Theravada pdf

Try to practise all the different sections from time to time as they are all useful, but in the beginning start with something simple such as being mindful while walking, or the mindfulness of in and out breathing. Then as you practise these you will be able to practise the other sections contained within this Sutta and you will find that all the four satipatthanas can be practised concurrently.

A Sutta should be read again and again as you will tend to forget its message. The message here in this Sutta is that you should be mindful of whatever is occurring in the body and mind, whether it be good or bad, and thus you will become aware that all conditioned phenomena are impermanent, unsatisfactory and not self.

In this analytical and critical work Ven. Pategama Gnanarama enlightens us in many areas of subjects hitherto unexplored by scholars. His views on the beginnings of the Bhikkhuni Order are interesting and refreshing. They might even be provocative to traditional readers, yet be challenging to the feminists to adopt a most positive attitude to the problem".

The Milanda Panna is a famous work of Buddhist literature, probably compiled in the 1st century B. It presents Buddhist doctrine in a very attractive and memorable form as a dialogue between a Bactrian Greek king, Milinda, who plays the 'Devil's Advocate' and a Buddhist sage, Nagasena.

The topics covered include most of the questions commonly asked by Westerners. This abridgment provides a concise presentation of this masterpiece of Buddhist literature.

The introduction outlines the historical background against which the dialogues took place, indicating the meeting of two great cultures that of ancient Greece and the Buddhism of the Indus valley, which was the legacy of the great Emperor Asoka.

Narada Maha Thera. Many valuable books have been written by Eastern and Western scholars, Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, to present the life and teachings of the Buddha to those who are interested in Buddhism. This treatise is another humble attempt made by a member of the Order of the Sangha, based on the Pali Texts, commentaries, and traditions prevailing in Buddhist countries, especially in Sri Lanka.

The first part of the book deals with the Life of the Buddha, the second with the Dhamma, the Pali term for His Doctrine. Abhidhamma is the Higher Teaching of the Buddha. It expounds the quintessence of His profound doctrine. In the Abhidhamma both mind and matter, which constitute this complex machinery of man, are microscopically analysed.

Chief events connected with the process of birth and death are explained in detail. Intricate points of the Dhamma are clarified. The Path of Emancipation is set forth in clear terms. The Buddha's ultimate teaching, known as the Abhidhamma , describes in detail the natures of the ultimate realities that really exist in nature but are unknown to scientists.

His method of verification is superior to scientific methods which depend on instruments. He used his divine-eye to penetrate the coverings that hide the true nature of things. He also taught others how to develop concentration and how to observe with their mind-eyes the true nature of all things and finally the four Noble Truths which can enlighten one to achieve one's liberation from all miseries for ever! Radhika Abeysekera began teaching and writing books on the Dhamma to help reintroduce Buddhism to immigrants in non-Buddhist countries.

The books are designed in such a manner that a parent or educator can use them to teach Buddhism to a child. Abeysekera feels strongly that parents should first study and practise the Dhamma to the best of their ability to obtain maximum benefits, because what you do not possess you cannot give to your child.

The books were also designed to foster understanding of the Dhamma among non-Buddhists, so that there can be peace and harmony through understanding and respect for the philosophies and faiths of others. Ajahn Chah. We hope our efforts in compiling this collection of Dhamma talks of Ajahn Chah will be of benefit. Wat Pah Nanachat. Venerable Ajahn Chah always gave his talks in simple, everyday language. His objective was to clarify the Dhamma, not to confuse his listeners with an overload of information.

Consequently the talks presented here have been rendered into correspondingly simple English. In Venerable Ajahn Chah was invited to England together with Ajahn Sumedho, the outcome of which was eventually the establishment of the first branch monastery of Wat Pa Pong outside of Thailand.

Since then, further branch monasteries have been established in England, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and Italy. The purpose of this book is manifold. One is to teach the users of this Vandana book how to pronounce Pali words correctly. By the daily repetition of these Pali verses and Suttas people can learn the Pali pronunciation without much effort. Secondly we intend to teach people the Pali language without much toil.

Therefore we made one half of our chanting in English, so people learn the meaning of what they chant in Pali and later on they can compare the English with the Pali. Thirdly, we intend to teach people Dhamma through devotional service. In order to fulfill all these purposes we decided to include certain Suttas which are not normally used in Viharas for vandana service.

This is the standard Morning and Evening Chanting Book, with Protective Discourses, commonly chanted in many Theravadin temples and monasteries. The text is in both Pali and English. A selection of Pali words for daily reflection. This booklet aims to assist new Buddhist students who are unfamiliar with some of the Pali words often used in the study of Buddhism.

As the title suggests, it encourages the learning and use of Pali words by learning one word a day. This booklet can serve both as a dictionary and a glossary of terms for your reference.

Narada, Thera. Pali was the language spoken by the Buddha, and employed by him to expound his teachings. It is also the scriptural language used by the Theravada school of Buddhism. Because of its practical and comprehensive coverage of the elements of the Pali language in complete chapters, this book is a very useful reference.

It was not written for linguistics experts, but for students with little experience studying Pali grammar. Just as the flavor of soup is not to be told even in one thousand pages, so the real flavor of this Ancient Way cannot be conveyed by words. Soup is to be tasted: the thudong life is to be lived. If it sounds hard, one must remember that its rewards are great, and in the field of Dhamma-endeavor, nothing is gained without effort.

The world wants everything quick-and-easy but the fruits of the holy life are thus only for those who have already put forth their energy, already striven hard for the goal. This compilation is for anyone interested about bhikkhus and about how to relate to them. Some may think that this lineage follows an overly traditionalist approach but then, it does happen to be the oldest living tradition.

A slight caution therefore to anyone completely new to the ways of monasticism, which may appear quite radical for the modern day and age. The best introduction, perhaps essential for a true understanding, is meeting with a practising bhikkhu who should manifest and reflect the peaceful and joyous qualities of the bhikkhu's way of life.

Chatsumarn Kabilsingh has translated the monastic rules of Buddhist nuns or the Patimokkha of the Six Schools, which will help us to learn and compare Theravada, Mahasanghika, Mahisasaka, Sarvastivada, Dhamagupta and Mula-Sarvastivada. The study of the patimokkha also provides insight into the historical context from which the rules took place.

This translation will also provide valuable material for concerned Buddhist scholars. In this booklet we will be exploring poems composed by the arahant bhikkhunis or enlightened Buddhist nuns of old, looking at these poems as springs of inspiration for contemporary Buddhists.

These verses can assist us in developing morality, concentration and wisdom, the three sections of the path. With their aid we will be able to work more effectively towards eliminating our mental defilements and towards finding lasting peace and happiness. The following stories of Buddhist women at the time of the Buddha, written by Hellmuth Hecker, have been translated from the German. While every effort has been made by the translator to conform to the original writing, some changes had to be made for the sake of clarity.

The stories of Bhadda Kundalakesa and Patacara have been enlarged and filled in. Taking a different perspective from the usual biographies of the Buddha, the author retells the great man's story using the society of the time as the backdrop and the Buddha's interactions with his contemporaries as the main theme. We discover what the Buddha was like as a person, how he taught and how he changed the lives of all who were blessed enough to come into contact with him.

The word atta, however, has a wide range of meanings, and some of those meanings cross over into the fields of psychology, philosophy, and everyday terminology, as, for example, when atta can mean self, being, ego, and personality. We will examine both Buddhist and non-Buddhist definitions of the term soul, and we will also examine modern definitions of terms such as ego and self. What is kamma? When you do something, there is volition behind it, and that volition, that mental effort, is called kamma.

The Buddha explained that, having willed, one then acts through body, speech, and mind. Whatever you do, there is some kind of kamma, mental effort, will, and volition. If there were not, this that which is unborn, unchanging, uncreated, and unconditioned, there could not be any escape from what is born, changing, created, and conditioned.

But since there is an unborn, unchanging, uncreated, and unconditioned, there is an escape from what is born, changing, created and conditioned. With these words, Lord Buddha pointed His finger towards Nibbana.

According to Lord Buddha, man is his own master. Man is however unaware of this fact and abdicates his responsibility of controlling his future, even death. This is so because man is, in a deep philosophical sense, deluded, asleep and unaware of his true nature. He normally identifies himself with his body, which was born and hence will die, some day.

This gives rise to vices, insecurity and belief in that what is not. Man lives in illusions; the illusion that he will never fall sick, the illusion that no harm will ever befall him. He also believes that he has relatives and friends and, if he clings onto them tightly enough, he will one day, after death, go to the nebulous place called heaven.

But it is not true. The lacuna in man's thinking becomes disturbingly clear to him when he finds that he is suffering. When a man suffers, the world seems to collapse around him. Man needs to be awakened and when this awakening process is complete, man will rise from the ashes of the world of the senses that he has just burnt to the world of pure consciousness.

Buddhism is a journey where a man starts asleep and ends up awake. In doing so, he sheds aside nothingness to awaken to a single state of Being. The process by which this takes place is meditation. Lord Buddha's title means one who is awake. He is the messiah who showed the path to eternity. He told man that though he is asleep, the capacity to be awakened is in him and also taught man the path to awakening. But man must walk that path himself, alone.

Man must realise that he is always alone, whether it be high atop the mountains, in the company of his relatives or in the morning crowd in the downtown of a metropolitan city. A positive attitude to aloneness can develop in man when he can take a mental sword and cleave a distinction between aloneness and loneliness.

Loneliness has a negative connotation in the sense that it implies a craving for company of other human beings, the exact opposite of the self-sufficiency implied by aloneness.

The capacity to tread the path to Nibbana is already in man, he just has to use it. In the Dhammachakkappavattana Sutta, Lord Buddha said that Nibbana is not subject to grief, defilement Kilesa , disease, decay Jara , and death Marana. In other words, Nibbana is beyond cause and effect, that is, it transcends conditioned phenomena. Nibbana is Apatichcha-samuppanna and Asankhata. Nibbana is a positive Absolute and is Nicca. Nibbana means a state of Mutti which means freedom or Vimutti which means absolute freedom.

Nibbana also denotes Sacca which means Truth and Santi which means Peace. Nibbana is a state of absolute perfection. Sariputta, the famous disciple of Lord Buddha, described Nibbana as the extinction of desire, hatred and illusion.

In mystical language, Nibbana is the experience of standing face-to-face with Reality. Nibbana is sometimes expressed as negative of negative such as the cessation of suffering, of craving, of aversion, etc. This need not result in any confusion. As mathematics proves, negative of negative is always positive. Nibbana is a freeing from the chains of a false sense of individuality. According to Buddhism, everything is relative and impermanent Anicca in the empirical, conditioned world.

In this context, I can correctly say that one cannot step twice into the same river because although I may continue to see the same river externally from a gross point of view, the water molecules I am seeing at a particular location at any moment are different from the water molecules the moment before and the moment after.

One thing disappears, conditioning the appearance of the next in a series of cause and effect. Everything is in a state of becoming something else the next moment.

A wheel cannot be separated from its movement. Things change over time. Everything originates dependent on other factors. That is, all things come into existence as the result Phala of an interaction of various causes Hetu.

Each entity is Patichcha-samuppanna as well as Patichcha-samuppada. For example, anger cannot arise by itself without a cause.

Sensations Vedana of the physical world of forms Rupa are received by the five physical sense organs Indriya such as the nose.

The mind feels the mental world. The five physical sense organs and the mind are called the six sensory bases. Sensations lead to perceptions Sanna , which in turn lead through pre-dispositions Sankhara , to consciousness Vinnana. The concept of two categories of truth, Sammuti-Sacca and Paramattha-Sacca, is an essential element of Buddhism.

Conscious of something, one reacts mentally. The mental reactions are of two types: craving and aversion. Craving Tanha, Raga and aversion Dosa both lead to suffering; it is self-evident that aversion results in suffering and craving results in suffering because if the object of craving remains out of reach, there is suffering. Thus, ultimately, whatever is impermanent is Dukkha or suffering. Tanha Nirodha, Upadana clinging Nirodha. In response to questioning by devotees in the kingdom of Kosala as to the importance or unimportance of belief, Lord Buddha pointed out the distinction between knowing and believing.

Believing always connotes a second-hand approach to Truth; knowing about something through the experience of someone else. Knowing means a first-hand direct knowledge of Truth and the result of this distinction is that the modicum of doubt that always accompanies belief is absent in knowledge Nana. Freedom of thought is permitted by Lord Buddha to His devotees so that they can discriminate and find Truth.

Nibbana cannot be had via someone else's knowledge. A void in the mind can be filled with spirituality by virtue of positive thinking. A Korean monk, Kyong Ho, echoed this feeling when he advised one to accept the anxieties and difficulties of this life.

He also advised people to use their will to bring peace between peoples. This is particularly relevant in the modern world where democracy and egalitarianism are taken for granted. Buddhism also strongly believes in the theory Pariyatti of Kamma as you sow, so shall you reap and in the concept of rebirth. Having thought, one acts through body, speech and mind. Chetayitva kammam karoti kayena vachaya manasa.

The result of both types of Kamma are called Kamma Phala, which correspond to the type of Kamma performed. He searched, He meditated, He found: this aptly summarises the awakening of Lord Buddha. When a man suffers, it is useless for him to talk of God, or to fast and otherwise to torture his body if his suffering is not reduced by any or all of these.

Meditation is one form of mental culture Bhavana. In meditation, what is required of man is to effect a radical shift in consciousness from the finite to the infinite using right concentration. Concentration is called Chittekaggata. The concentrated focus is always on the elimination of suffering. The law of cause and effect is at work here too. If one is deluded, one suffers.

If one studies the Four Noble Truths, one sees that man should identify the cause of suffering and systematically go about destroying it using the Noble Eightfold Path. The result of meditation is tremendous. One transcends the boundaries of his body; he senses that the entire universe has become his body.

He senses that he has exchanged a weak mind for a strong one. He senses that though he may continue to reside in his mortal body, his consciousness has become irreversibly altered. He feels himself being pervaded by peace. He becomes awakened; Prabuddha. Lord Buddha did not give the Dhamma for strong wills only; His statements are just as applicable to weaker minds provided they have the determination to follow Him. He asked for nothing more than courage and promised eternity.

Vipassana Passana means to see in an ordinary way; Vipassana means to see in a special way, that is, with Insight meditation is practised in south Asia and other countries which practice Theravada meaning, the way of the Elders Buddhism. Knowing about meditation is one thing; knowing meditation is quite another. A man can sit alone, cross-legged, in a quiet room in the full lotus posture or, failing that, in the half-lotus posture and try to enter into Vipassana meditation.

One must sit, preferably, in the lotus posture with one's spine erect. There must be no slumping of the back, the head should be straight as if suspended by means of a string. Another analogy adopted is that the head should be straight as if bearing the sky on its top. The Samadhi Mudra consists of the right hand placed on top of the left hand with the tips of the two thumbs touching each other.

After one has sat correctly, he must close his eyes and focus on the inhalation and exhalation of his breath Anapana-sati. Anapana means respiration. There must be no tampering with the natural respiration, a meditator's job is simply to focus his attention on his nostrils and observe the natural flow of breath.

Respiration is natural, one has no craving or aversion towards it, it is always in the present Nicca and, since one breathes from the moment of one's birth to the moment of one's death, it is in fact a convergence of the past, present and future.

Further, it is within the physical framework of the body. Respiration is thus an appropriate object for concentrating the mind, something that is not too easy. The mind does not usually want to stay in the present moment; it resides either in the past or in the future.

A little effort is needed to prevent the mind from wandering about. At this stage, there may be strong distractions in the mind that prevent the mind from concentrating. Sometimes these distractions appear to be overwhelming.

The effort to focus on respiration should be continued in such cases. The key is never to give up. A learner soon discovers one thing ; meditation is hard work for a beginner. Right Concentration leading to Samadhi, which is a transcendental state, follows. Sometimes, in lifting the mind to Samadhi, hurdles appear in the form of distractions in the mind.

These distractions may be latent feelings of anger, craving, sadness, and so on. The remedy, in such cases, is to return back to Anapana-sati and try to lift the mind to Samadhi again. In Vipassana meditation, he must then enter into Vipassana.

There are four parts to the practice. Each of the the four, Kaya body , Vedana sensations , Chitta mind and Dhamma mental contents , must be subjected to anupassana.

The true nature of all four of these reveal themselves to the meditator and he is able to remove defilement from the innermost recesses of his mind Anusaya.