Buddhist Christian?

Buddhist Channel had an article today about the topic of Buddhist Christians or Christian Buddhists having to practice in secrecy . Well, they do not fear angry Buddhists but somehow their own Christian fellow-believers. Why is that? Monotheistic wrath? What Meadow will explain to her critics — at least the ones who do her the [...]

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Even the 4 noble truths

…i would encourage you to read this post first. Otherwise you will have a hard time understanding what is said next: Now, interpreting “iti pajanati” directly as a way to meditate, even Buddha’s 4 noble truth become themself a theme of meditation a meditation instruction. You may have wondered how the first sermon was enough [...]

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Craving for Nibbana?

Or: How can i desire Nibbana if it is supposed to be the end of desires? Part of mainstream Buddhism and supported by a notion from late Mahayana school of thought is the proposition that you cannot achieve Nibbana if you still long for it. This not only sounds good but also seems very logical [...]

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Stronger prior to breaking

Or: The meaning of samyojana The Buddha defined four stages during the emancipation from Samsara: The stream enterer – someone who realized nibbana (magga-phala) through insight meditation for the first time with a reminder of 7 lives left in samsara The once returner – someone who realized nibbana a second time with a reminder of [...]

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Hearing background noise in the jhanas?

For many, this is a big issue. Some take the position to say, that it cannot be a jhana if the meditator experiences “any” (other) sense impression, than the meditation topic. Others say, wait a moment, i can clearly experience the 4 jhanas and even distinguish the individual factors which make up each jhana. But [...]

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iti and sallakkheti

Have you ever wondered, where the Buddha’s “meditation instructions” are? Why doesn’t he talk about them in the Pali Canon? Or does he? Well, he does… In fact, he cannot get any clearer explaining how exactly your practice of Buddhist meditation would look like. Lets take this passage, for example: “Samādhiṃ bhikkhave bhāvetha, samāhito bhikkhave [...]

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The king and the holy one

Or: How to recognize an enlightened being. Again, this sounds like a Zen story. But it is not. It is from the early days of Buddhist practice when Sri Lanka (in this case) was full of “Living Buddhist Masters”. Enjoy this beautiful and funny story: Once upon a time king Saddhatissa asked the Sangha: “Venerable [...]

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CST4 – additional dictionary resources

Frank Snow made his newly developed Chatta Sangayana Tipitaka v.4 very accessible. Especially when it comes to the dictionary. Here you can find a zip archive containing Buddhadatta’s Concise Pali-English and English-Pali dictionary in the correct format for the CST4. Just unzip the file and remove the number at the end of the dictionary file [...]

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Ksana – Pali Canon Search Engine & Reader

Even if you may be familiar with Tipitaka.Org’s online Tipitaka search engine you might not know that this search engine is, indeed, open source software and free to download: http://www.ksana.tw/ So with a 60MB download you get a web based complete edition of the Chatta Sangayana Pali Tipitaka with a VERY fast search engine. Here [...]

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no virtue – no meditation?

Why did the Buddha emphasis, over and over again, the necessity to keep the 5 basic precepts PURE in order to progress in meditation? Keep them for a couple of days while meditating and you will know! Nothing helps to sustain, enhance and support the results and the progress of meditation as much as spotless [...]

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