I, I, we: These terms have their skillful uses. They remind you that you have to take responsibility for the path. No one else and nothing else can do it for you. If you try to throw away all notions of desire, striving, and your role in doing the path, the path won’t get done. Only when it’s done can you safely put these notions aside.

You may have heard of the simile of the raft: To get to the farther shore, you use twigs, branches, and vines you find on this shore to put together a raft. This stands for the fact that the raft has to be made of things—like desire and your sense of “I”—found in the unawakened mind. And you have to put them together skillfully. You can’t just dump them in the river and hope that they’ll carry you across.

Once you’ve made the raft, then, holding on to it and making an effort with your hands and feet, you swim over to the other shore. At that point, you can put the raft down and go on your way. But you don’t put it down until it’s done its job, and you do put it down with a sense of appreciation:

“How useful this raft has been to me! For it was in dependence on this raft that, making an effort with my hands & feet, I have crossed over to safety on the further shore.” – MN 22

In the same way, you don’t put aside your desire for awakening or your sense of yourself as responsible for the path until the path has done its job. And when you put them down skillfully, you’ll do it with an appreciative sense of the good they have done.
===
Thanissaro Bhikkhu is an American Theravada Buddhist monk trained in the Thai Forest Tradition. He currently serves as abbot of the Metta Forest Monastery in San Diego County, California and is a frequent contributor to Tricycle. His latest book is Good Heart, Good Mind: The Practice of the Ten Perfections. Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s talks, writings, and translations are all freely available at his website:
www.dhammatalks.org
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Part 1 of 3:

https://news.1rj.ru/str/wordsofbuddha/3499


Part 2 of 3:

https://news.1rj.ru/str/dhammapadas/2455


Part 3 of 3:

https://news.1rj.ru/str/lorddivinebuddha/2877

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Buddha dharma teachings channel:

https://news.1rj.ru/str/lorddivinebuddha
===

The Great Buddha, a giant white Buddha statue in dhyana mudra position, Bodhgaya, Bihar, Bharat Ganarajya.

Free Buddha Dharma ebook

Good Kamma! Bad Kamma! What Exactly Is Kamma?

By Bhante Shravasti Dhammika


Free download available:

https://budblooms.org/good-kamma-bad-kamma-what-exactly-is-kamma/
===

Free Buddha Dharma ebook

Good Kamma! Bad Kamma! What Exactly Is Kamma?

By Bhante Shravasti Dhammika

Today, the information in most books on kamma and rebirth by Buddhist writers are actually an amalgam of ideas the Buddha taught together with ones that developed sometimes centuries after his passing. And it is all presented as if it were the words and ideas of the Buddha himself. This would be equivalent to quoting Aquinas or Kierkegaard and attributing it to Jesus. Often, what is presented as the Buddha’s teaching of kamma and rebirth is actually the ideas from the Milindapañha written perhaps 400 or 500 years after the Buddha, of Buddhaghosa who lived some 900 after him, or Anuruddha, the author of the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha, who lived about 1400 years after him. This is not to say that these later ideas are necessarily wrong. Some of them help to clarify things the Buddha said or take them to their logical conclusions. But they are all the product of scholarly speculation and hypothesizing, while what the Buddha taught was the outcome of his awakening experience. Thus this book will look at kamma and rebirth based on how these doctrines are presented in the Pāḷi Tipiṭaka, the oldest and most authentic record we have of the Buddha’s teaching.

Free download available:

https://budblooms.org/good-kamma-bad-kamma-what-exactly-is-kamma/
===

Big Amitabha Buddha, Lantau Island, Hong Kong.

Dhammapada Verse 409
Annataratthera Vatthu

Yo'dha digham va rassam va
anum thulam subhasubham
Joke adinnam nadiyati
tamaham brumi brahmanam.

Verse 409: Him I call a Brahmana, who, in this world takes nothing that is not given him, be it long or short, big or small, good or bad.

The Story of a Certain Thera

While residing at the Jetavana monastery, the Buddha uttered Verse (409) of this book, with reference to a certain thera.

One day, a brahmin from Savatthi put his upper garment outside his house to air it. A thera found that garment as he was going back to the monastery. Thinking that it was a piece of cloth thrown away by someone and therefore ownerless, the thera picked it up. The brahmin looking out of his window saw the thera picking up the piece of clothing and came after the thera, abusing and accusing him. "You shaven head! You are stealing my clothing", he said; the thera promptly returned the piece of clothing to the brahmin.

Back at the monastery, the thera related the above Incident to other bhikkhus, and they made fun of him and jokingly asked him whether the cloth was long or short, coarse or fine. To this question the thera answered, "Whether the clothing is long or short, coarse or fine matters not to me; I am not at all attached to it." Other bhikkhus then reported to the Buddha that the thera was falsely claiming himself to be an arahat. To them the Buddha replied, "Bhikkhus! The thera speaks the truth; an arahat does not take anything that is not given him."

Then the Buddha spoke in verse as follows:
Verse 409: Him I call a Brahmana, who, in this world takes nothing that is not given him, be it long or short, big or small, good or bad.

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Words of the Buddha channel:

https://news.1rj.ru/str/wordsofbuddha
===

Prince Siddhartha Gautama walking on lotus flower with one hand pointing upwards, Baipu temple, Liao dynasty era temple complex, Beijing, China.

Dhammapada Verse 410
Sariputtatthera Vatthu

Asa yassa na vijjanti
asmim loke paramhi ca
nirasasam visamyuttam
tamaham brumi brahmanam.

Verse 410: Him I call a brahmana, who has no desire either for this world or for the next, who is free from craving and from moral defilements.

The Story of Thera Sariputta

While residing at the Jetavana monastery, the Buddha uttered Verse (410) of this book, with reference to Thera Sariputta.

On one occasion, Thera Sariputta accompanied by five hundred bhikkhus went to a monastery near a small village to spend the vassa. At the end of the vassa, Thera Sariputta wanted robes for young bhikkhus and samaneras. So he said to the bhikkhus, "If people come to offer robes, send them to me or inform me"; and then he left for the Jetavana monastery to pay homage to the Buddha. Other bhikkhus misunderstood Thera Sariputta's instructions, and said to the Buddha, "Venerable Sir! Thera Sariputta is still attached to material things like robes and other requisites of a bhikkhu." To them the Buddha replied, "Bhikkhus! My son Sariputta has no more craving in him. He told you to bring the robes to him, so that the chances to perform meritorious deeds may not decrease for lay-disciples, and the chances to accept whatever they may properly receive may not be reduced for young bhikkhus and samaneras."

Then the Buddha spoke in verse as follows:
Verse 410: Him I call a brahmana, who has no desire either for this world or for the next, who is free from craving and from moral defilements.

===
Dhammapada, beloved and favorite teachings of the Buddha channel:

https://news.1rj.ru/str/dhammapadas
===

Free Buddha Dharma ebook

The Truth Taught by All the Buddhas
By Bhikkhu Revata

Free download available:

https://static.sariputta.com/pdf/tipitaka/1239/the-truth-taught-by-all-the-buddhas.pdf

===

Free Buddha Dharma ebook

The Truth Taught by All the Buddhas
By Bhikkhu Revata

After attaining Full Enlightenment, the Buddha spent the rest of His life – forty-five years – going about teaching others the truth He had realised for Himself.
The truth the Buddha realised and taught is still available to us today. It is profound and far reaching. It consists of conventional truth and ultimate truth. There is no truth in the entire world that is not contained in these two truths.
Outside of the conventional truth and ultimate truth taught by the Buddha, there is no truth whatsoever. What the Buddha taught explains everything completely.
Having access to both the conventional truth and the ultimate truth taught by the Buddha is an extremely precious opportunity. It is very beneficial to learn and study the Dhamma, but the profound nature of the Buddha’s teaching becomes startlingly clear when it is practised. These two truths can liberate us from all suffering.
Hearing or reading the two truths taught by the Buddha is not enough for liberation. Knowledge is beneficial and necessary, but seeing for oneself is the only way to attain freedom from suffering.
The defilements that afflict our minds and cause us suffering are rooted in ignorance. Chief among the defilements is craving, the cause of suffering. One cannot simply stop craving by an act of will. One needs to know and see the truth of things as they really are, yathābhūta-ñāṇa-dassana, which essentially means knowing and seeing ultimate truth. Even though all of the Buddhas wanted to emphasise ultimate truth and would have preferred to teach only that, they never left conventional truth behind when expounding the profound Dhamma to the world in order to help us understand ultimate truth. What conventional and ultimate truth are is elucidated in this book. When one truly knows and sees ultimate truth, ignorance is eliminated, and one becomes truly wise. When one attains knowledge and vision of the way things are, craving ceases. Suffering ceases. One realises the truth that the Buddha Himself realised. One attains Nibbāna

Free download available:

https://static.sariputta.com/pdf/tipitaka/1239/the-truth-taught-by-all-the-buddhas.pdf

===

Mendicants, before my awakening—when I was still unawakened but intent on awakening—I too, being liable to be reborn, sought what is also liable to be reborn. Myself liable to grow old, fall sick, die, sorrow, and become corrupted, I sought what is also liable to these things. Then it occurred to me: ‘Why do I, being liable to be reborn, grow old, fall sick, sorrow, die, and become corrupted, seek things that have the same nature? Why don’t I seek that which is free of rebirth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, and corruption, the supreme sanctuary from the yoke, extinguishment?’

Some time later, while still with pristine black hair, blessed with youth, in the prime of life—though my mother and father wished otherwise, weeping with tearful faces—I shaved off my hair and beard, dressed in ocher robes, and went forth from the lay life to homelessness.

Partial excerpts from MN 26 : Pāsarāsisutta

Identity and Selflessness in Buddhism: No Self or True Self?

Examining Buddhist notions of identity and selflessness
By Jack Kornfield

Part 1 of 2


Spiritual practice inevitably brings us face to face with the profound mystery of our own identity. We have taken birth in a human body. What is this force that gives us life, that brings us and the world into form? The world’s great spiritual teachings tell us over and over we are not who we think we are. But does that mean there is no self or a search for true self?

Persian mystics say we are sparks of the divine, and Christian mystics say we are filled with God. We are one with all things, say others. The world is all illusion, say others. Some teachings explain how consciousness creates life to express all possibilities, to be able to love, to know oneself. Others point out how consciousness gets lost in its patterns, loses its way, incarnates out of ignorance. Hindu yogas call the world a lila, or a dance of the divine, much like Dante’s phrase, “the divine comedy.”

Buddhist texts describe how consciousness itself creates the world like a dream or a mirage. Modern accounts of near-death experiences are filled with reports of wonderful ease after leaving the body, of golden light and luminous beings. Perhaps these, too, confirm how we are unaware of our true identity most of the time.

When we look into the question of self and identity in spiritual practice, we find it requires us to understand two distinct dimensions of no self and true self.

When the Buddha confronted the question of identity on the night of his enlightenment, he came to the radical discovery that we do not exist as separate beings. He saw into the human tendency to identify with a limited sense of existence. Then he discovered that this belief in an individual small self is a root illusion. It causes suffering and removes us from the freedom and mystery of life. He described this as interdependent arising, the cyclical process of consciousness creating identity by entering form, responding to contact of the senses, then attaching to certain forms, feelings, desires, images, and actions to create a sense of self.

Who created the self?

In teaching, the Buddha never spoke of humans as persons existing in some fixed or static way. Instead, he described us as a collection of five changing processes: the processes of the physical body, of feelings, of perceptions, of responses, and of the flow of consciousness that experiences them all. Our sense of self arises whenever we grasp at or identify with these patterns. The process of identification, of selecting patterns to call “I,” “me,” “myself,” is subtle and usually hidden from our awareness. We can identify with our body, feelings, or thoughts; we can identify with images, patterns, roles, and archetypes.

Thus, in our culture, we might fix and identify with the role of being a woman or a man, a parent or a child. We might take our family history, our genetics, and our heredity to be who we are. Sometimes we identify with our desires: sexual, aesthetic, or spiritual. In the same way we can focus on our intellect or take our astrological sign as an identity. We can choose the archetype of hero, lover, mother, ne’er-do-well, adventurer, clown, or thief as our identity and live a year or a whole lifetime based on that. To the extent that we grasp these false identities, we continually have to protect and defend ourselves, strive to fulfill what is limited or deficient in them, to fear their loss.

Yet, these are not our true identity. One master with whom I studied used to laugh at how easily and commonly we would grasp at new identities. As for his non-self, he would say, “I am none of that. I am not this body, so I was never born and will never die. I am nothing and I am everything. Your identities make all your problems. Discover what is beyond them, the delight of the timeless, the deathless.”

Different kinds of self

Because the question of identity and selflessness is subject to confusion and misunderstanding, let us go into it more carefully. When Christian texts speak of losing the self in God, when Taoists and Hindus speak of merging with a True Self beyond all identity, when Buddhists speak of emptiness and of no self, what do they mean? Emptiness does not mean that things don’t exist, nor does “no self” mean that we don’t exist. Emptiness refers to the underlying nonseparation of life and the fertile ground of energy that gives rise to all forms of life. Our world and sense of self is a play of patterns.

Any identity we can grasp is transient, tentative. This is difficult to understand from words such as selflessness or emptiness of self. In fact, my own teacher Achaan Chah said, “If you try to understand it intellectually, your head will probably explode.” However, the experience of no self in practice can bring us to great freedom.

Deep meditation can untangle the sense of identity. There are, in fact, many ways in which we can realize the emptiness of self. When we are silent and attentive, we can sense directly how we can never truly possess anything in the world. Clearly we do not possess outer things. We are in some relationship with our cars, our home, our family, our jobs, but whatever that relationship is, it is “ours” only for a short time. In the end, things, people, or tasks die or change or we lose them. Nothing is exempt.
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Part 1 of 2:

https://news.1rj.ru/str/dhammapadas/2477


Part 2 of 2:

https://news.1rj.ru/str/lorddivinebuddha/2903

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Dhammapada, beloved and favorite teachings of the Buddha channel:

https://news.1rj.ru/str/dhammapadas
===

Dhammapada Verse 411
Mahamoggallanatthera Vatthu

Yassalaya na vijjanti
annaya akathamkathi
amatogadha' manuppattam
tamaham brumi brahmanam.

Verse 411: Him I called a brahmana, who has no craving, who through knowledge of the Four Noble Truths is free from doubt, and has realized Nibbana the Deathless.

The Story of Thera Maha Moggallana

While residing at the Jetavana monastery, the Buddha uttered Verse (411) of this book, with reference to Thera Maha Moggallana.

On one occasion, the bhikkhus told the Buddha about Thera Maha Moggallana the same thing they had said of Thera Sariputta that he still had attachment to worldly things. To them the Buddha said that Thera Maha Moggallana had discarded all craving.

Then the Buddha spoke in verse as follows:
Verse 411: Him I called a brahmana, who has no craving, who through knowledge of the Four Noble Truths is free from doubt, and has realized Nibbana the Deathless.


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Buddha dharma teachings channel:

https://invite.viber.com/?g2=AQAKw1y3rv%2F6sk61PI2W4izuIiaEZj8YZujhY1tSzL%2B07s7rFnVFDAd0bAYFaMLw
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Mahabodhi temple, Bodhgaya, Bharat.