I've received empowerment for Seven Line Prayer & have been practicing it consistently ever since. Once in a while, a thought arises that I would like to practice other mantras for 'worldly situations', e.g. Green Tara when there is a situation of illness & disease Should I concentrate my efforts on a single practice? Or is it beneficial to 'spread out' my practices. My goals are stream-entry as a layperson

My two pet cats recently died in my rental house. Long story short, we sold our old home but we have no where to move yet so we rented a property while our new house is being built. Before I ask my questions I want to thank you guys for taking your time to reading this post 😊. **How can I ensure that my cat spirits go to heaven?** or **How can I bring their spirits to my new home?** I am scared that they will be alone since the current rental price isn't cheap and I am scared that they will wait for me in this house. I just want them to reach heaven. **Can animal spirits go to buddhist heaven?** I am a Theravada buddhist. Also , I am scared that there might be other spirits inside this house, I rarely don't believe in spirits but the rental house is kind of mystery itself. I am scared that those spirits might take my cat, I wish to buddha everyday that their spirits be safe and including hindu gods. **How can I make merits to my cats spirit?** **How can I know if they got the merit?** **How can I transfer the merit to them so they may reach heaven? Are animal spirits allowed to enter heaven?**

I've been training in spirituality for for about 8 years. I used to do formal meditation practice couple of times a day. Now I find that I kind of live my life more in a meditative way. I'm living a quiet life alone currently, not working at the moment and spending most of my time on spiritual and meditative practice, a bit like a monastic life in some ways. I've done reading on various different spiritual traditions, I'd say I've been inspired more by Zen and Taoism than anything else. I'm interested in advice from any spiritual background though really. Some days now I can feel The Way and I follow it, and I'm moving slowly and taking care of myself and I can feel my mind opening up to the world. On those days I feel peace and I know how to move forwards. Some days I'm having trouble letting go of attachment, and it's costing me a lot, of time suffering. For example at the moment, I've told some friends they can stay with me next weekend. I know really that this is not The Way. I take in too much of other people's energy at the moment and I need to be alone. I'm having incredible difficulty ringing them to discuss this, I have some powerful attachment which I can't let go of. It's been about four days that I've been full of internal conflict about this and I'm suffering a lot. I can't digest my food, sleep well or take care of myself properly because of how strong the fight inside of me is to not let go of this attachment. I've tried to talk about it with some people but they all just say, "well maybe it will be nice if your friends come", which hasn't been so helpful. When I try to sit with this inner conflict it's pretty unbearable. To make some progress, I commit to myself that I am going to discuss this with my friends. Then after making this commitment the conflict is bearable enough for me to sit with it for a bit, and I understand something new. Then when I have understood something new, I think 'oh I don't feel so bad now maybe it would be ok for them to come'. My conviction wanes, I don't call, and the cycle repeats. Does anyone have some advice on a spiritual dilemma such as this? I tell myself 'well just ring then', but I've not been able to yet.

I am a 25 years student who has hard time struggling with emotions of anger and revenge. I am taking therapy but I also have decided to become a Buddhist as it is a rational religion. I just wanted to ask what books in Buddhist philosophy will you suggest for understanding and coping emotions of anger and revenge? Thanks!

In "The Longer Advice to Rāhula" the following appears: >Muditaṁ, rāhula, bhāvanaṁ bhāvehi. >Muditañhi te, rāhula, bhāvanaṁ bhāvayato yā arati sā pahīyissati. Bhante Sujato translates this as >Meditate on rejoicing. >For when you meditate on rejoicing any discontent will be given up. Thanissaro Bhikkhu: > “Develop the meditation of empathetic joy. For when you are developing the meditation of empathetic joy, resentment will be abandoned. Bhikkhu Vagga: > "Rāhula, develop meditation on altruistic joy; for when you develop meditation on altruistic joy, any discontent will be abandoned. Can somebody please explain which terms correspond to which here, and how the translation is carried out? Thank you

my question is astronomical observations and results thereof when applied to humans largely differ from astrological influencing. What Buddhists unlike other religious groups should do to solve the problems?

When I talk of sankharas, I mean the pattern of the mind and the way in which the sanna recognizes an object. After prolonged Vipassana and remaining equanimous to the body sensations, Many of my thought patterns have changed and I can practically see a link there. But theoretically I am still unaware as to how remaining equanimous to body sensations has anything to do with the deepest habit patterns of the mind. Now my question is if one stops Vipassana meditation for a sufficient period of time. Is there a way for these sankharas to develop again?

If you do an ordinary job, say anything like a software engineer, or a waiter in a hotel or a farmer, anything, like a 9-5 job. Helping society in whichever peaceful means possible. Does it accumulate good karma? I understand it is a 'Right Livelihood' but does it fill the storehouse of good karma? I understand that 'karma' is dependent on the 'intention', but doing a job has no particular intention other than fulfilling your financial monthly obligations or getting the fodder for the fire to cook dinner. Do we have to be in a position to help millions, like the Dalai Lama or Ajahn Brahma, or just an ordinary guy doing ordinary routine **will also get one in higher realms**?

The bulk of my personality is made up of other people's beliefs about what is lacking. These core beliefs rise up like bubbles and when the attention is placed on them, they burst into a rather coarse type of emptiness. For decades and unbeknownst to me, I have laboured over this negative self-talk which takes on various permutations of not being enough. As I investigate further, it's clear where they came from: implicit messages from society, that no matter what you can do or what you have in material possessions, it is never enough. It's like a sinister melody playing in the background of human consciousness. It is a collective and implicit agreement stationed just beyond the boundaries of normal, every day awareness and generates a perpetual attitude of always becoming yet the suffering it causes goes unquestioned - no link is formed between the thoughts and the actions. There is so much to write about concerning these observations, but it would hurt my head if I continued mainly because I see a barrel of worms inside those karmic propensities. If I look at one person, I see only the manifold accumulation of past actions which determines their current behaviour, but they see an exclusive and individualized entity making unique and specialized decisions. They seem rather clown-like in that respect - their personality lost to the conditions of their circumstances. Then I turn towards myself, and see the same things ticking away, and so I smile and kick up one of my clown shoes. What else is left for me to do. The negative self-talk has little footing these days, but it's what I built my identity with. As humankind's defunct tutorial meanders off it takes with it those biological conditionings: eating food has the same neutrality as shoving a letter into a postbox and women's tits look like what they are: droopy skin with a pointy circle denoting some vague hint of conceptual sensuality. This leaves me thinking curiously about what actually drives me, what is my personality? The Buddha had a personality, for sure. In a sense I know the answer to this question, but I'd have to start writing a curious state of affairs because language seems to do it a disservice. Then, the karmic waves come rolling in, and I've lost all direction. They seem quite annoyed over in this region even throwing obscure items like the kitchen sink.

Buddhism originated in India but from what I understand it's not very big in India and instead more popular in Eastern Asia in countries like Japan, Vietnam, China etc.

I know a person who is fairly expert on Dhamma and in early times practised well; meditating up to 10 hours per day. But today this person spends at least five hours per day doing physical rehabilitation due to an unfortunate injury. Yet this person is constantly harassed by a troll monk who insists this rehabilitating person become a monk. While this person spends 5 hours per day doing rehabilitation, this monk appears to spend 5 hours per day trolling the internet rather than practising meditation. For example, sometimes when this person wants to sit, their body must walk. Other times, when this person wants to walk, their body must sit. Sometimes they want to quietly breathe, but the body may cough (which would disturb other monks). What happens to the abusive monk whose actions can cause distress & trauma (to a similar fool)? Are there any suttas about what happens to evil characters and uncontrolled men wearing the saffron robe?

Should we believe we have no enlightenment whatsoever? I mean, acting like you're the Dalai Lama, famous sage or future Buddha may well come off as offensive and stupid. But if we authentically believe we are identical to a Buddha, just somewhat unrealised, is that as insane and arrogant? If you are going to answer "that's what you realise" then please provide a reference point.

> 22. Because the continuity of the aggregates is similar to the light of a lamp, therefore the very existence or non-existence of an end is > unreasonable. https://www.stephenbatchelor.org/index.php/en/verses-from-the-center Is it because the action of the lamp is contained in light, so we cannot conceive of its end, and its end neither exists nor doesn't (same as a four sided triangle: it's a nonsense phrase). ---------- Before his dedication (30), Nagarjuna concludes > 29. And because all things are empty, about what and in whom do views such as that of permanence spring forth? Does that mean enlightenment is not a view, but the impossibility of a view about an end: rejecting the idea that things either end or do not. If an end is inconceivable then so is 'permanence', so the opposite of an end is not "permanence" but buddha-nature.

What is the best thing in life, according to a Buddha, excluding nirvana? I have no idea. As a goal, things to fill your life with. And why?

> When we speak of an individual having a property we nominalize the > predicate expressing the property we take to be constitutive and > ascribe the instantiating properties to the individual thus created. > There is, however, no deep ontological reason why we could not change > our view of what the constitutive and what the instantiating > properties are, and thereby describe the very same situation in terms > of different individuals and properties. But if we accept this picture > of ontology it is evident that we are not obliged to infer the > existence of a substratum or underlying individual from the existence > of a quality. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/ I take this to mean that the subject and predicate are reversible. So a round apple is both an apple that is round, and a round shape that is an apple. Does it mean then the relation of being "in" another thing is also symmetrical? If a patch of red is in my visual field, then my visual field is inside that red. 1. Surely an effect is in the action of a cause: then the action of a cause is in its effect. This sounds like 'no causation', and how I read Nagarjuna. 2. Whatever is essentially in the world can only end if the world does, because the world is also essentially in it. This seems to me to be the meaning of 'rebirth'. I *think* it's a mereological question, about parts and wholes: whether or not everything is - in reality - a part of everything else. > Concerning the antisymmetry postulate (18) [Two distinct things cannot be part of each other], the picture is even more complex. For one thing, some authors maintain that the relationship between an object and the stuff it is made of provides a perfectly ordinary counterexample of the antisymmetry of parthood... Sanford (1993: 222) refers to Borges's Aleph as a case in point: “I > saw the earth in the Aleph and in the earth the Aleph once more and > the earth in the Aleph …”. In this case, a plausible reply is simply > that fiction delivers no guidance to conceptual investigations: > conceivability may well be a guide to possibility, but literary > fantasy is by itself no evidence of conceivability (van Inwagen 1993: > 229). Perhaps the same could be said of Fazang's Jeweled Net of Indra, > in which each jewel has every other jewel as part (Jones 2012). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mereology/

I suddenly thought of a question... If one often feels unhappy, stress, uncontented, negativity, does it mean this person has bad karma? Is there a way to improve the situation so that the person can be calmer, and happy? TIA!

I am interested in learning about Buddhism. But I want to learn it from teachings of Buddha or other those texts which have not disinformed over the course of history. For example , if you read the book: https://books.google.co.in/books/about/History_Of_Hindu_Imperialism.html?id=51dWPgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y you will come to know how Hindu priestly caste ( Brahmins) were keen to do harm Buddhism as they were against equality. I think there is a possibility disinformation might have added in buddist texts in other regions of the world also. > So, can you please tell which text about buddhism contains least amount of disinformation and are best to learn about buddhism for a beginner? I shall be really thankful!

I have run into a mental trap about desire on the Buddhist path. I know desire is good if it is wholesome, ie say desire for enlightenment and etc. Yet what about a desire for the mastery of a skill such as being a musician or artist, and what about wanting in part that mastery for something as a career? The desire to make a enjoyable living seems ok but is it at odds especially if you want it because there is an aversion to other work that one finds disheartening and unfulfilling? Thank you.

I meditate a few years now. Since 3 months circa 1h at 4 days a week. Sometimes I pause due to "worldly" obligations. Today I started again after a 2 weeks pause. I experience a better ability to "get into the flow". I often made the experience, that pausing meditation can "level up" the experience. Sorry for the possibly not appropriate words. I have to say, that between these meditation phases I learn Dharma like listening to Shantideva "Way of a Bodhisattva" or sth. else. And I do mostly Shamata. Do you experience sth. similar? Is there a statement of the Buddha about the value of pausing meditation?

> A soul from a previous generation is reincarnated in a later > generation into a specific set of circumstances which are tailored to > engineer a rectification of a previous sin Are there instances in Buddhist scripture or history where there is a confirmation of the above statement as being typical, or being the purpose, of reincarnation? Don't know if sin prefigures in Buddhist thought or has connections to reincarnation, but the source of the quote above is drawn from Judaism and Kabbalah's conceptualization of reincarnation, which they do relate to sin.