I recently listened to a talk by Ajahn Chah, in which he mentions (@ ~14:20-14:53) that wisdom is found when one clings to neither pleasure nor displeasure. This really created a dilemma in my head about why to practice. Clearly, it makes sense that one would not want to cling to displeasure. Indeed, it seems a Buddhist practitioner can get quite far one this idea alone. It seems natural that the whole reason one begins the path is to learn to not cling to displeasure. Learning to let go of what is bothersome to you is easier, as Ajahn Chah says. I don't believe many people start on the path to also not cling to happiness. Even Ajahn Chah states that those who truly practice also learn to not cling to happiness. **How this can be done in the layman's world?** I cannot quite understand why one would want to reject clinging to pleasurable feelings. It seems our very survival as humans is based around our brain giving us pleasurable feelings to reinforce behaviors that keep us surviving. I.e. eating sweet food gives dopamine because it correlates (not necessarily entails) with us sustaining our survival. **If I decide to do something purely for pleasure, does that mean that I have clung to that pleasure?** I.e. I took a bath tonight for the reason of enjoying it and I did enjoy it. Does that entail that I've clung to the pleasure since my purpose for taking the bath was for pleasure? How would I know if I've clung to it? At least in my life, my whole idea of having my career is based on the fact that it makes me happy and it's what I want to do (I do it for the purpose of pleasure). **Why would I reject this?** And if so, how could I even do so without becoming a monk and dedicating my life only to the goal of rejection of both pleasure and displeasure while only caring for my basic needs of survival (food, clothing, shelter, sleep). **In a paradoxical sense, it even seems plausible that one's reasoning for becoming a monk would be for the pleasure one derives in the idea of working toward enlightenment.** **If not for the pleasure resulting from a task (or subsequent result), why would one do it?** Tangentially, it seems the quickest way to end both pleasure and displeasure would be suicide. I'm not suicidal myself, but I just ask in a theoretical sense. Why would one not just do this? I presume the answer is related in some way to rebirth, but I am not sure.

Long time ago , I was reading some text related to Buddha online and saw that there were many pre-conditions already set for a person to become a complete Buddha. I remember very clearly , the first condition was that the person should have lived as King in the past. While googling again to see the other conditions, I am unable to find the original article. Is anyone aware of such conditions ? Can someone help . Thanks

Meditation can cause a lot of rest and peace. But can it also change the levels of hormone and neurotransmitters? Do they increase or decrease? I tend to think that fe your adrenaline is getting down and perhaps your testosteron. So can you become less 'male' or 'female' of it?

In Nanavira 's Notes of Dhamma on Mano : > Note that just as the eye, as cakkhāyatana or cakkhudhātu, is that yena lokasmim lokasaññī hoti lokamānī ('[that] by which, in the world, one is a perceiver and conceiver of the world') (Salāyatana Samy. xii,3 ), i.e. that thing in the world dependent upon which there is perceiving and conceiving of the world, namely a spherical lump of flesh set in my face; so the mind, as manāyatana or manodhātu, also is that yena lokasmim lokasaññī hoti lokamānī, i.e. that thing in the world dependent upon which there is perceiving and conceiving of the world, namely various ill-defined parts of my body, but principally a mass of grey matter contained in my head (physiological and neurological descriptions are strictly out of place—see PHASSA).[c] This is in agreement with the fact that all five khandhā arise in connexion with each of the six āyatanāni—see NĀMA & PHASSA [a]. For 'perceiving and conceiving' see MAMA [a]. > More loosely, in other contexts, the mind (mano) is simply 'imagination' or 'reflexion', which, strictly, in the context of the foregoing paragraph, is manoviññāna, i.e. the presence of images. See NĀMA [c]. The Vibhanga (of the Abhidhamma Pitaka) introduces chaos by supposing that manodhātu and manoviññānadhatu are successive stages of awareness, differing only in intensity (and perhaps also, somehow, in kind). See CITTA. Why does he feel that imagination is a looser translation of the word mano than the way it is defined in the previous paragraph?

I started meditating 2 weeks ago and I feel like I have been meditating forever. The things that I am doing during meditation are mind blowing. Now I feel electric in body constantly , waves upon waves of buzzing and vibrating. My teeth actually hurt. It’s almost like a ball of energy usually in my head constantly vibrating. I can move it anywhere in my body and hold it there for a short period and then it goes back to my head/ brain. I don’t know if this feeling is normal it’s actually exhilarating. I’m not complaining I just don’t understand what is going on. I am not a spiritual person but wow this is crazy. I a 49 year old rational completely normal person but what I’m feeling is unexplainable. I guess my question is, is this feeling normal or explainable? It can’t be normal or everyone would meditate all the time. Feels like magnets constantly pulling and pushing me.

I am in search for some academic work on critical methods to analyze Buddhists’ texts. There exist numerous jātakas and avadānas. Many representations in Buddhist art visualize these legends. E.g. Maya’s dream about the white elephant with his six tusks, or several reliefs at the gateways of Sanchi. I assume that most of these stories are fiction. Therefore my question: • Do these texts or figural representations raise any truth claim? • If yes: Which claim? How can one validate the truth claim? • Which groups and which interests triggered the texts and their dissemination? Is there someone to recommend some academic papers from Buddhist or secular authors about the historical-critical study of the content of Buddhist texts? Or point to some journals devoted to the subject? Note. My question relates to https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/44173/is-this-forum-a-place-for-buddhist-hermeneutics

Is there any meditation techniques that we can used to manged Bad Temper. As I know it is possible to manage angers by observing it as "feeling angry.., feeling angry!". However the problem is with the bad temper, sometime it is little bit too late to observer the anger. Any tips to improve the mindfulness to minimise the time gap?

Saṃsāra (cycle of birth and death) and Saṃskāra (mental formations) seem to be semantically close to one another in the sense that Saṃskāra in the form of unwholesome seeds and habit energies would feed into the endless cycle of Saṃsāra and keep it going. Given the uncanny phonetic similarity between these two terms, I was just wondering if they are indeed etymologically related and how this conception of present inclinations being dictated by past experiences fit into Buddhist philosophy as a whole.

I have been meditating for more than 10 years now. My aim is to meditate daily, but somehow I always get lost in activities that feel more important or urgent at the time. Then, suddenly I realize that I have lost track of my intention to meditate daily. I then start again, and everything is fine for a week or so, and then the same pattern repeats. I've read that one meaning of the word sati is to remember. So this experience is like waking up during a single meditation session and realizing I'm not focused on the breath. I feel like the ability to get to a consistent daily practice is the next small step forward for me. I think this inability stems from the hindrance called doubt. How to I get out of this cycle? Any advice is welcome.

I have been all my life judged by people, especially women including my sister and mom. I have also been rejected badly by some women or at least I made wrong judgements to feel that way. My question is how can I overcome this. It is causing feelings of inferiority, worthlessness and low confidence. Is there any particular meditation practice available in Buddhism or any particular practical teaching that I can implement to be free of this karma and advance on the path? Thanks, let me know if any more info is needed.

For example, peacocks are often associated with Amitabha. They were said to be his mounts, and images of Amitabha often feature peacock symbolism. What about the other Buddhas? Do they each have an associated animal symbol, and what could the animal represent?

The Mahāpadesa Sutta describes about the "Four Great Authorities (Mahāpadesas)" that a disciple should refer, if any one claims some new thing to be the word of the Budhha. > Mahāpadesa Sutta Summary: > > The Buddha tells the monks of the four mahāpadesā to be respected by > them. If a monks says he has a certain teaching direct from the Buddha > himself, his statement should be compared with the rest of the Vinaya > and Dhamma; if these do not agree, it should be rejected; if they do, > accepted. > > The same applies to that which is said to have been learnt from a > group of monks led by a Thera from a body of senior monks residing in > a certain place, or from a single senior monk, proficient in the > Dhamma, the Vinaya, and the Mātikā. A.ii.167ff.; the sutta is > incorporated in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (D.ii.123ff). Apart from the above four great authorities, Theravadins use another four Authorities called "The Four Vinayas". What are they?

[THLib](http://www.thlib.org/encyclopedias/literary/canons/kt/catalog.php#cat=d/k-2-1-1) contains the Kangyur and Tengyur in Tibetan script, which is a lot of text. But it doesn't seem to contain the Tibetan Book of the Dead :( Is there any place online that has the Tibetan Book of the Dead in text format? Searching Google for བར་དོ་ཐོས་གྲོལ reveals [this](http://www.khabdha.org/?p=5189) and [this](http://www.buddism.ru:4000/?field=1&index=5149&ocrData=read) , but I can't tell if that is it. Or perhaps [this](http://dharmacloud.tsadra.org/tib/%E0%BD%91%E0%BD%BA%E0%BD%96%E0%BC%8B/%E0%BD%96%E0%BD%A2%E0%BC%8B%E0%BD%91%E0%BD%BC%E0%BD%A0%E0%BD%B2%E0%BC%8B%E0%BD%90%E0%BD%BC%E0%BD%A6%E0%BC%8B%E0%BD%82%E0%BE%B2%E0%BD%BC%E0%BD%A3%E0%BC%8B%E0%BD%86%E0%BD%BA%E0%BD%93%E0%BC%8B%E0%BD%98-2/) ?

What are the odds of getting nirvana during this lifetime? I suppose, given a worldwide population of 8-9 billion, of that what percentage is likely? > an arahant whose effluents are ended, who has reached fulfillment, > done the task, laid down the burden, attained the true goal, totally > destroyed the fetter of becoming, and who is released through right > gnosis.

Can anybody explain to me about "nibbana" and how it is different form "nirvana"? Are there views about it and ways to get to it?

Since Buddhism is is a western term combining Buddha with the common "-ism" suffix, I wonder whether there is/are eastern self-designations of Buddhism as a religion. Of course there are self-designations of various schools (Theravāda, Zen, ...), Dhamma/Dharma and Sangha refer to teaching and community, but is there some overarching terminology in asia?

If someone shot an arrow at Buddha's heart, Bhudda will focus on the pain caused by the arrow. What will be Buddha's views on the shooter? If it was unintentional, forgiving the shooter is understood. But if that was intentional what will be the opinion of Buddha about the shooter? And why? Forgive the shooter? But why and how? And if forgive the shooter, then how to react if he pulls up another arrow to shoot?

I was thinking about tilakhana and cittanupassana. and this question occuerd to me. that there is no mention in tipitaka about nicca/anicca nature of citta. So something is very obvious that I am missing. and hence this question.

Even though I am Catholic, I am discovering the Truth of the existence of karma through personal experience in my own spiritual journey. There is a certain habitual sin that I am struggling with. After reading the Buddha's teaching, he said that when habitual sin repeats, it is because there is a pattern of karma that comes together under very specific logical conditions (conditions that can be numbered 1, 2, 3) to result in you making the choice to sin. What strategies does the Buddha offer to: 1. Loosen this bad karma 2. Discover the logical conditions that cause this sin to repeat 3. Change the context so that the logical conditions causing this sin no longer arise?

💚If you're a non-returner and you go to the Brahma realms, then that is the only way to attain Nibbana in the Brahma realms? Is it possible to attain Buddhahood in the Bramha realms? Did the Buddha ever pass through the stage of non-returner or did he just jump straight to Buddhahood? An Arahant cannot become a Buddha? Aren't the 4 stages to enlightenment about mastering certain insights that one goes through momentarily? He was the Buddha when he taught the Abhidhamma from Heaven?