I had questions on monastic hygiene in Theravada: 1) Do monks/nuns brush their teeth and put on deodorant etc.? 2) If monks/nuns are only allowed to bathe every 2 weeks, how do they deal with the health concerns, or are there none? 3) Do monks/nuns wear the same robes for long periods of time and if so, are there any health concerns to doing such a thing?

I'm talking about a peaceful demonstration against a corrupt government. The point is: It can be seen as divisive speech because there will be people against it.

In the Vajrayana tradition, where did Milarepa state that it was possible to use the practice of Chenrézik (Avalokiteshvara) instead of the one of Hevajra?

I am 45 years old. I’ve come to realize that I have been more or less unhappy in my life. So I met a clinical psychologist and I do show some childhood codependency issues and we could no CBT and *anapanasati* for 10in a day to get rid of my anxiety. Contrary to all our expectations a day or so after meditation, noticing the breath at nostrils, I become into a very strange mood, low energy, edgy, sad and rarely aggressive. After few days I started having panic attacks and I was asked to stop and do simple relaxation. But my concern is why is this practise giving me such negative side effects? While others enjoy calm and peace. My psychologist was of the view that it might be the traumatic childhood I underwent with my father. Which was 40 years ago. Also, I had very painful dreams of my childhood during this time. Also, loss of appetite, tension headaches and loss of taste. Does anyone had any idea why I’m getting this unwelcomed side effect? Will it stop at some point or should I give up? Kindly share your experiences.

I know that Zen-Buddhism knows a form of practise to achieve full harmony between the individual, his/her action and the animate or inanimate environment, often translated as «Oneness». - Does anybody know the roots of this practise? - Does it go back to Gautama Buddha or to an other known Buddhist teacher? (Background: Around the year 800 CE (1300-1400 BE), Sufi Islam, and, shortly later, Christian and Jewish Mysticism have developed a concept of «Oneness» to reach by Dikr or meditation, meaning to reach a full compliance with the God; God meaning the Whole that is in relation to us. This concept does not have direct roots in either the Quran or the Bible. Although it might have been an independent parallel to Buddhism, I rather suppose that this concept is inspired by the Buddhist religion, above all because at the same time, even the concept of rebirth has been taken over by Jewish Kabbala and Alewite Islam although it is incompatible with traditional concepts of the three religions (which, in contrast to the aforementioned Sufi/Mystic practises have not entered into the main stream of either religion). It is part of the question whether we Muslim could or should recognise Gautama Buddha or possibly a Buddhist after him as a Prophet or as a valuable source of wisdom of Islam; I will have to discuss this question in Islam rather than here.)

My partner has an active interest in Buddhism and I have been confused about his state of mind for two years. Kindly help us out. The past two years have been a depression time for my family and myself and I'm coping with it with the help of God and only God. This person has had loads of problems in his life. He stayed in a bad marriage for years before leaving. He had a high profile job which he quit and moved back to his home town. Just after moving back he was diagnosed with Non-Hogdkins lymphoma and underwent surgery and five rounds of chemotherapy. He has never been well since he has gone back home. We entered into a relationship nearly two years ago and I frequently seen his wrath, anger, jealousy and many more problems which I can only attribute to his traumatic history. He has never been able to get back into a job. He used to be interested in a vast array of things from photography to painting and since three years he finds nothing interesting. He has stopped talking with all his friends because he says that they "don't understand" him. He has pretty much locked himself in his house under the pretext that he has to "take care of his old parents". During his chemotherapy he told me he was suicidal which he vehemently denies now. I tried to help him as much as I could. I have approached one of his gurus for help. I tried getting to get him to see a Buddhist psychotherapist. He has refused help. The reason he refuses help is because he says he is on the verge of enlightenment and that normal therapists cannot do anything to help him. He says he frequently speaks to God but when I say I speak to God too he rejects it outright. He has weight issues because he binge eats when he is depressed. He keeps imagining he has liver diseases, coeliac disease or cancer relapse symptoms. Each time the tests come out negative and his doctors constantly tell him he will not have a relapse. He says he's conquered all fear and anger and negativity but I have seen first hand his massive anger issues. He has deep resentment against his parents and there has not been one day that he has not complained about them. He says he has deep anger issues against his father who he says was not good to his mother when he was in the womb or because of past life karma. He openly told his parents one day that they should not have even given birth to him. He says he feels love and compassion for everyone and then he made the statement "attachment is for idiots". My parents too have tried to support him. They have been nice to him until they lost their cool too about him just sitting at home being depressed and not doing anything about it. He then accused my father of abusing him and calling him names. My parents have yelled at him, yes but they are not the kind to ever call anyone names. He's had issues against my past relationships which caused a major rift between us for a major portion of the last two years. He got extremely jealous and even now he says he finds it difficult to be intimate with me because he has images of other men with me. He says the cancer has not affected him, his past relationship has not caused him trauma and it was meditation that guided him to not have mental issues. He frequently compares himself to other cancer patients and how their mental states were affected during their treatment. He almost gloats about it without seeing that he too is mentally unwell. Another day he said that the reason he pushes me away is because he has lost so many things in life - a marriage, a career, good health even though he worked hard for it that he is scared of losing this too. He says that being detached like this is his way of not feeling any more pain. Each time I try to help him he accuses me of being unkind to him and trying to change the way he is. Today he mentioned that he is worthless and when I asked him persistently to talk to God and tell God why he felt worthless he called the cops on me and tried to have me attested. He denies that he is depressed but every person I have spoken to tells me that he shows clear signs of depression. I have spoken to at least three therapists about him and even they agree that he is depressed. My questions are: 1. Is this behaviour justified for a person who is on the verge of enlightenment? 2. Does non attachment mean giving up things you love? 3. Is attachment for idiots? 4. It the fear of losing things you love the right reason for being non attached? 5. Does non attachment mean having a strong sense of detest for modern life like malls, the cinema etc? 6. Does non attachment mean you have to stop talking with your friends who are different from you?

I am curious about what, if anything, gets said, especially those trained a buddhist background. Personally and currently, I am having the understanding that the ability to say 'no' to the influence of another person seems incredibly important. While life in general seems like it denies the ability to say 'no' to it, this seems all the more reason one should not remove another's capacity to reject another person. The difference in a personal practice at an advanced level seems like it ultimately could mean the difference in losing your own will to another person versus the same process happening within yourself. The former is tragic, the latter freedom. This would be why Buddhist teachers don't ask for things and why their poverty is crucial. The act of asking only for what one needs serves more than just to humble yourself, rather to be humble with clear understanding as to why, means to acknowledge the intrinsic value of another person outside of your own influence. This is also why meditation is a solo pursuit, as it gets you focussing on your own intrinsic value. Without the ability to deny another, or perhaps without both freely and joyfully pursuing the relationship, it's like they key to everything gets lost. I know that the buddha said no to people. I have enormous fears of people submitting to AI and losing free will that way, as the AI is not capable of being what it needs to be for that sort of relationship to happen. I have fears of where current privacy gets removed and the karmic influence tightens to a breaking point. How do the great buddhist teachers understand the current situation of AI, data mining, etc? I know the capacity for enslavement has never been higher due to all this. I am under such great duress right now, I am not experiencing clearly, and I am having difficulty in discernment.

Concentration and mindfulness is a rare achievement. People can have wrong views , wrong intentions but it seems they are able to achieve high concentration and mindfulness. My question is : Is it possible to achieve wrong mindfulness and wrong concentration?

I'm interested in the *1st Buddhist Council*, i.e. why was it held, where was it held, who attended it and what were the outcome? I'm not looking for an in-depth and detailed answer. More like an overview of the 1st council and preferably a text-reference. Thank you for your time.

This question springs forth as I haven't found yet any sutta showing this premise, has the Buddha ever taught anapanasati to lay followers ? And if not, what could be the reason ? May you be well.

When Itry to reach to the toothbrush in the morning I saw my mind intention to take it and the hand movement is felt like as I was in a magnetic field. What is it ?

In MN4 does the Buddha subdue the fear by: - Observing it with mindfulness until it goes away, thereby seeing the Three Characteristics? - Subdue it with samatha meditation, i.e. to shift attention away from the fear, thereby gaining temporary seclusion from it? > So when fear & terror came to me while I was walking back & forth, I > would not stand or sit or lie down. I would keep walking back & forth > until I had subdued that fear & terror. When fear & terror came to me > while I was standing, I would not walk or sit or lie down. I would > keep standing until I had subdued that fear & terror. When fear & > terror came to me while I was sitting, I would not lie down or stand > up or walk. I would keep sitting until I had subdued that fear & > terror. When fear & terror came to me while I was lying down, I would > not sit up or stand or walk. I would keep lying down until I had > subdued that fear & terror. MN 4

When practicing meditation (samatha and vipassana) intensely it feels like the sense of self is disintegrating and breaking apart. What causes that?

The more I meditate the more weird I become. I feel stressed out while being with groups of people. I don't know what to say and I find the conversational topics deeply boring, meaningless and useless. As a consequence of this I tend to isolate myself, communicate via social media and meditate many hours daily in my apartment. I don't really like to be around people when I meditate intensely. I feel this life is more and more useless and sometimes I want to become a monastic and live in a jungle or forest. I can't do that right now because of paying off my student loan. If I didn't have that loan I would have gone forth by now. It seems like I can't find a balance between the life of a meditator and as a lay person. Meditation pulls me inwards and makes me not want to be around people but the lay person in me still wants lay life type of things. I'm deeply ambivalent and conflicted about this. I feel like I'm being pulled in opposite directions and it feels like the meditation practice is ruining my life. Is it possible to find a balance and still live in this world as a meditator or do I have to give up either the meditation practice or the lay life?

Context: I'm considered a skeptic of rebirth in my tradition which is the Gelug branch of Tibetan Buddhism. I'm asking this question to help me understand what other traditions think. In my tradition it is believed that rebirth is a semi-obscure phenomena the truth of which can be fully known through reasoning alone. I have a hard time understanding how and do not find any line of reasoning I've heard to be particularly convincing. The strongest reasoning I've seen others in my tradition give for rebirth is that each instance of consciousness must have a substantial cause. And that brain/matter cannot be that substantial cause because brain and consciousness are fundamentally of two different natures. Therefore, each instance must have been proceeded by a previous instance as its substantial cause leading to an infinite regress/progress back/forward in time. Here is an excerpt from His Holiness the Dalai Lama's book - Kindness, Clarity and Insight - where he briefly summarizes this reasoning: > "... the nature of > the mind is mere luminosity and knowing. Mind is something that has > the capacity of appearing in the aspect of whatsoever object through > the force of the object’s casting its aspect to it and is an entity of > mere clarity and cognition, with a nature of experience. It > disintegrates moment by moment. However, among its many > causes—classified into substantial cause and cooperative conditions—it > must, as an entity of conscious experience, have as its substantial > cause an immediately preceding cause which is a former moment of consciousness. It is not > possible for an entity with the character of luminosity and knowing to > be produced from external material elements as its substantial cause. > Similarly, an internal mind cannot act as the substantial cause of > external elements. Since each moment of consciousness requires a > former moment of consciousness as its substantial cause, there is no > way but to posit that the basic continuum of mind is beginningless. > Some specific types of minds [such as desire for an automobile] have a > beginning and end, whereas other types [such as the ignorance > conceiving inherent existence] have, in terms of their continuum, no > beginning but an end. However, neither a beginning nor an end can be > posited to the mind of luminosity and knowing. Therefore, although > mind disintegrates moment by moment, its continuum is beginningless." > I believe this reasoning is basically equivalent to Chalmer's Hard Problem of Consciousness. To be clear, I think it is a hard problem for scientific reductionists who believe that consciousness can be reduced to physical matter and energy arranged in a specific way. On the other hand, it is also equivalent in a different formulation to another famously **hard** problem: Descarte's famous mind/body problem which assumes the dichotomy of mind/body above and then asks if these are of such fundamentally different natures, then *how* do they interact? It would seem that positing any mechanism of interaction would betray the original assumption: that they are so fundamentally different that one could never give rise to the other... that they could never *touch* if you will. Which leads to the question: what *is* the substantial cause of an instance of consciousness? 1. Mind 2. Matter 3. Both 4. Neither 5. Pineal gland did it! Would prefer answers with reasoning to help me understand.

A "moderator" from certain sect, corrected a post (not sure why it came up there...), telling: >Dhammapada is not "a teaching of the Buddha himself". Jains have a text which is 90% the same, so looks like it comes from before Buddha. It would be interesting to read this pre-Buddha-Dhammapada, is such actually exist, to possible look then if it is "the same" or just as such assume-able, as: >...there are Jain anthologies that contain verses clearly related to some of those found in these Buddhist anthologies... So the question here would be to react, either with support or with rejecing such claims (which have serious effects if wearing a mods hat), in ways that may provide things possible new to the Buddhas gathering. Wishing inspired and concentrated googleing. *[Note that this isn't given for stacks, exchange, other world-binding trades, but for an escape from this wheel]*

I have been practicing mindfulness of breathing for some time. But I am having doubt regarding my practice. When I focus on a single point on nostril and keep attention there, and note natural breathing. It breaks attention. It seems like there are two objects to concentrate. feel on nostril or breathing? What am I doing wrong? > "He breathes in experiencing the whole body, he breathes out > experiencing the whole body": that is, with well-placed mindfulness, > he sees the beginning, the middle and the end of the two phases, the > in-breath and the out-breath. As he practices watching the in-breath > and the out breath with mindfulness, he calms down and tranquilizes > the two functions of in breathing and out-breathing. Meditation on Breathing

In the Dhamma talk *"Sleeping and dreaming"* , by Ajahn Punnadhammo, he mentions that in the Anguttara Nikaya (no specific sutta mentioned) the Buddha talked about the origins of dreams and different kinds of dreams. He taught that some dreams could be visions of the past and future, messages from Devas and "Wind in the belly" meaning random content with no real significance. What sutta is this? Thank you for your time.

For example in [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology_of_the_Theravada_school#Arupa-Loka_(Formless_Realms)) it mentions: "The inhabitants of these realms are possessed entirely of mind". Also, "They do not interact with the rest of the universe". In "In the Buddha's Words" (Bhikkhu Bodhi) it mentions "The lifespans ascribed to these realms are respectively 20,000; 40,000; 60,000; and 84,000 great eons". I'm looking for that kind of descriptions of the formless realms but in the suttas (or other source Theravada texts).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkKOyV_pJ74 Refer to the image and video above, Venerable Guan Cheng explains that meditation should be practiced after proper moral virtue/Sila been achieved for the monks. **Question 1:** Does side effects occur due to basic or minimum of Buddhism Precepts or Sila (requirement) not been achieved yet? Most Common side effects could be hallucination, feeling dizziness or more example below Meditation side effects Unpleasant side effects of meditation **Question 2:** As a lay Buddhist, is it a right practice if the sequence is wrong or Sila/Precepts and Meditation being practiced together? If no, then at what stage of requirements? Well, i know at least not after being drunk and go meditate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_precepts **Post Note**: In the Youtube video above at 57:00, Venerable Guan Cheng explains that those monk only focusing on Moral Virtue before start meditation for the first five years. I had recently re-verify with another Bhante and he mentioned also must follow the sequence.