In my country (Sri Lanka) government is about to bring out a new set of laws to govern Buddhist councils. This kind of a law has never existed in my country and being a Buddhist country there is some speculation about why only one religion is effected by this new law. There are some fears from monks about government trying to shut up the religion & it's power over people even though some are ready to examine the whole thing and come up with modifications. There is a line about putting the "Monk imposers" in jail. And some fear this might be a bate to take down Buddhist organizations and Monks who speak against injustice. The public literally has no clue about what to say or do. Most likely people will oppose it and there is a big potential that this might lead to some serious outbreak of violence and religious conflict. --- Here are some links from news web sites about the whole thing: - Amendment of laws on Buddhist temples will take decision making power away from Maha Sangha - New laws --- So far it is very dreadful. What should be the response to this kind of a law in any country? How to deal with government involvement in religion?

Did the Buddha teach some measure of "Engaged Buddhism", to maybe more of a lay person audience? Did the Buddha ever teach "Engaged Buddhism" to the Bhikkhus? What Buddhist scriptures support Engaged Buddhist teachings? Is it proper for a Bhikkhu to be political in anyway in the world or in the monastery? NOTE: **Engaged Buddhism** generally refers to people who actively **engage** in the world in order to transform it with positive Buddhist ideas & practices.

Since the practice of Dhamma, I have experienced a loss of masculine nature like I am almost becoming a woman. I have given up aggression, anger, I make sure I am polite, not indulge in harsh speech (yesterday somebody was rude to me, but I didn't hit back like a man, I let-go, like I am now powerless), withdraw from addictions, not to eat meat as far as possible, no participate in actions hurting others like any kind of physical aggression, give up gambling, don't find the activity of going to gym and pumping up muscles any meaningful, instead I sit and watch my thoughts. Under this discipline, any form of adrenaline triggering activity becomes almost undesirable. It is like I am psychologically turning into a woman. I don't know if this is helpful but certainly screwing up my sense of being a man. question is, Is this what anybody else experiencing? Is there any workout around the problem? Is it inevitable?

Every day I look forward to the day when there will be a holiday. Holiday brings a sense of relief to me. However I know this is a false sense of relief as after every holiday there will be a working day. I am attached to holidays. If there is a work on holidays I feel greatly stressed. If there is a holiday on a working day I feel greatly relieved. (Some people experience Monday blues which is a specific case of my generic experience. ) My question is: How can I escape the mental affliction I bring upon myself by getting attached to holidays ?

I need help reading the footnotes from the following passage in the book Satipatthana , and finding the suttas which they reference. > in one instance at least, the Upakkilesa Sutta, the Buddha gave a detailed account of his own struggle to attain the first absorption.41 This passage leaves no doubt that the Buddha himself encountered considerable difficulty when he attempted to attain the first absorption, even though in his early youth he had already once experienced it. > > Analayo. Satipatthana (Kindle Locations 1196-1199). Footnote 41 says > M III 162, where only after having consecutively overcome a whole series of mental obstructions (cf. in detail page 199, footnote 73) he was able to attain the first jhāna. Cf. also A IV 439, which reports his struggle to overcome sensuality in order to be able to develop jhāna. What sutta does M III 162 reference? (as Majjhima Nikaya contains 152) And footnote 42 says >M I 246. Possibly his ability to enter the first jhāna so easily at this particular moment during his early youth was related to samatha practice undertaken in a previous life, an ability lost during his adolescence and later sensual indulgence as a young man, so that he had to develop it anew. To what does M I 246 reference?

The most challenging part of meditation is to keep our wandering mind aware of persent moment and mindful of thoughts. Our brain has some thing called '**Default Mode Network**' which is nothing but our ordinary mind full of worries and past and future etc. This mode is converted into something called as '**Executive Mode**' in states of meditation and states of what people called **flow**. Now, scientists for ages have trained animals to behave in certain way through reward/ punishment mechanism which gets our brain trained to do particular task or behave in particular way. If I designed an electronic gadget, something similar to this . With an added mechanism that whenever your mind will wonder a small tingiling shock will be given to your skin and otherwise nothing will happen. Using dry electrodes and signal processing techniques we can now detect when the mind wanders off. My queation is, 1. Will this kind of technology be accepted by serious meditators or otherwise will it be helpful to people who are new to meditation. 2. Or will it prove to be nuisance. 3. Do you think we can train our brains to be mindful all the times through such reward/punishment exercise.

Most theologies give no perspective on persons who are in "locked-in syndrome", minimal conscious states and persistent vegetative syndrome. Due to my own experiences I've pondered and explored but i would like to know your opinions on a modern age problem, where people survive more traumatic incidents on the body but show no or minimal reaction to their environment, this state is life or death seems almost like a modern to pheonomna but has the topic actually been covered before in the history of Buddhism? If so, which sources please.

If I am not wrong ,Buddhism denies God. But I am not sure what is the kind of God which Buddha denied ? My question is : According to Buddhism what is God ? ( Any scriptural reference would be great.)

If this was bone-obvious to everyone else, then silly me, but I just thought of it because I heard these two words separately long ago and connected them while answering another question... **Are "the Observer" and the process of being Mindful, in essence the same thing? Does one involve the other inherently?** I have used them differently and never connected them before, because I thought: 1. *The Observer* is a developed system within "me" (which is a collection of points of view of varying levels of awareness) and not everyone has an Observer or is aware of it all the time. 2. *Mindfulness* is something I *do* and is not the activity of another point of view within "me". But, trying to be mindful when I have only one point of view is not very possible, and who would be mindful, other than the Observer? Finally: is transcending the Observer (and the need for Mindfulness) the same as Nonduality? I think it is. (Don't worry about answering this question, it is just an idea.) **EDIT:** My Healing Teacher said that I have to get people to "define their terms", so here are my definitions: **The Observer** is the *experience* of being aware of myself. It feels like I am witnessing my own thoughts and actions. **Mindfulness** is the *process* of being aware of what I am doing. (To me, this does not require an Observer, but that is what I am asking.) **"Being aware of myself"** means... Well, that I know what I am doing right now. Different from the other two. **A Mind** - is something that *could do otherwise*, it exercises choice on some level. **Awareness** is the action of a sufficiently developed mind. **Consciousness** is awareness of being a self. **A Self** is something that knows it is a self, and that other selves know, etc. (Don't even get me started on the idea of Mind*full*ness being a way to *empty* the mind!) Has this made it any clearer what I am asking? Please try to use words such as these for an answer, supplementing with the appropriate Buddhist terms. **ADDITION:** here are some links which I hope can help people understand what I am asking: 1. This RYUC one is a bit of a muddle, but the Observer corresponds with what I am asking about, and also is similar to what I call a Neo state. The Witness is more like how I would describe nonduality. 2. This one about Energy Healing says that "In Buddhism, developing the witness/observer is a foundational piece of their teachings." Ha! 3. In this one , they use the words observer and witness interchangeably.

Envy is an explicitly unwholesome mind-state, according to Buddhist doctrine. Unfortunately I am experiencing strong envy lately. Can somebody please provide any and all resources to help understand and eliminate envious feelings?

In Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond , Ajahn Brahm writes - > The Buddha taught two types of satipaṭṭhāna. The **first type is supported by jhāna** and leads to enlightenment in a short time. Which satipaṭṭhāna is the **first type**, and where can it be found ? (By "two types" does he mean the two versions DN 22 and MN 10?) Please reference both types and specify which is the "first type".

Walking meditation : http://www.meditationoasis.com/how-to-meditate/simple-meditations/walking-meditation/ is considered as "just as profound as sitting meditation". If we were to extrapolate this idea into a situation where instead of walking you were on a bike, would an expert's opinion consider this meditating on the bike at the gym an effective practice of meditation?

I don't breath appropriately. Most of the time i hold my breath its like I'm tensed. When i was a child i started doing this when i was near people but today (40 years old) i hold my breath all the time even when i walk. When i am sleeping i breath appropriately. I have developed a lot of problems like Photophobia and Phonophobia . Is there any exercise that can make me breath appropriately?

Did the Buddha teach that a self or soul (whether permanent and fixed or impermanent and changing) cannot be found, did he teach that it cannot exist, or what?

The No true Scotsman fallacy is a rhetorical trick to avert criticism of a generalization by appealing to the impurity of counterexamples i.e., "no *true* Scotsman would do such a thing!" My question is whether or not a true Buddhist would ever appeal to such a juvenile rhetorical trick? I'm thinking that no true Buddhist would ever do this as I'm sure the Buddha would not have approved of such illogical argumentation. What's the community think?

This question may look like a copy of this question , but I am asking in a broader sense including age limit. The historical reference of a person attaining Nibbana in oldest age is Joshu , apparently, he became enlightened at the age of 80 and then settled down to become a master. But he looks like some kind of exception. Gotama Buddha attained Nibbana in His 30's, from scriptures all the others seem to be between 30's to 40's nobody is told to be very old. Neither was Bodhidharma, Zen patriarchs, Tibetan masters like Milarepa, Marpa all seem to be somewhere in 30's or 40's during their Nibbana, based on what all things they did after that. So, I am asking is there any biological limitation, age limitation, for Nibbana?

As I was meditating this morning I asked myself the question, "If I am destroyed would the universe also be destroyed?". I answered, "No." Then I asked, "If the universe was destroyed, would I be destroyed?" I answered, "Yes." My question: how are I and the universe one in the same if I depend upon it, but it does not depend on me? Disclaimer: I am completely new to Buddhism (less than 5 months of practice)

Somewhere I thought it was said that the practice of harmlessness was praised by the Buddha as the greatest form of generosity. (I don't remember where I read this.) Has anything like this been said in the Buddha's teachings or in any Buddhist texts?

The Bhaya Bherava Sutta (MN4) states the following: > ...I stayed in the sort of places that are awe-inspiring and make your hair stand on end, such as park-shrines, forest-shrines, & tree-shrines. And while I was staying there a wild animal would come, or a peacock would make a twig fall, or wind would rustle the fallen leaves. The thought would occur to me: 'Is this that fear & terror coming?' Then the thought occurred to me: 'Why do I just keep waiting for fear? > > What if I, in whatever state I'm in when fear & terror come to me, > were to subdue that fear & terror in that very state?' 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. However, it does not say how the Buddha subdued the fear and terror while standing, sitting, etc. How could a practitioner understand and use this method?

Can someone explain to me this phenomenon that has happened to me? I am not a serious Buddhist practitioner. I used to do mindfulness practice daily (20–30 min on 90% of days), just observing normal breaths or maybe counting the breath. Last night I didn't get proper sleep so I just started observing my thoughts. Images started appearing and disappearing and also voices (as if I were talking or someone else was). Whatever we call reasoning is again a sequence of images and voices. The **'I'** existed in the images and in the voices (as in *I did this, I have this work, I had headache...*, something like that) and, at the same time, the **'I'** did not exist and everything was just a sequence of thoughts (voice or image). As a consequence, any egoistical thing like a superiority complex or that kind of thing made no sense – but this whole experience lasted roughly for 3–5 mins. I am slightly hesitant to use word **I** this morning but yet somewhat comfortable. Can someone explain this phenomenon to me?