notes on the Dhamma

  Re: What texts should I study first? Edit Delete Report Quote Post   by  frank k  »  Mon Jan 23, 2023 10:32 am Gami47  wrote:  ↑ Thu Dec 15, 2022 2:34 pm This will give you a strong foundation. https://lucid24.org/misc/raft/index.html You shouldn't think of it like a college course where you go through an ordered series of suttas that you study, then move on and graduate from them. Rather, the Dhamma contains not a large amount of important ideas, but you keep revisiting them and deepening your understanding of it. The suttas were designed and composed for an oral tradition, which means to get to most out of it, you should memorize the core ideas, recite the instructions frequently, every day, think and ponder their meaning. Then dots will start to connect, and you'll deepen your understanding contiuously over time. Years later, decades later, you'll continue to discover deeper layers.

  Re: Can a Sotapanna be reborn in the hell or animal realm? Edit Delete Report Quote Post   by  frank k  »  Fri Jan 20, 2023 9:15 am [james]  wrote:  ↑ Sun Jan 15, 2023 12:45 pm If not, why not? What is there about the woeful realms that might conflict with the maximum seven lifetimes rule of stream enterer progression? That's an interesting question, and something occurred to me. Just as regular beings can to some extent influence where they're reborn, why would a stream enterer not be able to VOLUNTARILY be reborn into a lower realm, hell, animal realm, if they chose to? If a stream enterer were to just follow their karmic inertia and just go with the flow at the time of death, we know from the suttas they are guaranteed at most 7 more lifetimes, in favorable realms (not animal, not hell) before attaining final nirvana. Let's call a hypothetical stream enterer = "Steve" for convenience. Suppose Steve had some unfinished business, or wanted to help o...

  Re: Sati in Hard Jhana Edit Delete Report Quote Post   by  frank k  »  Wed Jan 18, 2023 10:14 am This is a good question that most people don't ask, especially the Vism. followers, and their related ilk (Sujato, brahm with their corrupt EBT interpretation). Vism. goes through great lengths to redefine vitakka and vicāra in first jhāna, to redefine jhāna into a frozen stupor. Yet, for sati, sampajāno, and upekkha (explicit in 3rd and 4th jhāna), which all are involved in vipassana activity WHILE in the Buddha's EBT jhāna (see MN 111), vism. doesn't cripple those definitions as they do with vitakka and vicāra. Why is that? It's yet another fatal flaw and damning evidence of their jhāna redefinition. I believe had they done so, it would just look to ridiculous and obvious they're redefining every common word in the dictionary, such as: "kāya/body" = not the physical body "vitakka/thinking" = not thinking. sati/remembering = only remembering the ka...

  Re: Brevity of Sutta meditation instructions Edit Delete Report Quote Post   by  frank k  »  Wed Jan 18, 2023 9:43 am The way into jhana, is just relax deeply and remove unnecessary verbal thinking. That's it. Just those two things. that's why sutta instructions on meditation are brief sometimes, because the description of the activity itself is really brief, and is a matter of skill and time put into practice, not from lack of verbal description. More can be said on what, why, how to relax deeply and whether you're doing it correctly, and there are suttas that do that. MN 19 and MN 20 for example give more details on curtailing unnecessary thought. The jhana similes describe what happens physically after you've put enough time and correctly relax. It's all there, laid out very concisely and clearly in the suttas, just not organized in a way that people can easily piece it together (scattered across all 5 nikayas). The problem is there's plenty of counterfeit ...

  Re: What does it mean to interpret Suttas according to classical vs non-classical way? Edit Delete Report Quote Post   by  frank k  »  Sun Jan 08, 2023 5:21 am BrokenBones  wrote:  ↑ Sun Jan 08, 2023 3:29 am Non-classical refers to what was recited at the First Council. Classical refers to the Commentaries that appeared later... I know it sounds odd but that's the gist. "Classical" is just a euphemism people created to try to feel better about themselves. I think non-classical may also be referring to modern (after "classical" period), which may be subject to other sources of views that deviate from "orthodox". For example, modern secular may have heretical beliefs such as no karma, no rebirth. What you're referring to with first council, is EBT (early buddhist teachings) before Abhidhamma became part of the Theravada canon. Both "classical" and "orthodox" are LBT (later buddhist teachings) that came after EBT. EBT was before ...

👑☸  →  EBpedia📚  →  EZ Reader       Why doesn't everyone do it the 'ez way'? Back in the days of the printing press, you cut down trees, made paper, printed text on paper. So to save on costs, you tried to jam as much ink and word count into a single page as you possibly can. Newsflash. Most people don't read things on physical paper anymore. On digital ink, you won't waste trees and physical paper by arranging your digital text in an organized, readable manner. Demoonstration with real world example  AN  10.3 . What's easier to read, and re-read as a reference looking for something particular: Sujato's version: “Mendicants, an unethical person, who lacks ethics, has destroyed a vital condition for having no regrets. When there are regrets, one who has regrets has destroyed a vital condition for joy. When there is no joy, one who lacks joy has destroyed a vital condition for rapture. When there is no rapture, one who lacks rapture has destroyed ...