| 10 Nov |
Get a handle on your life and observe what you are doing (morning) |
Talk given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary - Penang (Malaysia). Human beings: without access to our heart, how do we differ from robots?;
Attitude: observe what you are doing, do good deeds, don't do unwholesome things, be generous, have respect and gratitude;
Anicca, anatta & dukkha: they are core principles of Buddhism;
Kilesas: they build the castle of "self", everything we want, we like or don't want or don't like. Everything we think we are, it's the kilesas;
Avijja: it's the master mind, we need to get rid of it and then we're free;
The 10 fetters to overcome to become liberated;
Problems & difficulties: they arise in our own hearts, so it's here we have to look not outside;
Meditation retreat: we restrain the senses to see more clearly the kilesas;
Session of Q&A:
Samadhi: we need a firm base of practice, we need to have a fix point of reference. "it's useless just to concentrate on awareness";
Experience of one-pointedness: "all what you know is that you dive in and then you dive out";
How to listen to a Dhamma talk with the heart;
What kind of Dhamma and meditation for children;
How to start body contemplation: focus on one part of the body until you can visualize it;
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1:22:42 |
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| 9 Nov |
Q&A – About generosity, body contemplation, pain, women's ordination & the present moment (evening) |
Session of Q&A given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary – Malaysia.
Generosity; Body: measure the time you spend cleaning your body, you should do at least as much for your heart; Evening reflection: how to do it and the benefits to see and realize what one is doing during the day; Pain: only fighting pain, you will always loose but you can try to understand it; Sickness and kamma; Old age, sickness and death: we don't want to see them; Women and ordination: even in the time of the Lord Buddha, the bhikkhunis have to pay respect to the bhikkhus even young monks and there was a reason for this; Present moment & past: memory is very important to investigate and see what one is doing; Heaven and Hell. |
41:30 |
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| 9 Nov |
We are heartless people, for we live disconnected from our hearts (evening) |
Talk given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary - Penang (Malaysia).
Retreat: it means “retreating” to ourselves;
Dream: we live in a dream, dreaming about the future and the past, never in the present moment;
Lord Buddha's teaching: so logical and easy to understand, yet difficult to do;
Science: we cannot rely on it when we practice, but on the knowingness inside our heart;
Kilesas: why do we let them come up? Why do we deprive ourselves from happiness? That's something we should ask ourselves;
Training meditation is like learning to walk: falling over and trying again without giving up;
What is avijja: wanting to know and understand but not in line with the truth;
Social-networking: why do we need to post our whole life on this? Is it out of boredom or to prove something?
Kamma: it's written in our genes at birth (like the time of our death);
Desire (food, sexual craving): we always need something different, not satisfied with what we have;
Problems: they only exist in our head, the moment we start to think;
How to use money wisely according to the Lord Buddha: 30% for the present needs, 30% for generosity and 40% as savings for the future;
Kamma: examples of what leads to wealth, beauty, ugliness etc.
Sotapanna: the 3 fetters to cut to enter the stream. |
1:21:53 |
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| 9 Nov |
How do we investigate the body to reach Sotapanna or Anagami? (afternoon) |
Talk given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary - Penang (Malaysia). Dukkha: how to investigate pain, boredom, loneliness, greed, irritation, anger;
Body investigation - how to start: take a part of the body ('hair', or 'hand' or whatever) until we can see or visualize it internally;
Sotapanna: method and practice how to realize that the body and the citta/mind are not the same thing (required to enter the stream);
Body contemplation: everything that comes into contact with the body (cloth, food) becomes dirty or disgusting, why is that so?;
Loathsomeness / asubha practice: it brings up a lot of irritation and anger, the practitioner should be warned, it's a good sign;
Anagami: method or practice how to end and overcome greed and hatred, and go beyond good and bad;
Session of Q&A:
Investigation: method how to question the kilesas until the knowingness from the heart arises;
How to fight sleepiness. |
52:05 |
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| 9 Nov |
What exactly is pain? (morning) |
Talk given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary - Penang (Malaysia) |
49:01 |
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| 8 Nov |
Q&A – About sati helping sila, laziness, anger, sharing merits & metta practice (evening) |
Session of Q&A given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary – Malaysia.
Stories of Ajahn's aneurysm (4 times); Importance of the practice of sati to keep the precepts: “you cannot perfect sila without sati and panna”; Overcoming laziness: tips to get disciplined; Strictness of Luangta Maha Bua; The wrong view of the Buddhism in the West “don't worry, be happy, we are buddhists”: “if somebody makes you angry, it's your anger”; Jhanas: “Luangta teaches that if you want complete mastery of the Jhanas, you need 18 years of complete hard work and solitude” (if you haven't developped them in previous lives), but upacara samadhi is sufficient for our practice; Sotapanna: can one attain it by listening to Dhamma?; How sharing merits works: “Of course it works”, like transferring money. It works depending on the connexion you have with the person; Wrong view about Metta meditation: you cannot spread it around, first you need to find it in your heart and then you can invite beings to have a share; How to develop the “body scan” and remove tensions. |
1:20:29 |
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| 8 Nov |
Stop dreaming - start practicing! There is no happy pill! (evening) |
Talk given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary - Penang (Malaysia). Old age, sickness, death, a monk: the 4 signs that made a deep impression on the mind of the Lord Buddha.
The 4 stages of liberation and the 10 fetters: sotapanna, sakadagami, anagami and arahant;
Hell and Heaven: these worlds do exist, it's not like some teaches "Hell on earth, heaven on earth", this has nothing to do with the Lord Buddha's teaching;
Body decaying & old age;
Dukkha: observe one day of your life, if you see it's too much dukkha, "just get the hell out of here" and the way to do it is to practice meditation;
Body: what pleasure does this body really give to us? Only when we get rid of unpleasant feelings, then we find this body comfortable;
The 4 elements (earth, water, air and fire): everything in this Universe (even thoughts and feelings) is made out of them;
Body: it's not something nice or beautiful, it's a chemical factory or a sophisticated biological robot;
Pain investigation: do you think the body dies when you seat 3 or 4 hours in meditation? Compare it when you sit 12 hours in the plane (with all the entertainment and distractions), you don't even notice the pain; |
1:20:01 |
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| 8 Nov |
Wake up! Get a handle on your life (afternoon) |
Talk given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary - Penang (Malaysia) |
39:01 |
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| 8 Nov |
Get to know yourself (morning) |
Talk given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary - Penang (Malaysia) |
49:12 |
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| 7 Nov |
Q&A – About walking & sitting meditation, kilesas, pain, sleepiness & over-eating |
Session of Q&A given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary – Malaysia.
Explanation how to do sitting & walking meditation. Is desire always bad? Turning bad desires into good desires “We need to have the desire to get to Nibbana”; How to stop thinking?; Breath meditation: don't focus on the abdomen; About avijja & the kilesas: avijja is the mastermind, kilesas are its soldiers; Pain investigation: we use it to unhide the kilesas; Trick to fight sleepiness: bring up a situation that made you really angry or excited; Over-eating: “you don't care about the body, you only care about the tongue”; |
32:25 |
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| 7 Nov |
Retreat means going back into our hearts! |
Talk given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary - Penang (Malaysia) |
1:35:53 |
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| 6 Nov |
Q&A – About kamma, free will & anatta |
Session of Q&A given at Sri Lankan Temple - Mahindarama Buddhist Temple (Penang / Malaysia). Kamma: intention creates kamma; Principle of anatta: “there is 'sadness', not 'I' am sad”; Ants & mosquitoes: “they are beings, don't kill them”; Body: when we start practicing, we realize we have a body with a lot of unpleasant feelings; Kamma & free will: “everything is not pre-determined, every moment you have the choice”; Judging others: in Buddhism, you focus on yourself; |
37:28 |
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| 6 Nov |
The true Dhamma comes only from the heart |
Talk given at Sri Lankan Temple - Mahindarama Buddhist Temple (Penang / Malaysia). |
1:53:51 |
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| 5 Nov |
Q&A – About kamma & its fruits, intentions and precepts |
Session of Q&A given at Sri Lankan Temple - Mahindarama Buddhist Temple (Penang / Malaysia). Kamma: impossible to get rid of bad kamma with good kamma, you have to get the result of it, but you can dilute it if you do a lot of good. Stories of Arahants still getting results of previous bad kamma; Body: you have to take care of it (wash it, feed it, cloth it), it can 2 hours but people spend all their life taking care of the body; Kamma: intention creates kamma, but generally we don't know our true intentions. You can even kill (like a hangman) without doing bad kamma if you don't have the intention to do it; Fruits of kamma: most of it, you will get in the next life, not this life. The 5 precepts and the 3 virtues (generosity/respect/gratitude): they can lead you to heaven; The 8 precepts helps you to become more pure. |
25:50 |
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| 5 Nov |
The three stages of samadhi |
Talk given at Sri Lankan Temple - Mahindarama Buddhist Temple (Penang / Malaysia).
Understanding the truth of dukkha: not only 'suffering' (wrong translation), it's also boredom. restlessness, dissatisfaction, discomfort, pain & suffering.
- 5 precepts: following the law given by the Lord Buddha not to go down to the lower realms
- Outmoded? The Teaching is always up-to-date because the kilesas have not changed
- Samadhi: all worries and fear disappear because thoughts disappear; 3 stages of samadhi: description of khanika, upacara and appana samadhi; Appana samadhi: this is a preview of Nibbana as Luangta Maha Bua describes it; Body: like a car or a biological robot, but the driver (i.e the citta) is not the car, "we are not the body"; Body contemplation: "looks what comes out of this body. do you think the body is still a nice thing?"; Investigation of the mind / nama khandhas: impossible to go through as long as you have not finished to investigate the body first; session of Q&A. |
1:39:33 |
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| 4 Nov |
Each time we are born, we need to train this body (afternoon) |
Talk given at Sri Lankan Temple - Mahindarama Buddhist Temple (Penang / Malaysia). |
1:47:52 |
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| 4 Nov |
Q&A – About combining breath & Buddho, real metta and how to choose the right teacher (morning) |
Session of Q&A given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary – Malaysia. Advice for beginners: combining breath and Buddho, the mind doesn't slip away so easily; Metta meditation: a lot of fake metta practice ('spreading metta'), the real metta is in your heart, you need to go there first and invite beings to share it then; Different teachers, who to trust?: like the Lord Buddha said to the people of Kalama, try it and see if the results are wholesome by yourself; Sleeping well: if you have trouble with sleep, Buddho is the best medecine, when the mind gets calm, it wants to sleep; Light appearing in meditation: don't pay attention about it, or if it's stable, try to bring it to the heart. |
19:34 |
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| 4 Nov |
Happiness arises when the heart is empty (morning) |
Talk given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary - Penang (Malaysia) |
1:34:36 |
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| 3 Nov |
Q&A – About the purpose of life, the nature of the kilesas & Nibbana |
Session of Q&A given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary – Malaysia. Need to know what you want in your life: being a human, going to heaven, getting out of the cycle, but you need to know not to waste your life; Choices: every moment, you have choices, but you need to fight to go against the likes & dislikes of the kilesas; Human life is very precious, but we forget that; Buddho: everything subsides (anger, greed, all sorts of feelings) when you put your attention on the Buddho; Blindness: we're like blind people when we talk about the Dhamma and fight about our views; Investigation: like a physicist, we have to catch every moment of the experience; Greed & anger is rooted in the body, delusion is rooted in the mind khandhas (mainly thoughts and memories); Kilesas: don't call them defilements, they are the soldiers of avijja, we need to fight them; Confusion about kilesas and anatta: some thinks they are liberated because they considered kilesas are not-self/anatta, but that's not the Nibbana of the Lord Buddha where kilesas don't arise anymore at all. |
1:05:32 |
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| 3 Nov |
There is nothing in the world that has more value than Dhamma |
Talk given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary - Penang (Malaysia) |
1:19:47 |
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| 2 Nov |
Q&A – About the citta, knowingness, heart & mind |
Session of Q&A given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary – Malaysia. Is “Citta” and “Knowingness” the same thing? Is “heart” and “mind” the same thing? In Thailand, it's almost the same, in the West, it was separated by the Greeks 2000 years ago; “The knowingness of the citta is the only permanent thing” - “the everlasting tourist” in the words of Luangta Maha Bua; Moment of death: it's important to recall the good deeds that a dying person did for him to go to a good destination; Pain investigation: you go to the point where you really think you're going to die; Heart: only the heart has the ability to let go, not the mind; Evening reflection: you show the heart what it does and when it sees clearly that something has bad results, it lets go; Body investigation: you can see all part very clearly and know your body much more than any doctor can, “it's the citta who built this body”. |
1:10:43 |
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| 2 Nov |
Don't get bossed around! (the principle of anatta) |
Talk given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary - Penang (Malaysia) |
1:45:20 |
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| 1 Nov |
Do we want to become human beings or stay just being sophisticated robots |
Talk given at Bodhi Heart Sanctuary - Penang (Malaysia) |
1:47:25 |
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below to see all the videos of the playlist