I have been meditating (samatha-vipassana within the Theravada tradition) for many years now, and I see myself always falling in the same pattern: (1) I have periods of very high motivation, which can last 2-6 weeks, and in which I make lots of progress and develop good levels of insight and concentration (good access concentration, experiences of pity and sukha, more lucid insight on impermanence, etc.) I also read and watch lots of content on practice and get closer to people who share this "interest". (2) When these phases wane, my sittings get increasingly filled with thoughts related to other life matters, especially things that demand high levels of engagement and to which I am somewhat attached (work projects, a new hobby, a new life development). I keep my regular practice (2hrs daily: 1hr in the morning, 1hr in the evening) but my concentration quickly decreases, and I struggle to stay with any object of meditation for long periods. Mindfulness in daily life also gradually disappears. (3) This goes on until a reading, a conversation, a film or something apparently random brings me back into state (1). Going through these phases, insight and understanding of practice is the only thing that very slowly accumulates, and gradually increases, but concentration and mindfulness really oscillate and always seem to get back to where I started, whenever I experience state (2). I have observed this for many years, with many eyes and from many viewpoints inside myself, while sitting and while mindful in action. And what stands out to me is a certain quality of motivation (for lack of a better word) which manifests as a cluster of perceptions, emotions, physical patterns and thought processes. This motivation (like the so-called dopamine cycle, to which it is probably linked) seems to go through a growth phase to a peak, and then decrease. I have tried to voluntarily trigger the growth of this motivation factor during the descending phase (2), by reading books and create commitments that relate to the practice, even though obviously part of me develops aversion or neutrality to the whole thing. This has rarely worked. How do you deal with motivation swings on a scale such as this? What can I do to change this pattern and boost my progress? Observing all of this does not seem to have much of an impact, at least so far.

I am Buddhist, but not a strict vegetarian. When new acquaintances discover this they are often shocked and wonder, "How can this be??!!" I'm going to try and explain my answer and see what others think. I contend that being a vegetarian can often act as a temporary hindrance for some Buddhists. They miss the forest for the trees. One of my own preceding factors for learning about the Dharma was a decision to look deeply at my own consumption of meat and to explore the ethical and moral implications thereof in an honest and heartfelt way that I had never done before. I made a choice not to eat meat and became a vegetarian for five years more or less in parallel to my discovering and contemplating the Buddha Dharma, but to be clear *I became a vegetarian strictly BEFORE I became a Buddhist* or began practicing Buddha Dharma in earnest. Over the ensuing years since then I have abandoned being a strict vegetarian and have continued and strengthened in my practice of the Buddha Dharma. At first, the two seemed to coincide completely, but over time I found myself dwelling on being a vegetarian and being greatly disturbed to find other Buddhists who were not. Upon hearing that another member of the Sangha ate meat I would tend to distrust them and look at them as hypocrites at worst and misguided or lower than me in their ethical understanding of Buddha Dharma at best. I was a proselytizer for becoming a vegetarian to my buddhist/ non-buddhist friends alike and worried about what more I could do to convince others. I grew despondent and anxious over my inability to convince others and suffered thinking about and empathizing with all the animals that were being killed on a daily/hourly/second-by-second basis merely to provide the flesh for the insatiable human demand for meat. When I looked at the scale of the problem, billions of animals dying and billions of people consuming their flesh in this carnivorous world I became hopeless that it would ever stop. I thought all of these thoughts indicated progress on the path as my heart opened up with compassion for all these animals. But there was this nagging thought that I was actually not at all happy and was actually suffering thinking about all this in a repetitive way day after day. It occurred to me that this seemed inconsistent with what my teachers said that progress on the path - on a coarse level - is seen commensurate with an increase in happiness and a decrease in suffering. Finally, it got bad enough that I more or less confessed all the above to my teacher and his response shocked me. He laughed with a deep and merry belly laugh and advised that I should get over being a vegetarian and the best way to do this was to eat a little meat. He asked me how many animals I had saved today suffering at being a vegetarian and how many I would save tomorrow. He contended that my choice of being a vegetarian had not helped even one animal to escape from samsara and that I had yet to even begin to reconcile with the scale of the problem of samsara as opposed to the *nearly insignificant in comparison* problem of the human market for meat. He told me I needed to let go of this attachment to being a vegetarian and congratulating myself on how ethical and moral I was compared to all those who were not and to get busy doing the actual work of becoming enlightened so that I may *actually* help all those animals. When I look back I think my teacher was entirely correct. Being a vegetarian had become a hindrance for me. And since that time I think of all the people (including fellow Buddhists) who react with outrage at the idea that I am not a strict vegetarian and wonder if they are not all on a similar path that will require them to put down this hindrance in the future in order to make progress. Of course, it is my responsibility to overcome this hindrance and make it temporary. No one can do this for me. It simply isn’t the case that being a vegetarian is necessarily a hindrance for some like there is some property of being a vegetarian that makes it impossible for some to progress. There is nothing inherent to being a vegetarian that makes one fall into the trap that I fell into. Rather, it was my own karma and ego that made it so and it is my responsibility to overcome this so that being a vegetarian will no longer be a hindrance for me just as it is not for OyaMist who has the most wonderful answer I could imagine and one I aspire to. So there you have it... a question I've been meaning to ask for awhile and inspired by activity in this related post and some of the excellent answers and discussion within. **Can being a vegetarian actually be a temporary hindrance for some?**

Does any extant tradition claim that the unity of samadhi and prajna^ is actual from the beginning of the bodhisatva path, so that it is available to the neophyte - just with less power of something similar to more advanced bodhisatvas? ^e. g. Chinul: >Samadhi being prajna, it is quiescent and yet always knowing. or Platform Sutra: >To argue whether prajna or samadhi comes first would put one in the same position as those who are under delusion... a lamp and its light. So you can see, they are one, yet - perhaps - not everyone realizes this in their practice? Just asking because I think it may be the meaning of human life etc..

In this Dhamma Talk, Venerable Ajahn Chan expound about Buddho the one who knows which is above the mind as quoted below, what is it? is it just part of the mind? I'm looking for further reference on this if possible from the Pali canon... Many Thanks > ... For us it's the same. Only this mind is important. That's why they say to train the mind. Now if the mind is the mind, what are we going to train it with? By having continuous sati and sampajañña we will be able to know the mind. **This one who knows is a step beyond the mind, it is that which knows the state of the mind. The mind is the mind. That which knows the mind as simply mind is the one who knows. It is above the mind. The one who knows is above the mind, and that is how it is able to look after the mind, to teach the mind to know what is right and what is wrong.** In the end everything comes back to this proliferating mind. If the mind is caught up in its proliferations there is no awareness and the practice is fruitless.

Did buddha said anything about upanishad. Did he consider upanishades teaching use full. Or did he rejected them like vedas.

>I have been trying to think about Buddhism, Scientology and Gaia religions. They do not focus on a God but rather the eternal inner spirit and reincarnation. The best so far I have come up with is “Spiritual” or “Letsism” . Letsism is an unspecified belief in an undetermined transcended reality. Or even “Dianetics” a Set of ideals and practices regarding the relationship between mind and body. Not sure yet. This is a quote from a Quora answer to What is the term for those who believe in God, but not in religion? and it got me curious. I know this has been asked before in a couple of different ways, but what is Buddhism? https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/11042/17739 tells us that >Buddhism is a nontheistic religion or philosophy (Sanskrit: dharma; Pali: dhamma) that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to Gautama Buddha, commonly known as the Buddha ("the awakened one"). > >[...] > >The foundations of Buddhist tradition and practice are the Three Jewels: > > - The Buddha – One who attains enlightenment by oneself, then teaches others to become enlightened; > > - The Dharma – the theory and practice taught by a self-enlightened Buddha; and > > - The Sangha – the community who attained enlightenment following the teachings of Buddha. The answer also points out that Buddhist traditions can incorporate >**Devotional practices** – non-theistic objects of devotion include the Buddha, past enlightened followers of the Buddha, Bodhisatvas, angels, gods, and living spiritual teachers. This seems to contradict the Quora quote when it said that Buddhism does not focus on a God. https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/24902/17739 points out through the answers that Buddhism can be seen as a religion, but... >The Buddha did not ask for anyone to take his word with respect to Dhamma - things as they are. He asked people to not blindly obey, to not follow ritual, to not ignore or go against what they directly observe. In this respect, Buddhism is at its core a scientific method. > >[...] > >Most major religions accept testimony of the wise, seers, prophets etc as truths, as well as others from the above link [pramanas ]. Buddhism does not. So, going back to the Quora quote, is Buddhism - a form of Letsism — an unspecified belief in an undetermined transcended reality? - a ​form of Dianetics — a set of ideals and practices regarding the relationship between mind and body? Or, - aside from "new age Buddhism ", is it just purely a spiritual teaching based on a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects?

I've been practicing it and it seems to work well. It seems that I can explain this in terms of nash equilibrium. I tend to see it that all of us are already physically able to achieve much and paying attention to some topic will subconsciously allow us to manifest what we want. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction_(New_Thought) Buddhism teaches that there are laws that govern human nature. There are laws of living objects. There are laws of karma. Is the law of attraction one such law? By the way, I tend to see Buddhism as a way to understand life instead of as a religion. I am not Buddhist but I see that there is some truth in what Buddha taught. So that's my background.

What is nirvana if it is not just a beatific consciousness free from suffering in all meanings? I want to move away from that and the idea of the perfections (both seem slightly off). So there is meant to be no person to have found its happiness, and soon after nirvana is realised there is no longer even any aggregates to experience its bliss. We agree there is less suffering in the world when a aspirant attains any kind of buddhahood, right? One metaphor is the extinguishment of a lamp, its flame being, I suppose, a kind of burning. Do we look at it pseudo **objectively** (one less thing in pain in samsara), pseudo *subjectively* (the extinction of a particular painful cycle of rebirth), or some mixture of the two (e.g. it belongs to one consciousness but ***a reason for happiness for all***). So could you say it's not just a beatific sense of profound bliss, its the ground of all happiness that does not fool anyone? If so, if that's a fair characterisation (not at all sure it is), do Buddhists define that as a consciousness, and if so with what meaning?

Are there any Suttas, Vinaya or Abhidhamma explaining sīlabbata-parāmāsa **in detail**? Please kindly provide examples if knowing. Thank you

I read on the internet the following doctrinal statement regarding Buddhist Philosophy: > Furthermore, they believe that the dhammas are "not empty" because they are merely empty of "yourself." If the above is true, is there a "self" beyond "your self", such as "universal self", similar to Brahma or Atman?

I am wondering what is the buddhist view on Art and especially being an Artist? Meaning someone who creates something with an aesthetic quality that may or may not reflect the reality and express thoughts, feelings ideas etc. As I try to study the basics of buddhism I am encountering this strange conflict when, for example (in my case filmmaking), you like to create a fictional stories, character and even entire worlds, universes.. and that often leads you away from the actual reality. Of course all the thoughts, concepts, stories, songs, plays, paintings, movies etc. in most cases have some symbolic, deeper meaning that does not changed much from the early times. They are rather variations of the "big" questions, pain, love, suffering, live and such and therefore can have the ability to enrich the viewer, provoke thinking and feeling or any other response. But the creation process takes a huge amount of energy, and a lot of thinking about. I am not sure if that's such a good thing in the end...

I am studying Nagarjuna's work online and from the commentaries understand that in the Madhyamika Nagarjuna describe 'Shunayata' as > all phenomena are conditional and empty of any self essence I am not able to understand how is this any different than the doctrine of Anatta that the Buddha taught? > that no unchanging, permanent self or essence can be found in any phenomenon.

Many people frequently make bold and confident claims about what Buddhism is or isn't with little or no humility or doubt. Their views are asserted to be correct, and anything contrary to their view is asserted to be simply wrong or a misunderstanding. My own doubts are sometimes the cause of suffering, but they also protect me from having fixed views which can be erroneous and leave no space for growth, adjustment and wisdom. My view is that the more confidently a view is expounded, the more likely it is to be wrong, and the more likely that self-clinging and self-cherishing are lurking in the mind, but even this view seems uncertain. Perhaps developing contentment with the uncertainty of reality is a part of wise practice, but I can't be too sure of that either.

There Can Only Be Two Types of Realities(Dharmas): 1.Conditioned Reality: Any reality that depends on something for its existence. For example, a Cow depends on its organs, the organs depend on cells, the cells depend on molecules, which depend on atoms,wich depend on electrons,wich depend on Quarks and so forth. This dependence is simultaneous at every moment the conditioned reality exists. 2.Unconditioned Reality: Any reality that is self-sufficient, i.e. does not depend on anything else for its existence. This is what is called “Brahman''(The one Spirit ''or ''Ishwara''(God). any conditioned reality depends upon another reality in order to exist by definition. Any conditioned Dharma, must depend upon: a finite number of conditioned Dharmas alone or an infinite number of conditioned Dharmas alone or a finite number of conditioned Dharmas and at least one unconditioned Dharma A conditioned Dharma cannot be caused by a finite series of conditioned Dharma: If there is a linear series of conditioned Dharma, what would the first one depend on? Since it must depend on something, and there is nothing before it, the whole chain ceases to exist. Thus a linear chain of conditioned realities cannot exist. Additionally, a circular finite chain of conditioned Dharmas could not exist either. This would simply result in each conditioned reality fulfilling their own conditions, which is against the definition of a conditioned Dharma. Conditioned realities cannot exist in an infinite Series either. A very large unlimited of number conditioned realities cannot exist,. As the number of conditioned realities in a series increases, the result continues to be non-existence. Continuously adding to the end of the chain would never allow for the conditions of existence to be satisfied, thus the entire infinite chain of conditioned Dharmas would never have its conditions fulfilled. If an infinite (I am granting You guys the notion that a actual Infinite can exist in quantity for the sake of argument,I do not Believe this)series of conditioned Dharmas could exist on its own, the complete set of infinite conditioned Dharma would be an unconditioned Dharma. However, this is impossible because an unconditioned dharma cannot depend upon an aggregate of conditioned dharmas . if this were the case, it would be conditioned. Therefore, a set of infinite conditioned realities is itself a conditioned reality, and fails to exist on its own. Since any model made up entirely of conditioned Dharmas can never have their conditions fulfilled, every conditioned Dharma must be caused by a series of realities that ends (or begins its ontological Series) with an unconditioned Dharma. Thus it Seems that a intrinsic Existance does exist?So how can Shunyata and sarva dharma anatta be True?

When I read [this article on the tallest statues in the world](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/10/photos-15-tallest-statues-world/574531/) , I was struct by how many of them were of important Buddhist figures: of the fifteen tallest statues six are of Guanyin (Kannon/Avalokiteśvara), five of the Buddha, and one of Kṣitigarbha, for a total of twelve out of the top fifteen! Why are such tall statues built? What significance does the height of these statues have in the religious lives of Buddhist adherents? Or are these statues not built for true religious purposes, but as an unofficial competition between nations, just like they compete over the tallest skyscraper? Nine out of the fifteen were built in the 21th century. Who commissions these statues? Statues of this size would be beyond the budgets of most temples. See also: [this question on why precious metals are used for Buddhist statues](https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/1747/11169) .

Am currently taking Tricycle course on Effortless mindfulness. The concept of being aware of awareness is difficult for me. Any ideas to help achieve being aware of awareness during meditation as a type of "advanced" basic mindfulness?

I masturbate to avoid having sex with other people. I've masturbated quite a lot. I don't want to have sexual intercourse with anyone else though I love sex. I've been keeping my body away from sexual desire with other men and found masturbation as a good feeling. I've never had any imagination of anyone else or rarely (if it does, it should be a person that I really like or dating with but I just keep desire away from him, again rarely). I also have known that masturbation could prevent sexual assaults. Is this a sin or not?

I need a list of all the people mentioned in the Pali canon who were in the story of the historic Gautama the Buddha. For e.g. Angulimal, Ananda etc. I did a google search for the same but did not find the answer. Also, if you can provide sutta reference for their mention that will be great.

Is there a phrase for speech which doesn't hurt someone's feelings, isn't gossip or malicious (meant to harm them in some way), but is in some sense still wrong speech? A sort of *indignant* speech? > feeling or showing anger or annoyance at what is perceived as unfair > treatment. Is it forbidden, bad karma? I understand that it is often *unhelpful*, but am unsure if it's neutral or wrong.

When does right or wrong view at death over ride the karma one has accumulated in life? I was just reading (googling) how right and wrong view when we be die *can* determine our next birth, rather than our karma in general. For genuine Buddhists, this may not be a problem, because that is also temporary. But it's an issue for me, so I wondered *when* that happens, when karma plays less of a role. ---------- Here is what I was reading > right and wrong view at the time of death can only temporary over ride (not eradicate) karma This seems to be the explanation for how evil doers with wrong view can end up with a good rebirth (and virtuous people with right view a poor rebirth): a momentary change of view. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.136.nymo.html