Famous words by the Buddha: Vuttaṃ kho panetaṃ bhagavatā: yo paṭiccasamuppādaṃ passati so dhammaṃ passati; yo dhammaṃ passati so paṭiccasamuppādaṃ passatīti. Paṭiccasamuppannā kho panime yadidaṃ pañcupādānakkhandhā. Yo imesu pañcasu upādānakkhandhesu chando ālayo anunayo ajjhosānaṃ so dukkhasamudayo. Yo imesu pañcasu upādānakkhandhesu chandarāgavinayo…
From time to time I wonder: How many of you out there scratch their heads when they read the first line of the metta sutta? Sure enough, translations of the metta sutta abound and almost every (Theravadin) monastery in East…
[This story is part of our Arahant series.] Once, they say, the elder Mahāsīva of ‘Mountainpeak’ lived in the city of Mahagama, in Tissa’s Abbey. There, he taught eighteen groups of young monks in the three baskets – the traditional teachings…
You do not need to see the end of your dish washing activity and the beginning of you moving to the fridge. That is not going to stop mental proliferation from happening. And it won’t stop suffering – not in…
What do Vibhajjavada and Early Tibetan Meditation have in common? Quick answer: they knew about the importance of insight meditation. Long answer: Just stumbled over this very interesting academic paper on a technical term called “bhūta-pratyavekṣā” used by the Mahayana Buddhist…
Sappuriso ca kho, bhikkhave, kataññū hoti katavedī. Sabbhi hetaṃ, bhikkhave, upaññātaṃ yadidaṃkataññutā kataveditā. Kevalā esā, bhikkhave, sappurisabhūmi yadidaṃ kataññutā kataveditā’’ti. Katannu – Sutta, AN Just wanted to say “thank you” to all of you who came and shared time with me. Hope the…
In an earlier post I pointed out to one of my personal favorite suttas in the pali canon, Bahiyas instruction. While the story surrounding Bahiya is very exciting and the instruction the Buddha gave him summarizes the gist of vipassana…
This post is based on some of the observations made in this post. It might help to understand this article. One day the Buddha mentioned to his students that his own meditation object with which he realized Nibbana was the…
While preparing the post on Anapanasati I came across several discussions on the topic of “nirodho”. Currently re- reading the SN on the Khandhas myself I stumbled over one sutta which kept me pondering. In that particular sutta, the Buddha was…
In the “Group-Section” (Khandhasamyutta) of the Samyutta Nikaya numerous short suttas can be found which – if we squeeze them in the right manner – provide valuable information how a puthujjana (or unenlightened being) turns into an ariyapuggalo (an enlightened…