So today we’re looking at something that’s so obvious, people don’t usually look at it. It’s usually one of the early parts of the curriculum in kindergarten or first grade, or your first experience of school. They say you have five senses and that’s it. They don’t tell you how to use ’em. They don’t …
Gratitude and reverence… culturally, they may sound like different ideas… but it’s all mettā right? It’s friendliness. The Buddha spent the last year of his life touring India and all the communities that he had taught and visited throughout his 45 years. And he reiterated the 37 Bodhipakkhiya and said, “Now carry these on into …
Transcribed by LR from a guided meditation given June 5, 2023 All meditation is based on developing mindfulness. It’s a recognition that the mind and the objects of mind (which we call thoughts) are two different things. Our mind is like an empty field. All of the thoughts are like plants and weeds. They …
There is a condition for the arising of the Noble Eightfold path, namely: ‘The voice of another.’ A normal, uninstructed, worldly person is completely dependent on others to point the way to truth. ‘The voice of another’ refers to encountering the True Dhamma – whether spoken, written, or in some other form. Without encountering truth, …
Today is a special day, a day that has been celebrated by all Buddhists every year for twenty-six hundred years. This is the Full Moon of the month of May, the day we call Visakha Puja or Vesak. This is the most special and universal of Buddhist holidays. It is the day on which Gotama, …
[This talk was also given as a dhamma talk at the Long Island Buddhist Meditation Center. The video recording can be found on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/bhante.libmc/videos/550225320657471 ] My dhamma name, Pamutto, comes from the root of a very common word: Mutti. Mutti means freedom. Since freedom is so essential to the Buddhist path it’s a …
The Sāsana is what the Buddha called the religion or dispensation that began forming nearly from the moment he attained enlightenment. It is a word that encompasses not just him as a person and a teacher but also his teaching, the dhamma, and how that dhamma has survived in the hearts and minds of those …
When one enters into a forest monastery, whether Thai or Burmese or Sri Lankan, one understands pretty quickly that they’ve entered into a new social structure. It’s not unlike a martial arts dojo: it has ranks of dewey-eyed initiates, a cadre of seasoned long-term students, and then the master or masters at the top. The …
By the time they we are adults, virtually everbody knows all too well what it is like to stay up late into the night. The reasons are many: as kids we are running around playing tag or sitting up playing games; as adults we go to concerts, study for tests, finish long projects, make love, …
The Foundations of Mindfulness: Satipatthana Sutta Majjhima Nikaya 10 Transcript of an eight-week presentation 2022 by Tahn Pamutto Part Three: Body “The reason we’re doing mindfulness and the reason that it’s so focused on what can be experienced objectively is because mindfulness counteracts ignorance” (opening meditation guidance) Sitting in meditation, a lot of our …
