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…
And I show you how 🙂 Okay, caught your attention (did you see what happened when you read this headline)? Now, let me rephrase a bit: This post is about how a Vipassana-opponent turned into a Vipassana-proponent. Interested? This is the…
…and started something else. I admit – this was just for my amusement. Below you will find a Pali version of the famous Mahayana text the “Heart Sutra” which I attempted to “translate” (back) into Pali. The purpose of this…
Most of you are probably familiar with the Christian/Jewish bible’s Genesis, the little story about how Mahabrahma (aka ‘God’) created the world…. From a Buddhist cosmological [what a contradiction in terms, :-)] standpoint, this particular event was not really unique – depending…
Many people (especially those who intensively try to put the Buddhas eightfold path into practice) have thought about the meaning of samma sati or “right mindfulness”. In fact, the meaning of this important aspect of Buddhist practice had troubled me…
In the Middle Length sayings, one of the few parts of the Pali Canon most Western Buddhists actually do get exposed to, there is a very interesting and beautiful triage of suttas which circle around the following stanza uttered by…
The question whether to practise samatha or vipassana comes up again and again. In the early days of the Burmese Vipassana movement long debates were waged on which approach would be the correct one (samatha || vipassana, that is). This question…