I have heard this list discussed in Dharma talks like this one: Gil Fronsdal: The Four Resolves (Recorded: Monday, June 12, 2017) But when I tried to find suttas on this subject, I could only find 1 in which the existence of the "4 resolves" was mentioned. DN 33: Saṅgāti Sutta

Why is Mahayana Buddhism not a form of solipsism (epistemological, methodological, metaphysical) if the first school of Mahayana Buddhism was the Madhyamaka school from which then yogachara originated, which is considered solipsism? It turns out that the Madhyamaka school should be solipsism like Mahayana Buddhism itself, or I don't understand something? Also, why is theravada Buddhism not solipsism (methodological, epistemological, or metaphysical) if the Terevada doctrine is completely dependent on one's own experience and awareness? Thanks you

Before I practice Buddhism,I've made mistakes and hurt other. Sometimes I thought what happen to me now is the effect of what I did. I try to keep doing positive things but sometimes I could not stand this hard situation. Could anyone tell me please how to solve this situation in Buddhism way?

This is suffering is one of the noble truths. But it is not clear what does "this" stands for ? Similarly in the statement "This is the way leading to the cessation of suffering." , it is not clear what does "this" stands for?

***I have noticed that a lot of Mahasi practitioners seem to reach sotopanna very quickly.*** What is the difference from other methods of Buddhist Meditation and the Mahasi Method, relative to the apparent speed of attainment in the Mahasi Method? **Maybe you think Mahasi style practice does not lead to these better results?** If so, who, what, where, when and why do you think this? I hope this is an appropriate question but if it's not, that's ok :) metta **PLEASE NOTE**: I have, "**doubts** about such quick progress in the Mahasi Tradition, not **pride**" It appears, many assumed something else. My mistake, I should have been clearer.

Sometimes, I caught me on talking in mind. Sometimes my tongue moves according to it. Sometimes I talk to myself. This feels very fast and hard to control. There also intuition like thinking. For a example, to move a hand we don't have to say to move. Also I can read a book without moving the tongue. (mind talking) This feels very calm. I like to be in this state. When I want start a work, I need to make my mind silent. What is going on here?

I really need your help as I'm, in some sort of conflict about my path. I'll try to keep things short but i need to include some info about my life experience so far. Now I'm 25 years old and all my life i have been chasing around my own tail. I had this mindset since i child that i need to achieve something in order to be happy. I always projected a brighter future and ideal version of myself and conditions. I could never live in the present, I was always stuck in my thoughts and imagination. After reaching every material goal, be it wealth, a fine girlfriend, a luxury watch, an automobile, a good physique, I crashed very hard and became depressed because I was slowly realizing that I have been living in illusions all my life and nothing will ever bring me happiness. I started drinking and doing cocaine until I confessed to my beloved parents about my problems and then became clean. I have been clean for 2 years now. I basically felt very empty and the only thing which had any value from that point on was my family. I dropped every goal and letting go of everything and realizing how desperate and empty my life has been, was very very freeing. I felt peace for the first time but was still meet with emptiness and boredom. I would go on walks every day and ask myself: "what is the goal? What is the endgame? Why am I living? For what?" Then finally I got into Buddhist literature and almost teared up reading how everything explained my suffering. That fueled me with energy and simply just the explaining of the cause calmed me even more without any meditation. Knowing I'm not the only one suffering who fell for these illusions. So then i decided to read the Pali Canon and got recommended the mind illuminated and started directly to meditate. The results have been phenomenal in just 2 weeks. I'm living more in the present day by day, I'm getting calmer, I don't recall pain from the past anymore, I project about the future less. I walk around my city and see a pub and I don't instantly build scenarios in my head. The images which are linked to certain things are finally getting broken. The association and experience to certain things is getting weaker and weaker. I'm not as emotional. It's sort of a dispassion to things which is very freeing. I don't get excited as easily just to crash afterwards, I don't recall memories with certain images anymore. Its insane. Its a complete different reality and for the first time I'm living in the present and acting less impulsive getting dragged by my emotions and conditioned memories and experience when seeing something. Now my question is following: **Where will this take me in the long term?** I read some post about a longterm meditator who had a bad experience according to him which i will quote at the end and I can already see some similarities between me and him which is somewhat anxious but in my opinion this calm dispassion and being free of conditioned experience and memories is exactly what is bringing me peace for the first time but why is he explaining it in such a depressing tone? What went wrong? This post always pops up in my head and I can't progress and enjoy my new path fully when I don't know what is up with it or maybe he's simply lying? The post was posted on 4chan so it could be exaggerated for whatever purpose. Anyway I then read about dark nights and dukkha nanas and got even more confused about all of it but i see some dukkha nanas which my life experience already showed and gained insight? Like one nana described seeing a beautiful woman and not having the instant image in your head of possessing here and I already been past that because I know it doesn't bring me happiness or are dukkha nanas only related to meditation results? Anyway, here is the post: > "Don’t meditate. I went to a retreat and was doing 5 hours a day after > several years of doing it, and had a fxxking horrible experience. I > realized what this insidious shit is actually doing. At first you > think negative emotions and attachments are going away, that bullshit, > it’s all emotions and attachments. Every tiny aspect and association > that forms who you are is being slowly but surely chiselled away at > during meditation. > > If you pursue it, you will get to the point where > it all collapses. You will look at yourself and see total absence, > just nothing. Your identity is important, and everything about it goes > away, all the things you thought mattered, all your plans for the > future just fall into this facade of one dimensional nothingness. That > is the end goal. > > I don’t where all this happy shit comes from after > this, it seems like this was the endgame all along. Everything feels > dull, I feel like a zombie, I’m an empty hole and everything is just > superficial nothingness. It’s not pleasant, I feel as though I’ve > permanently damaged myself and my mind, and barely clung onto core > aspects of myself. That’s what this shit does, never forget that. It > will make you beyond a nihilist, and it won’t stop. > > I can’t follow > thoughts anymore because I’ve trained my mind to stop them- you can’t > undo that. You will be unthinking, just reactionary, no judgments, no > opinions, no emotions, no attachments, like a fxxking insect. That’s > what this shit does, it makes you a fxxking insect. Like a bundle of > nerves that just responds to things, there’s nothing really there. > > All > I am now is a weird fxxking void that drifts around and reacts to > things without any sort of personality involved, like a programmed > machine. I fxxking hate this so much. There would be no difference if > I was dead, I basically feel like I am. Don’t start this path. Even if > you do only like 10 minutes a day, this is the endgame, this is what > it’s slowly doing to you.

Recently, I started to be aware of my actions as stated in Sathipattana sutta. Today, I was aware about my movements when I moving a object. And I placed it in a wrong place. This happened multiple times. Before this practise, I aware about where to put the object but not movements. But today, the opposite. What am I doing wrong here?

I did my first Vipassana course in Feb 2016. 10 Days. As a first timer, it went pretty well till the 7th Day. 1) On 5th, 6th and 7th day i was suffering from my head thrown back, or front, or sideways. At that that i thought i had dozed off hence the jerk. I ignored it. (I can never sleep while sitting, what i learnt in life from flights and long bus rides). 2) My forehead, third eye, used to feel strong sensations from past 1-2 yrs. It increased in vipassana and Teacher said it was normal. 3) On 7th day, I started having a feeling of light-headedness, like I was flying. I did the evening meditation very dedicatedly. I started "flying" even more, and i went ahead with it thinking it happens in meditation. It drove me away from focusing on body sensations. My focus went to forehead and head which was feeling extremely high sensations and feeling of flying. I ceased to feel my body. There was no pain anymore due to sitting for long without moving. My head was spinning, very high sensations, and flying high and high. I went with it. This was last meditation of the day and I went to bed. 4) The sensations wouldnt stop. Even with eyes open, even if I focused at the wall, the head would spin, sensations in forehead were strong and i would "fly". I tried to sleep, but as soon as i closed eyes, head was extremely dizzy, strong sensations, like maddening. Head was oscillating back and forth and sideways.I had to open my eyes. I sat up and rested my head against the wall. I fell asleep very late, when the body was so damn tired that it gave up, when i went to sleep in 1 second, before the closed eyes could feel the sensations i fell asleep. The night was spent sitting. Next day I talked to the teacher and she said the experiences were normal. She asked me not to "fly" and focus on sensations. 5) Day 8, 9, 10: I was not able to meditate. Day 8 - I was not able to close eyes. The moment i would close, the spinning and flying sensation would start and was unbearable for me. To stop from flying and focus on sensations i had to open my eyes. Day 8 i pretty much spent with few minutes of closed eyes only. Rest, i have sat with eyes open looking here and there, or focusing on breathing with open eyes. 6) Day 8, i realized that the spinning feeling was because of an invisible magnetic field moving around me. I was feeling it like wind blowing around me. Passing time nothing to do, i was casually looking at my thumbs together. My palms were in shape of a ball/cup. And it was like oh my god!.. There was a ver strong magnetic field rotating between my palms!! With this revealation, i focused on it and realized, that was what causing my head oscillate upto 135 degrees left and right, back and forth, 24 hrs, if i didnt held it with force. 7) Day 8, i decided not to meditate in evening. I sat through the sessions blankly with open eyes, after permission from teacher. But this helped me fall asleep at night. 8) Day 9, I met the teacher again. She said, meditate 2-3 min as much as i can. The moment i start flying too much, i should move to Aanapan and focus on breath. If i still fly, i should open eyes, come back to normal, and restart again with sensations. 9) I accepted it and spent my day9 and 10 like this. My concern was, what after 10 days? Do I continue like this? Am i doing anything incorrectly? 10) after returning home, the dizzyness continued.Flying sensations continued. It has been 10 days since i have returned, but i still feel little dizzy all 24 hrs. Dizzyness has reduced as my meditation has come down to 1 hr per day. But not gone. A hard rock music listener before, now even loud talking hurts my ears and head badly. But i take it as anitya and bear with it neutrally. The first time i drove car after vipassana, i took reverse to take it out from house. The reverse movement spinned my head so badly, if there was a car behind me, i wd hv hit it. It's difficult to focus on one thing, like a book, screen, one car ahead close to you, someone talking to you standing close,etc. This is going on with me all the time. I am not reacting, letting it go. 11) Meditation : I try for 1 hr daily, but the same problem persists. In 3-4 mins, i start flying. Forehead has severe sensations and takes my attention away. If i dont open my eyes, i start flying with the flying feeling. Magnetic force starts running around me again. If I continue with it, my head will oscillate again. But I shift to Aanapan, and open my eyes. Take 2-3 mins to be normal. Then restart. I am a strong believer, and I am not gonna leave it being scared. I am hear to face it, and if anything needs to be changed i am ready. Question.. whats happening to me? did i do anything incorrectly? what should i do with problems in normal life? what should i do with meditation practice? Please help Be happy and God bless

I have heard more than one Dharma teacher say the Buddha claimed that practitioners who are more strongly inclined towards hate than greed are closer to nibbana. Is there any evidence from the suttas to support this claim? If true, did the Buddha offer any hints as to why this might be true?

I suspect that I am not alone in having a fuzzy understanding of precisely what the difference is between a ”cause” and a “condition” in the Buddha's teachings on Dependent Origination. A concrete example illustrating the difference clearly and perhaps the interplay between the 2 would be helpful. If that example were to be drawn exclusively from the Buddha’s teachings on “suffering and the end of suffering”, namely 1. Twelve Links of Dependent Origination-Dependent Co-arising (Paticca-Samuppada) 2. Twelve Links of Transcendental Dependent Arising that would be even more helpful. Finally, if the example were to focus on only “suffering and the end of suffering” in *this* life and to avoid the divisive topic of “rebirth” as "reincarnation", that too would be very helpful.

What are the benefits of keeping the lay precepts, if you're not a bodhisattva? I'm asking about doing so in a liberal (no infidelity or drug addictions) and to a conservative (no sex or glass of wine) way. Apologies if I've misunderstood them and there is a complete consensus on what the lay precepts are to be interpreted as. I thought that the point was to use them as a guide, so making up your own mind. Precept > a general rule intended to regulate behaviour or thought. Surely "general" here means incomplete not in the sense that we can break them, but not completely defined. ---------- Is it not obvious that murder is wrong, whereas the evil of eating meat is more **moot**: so that - even if wrong - it is a *lesser* breaking of the precepts.

Consider these two texts: * https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/iti/iti.4.100-112.than.html the part that contains: > Mother & father, compassionate to their family, are called Brahma, first teachers, those worthy of gifts from their children. So the wise should pay them homage, honor with food & drink clothing & bedding anointing & bathing & washing their feet. Performing these services to their parents, the wise are praised right here and after death rejoice in heaven. * https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an02/an02.031.than.html > But anyone who rouses his unbelieving mother & father, settles & establishes them in conviction; rouses his unvirtuous mother & father, settles & establishes them in virtue; rouses his stingy mother & father, settles & establishes them in generosity; rouses his foolish mother & father, settles & establishes them in discernment: To this extent one pays & repays one's mother & father. What is are the appropriate ways to combine the meaning/purpose of these, considering that there is some potential to misunderstand the way these two guide us to treat our parents?

I want to become a monk in the Theravada tradition and have already obtained permission from my mother. My father does not live with us and never has, so according to the following passage from the Vinaya Atthakathā, I shouldn't need his permission: > A father, not concerned for the welfare of his wife and son, runs > away. The mother gives her son to some monks, saying, “Let him go > forth.” When asked, “Where has his father gone?” she replies, “He has > run away to disport himself.” — It is suitable for him [the son] to be > given the going forth. However, I am still not sure since in his case it isn't that simple. Although my dad moved to another country, he continued to fully financially support us in the first years of my life and paid for all my school costs up to 12th grade. As far as I know, he initially had the intention to bring us over to live with him, but it seems my mom refused. Even then, he continues to visit me every year or so, and we talk on the phone quite often. One could argue that he did, in a sense, leave me, since he could have well come back and at least live closer to me, even if he had split with my mom, but I still have mixed feelings. The reason I ask is that I know he will not agree with my ordination, since he's quite focused on money and material things, and expects me to become accomplished in those areas. He is also quite unskillful in his behavior and conducts himself pretty much opposite to the Noble Eightfold Path.

thank you for reading this. my mother was born in a very large family. there were 10 girls, and 7 boys. There have always been feuds among the girls. Every holiday season was a mine field of whom was speaking to whom. Now they are older, but the feuds continue. My mother is now 85, her sister (who is my god-mother and whom I love very much) is near to 90. Currently my mother and god-mother are no longer speaking. I am "forced" not to have contact with my god-mother out of deference to my mother. There are others whom I cannot see for the same reason. I love all of them and suffer their absence. I know they will someday die (as will I), I would like to enjoy the remaining years. is there a way to see light in this darkness ? Is there something I can do ? thank you for your help, I am humbled by your collective generosity towards the struggles of strangers. -------------------------------- in answer to the answer from Yeshe Tenley, the question of force. thank you for pointing to it. When I say I was "forced" I mean that I was pressured when I tried to not do this. I tried initially to ignore my mother's desire to have me on her side/team in the feud and I ignored it. When she became more aggressive and threatened me, I ignored it and continued to see my god-mother. My mother's response was to slander my god-mother and to cost her relationships with her other siblings and other members of the family. Several people whom my god-mother supported in the darkest days of their lives (through cancer treatments, the loss of children, and many other troubles) were told lies by my mother and believed them. This was done to punish me. My mother knew she could not take anything from me she had not already taken, but she knew it would hurt me if she hurt others. The "force" came from this, it was extortion/blackmail. The only thing I could do is see neither of them for many years. I have a sense that the time to resolve this is now, otherwise mortality will close the doors. I am unsure there is a solution.

My parents were physically and mentally abusive to me as a child. As an adult, they have never recognized what they have done to me and even try to guilt me into having a relationship with them that I do not want. I practice often, but I can’t make myself feel a forgiveness that I do not feel at this time. In the buddhist view, am I wrong if I choose not to have a relationship with them?

I come from a very well off family but I have issues with my parents even though I’m very grateful for everything I have,I’m having a problem with self acceptance beacuse of them which took me a very long time to get over. My family in general made fun of my skin colour and the way I look (which even though sounds silly hurt me a lot) and they always give importance to class and society and are very pretentious which forces me to behave in a certain way which is not me and my personality.Even though I feel like I have everything I feel claustrophobic and caged.Will I attract bad karma for feeling like this for being ungrateful to the people who gave life to me?

While meditating on Dependent Origination, I have come to understand certain things that I hesitatingly put forth here: 1. Though the links in the chain of Dependent Origination are cyclical in nature, Avijjā is the one that can be said to be the root of deception and the primal cause of the infinite repetitions of the cycle. Also, it is present in each and every link all the time. So, as an example, though Avijjā gives rise to Saṅkhāras, it is Saṅkhāras (plus Avijjā), that gives rise to Viññāna and, in turn, it is Viññāna (plus Avijjā) that leads us to the next Nidāna, i.e., NāmaRūpa, and, so on and so forth. 2. The ‘self’, the deceptive ‘individual’, is present only in an incipient form till, I feel, up to the Nidāna of Phassa and starts getting organized, as it were, from the link of Vedanā, getting totally entrenched and almost ‘irreversibly solidified’ by the time the level of Upādāna is reached. 3. The weakest links are those of Vedanā, Taṇhā and Upādāna, and that is why it is possible to break the chain at these three places, the relatively easiest being the passage from Phassa to Vedanā and the most difficult that from Taṇhā to Upādāna. 4. Before Phassa, the ‘self’ is too vague and incipient and, therefore, quite weak to attempt its own break-up. 5. After the Nidāna of Upādāna, the ‘self’ is too deeply entrenched and solidified and, therefore, its break-up again becomes almost impossible. Is this right? Am I only partly right? Or, is it that I have got it all wrong? And yes, is it possible to have a profound insight directly into the primal link of Avijjā, so that the later interventions are not required at all?

I've had my share of gaslighting and have given it as well. To me there's this sort of limbo situation, where the undefinition is the abuse, where a person has the underlying feeling that something is wrong with her rationale, and that there is no one else except herself to be blamed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting Taking into account this disconcerting feeling that is produced by manipulative habits, what would be a buddhist approach/interpretation of gaslighting from both sides, the "perpetrator" and the "victim", if we can name them like that, so that a solution could be reached?

In this scene from the first movie in The Matric trilogy, when Neo goes to meet the Oracle he meets the Buddhist boy who shows him that he can bend the spoon and then tells him that he can do the same when he can realize that '**there is no spoon**', that when you see the spoon bending, **it is really yourself that's bending.** Does this message fit with the actual Buddhist teaching of Emptiness? Does it have any message from the Zen philosophy? Or it's just a misrepresentation, kind of Pop Buddhist philosophy to appeal to the audience? If it aligns with Buddhist philosophy can somebody explain to me what it is?