I'm not sure how to understand the sixth reward, or even who is rewarded. Can someone explain it? (AN 6:103, from https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN6_103.html , complete sutta quoted below) “In seeing six rewards, it’s enough for a monk to establish the perception of stress with regard to all fabrications without exception. Which six? ‘The perception of disenchantment1 will be established within me with regard to all fabrications, like a murderer with a drawn sword. My mind will rise above every world. I’ll become one who sees peace in unbinding. My obsessions2 will go to their destruction. I’ll be one who has completed his task. **The Teacher will have been served with goodwill.**’ “In seeing these six rewards, it’s enough for a monk to establish the perception of stress with regard to all fabrications without exception.”

I am finding it difficult to focus on the incoming-outgoing breath. Whenever I become mindful of my breath, the Mind kicks in. I cannot even focus for 5-10 breaths, the mind activates. Giving the mind some work, which is being aware here, kind of activates the mind. Instead, if I become mindful of thoughts, I can remain without thoughts for 5-10 seconds. Correct me if I am wrong, but is this Zazen kind of meditation, -- Just sitting, Doing Nothing. Will this practice help attain meditative absorption states?

Background - My sister's son did not work at all in his life and has been taking anti-depressants for many years now. My sister must be very sad and worried about him constantly, but she never talked about it to anyone. His father decided to get him help with meditation and went to this place called "Nirmaya" in Pune city, India. My sister did not want to go for this. But because she was not strong enough to resist him, she had to go along with it. They arranged for long distance meditation for him by uploading his picture in their computer and told him to meditate at home. They told him to let them know whenever he meditates so that they can send positive vibrations to him through his picture on their computer. They charged fee for every call. They also said if parents do the meditation, it will be beneficial. My sister started doing meditation along with her son to show support for him. Nothing happened to the son and the father, but she started feeling very sad and tired and low energy. No one thought deeply why it is happening to her. She thought that she is depressed so decided to see local Psychiatrist. In her first visit she mentioned her worries about her son to the doctor and nothing else. Doctor did not ask any history about her life and put her on two anti-depressants, one anti-anxiety drug and multivitamin tablets. At this point my sister is taking all those medicines and doing meditation. She was already a very silent person but after this she became more silent. She continued to have sadness and low energy. So she called the doctor and reduced the dose of anti-depressants. She became sick with flu and could not function at all. During her sickness she stopped meditation. Once she came out of the sickness, she started meditation again. She also requested her doctor to reduce her anti-depressants dose. Doctor stopped one anti-depressant and multivitamin tablet. My sister did not feel better. She stopped taking the anti-depressants. She continued with meditation. This whole thing started with meditation on June 20th, 2022. October 17, 2022, she committed suicide in the morning. What happened to her? Did meditation affect her in such a way that she did not want to live any longer? Should all the places that recommend meditation be held responsible for not giving enough warnings to people they are supposed to help? Has it become money making machine with very little studies about meditation and anti-depressants drugs? If you can answer my questions truthfully, I will appreciate it. Thanks. Jayshree Deshmukh

there is a meditation technique that supposedly was given to v. moggalana by buddha wrote here like this: > “If you do not abandon your drowsiness by doing that, Moggallāna, then > you should pay attention to the perception of light – the night as the > day, the day as the night. In this way you should develop an open > mind, a mind of unveiled radiance. By doing this it is possible that > you will abandon your drowsiness. but then another script is saying it's delusion: > “There are some contemplatives & brahmans, brahman, who have the > perception of ‘day’ when it is night, and of ‘night’ when it is day. > This, I tell you, is their being in a dwelling of delusion. As for me, > I have the perception of ‘day’ when it is day, and of ‘night’ when it > is night. If anyone, when speaking rightly, were to say, ‘A being not > subject to delusion has appeared in the world for the benefit & > happiness of many, out of sympathy for the world, for the welfare, > benefit, & happiness of human & divine beings,’ he would rightly be > speaking of me. which one is correct? both? or perhaps it depends on context? what is the context? a related post: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/10528/how-to-attend-to-the-perception-of-light

As we all have heard the Buddha spent 7 weeks after his enlightenment in different places and engaging in different activities. But in the Mahavagga Pali (the first half) in Vinaya Pitakaya states that the Buddha only spent 4 weeks after enlightenment. And after that week only the Sahampati Brhama invited him to teach Dhamma to the world. (In the 7 weeks tradition this happened in the 7th week) 1st Week - Under the Bodhi tree 2nd Week - Under the Ajhapal Nuga(Goatherds’Banyan tree) tree 3rd Week - Under the Midhella tree (The Mucalinda story) 4th Week - Under the Kiripalu tree (The Tapssu Balluka story) Also in the Sutra Pitakaya I found the following sutras as well. These sutras talks about the first week. Ud1.1 Ud1.2 Ud1.3 This sutra talks about the second week. Ud1.4 This sutra talks about the third week Ud2.1 4th week is anyways stated in the Mahavagga Pali. But in the Pujawaliya written by Ven. Mayurapada Parivenadhipathi Buddhaputhra suggests that the Buddha spent 7 weeks after the enlightnment in different places and engaging in different activities. Sath Sathiya - 7 Weeks If Vinaya Pitakaya is the one that is to be accepted (Vinaya and Dhamma are the Teachers after me - Buddha) then did the Pujawaliya writer exaggerate the 4 weeks into 7 weeks? Even in that book i didn't find any references to the Tripitakaya (Pali Canon) as well.

I have tried meditating (by concentrating on the breath) but have not experienced any benefits from it. Are there any good books on meditation out there that can help me achieve a better meditation practice?

I have been smoking for about 5 years now. I never really 'started' one day, but it just made my day to day life more enjoyable, and it did so consistently, so I never had a reason to stop. Recently, I have read about Buddhism and started breath meditation. This brought attention to my lung capacity and, to be honest, made it difficult to meditate without occasionally 'gasping' for air. All the things I have tried when feeling urges (hot showers, nicotine gum, sleeping, video games, money restraints) don't work for long enough. Most days I create a 'reason' to not smoke, I end up smoking anyway because my mind keeps thinking about things like the validity of the reason, why I need an excuse, etc. Similar to how telling a child to not look at an elephant will rarely work. I have always had an addictive personality, and am now realizing the only reason I did not engage in smoking in the past was mostly because I was addicted to something else. Currently, I am unemployed and though I have enough money to get by, I am still looking for a job so that I have something else to direct my energy towards. All of these workarounds and escapes are tiring. But smoking is worse. Is there a way to build willpower and discipline from scratch? Or is the only escape to find something else to do?

I've heard this quote in a few places, attributed to the Buddha. Prominently, Tara Brach uses it . It varies sometimes: - "Everything rests on the tip of one's motivation." - “Everything rests on the point of intention.” But the gist is always the same. 1. Where in the Tripiṭaka (or elsewhere) does this quote originate? 2. How can we understand this quote? What is this "tip of intention"? Is it perhaps translated from [mano, as in 'intending mind']( https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/on-the-first-lines-of-the-dhammapada/18718?replies_to_post_number=16) , or some link in the chain of dependent origination, or something else?

I've been practicing and managed to access first jhana, but I haven't found a solution to one obstacle that often frustrates my meditation: [earworms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm) . (Earworms are musical fragments that play repetitively in the head, and which I experience the majority of the time. Outside of meditation I have tried to control earworms using various anecdotal techniques, but the best I have ever been able to do is replace one earworm with another.) When I sit to meditate and I have an earworm going I find it impossible to break free of it. The problem is that whatever part of my mind is playing the earworm seems to be running on a separate thread from my attention. Without an earworm running I can focus on breathing and then feeling and everything else fades into the background. With the earworm running everything fades into the background and then the earworm grabs *more* attention. It's like trying to fall asleep with a fire alarm going off, and the closer you get to sleep the louder the alarm gets. I've tried running white noise machines and focusing on the white noise, but the earworm seems to be independent of outside audio stimulus other than music. Is there some music-like sound that is still conducive to vipassana?

This is very similar to https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/22696/did-siddhartha-gautama-achieve-nirvana It is also kinda separate/different, and since I have not "realised all phenomena are non-self" I might ask my own question, especially as I am more interested in Mahayana Buddhism, just not what 'nothing to attain' means. Is our historical Tripitaka Buddha also Siddhartha Gautama, the prince who left home? Clearly they are not identical, because the latter has undergone complete and perfect enlightenment (so not the same question as the above). But are they in any sense the same? Follow up questions like whether the Jataka stories are about Shakyamuni Buddha, whether the dharmakaya is Shakyamuni Buddha, would also be appreciated.

What does Buddhism say to do when a specific Buddhist teaching or example of a teaching, is in disagreement with lived experience? This is not about rejecting the whole way but maybe small parts based on lived experience not wants. (Example, Brother Phap says when we are strong we are more likely to hurt people and when suffering or hurt we are nice and sweet. In my experience, hurt people hurt people more so it seems false to me.) https://youtu.be/6P-NrCNUSJU

Recently I happened to read the following review and comments about the book "The Broken Buddha." The Broken Buddha and its Implications The Broken Buddha: The revenge of the unfaithful monk > By Carl Stimson: > > The book is the work of Shravasti Dhammika, an > Australia-born man who ordained as a Theravada monk in 1976. It was > published in 2008, though as he states in the preface, most of it was > written several years earlier and he only decided to publish after an > “unauthorized draft” appeared online. I am unsure how much the > official version differs from this draft, but the text retains a rough > feel. At less than 80 pages, it is somewhere between long essay and > short book, and is at turns angry, funny, cutting, astounding, and, > unfortunately, sometimes poorly researched. For some, Bhante > Dhammika’s casual relationship with facts and tendency toward > generalization may limit their ability to take the thrust of his > arguments seriously. Both of them says most of the S. Dhammika's views are angry and and misleading. Is S. Dhammikas work poorly researched and baseless?

For example, software/code/algorithms themselves can be very complex, dense, cryptic (often without value), overly detailed, stressful to understand intent (sometimes), generation of new abstractions that generate new problems... and requires more cognitive strain for advanced theory and implementations. Zen type practices seem very opposite - simplicity, clarity, open space, non-judging, non-solving, higher non-thinking intelligence, beauty, expansiveness, ease, flow and lightness of mind/thought. Does computer science really fit on this path...or are we trying to shove it in based on others expectations and financial wealth? (Then of course the physical environments and people environments that tend to correlate with each).

As I understand it, Dogen says that, at least for those new to seated meditation, there is no enlightenment outside seated meditation. Well, to me that if true that's awful! No speech, no writing, no solidarity, etc.? I think it's this that is the stumbling block along the buddha way, for me. Does it even have an answer?

Lately I have been catching others thoughts and feelings as I advance in meditation. Sometimes this affects me and it starts playing out in the middle of my work. Does this happen to others? How are you all handling it?

What forces interact upon each other for a person to walk? Is it just the interplay of the senses and conditioning or is there free will/free action at play where you are actually the one choosing to walk?

I've been practicing mindfulness meditation for around three months now. I've heard many times that a key aim for meditation is to be with whatever thoughts and feelings are present, without trying to change anything. I understand to a large extent why this is important, as much upset is caused by suppressing and mentally running away from things that we are afraid of. However, in my practice I have found that if I consciously try to relax during a session (muscular tension is an issue with me) it can be a much more fulfilling, refreshing experience. Is this not an example of trying to change something, and therefore 'bad' practice?

In the "Tibetan Book of The Living and Dying" it is said that the state one dies in, is the state one enters the Bardo in. Are there any resources someone can point me to that can clarify how to live in a state that makes on better prepared for the Bardo, but at the same time not be attached to the thought of it. I figure that if one is always concentrated on being in a certain state in preparation, that this would be considered attachment, or even become an obsession.

I was often discouraged in the past years attempting shamatha meditation, because it seemed fruitless. However, I noticed recently that if I focus on the breath, I have the impression that I am unwavering in my concentration. But, if I use a visual object, as an image of the Buddha, the image tends to constantly shift and alter in my mind's eye. Could this be a sign that am deluding myself when using the breath as object? Would I be better using a visual object to be sure I am really doing it right?

Is there practice that I can do that will help me dissolve my attatchment to the world, my family, my life any hopes and dreams, its all transient and causes massive suffering for me. How can I let go of those who I cant remove who abuse me, those who I love who are leaving me, those things I wanted to create that will never happen? Its just so tiring to hold on to all this pain.