphasis on Saṅgha was unique. [Thai Ajahn Chah monasteries] [Teachers] [Conflict] [Personal presence] [Three Refuges]
Quote: “People in the world are attached to status. People in the religion are attached to their views.” — Thai saying [Monastic life] [Views] [Saṅgha decision making]
6. Recollection: The June 2000 Saṅgha Meeting concludes in harmony. Recounted by Ajahn Sumedho. [Wat Pah Pong] [Saṅgha] [Saṅgha decision making] [Communal harmony] [Ajahn Chah] // [Views] [Harsh speech] [Forgiveness] [Three Refuges] [Culture/West]
Quote: “Luang Por Chah wasn’t giving us views and opinions....[He gave] us all a confidence in the unspoken unity of our humanity.” [Views] [Faith] [Human]
13. “Is attavādupādāna clinging to sakkāyadiṭṭhi?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Doctrine-of-self clinging] [Self-identity view] // [Fetters] [Stream entry] [Conceit] [Views]
1. Question about how Ajahn Chah taught to deal with people externally. Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Community] [Ajahn Chah] // [Ajahn Mun] [Virtue] [Doubt] [Monastic life] [Views]
Story: A ghost tries to align the visitors sleeping in his hall. [Culture/Thailand] [Shelter] [Ghost] [Communal harmony]
Quote: “You have to have an anchor in your own practice.” [Similes]
3. “As an abbot taking care of a community, how do you handle it when a kerfluffle comes up?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Abbot] [Ajahn Pasanno] [Community] [Conflict] // [Patience] [Views] [Skillful qualities] [Four Noble Truths]
Follow-up: “What are the antidotes to the next two Noble Truths?”
2. Comment: It’s not so easy to let go of people who have been in my life forever to cultivate new friendships. [Relinquishment] [Spiritual friendship]
Response by Ajahn Pasanno. [Judgementalism] [Virtue] [Ajahn Pasanno] [Views]
4. “Is the samatha versus vipassanā debate still active in Thailand?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Calming meditation] [Insight meditation] [Culture/Thailand] [Views] // [Ajahn Chah]
Sutta: AN 6.46 Cunda Sutta: Study monks versus meditation monks. [Study monks]
9. “Why is the story of Sarakāni controversial in Sri Lanka?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Stream entry] [Intoxicants] [History/Sri Lankan Buddhism] [Death] // [Stages of awakening]
Sutta: SN 55.24-25: Sarakāni
Comment by Ajahn Karuṇadhammo regarding the wide range of views about stream entry. [Views]
1. “Does AN 4.94 undercut the whole debate about whether to practice insight meditation or samādhi first?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Insight meditation] [Calming meditation] // [Views] [Buddha] [Suffering] [Human]
Quote: “Just work with what you’ve got and try to free the mind. It’s pretty straightforward.” [Liberation]
5. “Related to the need to emerge from neither-perception-nor-non-perception and cessation of perception to contemplate the five khandhas [in AN 9.36], don’t some of the commentaries imply that that’s what you do with first jhāna; that insight is not possible even in first jhāna?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Formless attainments] [Aggregates] [Insight meditation] [Commentaries] [Jhāna] // [Views]
Recollection: Ajahn Chah emphasized that every step of the way there has to be awareness. Awareness has to form the basis of the whole practice. [Ajahn Chah] [Mindfulness] [Clear comprehension] [Right Concentration] [Right View]
1. Commentary on the Cankī Sutta (MN 95). Teaching by Ajahn Pasanno. [Views] [Right Effort] [Truth]
2. “Are people experiencing jhāna in different ways?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Karuṇadhammo. [Jhāna] // [Views] [Ajahn Chah] [Tranquility] [Self-identity view] [Suffering] [Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo]
3. “Is seeing metaphysical principles the same as making something into a concept?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Karuṇadhammo. [Nature of the cosmos] [Proliferation] // [Views]
Sutta: DN 1: Brahmajāla Sutta. [Views]
5. Examples of signs and secondary characteristics of sense objects? Answered by Ajahn Karuṇadhammo and Ajahn Pasanno. [Sense bases] [Proliferation] [Perception] // [Ven. Analayo] [Sensual desire] [Conditionality] [Food] [Appropriate attention]
Sutta: Thig 14.1: Subhā.
Comment about the feedback loop of perceptions looking for reinforcing perceptions. [Views] [Clinging]
Quote: “The underlying tendency to aversion is like a search engine.” — Ajahn Sucitto. Quoted by Beth Steff. [Ajahn Sucitto] [Aversion] [Similes]
3. “The Buddha didn’t answer the question, ‘Is there a self?’ But this question seems more important than other questions he didn’t answer. How should we relate to not-self?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Buddha/Biography] [Questions] [Not-self] // [Teaching Dhamma] [Feeling] [Relinquishment] [Self-identity view] [Four Noble Truths] [Views]
12. “The Buddha asks us to look at the things we identify with as self and notice they are not who we are. But if there’s nothing else but those things, there is no self, right?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Buddha] [Middle Path] [Not-self] // [Teaching Dhamma] [Learning] [Liberation] [Suffering]
Follow-up: “Isn’t there then an implication that there is something else that could be self?” [Views]
9. Comment: What you said reminds me of ‘da resin.’ [audio unclear] [Not-self]
Response by Ajahn Pasanno: “It’s that sticky bit that creates the problems.” [Clinging] [Self-identity view] [Views] [Becoming] [Present moment awareness]
10. Quote: “One of the things I often attend to is the juxtaposition of stillness and movement. It’s not that one is right and the other wrong. We can be still and really dull or the mind can move with clarity and acuity. But stillness and movement, what’s generating it, what’s pushing it? That bhavadiṭṭhi/vibhavadiṭṭhi is the engine behind it and the force behing the arising of a sense of self, a sense of me.” — Ajahn Pasanno [Ajahn Pasanno] [Insight meditation] [Calming meditation] [Right Concentration] [Not-self] [Clear comprehension] [Nature of mind] [Conditionality] [Craving not to become] [Views] [Self-identity view]
13. “Is bhavadiṭṭhi the same word as cultivation (bhāvanā)?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Becoming] [Views] [Meditation] [Pāli] [Not-self] // [Etymology]
19. Quote: “There are a lot of confusing views and opinions about jhāna and meditation. It’s helpful to ask, ‘What’s the Buddha actually say? How does he put it?’ I have a lot more faith in him than in a lot of what’s out there.” — Ajahn Pasanno [Meditation] [Faith] [Views] [Buddha] [Jhāna]
12. “Several months ago, I started to use the phrase: “I’d rather be loved than right.” This small shift has had a tremendous impact in my life as I relinquish my need to be right, to control and to assert my ego into things.” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Relinquishment] [Views]
9. “Some of my suffering in the current situation comes from feeling compassion with regard to specific suffering that I’m aware of and not acting in response to it. What are helpful stories to frame a patient, long-term effort to effect change?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Suffering] [Compassion] [Patience] [Long-term practice] [Politics and society] [Kamma] [Activism] [Views] // [Association with people of integrity] [Right Effort]
Quote: “And just because one doesn’t see results doesn’t mean one shouldn’t do something....To put the causes into something–that’s the only way that change is going to happen.” [Conditionality]
3. “What is the value of living in community?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Monastic life] [Saṅgha] // [Self-identity view] [Continuity of mindfulness] [Ajahn Chah] [Ajahn Tongrat] [Views] [Requisites] [Not handling money]
5. “How do we use sutta study in our practice and what are the pitfalls?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Sutta] [Views] [Learning] // [Non-contention] [Self-identity view] [Culture/India] [Relinquishment]
Sutta: MN 18
6. Comment: Another major danger of over-intellectualizing is overestimating our progress. [Progress of insight] [Learning]
Response by Ajahn Pasanno. [Views] [Relinquishment]
7. Reading: Stillness Flowing by Ajahn Jayasaro, p. 647-648 “Por Am” [Ajahn Chah] // [Right Livelihood] [Views] [Intoxicants]
Story: Ajahn Chah teaches Por Am herbal medicine so he can avoid killing animals. [Culture/Thailand] [Food] [Precepts] [Medicinal requisites] [Ajahn Pasanno] [Health care] [Lunar observance days]
Quote: “It’s not possible to defeat the Dhamma, you know, and that’s why you fainted.” — Ajahn Chah to Por Am [Dhamma]
6. “How do we deal with a world full of view and opinions?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Views] // [Idealism] [Conditionality] [Impermanence] [Truth]
Story: Sariputta doesn’t approve of a teaching of the Buddha until he puts it into practice himself. Told by Ajahn Chah. [Great disciples] [Teaching Dhamma] [Direct experience] [Faith] [Ajahn Chah]
1. Comment: Thank you for the opportunity to re-take my precepts. I found Ajahn Pasanno’s inquiry questions regarding fixed views very useful. [Gratitude] [Five Precepts] [Views]