I know there are the miracles of the historical Buddha and the Samannaphala Sutta, but is there a comprehensive list of Suttas that mention supranormal power(s)?

When choosing between the contemplative traditions—Vipassana, Tibetan and Zen, is the following saying accurate? > Zen is for poets, Tibetan is for artists, and Vipassana is for > psychologists (Robert Wright ). This would enable me to recommend them separately to future students of Budhism.

I have heard something called "Mangala Sakwala" (The special universe or galaxy where lord Buddhas are born) This is a real puzzle for me because does it mean that there are many other worlds like this where the words of lord Buddha will never reach? If such places exist what causes a being to be born there instead of here? For example if i die now and get a birth as a human what would cause me to be born here (This galaxy/universe) or there (the unknown galaxy/universe)? The exact word ( "parallel universes" ) hasn't being used in Buddhism but if you search you will find stories about Human like or Humanoid creatures who are just like us (Beings in the human realm) but not with the chance to reach Dhamma because Lord Buddhas never born there. I am referring to some Theravada teachings i heard many years ago. Hope someone can help!

Namo Buddhaya, can any one please explain me the significance of Talipot fan in Buddhism ? is it part of any traditional process ? I have seen many photos in internet as Bhikkus holding the Talipot HandFan, some covers their face while chanting. Is there any particular significance ? thank you Reference Images -

I remark that, when I am doing my meditation practice, I am still clinging to want to change the past. To make short, due to parents who had their own special way of education, I had quite a difficult adolescence (little freedom, constant shouting and constant dissatisfaction from my parents despite having quite good scholar results and causing no major problems (no drugs, no smoking ...), constant humiliation from my parents & my peers in middle & high school ). It was unfair and it was cruel. On an intellectual level, I understand I cannot change the past. But on a deeper level, I still wished I could have had a "normal" adolescence. I feel that due to a low level of confidence, I missed some good opportunities. And I am still clinging to this wish during my meditation practice (concentration on the breating). Could you give me some suggestions to help me ? By the way, I do not know if this question belongs in this forum. If this is the case & you tell me, I will delete this question. **Edit after reading & thinking about the answers provided:** First, I want to thank you all. Second, I had some epiphany after reading answers, thinking about them and listing to a meditation which was mentionned in one of the answers. I explain: in the meditation, the teacher speaks about a trip in which he was in a bus for nearly a day. He was stuck in a seat close to a place that was very smelly, and unfortunately, there was no other seat available. He first decided to focus on his breathing, but remarked after a few hours, that this had resulted in building tension. He remarked that he had used meditation to push the uncomfortable situation out of his mind. Once he used meditation to open to the uncomfortable situtation, things went better. And I thought: Oh, this is exactly what I was doing. I used meditation to push uncomfortable thoughts & feelings ouf of my mind. In fact, I realized that I did not want to accept what I had suffered. I thought I had accepted but deep down I had not. So now in my meditation practice, I try to open up to uncomfortable feelings & thoughts. Thank you all

I fail to understand how this teaching would ever help man become productive. Please help me understand this. Not everyone seeks nirvana and some people want to better the world, not only for themselves but for their family and countrymen. They do so either out of desire to reduce others' suffering or by seeking alleviation for their own sufferings. I've read a lot of self help books which emphasize the need for ***desire*** as such, and faith in oneself to achieve that desire. Is that not how every living being functions - driven by desire? Every business that is built is motivated by a desire. Every material possession is obtained through desire. We can extrapolate that to the spiritual realm by saying that man travels, meditates and watches his thoughts driven by a desire to attain spiritual peace and fullfilment. Thus I ask, how can desire be the enemy? Shouldn't it be greed instead?

According to the Vanijja Sutta on Right Livelihood : > "Monks, a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. > Which five? Business in weapons, business in human beings, **business > in meat**, business in intoxicants, and business in poison. The first precept forbids taking of a life. The ability to freeze, store, transport and sell meat later was not possible in the time of the Buddha. Questions: 1. Is it ok for someone observing the first precept and Right Livelihood, to be a frozen meat retailer, supplier or importer selling frozen meat sourced from elsewhere (but is not involved with the actual farming and slaughter of animals)? 2. Is it ok for someone observing the first precept and Right Livelihood, to work as a cashier or general worker in a supermarket or hypermarket (e.g. Tesco, Target or Aldi) that sells many things including frozen meat? 3. Is it ok for someone observing the first precept and Right Livelihood, to work as an employee in a logistics company (like FedEx) that stores and transports all types of products including frozen meat? 4. Is it ok for someone observing the first precept and Right Livelihood, to work as a chef or waiter in a restaurant that serves meat dishes, using only frozen meat (no live animals)?

Not much more to elaborate than just the question. But the website is making me type more stuff. So here it is.

Both Anapanasati and Vipassana are described as the direct path to Nibbana. What are the main differences along these paths? Does one fully include the other, or do they diverge from each other, or they in a sense parallel to each?

 Namo Buddhaya, I am a student of Buddhism from India, trying to learn more about the Buddhist values and more. My inspiration is Dr B R Ambedkar the great Indian Scholar and social reformer. I have a doubt about the Buddhist lifestyle and custom once I read a news very recently . The news is quoted as below . > Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and wife Maitree Wickremesinghe reached Kasaragod on a private visit and offered prayers at the Kumaramangalam temple at Bela, near Kumbla, here on Saturday. > Reports quoting temple priest Ramachandra Adiga said Mr. Wickremesinghe and wife prayed for the prosperity of their nation and welfare of their family. >They had offered prayers at the Sri Mookambika temple in Kollur in neighbouring Udupi district in Karnataka on July 26. > **Special pujas** > The Sri Lanka premier and wife were reported to have taken part in special pujas at the temple at Bela. Though Mr. Wickremesinghe had offered pujas at the temple at Kollur during an earlier visit, it was for the first time he was visiting the temple here, the priest is quoted as saying " > [Sri Lanka PM prays at Kasaragod temple](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/sri-lanka-pm-wife-offer-prayers-at-kasaragod-temple/article28732127.ece) Now my doubt is why a Buddhist follower prays in a Hindu temple ? BabaSaheb Dr B R Ambedkar taught us that Buddhism is a philosophy of logic, reasoning. There is no space for superstitious beliefs or a Supreme GOD who provide virtues due to the prayers . I think it's the general idea of Buddhism and that's in its core . But why then a prime minister of One country goes to another country and do pooja in another religion and prays for the betterment of his own country ?? Thank you

The [Vaṇijjāsutta](https://suttacentral.net/an5.177/pli/ms) : > Pañcimā, bhikkhave, vaṇijjā upāsakena akaraṇīyā. Katamā pañca? Satthavaṇijjā, sattavaṇijjā, maṃsavaṇijjā, majjavaṇijjā, visavaṇijjā — imā kho, bhikkhave, pañca vaṇijjā upāsakena akaraṇīyā”ti. > > Sattamaṃ There are many translations regarding above quoted text, not sure which one needs to be included. But from what I understand, if one raises a pig and kill it in order to sell its meat, this is considered wrong livelihood. But what if the restaurant owner simply buys meats and cook them and then sell them, is this considered wrong livelihood?

I read the following on the internet: > Notice there's a wide spectrum on the Samatha/Vipassana scale, but > even on the extreme spectrum of Vipassana, the "dry-insight", there's > still element of Samatha ( the khanika/Samadhi/Momentary Concentration, > see Ven. Gunaratana's "The Jhanas" for more details ). It is said the Buddhist commentaries refer to Khanika (momentary), Upacara (neighborhood) and Appana (attainment) Samadhi. Are 'samatha' & 'samadhi' synonymous? Does Buddhism refer to Khanika/Momentary Samatha?

I have a friend who recently did Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program as designed by Jon Kabat Zinn . I haven't done it myself but he explained to me that it is based on the Vipassana technique of awareness-based body scans. I have done S.N.Goenkya's ten days meditation courses but I **currently** follow Ajahn Brahmas meditation guide book Mindfulness Bliss and Beyond . When I told my friend who didn't know about Ajahn Brahma, he said 'his teacher said that calming the mind is a wrong technique of meditation'. Now when I look at it, S.N Goenka's Vipassana technique though good for healing the subconscious mind does not talk about reaching higher meditative absorption of Jhanas. Whereas Ajahn Brahm, in his book and in his youtube videos talk about reaching Nimmitas and Jhana through Anapanasati i.e. Breath Awareness Meditation. I want to ask; 1. Which is the right way to go? 2. What is the difference between Vipassana and Anapanasati **goals of attainment**? 3. Can I attain Nirvana without doing Vipassana but by just doing Anapanasati? 4. Is there a difference between Vipassana Jhana and Anapanasati Jhana?

I practised buddhism a lot in holidays given due to Covid-19. I listen to dhamma and meditate each and every day. When my college started, I was not ready for the exam. I got stress. Somehow I found some interesting videos on a video streaming platform and I watched videos such as movies, gaming videos and funny videos. It helped me to forget the problems. At the beggining, I had a **lot of** resistance to watch that kind of useless videos. But at the end, I lost that resistance. Watching a video became nothing. Even after 2 months gone, I still watching videos. I passed days without doing anything related to buddhism. I can't be mindfull as before. What happened to me? How those videos cause me to lost my interest for buddhism? **How I lost that resistance?** Have you any personal experiences like this? How can I get back to that previous state?

This is an altar maintenance question. What are the sort of typical things done with the food, water, flowers and so on that gets put on the altar for altar maintenance?

If there is a puthujjana who has led a life full of the major and minor defilements till about 40 years of age, suddenly turns around, starts leading a totally celibate life and also observes the rest of the major five precepts strictly, maintaining a strict meditation schedule even while still being a householder, does he stand a chance of getting nibbana in this very lifetime? Or, does he have to take rebirth/s and suffer the consequences of his bad kamma before he can aspire to Arahathood?

I am looking for high quality etexts of the Tripitaka and so far after weeks of search, the best place seems to be [tipitaka.org](https://www.tipitaka.org/sinh/) . However, when looking at the texts, the punctuation and writing style is doesn't seem high quality to me, and I wonder how it compares to the "originals". For example, look here: > 358. කතමෙ ධම්‌මා කුසලා? යස්‌මිං සමයෙ ලොකුත්‌තරං ඣානං භාවෙති නිය්‍යානිකං අපචයගාමිං දිට්‌ඨිගතානං පහානාය පඨමාය භූමියා පත්‌තියා විවිච්‌චෙව කාමෙහි…පෙ.… පඨමං ඣානං උපසම්‌පජ්‌ජ විහරති දුක්‌ඛපටිපදං දන්‌ධාභිඤ්‌ඤං ඡන්‌දාධිපතෙය්‍යං…පෙ.… වීරියාධිපතෙය්‍යං…පෙ.… චිත්‌තාධිපතෙය්‍යං…පෙ.… වීමංසාධිපතෙය්‍යං, තස්‌මිං සමයෙ ඵස්‌සො හොති…පෙ.… අවික්‌ඛෙපො හොති…පෙ.… ඉමෙ ධම්‌මා කුසලා. There are ellipses … everywhere, Latin punctuation like the question mark ? and period . everywhere. Some things are centered, some things are in **bold**, and not being a native reader, I am not sure what the significance of all these "features" are. --- --- --- Things are aligned in several different ways as in the last image. Again, why so much random **bold**? And there's quotes ". I am just collecting these texts for later learning, and want to clean them up. What do I really need out of these texts? Do I need to keep the bold and centering and such (i.e., what information does it contain/encode?), or can I get rid of it? Are these ellipses some sort of signifier that the text is incomplete, or is it a list they are iterating over or something? Basically, can I remove the ellipses too?

Chapter 21 of the Dhammapada is titled Miscellaneous or Varied Verses or similar depending on the exact translation. Why do all the other chapters have descriptive headings and themes such as Flowers and Chapter 21 just has this generic title and generic theme?

Because panna (wisdom) is the understanding of anicca, dukkha and anatta, it leads to the cessation of ignorance, greed and aversion and therefore to Nirvana. Now Nirvana or the state of being enlightened is permanent, so panna must be too, mustn't it? The cessation of ignorance alone is not enough, because it could rise again, couldn't it? I mean it already happened one time... So to hinder ignorance from rising again, panna must be permanent. This is how I always understood it. I always thought of it as an aspect of Nirvana, and therefore not a part of the impermanent (?) skandhas. Now I read a text which says that panna is a sankhara. Aren't sankharas as the 4th skandha impermanent and cease to exist when entering Paranirvana? So what is panna? Thank you.

...and why? Is the a case where one would neither need nor want? What's (or would be) a "trade" purified on one or both sides and it's quality, effect, if given into? That of one pulling one out, not in. *[Note that this isn't given for stacks, exchange, or other world-binding earning but for a pull out of the wheel.]*