Dispassion (3) Relinquishment (2) Liberation (1) Stages of awakening (4) Nibbāna (5)
Quote: “You’ll want to make an end of things.” — Ajahn Chah. Read by Kittisaro. [Dispassion ] [Cessation ] [Ajahn Chah] // [Impermanence] [Relinquishment] [Direct experience] [Self-identity view]
Remembering Ajahn Chah Weekend (2001), Session 2, Excerpt 3.3
“Thank you for your talk. Can you flesh out: ‘dispassionate about what?’ Also, trying to encourage dispassion along with arousing energy.” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Dispassion ] [Energy] // [Craving] [Sense bases] [Form] [Emotion] [Contentment] [Tranquility]
Quote: “When there’s a coolness towards the world around one, that frees up a lot of energy for directing attention to what’s actually useful and beneficial.” [Discernment]
Abhayagiri Monastic Retreat 2013, Session 1, Excerpt 1
“Thank you for this opportunity to practice and your guidance. Can you explain nirodha?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Cessation ] // [Nibbāna] [Suffering] [Language] [Dependent origination ] [Relinquishment] [Release] [Thai]
Sutta: MN 118 Ānāpānasati Sutta. [Mindfulness of breathing]
Thanksgiving Retreat 2016, Session 3, Excerpt 3
He encouraged people to let go in so many different ways. Recollection by Jack Kornfield. [Relinquishment ] [Teachers] [Views] [Eightfold Path] [Ajahn Chah] // [Idle chatter] [Seclusion] [Aversion] [Ghost] [Fear] [Restlessness and worry] [Sense bases] [Direct experience] [Liberation]
Story: Sit in the middle of your anger. [Jack Kornfield] [Robes] [Lodging]
Story: Walk backwards in the forest in the middle of the night. [Sloth and torpor] [Posture/Walking] [Culture/Natural environment]
Remembering Ajahn Chah Weekend (2001), Session 26, Excerpt 20
“I am still very attached to my husband and children. I don’t want to relinquish the intimacy I share with my husband. I will suffer when they are gone. How do I reconcile this practice of relinquishment with the reality that I am a wife, mother and householder? With love.” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Gratitude] [Family ] [Lay life] [Relinquishment ] // [Spaciousness] [Suffering] [Clinging] [Cause of Suffering] [Communal harmony]
Quote: “Relinquishment is a skillful acknowledgement of the areas where we do create suffering.”
Story: Visākhā, the stream enterer who raised 20 children. [Great disciples] [Stream entry] [Culture/India]
Quote: “Families that grow up with strong spiritual models are an incredible blessing.” [Mentoring]
2014 Thanksgiving Monastic Retreat, Session 4, Excerpt 13
“Is there a distinction between observing the mind and observing what arises?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Mindfulness of mind] [Impermanence] // [Knowing itself ] [Liberation ] [Thai Forest Tradition] [Buddha] [Relinquishment] [Cessation of Suffering]
2015 Thanksgiving Monastic Retreat, Session 4, Excerpt 22
“What are the four stages of enlightenment? What defilements have the four noble beings shed?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Stages of awakening ] [Unwholesome Roots] // [Drawbacks] [Liberation]
Quote: “When we think of enlightenment, it’s a being who is willing and able to relinquish those things that are complicating and constricting.” [Relinquishment]
Abhayagiri Monastic Retreat 2013, Session 3, Excerpt 13
“Do you think it’s possible to experience Nibbāna before becoming fully awakened - ‘moments of enlightenment?’ But if Nibbāna is beyond consciousness, would you remember that it happened?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Nibbāna] [Stages of awakening] [Consciousness] // [Stream entry ]
2015 Thanksgiving Monastic Retreat, Session 8, Excerpt 27
“Can you talk about path and fruit in regards to the stages of awakening? What are they? How are they different?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Stages of awakening ] // [Insight meditation] [Relinquishment] [Fetters] [Stream entry] [Self-identity view] [Aggregates] [Attachment to precepts and practices] [Doubt] [Once return] [Sensual desire] [Ill-will] [Non-return] [Arahant]
Abhayagiri Monastic Retreat 2013, Session 7, Excerpt 20
“Does a sotāpanna keep the precepts perfectly?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Stream entry ] [Precepts] // [Virtue]
Thanksgiving Retreat 2016, Session 3, Excerpt 4
Quote: “This is the nature of enlightenment. It’s the extinguishing of fire, the cooling of that which was hot. This is peace. This is the end of saṃsāra, the cycle of birth and death.” — Ajahn Chah. Read by Kittisaro. [Liberation] [Nibbāna ] [Similes] [Cessation] [Ajahn Chah] [Saṃsāra] // [Dispassion] [Discernment] [Relinquishment] [Delusion] [Unwholesome Roots] [Happiness] [Unconditioned]
Remembering Ajahn Chah Weekend (2001), Session 2, Excerpt 3.4
“Please, a short talk on Nibbāna.” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Nibbāna ] // [Cessation of Suffering] [Cessation] [Unwholesome Roots] [Relinquishment] [Jhāna]
Quote: “Nibbāna is not a thing.”
Sutta: Ud 3.10: Yena yena hi maññati, tato taṁ hoti aññathā. – “For however one conceives it, it is always other than that.”
Reference: The Island by Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Amaro
Madison Insight Retreat 2023, Session 3, Excerpt 6
“Is there consciousness (awareness, knowing) in the experience of nibbana or is there a complete cessation of all six senses, as some traditions say. (Particularly in relation to the experience of stream-entry, which is sometimes described as a cessation.)” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Nibbāna ] [Sense bases] [Stream entry] [Cessation] // [Liberation] [Ajahn Chah] [Sutta] [Thai Forest Tradition]
Sutta: SN 22.59.11 Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta: knowledge of liberation (Chanting Book translation).
Abhayagiri Monastic Retreat 2013, Session 7, Excerpt 9
“The citta is sometimes defined as pure awareness, and it being in the fourth khanda, but it sounds like here [Ajahn Wanchai] is talking about the activity of awareness?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Heart/mind] [Ajahn Wanchai] [Knowing itself] [Volitional formations] // [Rebirth]
Quote: “There is that which is beyond birth and death. And then you start asking, ‘Well, what is it and how is it? How should it be?’ It’s just the same as in the Sabbāsava Sutta (MN 2.7)...As soon as you get into conceiving, you’ve already started the process of dukkha.” [Unconditioned ] [Proliferation] [Conceit] [Suffering]
Follow-up: “So is it better to hear what he said and let it go when I notice awareness that’s good, but I don’t have to make anything out of it?”
Quote: “The investigation is not a conceiving. The best investigation is when the mind is exceedingly still and not conceiving, not creating concepts.” [Discernment] [Concentration]
Follow-up: “So is it a realizing, not a conceiving?” [Knowledge and vision]
Abhayagiri 2014 Winter Retreat, Session 51, Excerpt 2
“At the beginning of this retreat, Tan Ajahn Anan advised us, “Don’t forget Nibbāna.” How do we orient ourselves towards Nibbāna?” Answered by Ajahn Pasanno. [Nibbāna ] [Ajahn Anan] [Monastic life] // [Dispassion] [Cessation of Suffering] [Etymology] [Stream entry]
Sutta: AN 10.60: Girimānanda Sutta [Cessation]
Sutta: SN 56.11: “Whatever is of the nature to arise, that is of the nature to cease.” [Conditionality]
Quote: “[The goal] is incredibly worthy, and it is not beyound our capability and means to experience.” [Direct experience]