In giving food, one gives five things. What five? One gives life, beauty, happiness, strength and intelligence. And in giving these things, one partakes in the qualities of life, beauty, happiness, strength and intelligence, both here and hereafter.

Anguttara Nikaya III 42

In Buddhism, a stupa is a sacred structure that typically contains relics, such as the remains of the Buddha or other revered figures, as well as sacred texts or objects. It is an important symbol of enlightenment and a place of meditation and worship for practitioners.

The word "stupa" comes from the Sanskrit word meaning "heap" or "mound," reflecting its traditional dome-shaped structure. Stupas represent the Buddha’s mind and the path to enlightenment, symbolizing key elements of Buddhist cosmology, such as the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, and space).

Practitioners often walk around a stupa in a clockwise direction, a practice known as circumambulation, as an act of devotion and to accumulate merit. Stupas vary in design and size across different Buddhist traditions, but they universally serve as focal points for spiritual inspiration.

12. Yo ca vassasatam jive
duppanno asamahito
Ekaham jivitam seyyo
pannavantassa jhayino. 111.

A BRIEF LIFE OF WISDOM IS BETTER THAN A LONG LIFE OF STUPIDITY

12. Though one should live a hundred years without wisdom and control, yet better, indeed, is a single day's life of one who is wise and meditative. 111.

Story

A monk, having attained Arahantship in a forest, was coming to see the Buddha. As he was tired he sat on a flat rock and was enwrapt in Jhana ecstasy. Some thieves, having plundered a village, were carrying their boot when they came up to the rock where the monk was seated in meditation. Mistaking him for a tree stump as it was dark they piled their stolen goods on his head and slept. When the day dawned they discovered their mistake and begging pardon from him became monks. With their teacher they came to the Buddha. Hearing of their conversion, the Buddha praised a life of wisdom.

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

https://invite.viber.com/?g2=AQBLD6phsgvP%2F061YjEM3K%2BNeH1Yb372b9mtfQX2EmuBpgoLUoc99BDMfzHghrme
===

Free Buddha Dharma ebook

Timeless & True
By Phra Ajaan Fuang Jotiko

Free download available:

https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/ThaiAjaans/AjaanFuang_Timeless&True.pdf
===

Free Buddha Dharma ebook

Timeless & True
By Phra Ajaan Fuang Jotiko

Our teachers have laid the basis for our practice, setting out everything, with nothing lacking. The fact that the developments we experience in the practice aren’t complete comes from a lack within ourselves, in our own practice. We haven’t practiced enough to cut things away. We haven’t given the practice our full effort. So let’s take the opportunity today to make an effort, i.e., to fix our mindfulness—each and every one of us—securely on the in-and-out breath. There’s nothing much to it. Each of us has a breath. It’s a meditation theme we already have within ourselves.

We don’t have to go looking for it anywhere else. And there’s no need to doubt as to whether or not it’s true. So let’s come and look within ourselves, observe, investigate, ponder what’s within ourselves. The Buddha knew for himself what was true within himself; and we follow him by practicing in line with his teachings so as to see whether what’s within ourselves is true or false. So try to be as observant as possible within yourself.

This practice is said to be akāliko—timeless. The Buddha’s teachings aretimeless. The fact that there are no developments in our practice is because we have times. The Buddha says, “timeless.” We say there are times. Our times are more than many. Time for this, time for that, times for walking, times for sitting, times for sleeping, times for eating, times for talking—there are lots of them. Our life turns into nothing but times. So now let’s try practicing in a way that it becomes timeless.

The truth will then appear in our minds—each and every one of us. Everything that’s ready to develop is already there. We don’t have to get it from anywhere else.
Awareness itself—the “knowing” in the mind—is already there within us.

Free download available:

https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/ThaiAjaans/AjaanFuang_Timeless&True.pdf
===

“But Vaccha, suppose they were to ask you: ‘This fire in front of you that is quenched: in what direction did it go—east, south, west, or north?’ How would you answer?”

“It doesn’t apply, worthy Gotama. The fire depended on grass and logs as fuel. When that runs out, and no more fuel is added, the fire is reckoned to have become quenched due to lack of fuel.”

“In the same way, Vaccha, any form [feeling … perception … choices … consciousness] by which a realized one might be described has been given up, cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated, and unable to arise in the future. A realized one is freed from reckoning in terms of form [feeling … perception … choices … consciousness]. They’re deep, immeasurable, and hard to fathom, like the ocean. ‘They’re reborn’, ‘they’re not reborn’, ‘they’re both reborn and not reborn’, ‘they’re neither reborn nor not reborn’—none of these apply.

Partial excerpts from MN 72: Aggivacchasutta

Gunung Kawi Buddhist temple and meditation cave, Tampak Siring, Bali, Indonesia.

13. Yo ca vassasatam jive
kusito hinaviriyo
Ekaham jivitam seyyo
viriyam arabhato dalham. 112.

A BRIEF LIFE OF REFLECTION IS BETTER THAN A LONG LIFE OF NON-REFLECTION

13. Though one should live a hundred years idle and inactive yet better, indeed, is a single day's life of one who makes an intense effort. 112.

Story

A youth of good repute became a monk endowed with faith but, getting disappointed, attempted to kill himself. He tried to cause a serpent to bite him but it did not. Then he took a razor and tried to cut his windpipe. At that moment he reflected on his flawless life, meditated and attained Arahantship. The monks inquired of the Buddha how in an instant he who had attempted to commit suicide could have attained Arahantship. The Buddha spoke in praise of energetic striving.
===
Ajahn Chah, Buddhist teacher of Thai forest meditation of Theravada Buddhism channel:


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

As a rocky mountain
is unwavering and well grounded,
so when delusion ends,
a monk, like a mountain, doesn’t tremble.

To the man who has not a blemish
who is always seeking purity,
even a hair-tip of evil
seems as big as a cloud.

As a frontier city
is guarded inside and out,
so you should ward yourselves—
don’t let the moment pass you by.

I don’t long for death;
I don’t long for life;
I await my time,
like a worker waiting for their wages.

I don’t long for death;
I don’t long for life;
I await my time,
aware and mindful.

I’ve served the teacher
and fulfilled the Buddha’s instructions.
The heavy burden is laid down,
the conduit to rebirth is eradicated.

I’ve attained the goal
for the sake of which I went forth
from the lay life to homelessness—
the ending of all fetters.

Persist with diligence:
this is my instruction.
Come, I’ll be fully extinguished—
I’m liberated in every way.


Partial excerpts from Thag 14.1 Khadiravaniyarevatattheragāthā: Khadiravaniyarevata

Since I’ve gone forth
from the lay life to homelessness,
I’m not aware of any intention
that is ignoble and hateful.


I have been aware of loving-kindness,
limitless and well-developed;
gradually consolidated
as it was taught by the Buddha.

I’m friend and comrade to all,
compassionate for all beings!
I develop a mind of love,
always delighting in harmlessness.

Unfaltering, unshakable,
I gladden the mind.
I develop the divine meditation,
which sinners do not cultivate.

Having entered a meditation state without thought,
a disciple of the Buddha
is at that moment blessed
with noble silence.


I’ve served the teacher
and fulfilled the Buddha’s instructions.
The heavy burden is laid down,
the conduit to rebirth is eradicated.

I’ve attained the goal
for the sake of which I went forth
from the lay life to homelessness—
the ending of all fetters.

Persist with diligence:
this is my instruction.
Come, I’ll be fully extinguished—
I’m liberated in every way.


Thag 14.1 Khadiravaniyarevatattheragāthā

Ajahn Jayasaro

Free from the Burden of Holding On

What do you cling to? Let it go, says Ajahn Jayasaro, and you’ll discover something profound.

By Ajahn Jayasaro

Part 1 of 3

One of Ajahn Chah’s most well-known teachings is that of letting go. And one of the key phrases that he used to explain what letting go means, and how it is to be developed, is that we should let go “within action.” This immediately reminds us that letting go is not passivity or a refraining from action—the letting go takes place within the action itself.

Monks and nuns may sometimes be accused of attachment to the vinaya, attachment to a discipline. This is a difficult accusation to refute. If someone says you are attached to the vinaya, does that mean you have to stop keeping the precepts in order to prove that you’re not really attached? I think a distinction needs to be made between attachment and devotion.

In Pali there is an interesting distinction between two important words: upadana and samadana, both of which we usually translate as “attachment” or “clinging.” With upadana, we attach through ignorance. Samadana, however is the word for taking on a precept; it’s holding on to something with wisdom, for as long as it needs to be held. In explaining samadana, Ajahn Chah would say, it’s not that you don’t take hold of the object. For instance, you take hold of a water bottle, tip the bottle until you have as much water as you need, and then put it down. If you don’t hold on to the bottle at all, you are not going to get any water into the glass. So samadana is taking up a precept or practice with wisdom. Having undertaken it in such a way, one relates to it with devotion and loyalty.

Letting go doesn’t mean that we don’t take on responsibilities or practices, but that we let go within those practices. What exactly is it that we let go of? We let go of the five khandhas. They are body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts—wholesome and unwholesome dhammas in the mind—and sense consciousness. When we say we let go of them, this is a shorthand phrase meaning letting go of craving and clinging to those things through ignorance. But wherever we are, whoever we are, whatever practice we are undertaking, we are always dealing with these five khandhas or aggregates.

We let go of our attachment to the physical body. That doesn’t mean we are negligent or don’t take medicine when we get sick; rather, we examine our minds and are careful not to identify with the physical body. The pressure upon us to identify with the body is very strong, particularly in the present day. In previous times most people lived in quite small communities, with not much opportunity for travel. The number of times when you would be confronted with an image of someone more attractive than you would be quite small. But these days, everywhere you go, you are bombarded with images of attractive people. Whether it’s on billboards and television, or in magazines and newspapers, you are constantly being invited to compare your body with those bodies, and to feel disconnected from your own. Women in particular, throughout history, have been pressured into measuring their worth according to their body’s attractiveness.
You buy into an idea of yourself being a certain kind of person, and you dwell on it so much that it becomes a self-evident truth. Then one day in meditation, you see that it’s just a bubble.

Of course, if you identify with the body, you’re identifying with something that is going to betray you. The body is not a good friend. You do everything for your body, look after it so diligently, yet in the end, how does it repay you? It grows old, gets sick, falls apart, and dies. This is a reminder of the fundamental truth to which we should turn our minds again and again: nothing lasts. That’s such a powerful phrase. It’s the simple truth of anicca, impermanence. And it’s through turning our minds to simple truths that we recognize the resistance to them that we all have.

How much do we crave for things to last, at least the things we like? We see the romantic stories: moonlit night, young people in love. “I wish this night could last forever”—why might they say that? Because they know it doesn’t last. Precisely because the moonlit night and that intensity of romantic emotion don’t last, there comes this expression of, “If only this could last forever.” But it can’t. Nothing can.

This body doesn’t last. So the more we invest our sense of dignity, self-worth, and identity in the body, the more we set ourselves up for pain. It’s a matter not of adopting a particular attitude toward the body but of being willing to look at it very clearly. When we look at other people’s bodies, we can notice how particular, how biased we are, how much we tend to dwell on certain aspects of the body and try to turn our minds away from other aspects.

Consider also the extent to which our lives are dominated by vedana, feelings, how much they constrict our conduct. How many times do we turn away from wholesome, noble, beautiful actions simply because we fear dukkba-vedana, the unpleasant feelings that we might have to encounter? How often do we perform actions that we know are going to lead to pain—actions that are foolish, trivial, ignoble—merely because of the thirst for the pleasant feelings that will arise in performing them? How often do we betray our own ideals simply through the weakness that manifests as the love of pleasant feelings and the aversion to, and fear of, unpleasant ones?

In modern society, probably one of the most underrated and forgotten virtues is that of patient endurance. We don’t want to have to put up with things we don’t like; we want everything at our fingertips. Even monastics, who live at some remove from modern society, sometimes say, “Oh, it was terrible, but at least I got some patient endurance from it.” It’s like a kind of consolation prize. If we don’t get anything else from it, at least we got a little bit of patient endurance. Patience is not a virtue that anybody, even monastics these days, tends to encourage. And yet when we read the Ovada- patimokkba, the first set of rules given to the Buddha’s assembly, what does the Buddha say? He says that patient endurance, khanti, is the supreme incinerator of defilements.
===
Words of the Buddha channel:

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

Free Buddha Dharma ebook

Mindfulness of Breathing (Anapanasati) (Second Revised Edition)
By Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw



Free download here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7p0UB1QfBmvcl8ycFE1N0xXNGc
===

Free Buddha Dharma ebook

Mindfulness of Breathing (Anapanasati) (Second Revised Edition)
By Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw

In accordance with The Buddha's series of instructions, the Sayadaw first describes how the yogi develops samatha with mindfulness of breathing, until there appears the light of wisdom and the sign of concentration, the nimitta. Then the Sayadaw explains how the yogi develops the gained concentration, until the attainment of the fourth jhāna. Afterwards, the Sayadaw explains how the yogi uses the light of wisdom to discern ultimate materiality, ultimate mentality, and their dependent origination, in order then to develop vipassanā. Finally, the Sayadaw explains how the yogi progresses through the series of insight knowledges until there is realization of Nibbāna. In each case, the Sayadaw explains how the yogi's gradual development fulfils the thirty-seven requisites of enlightenment: in samatha, in vipassanā, and in the realization of Nibbāna.

Free download here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7p0UB1QfBmvcl8ycFE1N0xXNGc
===

14. Yo ca vassasatam jive
apassam udayavyayam
Ekaham jivitam seyyo
passato udayavyayam. 113.

ONE DAY OF EXPERIENCING THE DEATHLESS IS BETTER THAN A CENTURY WITHOUT SUCH AN EXPERIENCE

14. Though one should live a hundred years without comprehending how all things rise and pass away, 11 yet better, indeed, is a single day's life of one who comprehends how all things rise and pass away. 113.

Story

Patacara, lost her husband, her children, her parents and her only brother under tragic circumstances. The Buddha comforted her and she became a nun. One day while she was washing her feet, she noticed how the water flowed away in three stages - some drops of water flowed and subsided close to her, some farther away from her, some still farther away from her. This induced her to meditate on the transiency of life, of which she had personal experience. The Buddha saw her with His Divine Eye and, projecting Himself before her, uttered this stanza. Soon she attained Arahantship.


===
Free Buddhism books, teachings, podcasts and videos from Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions:

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