I was thinking about going to a retreat in thailand called suanmok and then I saw the picture of the bed. A straw mat and a tiny wooden pillow!!! why would they make people sleep like that? It seems like torture to me and so I decided not to go. If the Buddha didn't believe in asceticism why do some monasteries and retreat centres? At the very least I need to sleep comfortably when on retreat. I would just end up sleep deprived and grumpy and not be able to meditate properly anyway. I can't even sleep properly in my luxurious queen size bed with pillow top mattress most nights. Does anyone know of a more comfortable retreat?

I noticed that I tend to very well know what I must do, and that I also strive and attempt to do these things, but that often I am filled with a kind of 'defeatism' or 'pessimism'. I know the right way, attempt the right way, but this heavy and saddening discouragement just makes me go: "What's the point? It's all futile anyways." **How would Buddhism describe and remedy such an emotion?** I feel like this is distinct from not knowing the right way, and not attempting the right way. It's more of a temporary emotion dragging me down, a kind of hopelessness or shame or maybe even self-hatred. This emotion doesn't always occur, but it occurs enough for me to be held back in my practice. **What should I do?**

What is the nature of the change due to impermanence ,is it just a random change or intelligent change ?,are the actions resulting from it considered right action or that depends on the degree of identification that the impermanent person/thing is having towards another person/thing?. The more I watch it I see that sometimes this change or flux is not just random and is intelligent.All the changes happening inside the body and mind do not require a doer but are intelligent.Can the nature or the behavior of the change be also recognized ?.

As a Buddhist, we are called upon to honor our mother and father. However, how should this be applied in a situation where parents were abusive, neglectful, and harmful? When engaging the parents is often revictimizing? What are the obligations to parents in this situation? Is it their karma to be not honored because of their actions?

This may be a crazy question. But just out of curiosity when we do law of attraction method they say that we can attract money, success or something. Can we attract enlightenment like that??? So in law of attraction we visualize something that we have already got it. Let's say if I wanna be an actor, I visualize myself as an actor getting an award. And the whole universe will work in a way to make me as an actor. So similarly when I can visualize I have already got enlightenment, do I attain enlightenment. Sorry if I have mistakes in my question. But just thinking out of the box with this concept.

Being believer or **dependent on God** so far in my life, I'm clueless how exactly can I become independent without turning morally Bankrupt? Being devotee I'm automatically moral & lovingly but When I start believing in experience I become somewhat immoral, without any good feelings. **How & Why** to be moral without believing in supernatural entity like God? What are the ways to become independent because I want to be moral without being devotee or dependency on the God?

Friends, I am looking for a sutta from the Pali Canon wherein the Buddha, expounding the nature of the *world*, goes somewhat like this : > And what is the world ? That which disintegrates is the world. That’s why we call it is called 'the world'. Thank you for your very much appreciated help. With gratitude.

Through many of Yuttadhammo's videos and accesstoinsight, I have learned a vast amount of knowledge on the Buddha's teachings. But I feel like I am causing myself problems. > 1) I keep on questioning everything I learn in the Dhamma & expanding > on my questions through my answers and so on, how can I stop this from > happening? How can I limit my questions or is there anything taught by > the Buddha or in Yuttadhammo's tradition to help me? > > 2) As I have learned a lot (but definitely not all) from the Buddha's > Dhamma, I keep on wanting to write down all that I learn but to keep > it for myself on remembering the teaching, and I keep on writing long > essays then rewriting and editing and adding and shrinking and adding > and so on. I continue to do so and I feel like this is a problem, how > can I cope with only knowing the teaching in my head than writing it > all I learn down or is this not really a problem? Please help! Metta

Contemporary psychology and neuroscience keep finding benefits to the emotion of *awe*, which appears as a spiritual emotion given it makes one more prosocial and less attached to material objects. **Does Buddhism talk in any way about this emotion?**

According to Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, "true love" has four elements: 1. Loving kindness: this produces a lot of joy and happiness. 2. Compassion: it makes us and the other people suffer less. 3. Joy: "If love does not generate joy, it is not [true] love." 4. Inclusiveness: "In true love there is no frontier between the one who loves and the one who is loved." I'd like to focus on "compassion" here. Don't people who are more compassionate suffer more because they experience the suffering of other people in some sense? So aren't the elements 2 and 3 as mentioned above contrary to each other? I think this question is related but not identical to another question asked before: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/18619/love-and-caring-is-suffering .

Someone told me that I don't need to read about Dogens teachings of zen. They said that "zen is just about being spontaneous and free from rules." Are they right? Why or why not? Is it deeper than just being spontaneous?

In compassion meditation (*metta-bhavana*), **does the strength of the effect depend mainly on *concentration*?** Or are there other factors involved as well? Thank you.

This other day I was meditating and I got a feeling as if I spinned around on an axis, counterclockwise wise and really fast. Later on it became more of a left>right feeling alternating feeling in short bursts, and eventually it subsided. What is this? Is it a sign of progress?

I recently came across the concept of doing walking meditation, but I am not clearly aware of the technique or procedure to do walking meditation. Can someone help me understand this? Thank you.

According to the Buddha's teaching in the Buddhist scriptures, when is it appropriate: >To assist in creating the structures of a group or society? >To embrace the established structures of a group or society? >To defend others by enforcing the established authority of a group or society? >To push away or overthrow the established structures of a group or society? >To defend others by pushing away or overthrowing the established authority of a group or society?

As the core goal of Buddhism is to cease sufferings, any task that not relevant to it will be unawarely ignored, and any task that hindering it will be strongly rejected. Analysis/intellect can either be irrelevant to the goal (as in, don't forget that the finger is not the moon), or an obstacle that Buddhists have spent all their life to fight (as in, it's the source of proliferation). However, in some cases where analysis is necessary to remove an attachment, automatically rejecting intellect means (1) the attachment is not removed, and (2) they don't think they have attachment at all. Or as someone puts it, they seem to have [anti-thought bias](https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/22195/13525) , and I think anything they say would be [thought-terminating clichés](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%c3%a9) at that point. How to fight this bias? How to make them realize that before you see the moon, as least you should have the finger? How to present them an analysis and they accept to read it as it is, rather than questioning anything irrelevant? Related: - [intellectualism or anti-intellectualism and Buddhism](https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/23639/13525) - [I explain why I prefer discuss Buddhism intellectually but others don't seem to accept my point. Why is that?](https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/31152/13525) - [How to ask other Buddhists doing analysis, rather than advising me to stop analyzing?](https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/31193/13525) - [How does philosophy not fall into the confirmation bias?](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/60848/19487)

A question to those of you who’ve spent some time in academia: is academic research right livelihood? Given that it requires one to engage in thinking for the entire duration of one’s working hours, could it actually be a hindrance on the eightfold path?

In the doctrine of no arising does the past and future still exist, and if so do they exist in the same way as the present does? And if not, *why*? From Dogen's Genjo-koan: > Firewood becomes ash. Ash cannot turn back into firewood again. However, we should not view ash as after and firewood as before. We should know that firewood dwells in the dharma position of firewood and it has its own before and after. Although there is before and after, past and future are cut off. Ash stays at the position of ash and it has its own before and after. As firewood never becomes firewood again after it is burned and becomes ash, after person dies, there is no return to living. However, in buddha dharma, it is a never-changing tradition not to say that life becomes death. Therefore we call it no-arising. It is the laid-down way of buddha's turning the dharma wheel not to say that death becomes life. Therefore, we call it no-perishing. Life is a position at one time; death is also a position at one time. For instance, this is like winter and spring. We don't think that winter becomes spring, and we don't say that spring becomes summer. I wondered whether Dogen is saying that there is a before and after and these are the same as the past and future that are cut off -- from the present: so that anything that occurs only does so in the past or future.

I stumbled upon a question about the danger in lying and Andrei's answer caught my attention. He claims that '...key qualities of good character are: Honesty, Integrity, Responsibility'. Then it made me wonder - is being politically correct an obstacle on the way to enlightenment? By the term political correctness I understand 'enforced language, ideas, or policies that address **perceived** discrimination against political, social or economical groups ("protected classes")'. >It seems that: > >Lots of public figures no longer say what they really think but they mince their words so as not to offend any of the groups. > >Media doesn't report certain facts/events/results of studies in fear of offending groups which won't feel comfortable with certain facts/events/results. > >Most of the time it is not based on honesty. > >Clearly this leads to violated integrity. > >In everyday life we also seem to be forced into political correctness. > >Challenging someone's views can be **perceived** as an attack and more and more jokes are **perceived** as offending (although it used to be a great virtue to be able to laugh at oneself). I would be mostly interested in what *contemporary Buddhist teachers and masters* think about this topic. Please refrain from sharing personal opinion if it's not based on specific teachings. I am looking for advice from Buddhist masters and texts mostly.

In the [Paritta Parikamma](http://www.softerviews.org/AIM/parikamma.html) , there is the line: > May you take care in protecting yourselves from the dangers of tyrants, robbers, human beings, non-human beings, fires, floods, demons, **tree-stumps**, thorns, evil planets, epidemics, wrong-doers or heretics; from wild elephants, horses, beasts, oxen, dogs, serpents, scorpions, poisonous snakes, leopards, bears, hyenas, boars, buffaloes, ogres, devils etc., and from dangers of various fears, diseases and disasters. * What dangers would tree-stumps pose? * What would protection from tree-stumps look like?